Inside this temple are mountains and rivers
there are forests of oak, mountain lions and moss

Seismic shifts and lightening bolts are inside
enervating every silent thought

All the dancing impulses of nature are here
laughter, grief, hunger swirling
in the winds and time

There is ecstatic music, echoing through these chambers
and starlight – all the infinite stars

Ruminations of the cosmos are within
the poet
says
inside this temple, is the one I love

bird song
in the city
false dawn

Oh great goddess,
mother of creation,
this earth

What silent hunger
causes big breasted women
to wander in my dreams.

Oh happy happy death – this fool
asphyxiated in the heaving depths
of the cleavage of the beloved.

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.” - George Santayana

Lewis drives us to a deserted beach just outside of town
There’s a tranquil, silky ocean. It’s silent but for a rushing
over the distant reef, and Lewis talking shit
A lone seagull stands on one leg feigning interest.

I’m just not in the mood – it’s cloudy
He strips of his shirt and performs yoga
There’s a significant paunch, a few old tattoos and
we sit there in the white sand, ignoring him politely but
he returns from the shore and talks
myopically and with too much enthusiasm.

Mirra is hungry for company – my sister is lonely too. It is a soulless city.
So we all end up on this desolate beach with a fool in thick glasses.
But, how did I get here really? Did I miss a turn?

I remember, as a kid, stabbing at my heart with painful thoughts,
probing for feeling. But at some point it had all become too much
and I cut myself off. Now here I am fumbling down a blind alley,
in the broad daylight of my life
while the one I’m trying to love
is far away.

I know in the deepest place of me, there is a love
and the truth of my feet rooted in the earth
that is so great, I’m afraid to let it rip through
and I hold on as tight as I can
to the little prison of my self
afraid if I let love in it’ll break me,
like it did in the beginning.

If I can forgive myself and all these innocent people
I might just find my way home, if I don’t die laughing.

The road from intensity to greatness passes thro sacrifice — Kassner

For a long time he attained it in looking.
Stars would fall to their knees
beneath his compelling vision.
Or as he looked on, kneeling,
his urgency’s fragrance
tired out a god until
it smiled at him in its sleep. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, yes, it is Robbie Burns night – and here’s one for him
Little Flo

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When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

by David Whyte

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Mary Oliver, Selected Poems

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. Read the rest of this entry »

pulling them like a river
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water Read the rest of this entry »