The Connection

Wires and plugs,
phones and towers,
trees and roots.
Connection.

Word and thought,
thought and act,
act and word.
Connection.

Friend and friend,
friend and foe,
man and woman.
Connection.

We are perfection. We are totality.
Stuff of nightmares or heavenly dreams.
Stuff of nightmares and heavenly dreams.
We are one, can you feel it?
We are one, and we go on forever.
We are one, and we can never die.
Feel how I am in you, and you are in me,
and we are in us.

Feel that spark and connection.
Feel us run together,
until you are me and I am you,
and we contain the world between us.
We are the nightmare fiercer than death,
we are the sweetness of every day.
We are terror.
We are ecstasy.

You will join us in the end.
You've already joined us.
Tell us about your freedom.
Tell us about your choice.
Tell us about your independence.
We gave them all to you.
It was our connection
that gave them to you.

Wires and plugs,
phones and towers,
trees and roots.
Connection.

Word and thought,
thought and act,
act and word.
Connection.

Friend and friend,
friend and foe,
man and woman.
Connection.

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(Photo credit: "Better connected" from Les Chatfield on flickr)

Chill of Fall

Feel the chill across your face,
the ice that sinks deep,
that works its way into your beating heart
and makes the world go shivery.
What's that fall-feeling?
Something in the chill,
something in the changing leaves.
Something that draws us out
and makes us feel like children again.

We're so small, all of us
with our hands joined in a big circle.
Can't you hear us laughing?
We're all just little girls and boys,
dancing together on the sunset grass.
Just singing together on the sunset grass...
Red sunset. Chill sunset.
Red as the crunching leaves and cool,
cool as the wind on our faces.

Feel that chill across your face,
the chill of tomorrow's cold.
So cold. So very cold.
So very cold as ice and death.
Why do we imagine death as cold?
Death like the end of everything.
Death like a frozen blast.
Death like...

Enough. There's no death here.
There are only children dancing,
so small with the chill wind on your face.

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(Photo Credit: "Oregon Autumn Part 4" from Ian Sane on flickr)

Simple

Life is simple.
Find a goal and achieve it.
If there's an obstacle, overcome it.
When you're afraid, keep going.
When you're knocked down, get up.

Don't complicate things.
It's a trap.
It's a tempting trap.
Your world must have only three things:
yourself, your goal, and your obstacle.

You must become purpose incarnate.
You are here to bring your will to reality.
You must regain your original purity.
You must stamp out the animal in you.
You must make your body pure instrument, simple tool.

The goal does not matter.
The goal is all that matters.
Choose it and move toward it.
Choose it and achieve it.
Achieve it and move on to the next goal.

The obstacle is everywhere.
It's within you.
It's outside of you.
You must overcome it at every turn.
You must not allow it to defeat you.

You must never ask why.
The word no longer exists for you.
There is no why.
There is only how.
How will you reach the next goal?

Kill the part of you that hesitates.
Kill the part of you that doubts.
Kill the part that longs for comfort.
Kill the part that pines for pleasure.
Kill the part that is not your will.

Life is simple.
Feel the simplicity of a circle.
The simplicity of a flower in bloom.
The simplicity of a sheet of ice.
The simplicity of simple purpose.

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(Photo credit: "spiked circle" from open source images on flickr)

To a Man With a Hammer...

Speak to say?
Or speak to speak?
Mean to mean?
Or mean to do?
But if you do, you've got to mean,
and if you mean you've got to say.
(Which in the long run makes poetry writing difficult,
because poetry's all about a million effects
that don't really fall under the domain of "purpose.")
I guess it's about expression,
but expression for its own sake is a luxury,
almost a vice.

A housepainter probably isn't too impressed
when he goes to an art gallery,
if you take my meaning.
What matters about the hammer is that it drives nails.
What matters about light is that it shines in darkness.

If there's anything great about the human race,
it's that they invented straight lines.

