No Independent Variable

for Debbie
There’s a place where science cannot go.

No measurements exist to be observed,

no words to be reviewed. The best that one

can do is point to something obvious

but not within our grasp. A mystic says

to look upon the moon. But most will either

turn that lunatic into a cult

of personality or immeasurably

comment that Apollo 'been there done that'

in nineteen-sixty-nine and all we got

was just a lousy bunch of rocks. No matter.

There’s a thing that science never gets

and I am always That right here right now. 

Deep Goddess

Deep sleep is nearest 

that to what I am 

and day is time to suffer 

all delusions contrary 

until I know this that 

I am. The moon repeats 

as specified. Returning to 

the source, the sun is guided 

by the cryptic goddess of 

our underworld with dark 

surreal and swirling dreams 

of baby corn and kings, 

of river-ways and rings, 

of thoughts and things. 

Until another day 

arrives and sings.

New Moon Monkeyshine

The moon is only new 

because it turns to face the sun. 

No longer is the world 

a matter of its slightest interest. 

Wolves are tame, coyotes 

just a waste of breath, and all 

the poets drowned themselves 

before this singular event. 

Their words are washing up 

upon this pointless page. They say 

the moon is always new; 

the world should get a clue.

Faith-healing

The moon is nurse tonight.

Its therapeutic crescent

holds the sky within its care.

I feel its soothing reflection

in the bottomless asylum

of these bones. And I divine

its energetic gravity

within this rush of blood.

What wolf is this that walks

my breath? What seventh son am I?

Apollo pulls me from the underworld

with power of a god’s intent.

Oh yes, the world is healed within

a faith beyond all space and time.

And shaman-like I shine!

Siddhi Sense

The kinesthetic understanding that the past and future are contained within the existential present—

the kinesthetic feeling that the undivided universe is my extended body—

the kinesthetic seeing all is here within this space of being—

the kinesthetic flash from nowhere knowing I am That—

such primal powers are the common sense of self-awareness.

And the evolutionary elevation of this human existential self-awareness is now leading to awareness that awareness is oneself—

one can merely remember one is in the world; one can only be the moon; one is sun!

“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the [preceding lines,] are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”

Undoing Dimeter

This is being 

writing now. 

Somewhere in 

the world, a child 

is learning long 

division. Yes, 

it's summertime 

in Rio; heavy 

lies the Yang 

in Yellowknife. 

Thoughtless people 

are full of thoughts 

they never see 

but seeing thoughts 

for what they are 

is simply mindful. 

Would you like 

to play a game 

of paradox-

ical roulette? 

Silence is 

the ammunition.

Really Heart Matters

She was five years old when I told her that her world was breaking. Her mother and father were caught within an argument without an ending. 

So I was moving out. And she was crying like I'd never seen her cry before. The world her parents built for her is being broken by her parents.

It's twenty-eight years later and I know just what I'm not and what I am and even know that knowing is a matter of imagination. 

It doesn't matter, though. Of all the places in the world that I've been driven to, that's the only one I wish I never visited.

Because I know I broke my daughter's heart that day. Although in time, of course, she mended. 

For hearts are not a matter of this world and can't be really broken. That's why it hurts so much when breaking one.

The Sermon on Love v. Love

Some say that love holds us in our time of incarnation 

resulting in continued ignorance of what we really are. 

And strife, and its resultant disaffection of its suffering, 

releases us from holding onto this divisional illusion.

Of course, there's some that say love is what we are 

as universal consciousness and its presence in our lives 

is just our way of telling us there is no ‘us’ of separate 

entities but just the one.

This apparent disagreement on the nature of love 

may just be one of definition, say romantic love, 

which sides with our desires, and unconditional love 

which has no sides but shines like a jewel of light—

universally pervasive and without a single facet 

in its diamond-like appearance, manifesting 

from the great potentiality of what one really is…

The Sermon on the Wall

It's said that Bodhidharma sat 

before a wall for twenty years 

and so we sit before a wall for thirty, 

not knowing what the wall is pointing to. 

It's like a most significant metaphor 

heard by idiots signifying nothing 

but exactly what they think they heard. 

Thus most of our religions are created 

by the metaphorically-impaired, 

who wouldn't know a Fiat 

from a Pavarotti. Listen, 

Ahab knew exactly what 

that white whale was, pursuing it 

across the waves of consciousness 

until he was absorbed within its sea. 

It's how all great explorers come to know 

they are the great unknown.

Hiking the Whites

I’m looking at the days of hiking in the Whites. 

At first, the climb appears to be a chore; 

you fight for every step you take. 

Is that a pebble in my boot? 

I think my backpack isn’t packed precisely. 

Maybe I should stop to have a swig of Gatorade. 

Maybe I should turn around and try another day. 

But soon there comes a time when such 

a wall of thinking disappears, 

when you yourself have disappeared. 

I am the bear claw imprint on the ash tree. 

I am the deep ravine hardscrabble rock-slide. 

I am the Lapland Rosebay far above the tree line. 

All that now remains is just the closest cairn 

and that resplendent clarity of alpine fresh awareness.