Spelling Lost its Spells

What to say

to begin the show?

What to play

to get in the know?

Big things have small starts.

It is true,

I will have you know.

But what do I know

anyway?

I talk 

and I talk,

and sometimes

I talk some more.

I learn too

though.

Reels of my past

spin on some hidden projector -

sometimes I get to watch.

How it is

that I can be

such a stranger to myself,

is the mystery.

What is not a mystery?

If we are honest,

it is all a mystery!

We have our words

and our explanations,

indeed.

However,

descriptions are like

the clothes we wear.

They have nothing

to do with what they cover.

Boxes are convenient

and things stack neatly

within.

If words are the blocks

that make sentences,

have we not 

already blockchained

our existence?

...

We have traded

mystery and wonder

for

technology and convenience.

...

Sometimes pursuing your dreams

means encountering your nightmares.

Simple Truth

A simple truth:
Whatever you
truly believe,
for you is,
and will be. 

11/04/14 - 3:33 MST

The Dance

The cosmic winds, they gust
shifting and shaping our granular existence
into sand mosaics,
mandalas of hope
spirals of fear,
eddies of potential,
always reformulating -
carrying us through rain-streaked arches,
quenching us upon the river banks,
and back again to the parched desert.

Within these gusts, we gather,
attaching and separating,
spinning upon high,
only to settle once again 
in hostile environs,
feeling our significance
and insignificance 
as one...
and so we dance,
and so it goes... 

Awakenings

When your skin lifts up in prickly peaks,
and your fine hairs shiver straight
like antennas receiving
some anonymous transmission,
that's when you know.

When you see something inexplicable
out of the corner of your eye,
and you turn twice just to verify its origins,
that's when you...

When you experience a knowing
that goes against your logic
and the screaming siren inside you bleats:
PAY ATTENTION,
that's when...

When the word coincidence
is a glass with no bottom,
and fails to contain the water of experience,
that's...

When patterns emerge like intricate ice crystals
from the random downpour of reality's rain,
...

When all things in life seem like vertices
on some extravagant spider web,
separate yet connected by silver strands,
that's when...

When hidden meanings leap
from the dry text of life...
when you hear not what was said
by what was meant...
when the impossible becomes possible
and straight lines become spirals,
that's when you...

When the totality of these mere moments
becomes a weight reality can no longer shoulder,
that's when you change.

One Song

This ever-present moment that is now 
waits for nothing - 
neither struggle nor sickness, 
nor disease or dysfunction
can change this...
this moment is all there is.

This moment cannot be placed on hold,
eagerly awaiting a time in which
we are more prepared for its presence.

This moment persists 
whether we are aware of it or not;
recognized or overlooked, celebrated or shirked,
this ever approaching, always fleeting moment
is immutable...
this moment is everything.

The more we grapple and cling for control,
the more this moment begs our surrender - 
the calm horse that doesn't buck
as we throw ourselves to and fro.

We do ourselves no favor
by projecting forward, by regressing back,
for these apparitions of the mind
are neither here nor now.

For all our avoidance and creative contrivances,
for all our procrastination and self-pity,
the inevitable we must face.

Beyond the illusion of space and time
there is one song - 
we sing and are sung simultaneously.

Hold this moment,
this one song dear,
for it holds no judgment,
it holds no fear. 

Pandora's Box

Secrets come in small packages,
hidden in dark places,
where untrained fingers fall short.
Do you wonder about these packages,
what hides within them,
like Russian dolls within dolls within dolls,
like an onion ever-smaller yet ever larger;
yet is the code worth the energy
it will take to break it?

End of the Day

Looking at the burning drifts of a sunset, 

mauve on gold, 

dripping from charcoal clouds, 

and this sensation I can't quite place, 

this feeling of wanting to chase that sunset...

endlessly; 

this feeling of loneliness

and liberation 

mingling within my mind.

Possession

A gleaming drop,

a Sapphire ruby squeezed
from my knuckle.
A moment in time,
a single red dot.

This word "my":
my knuckle,
my house,
my property,
my blood....
hmmm,
really?

Not so sure;
really.

Aren't we just borrowing?
Tirelessly borrowing.

I hold this three-foot square,
my shadow a bit more,
but I will move,
eventually I will be gone.

Maybe not gone
in the sense of "nevermore",
but certainly gone
from this spot, 
and then from this shape.

Even now I am fleeing myself,
leaving that self of a moment ago
for this self here and now.

And so now,
a day later,
the Sapphire ruby is gone,
and so too
the crystal pain
that marked that moment.

I don't think we are that different.
We seek to possess,
to hold onto something,
if not many things
then at least a few,
and how futile it is.
And we know this,
yet we struggle to surrender.

I know this is nothing new.
I'm not more enlightened
for having written it,
nor will you be so
from having read it.
But I am compelled,
so I write,
and if you are still reading,
compelled you are as well.

So there's that.

How Difficult

How difficult it is
to pull our eyes away
from the "all-important" events
of daily life,
and how much beauty is overlooked
as our eyes stare fixedly?

How difficult it is
to have faith
that the events of our daily lives
happen for a reason,
however unclear those reasons may be?

How difficult it is 
to honor the balancing act
that is life,
to know,
even as you struggle,
that for every negative event
a positive one lies in wait?

How difficult it is
when struggle seems 
to always take center stage?

How difficult this life can be.