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(Photo credit: "Hammer" from Jerry Swiatek on flickr)

Slip Into Sweetness

Slip into perfect calm, sweet emptiness,
lovely chance to let it all go away.
Remember it's okay to relax.
Remember that you can relax.
Remember you can let go for a while.
There's a little terror in letting go,
because you're afraid you'll never get it back again.
But it's okay to let go.

It's good to be able to control yourself,
and it's good to find direction.
But not every moment needs direction.
Not every moment needs a purpose.
You can relax that hold on yourself
enough to remember:
there's more to life than purpose.
There's more to life than pursuing a goal.

(Not that I can tell you what it is...)
It's just so nice to go easy on yourself, sometimes,
although more often it's a nightmare.
Take a little and it's nice,
take a lot and it's a recipe for one hell of a hangover.
Which shouldn't be a problem, really.
But what makes it a problem is that
you always want to take a lot.

So you push yourself to be better
because you can't let that part of yourself win.
You have to keep pushing
because that part of you wants to give up.
You can't listen to that voice.
But you have to know
it's okay to let it slip sometimes.
It's okay to relax.

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(Photo credit: "lake" from Victor on flickr)

Meandering

Let it all fall away.
It's gone for now.
Just let it fall away to nothing.
There's nothing in the world to touch you,
nothing on earth to worry you.
You can drift on the air for a while,
and not have to worry about a thing.
You can let your mind wander,
and wherever it goes is just fine.
You don't have to be anything, for now.
Nobody's going to judge you here,
nobody's going to say you don't measure up.
You don't have to defend yourself here.
Nobody's going to say you don't measure up.
You don't have to defend yourself here.
It's okay to relax, to let the world fall away.
You don't always have to be in control.
You don't always have to keep up appearances.
You don't always have to follow your purpose.
It's okay to let go for a while.
You can watch the sunset
and contemplate the nature of language and consciousness,
or something.
Something that seemed so deep and meaningful
but never put food on the table.
Something people love to say they care about
even though they don't really care about it.
It just makes you look deep.
And I ask myself why I still bother with poetry.
(It's hardly even poetry these days, really.)
At least something in my life can be pointless,
I guess is the point.
At least poetry can be pointless, useless, meandering.
There's nothing more terrible than a goal.
A goal sucks the uselessness out of life.
You give up everything for a goal, you know?
You can't indulge your emotions anymore.
You can't enjoy things just because you like them.
You don't have time for all that.
You've got to turn and face the terrifying center of everything.
And you can't look away.
You have to train yourself to face it,
face it every day,
face it down and bend it to your will.
(I think there are points that people reach
where their personalities either dissolve,
or crystallize.
You either go back to nature,
or you become the machine they've molded you into.
It's not exactly like that, I guess.
But this is a poem,
and it's okay for poems to be pointless.)

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(Photo credit: "wanderer" from Alice Popkorn on Flickr)

On the Mountaintop

The tree grows on the mountaintop.
It strikes its roots, it doesn't stop.
The mountain stands, so tall and free
beside the crashing, rolling sea.
The sea lies low, so wet and cool,
and in the sea there swims a fool.
The strong-armed fool with iron lungs
makes panties drop with velvet tongue.
"The tongue's not only made for speech,"
he says while swimming by the beach.
The beach where ocean meets the sand
while lovers walk, all hand-in-hand.
The hands that feel, the hands that make,
some hands that make from batter cake.
The cake's all baked on Drury Lane,
while next door junkies pierce their veins.
But veins still flow, and spread throughout
a body that won't fall to doubt.
That doubt all cutting like a knife,
and curses at the heart of life.
But life is joy despite it all,
for all that grows, or walks, or crawls.
And what can crawl will one day stand,
and speak to time the time's command.
For life commands that each takes part,
and gives itself, and gives its heart.
The heart that hides itself in fear
will lose itself with passing years.
The years that flow with all that goes
in summer's heat and winter's snows.
See snow that blankets earth with glee,
and whitens every planted tree.
The tree grows on the mountaintop.
It strikes its roots, it doesn't stop.

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(Photo credit: "Islote del Neusa" from Sergio Fabara Munoz on flickr)