A Digital Chapbook
Introduction
I’ve selected these poems and essays to represent a view of secular spirituality, that is, a non-religious “spirituality”.
Camus wrote in The Nuptials of a consciousness reveling in the world, a body delighting in nature, and the individual’s immersion in sheer physicality. Years before, Whitman wrote of the same sensuality, joy, and awareness of our place in this world.
Those two giants married literary and philosophical thought like few have.
I have no claim to aspire to those heights other than one simple statement:
If there is no grand purpose driving us within this universe, then why not me? Why not you?
The Word of Humanity
Instructions
Roll to your back.
Let the Tao1 buoy your being.
Breath in, breath out.
Arms floating effortlessly extended out from your sides in the amniotic fluid of the universe.
You are meant to be.
You are amazing.
You are one with all things.
There is no you and not you.
Peace.
2021
Untitled
Flow
Feel the current around you
Go with it
Up the column of heat
Down on a draft
The current is in you
You are the current.
2020
Turtle Tao
my shell is hard,
my underbelly vulnerable.
when dropped,
i land on my feet.
i am best friend,
and ferocious beast.
heed my roar!
attune to my bleat.
i plumb the depths.
watch me soar.
i am the wind.
i am the sky.
i am the sea.
i am dry land.
i am the Tao.
2021
Thoughts
We worry too much about the intimate, the immediate.
Dualism, the obsession with separateness is the loss of reality and truth.
The belief that you are separate from anything is living death.
“Become” bigger than you think you can be.
“Become” all things. You are, at once, all things and nothing.
2021
Imagination
a moonless, starless night on the ocean.
blackness beyond piercing.
your own hand invisible before your face.
such is the place of human fears, the monsters of notion.
2021
Untitled
I am the claw,
and the tongue,
licking a cub,
ripping to the bone.
I am karma,
never undone,
caring for whelps,
bringing down the gazelle.
Run with me
in the Tao.
Flow with me
in the eternal now.
This second,
it is all we have.
Live with me,
right now.
2021
Subjective Eternally
Science cannot define truth.
Neither can you; nor does it belong to me.
What if we disagree?
Can it not remain a mystery?
Morality dwells within.
Laws do not mandate; dogma cannot make it.
It’s not absolute,
Beyond ability to refute.
Life’s enigma – fate and fiat.
A destructive, hateful place of absolutes,
Without a caveat
Lies a barren land of perfect facts.
A glimpse of reality,
Shades of grey among mesmerizing visions
That will come to pass.
Joy flows from wisdom and acceptance.
2021
Us
I slept safe last night
I ate a meal today
My life was not a fight
I didn’t need to runaway
The sidewalk became my bed
Hunger found me longing
Fate shook me in the head
Now only on the streets belonging
Fear grips us all in the dark
Our abusers at our dinner table
Violation clear and stark
Our tiny lives so unstable
A needle now brings me rest
A bag of glue becomes my food
I find escape; not the best
My relief is simple, crude
Criminals not, yet bars us do keep
Prison gruel food on the cheap
Injustice makes us fight and weep
A system rigged to hold us, defeat
2021
Coveralls
Fabric smooth and clean,
Lays upon the bed, work-ready,
Duty-worn twisted at the knees,
Scuffed yet not quite threadbare at the bend.
Wear has left some stains
Upon these fading blue fatigues,
A history in blotches and splotches
Quite clear for everyone to perceive.
Dripping from the shower,
Naked, scars decorate his arms,
Slices adorning his neck and knees,
Wounds opened, titanium to receive.
Mirrors reflect not
A once youthful, muscled physique
But depict a different stature
Now he sees his father in his face.
Bare, but no eye sees
How the shackles of his tortured mind
Deform and constrain all endeavor
Warping, twisting, keeping him confined.
None know his inner pain,
Anxiety that his heart grips,
Unobserved he disdains life’s
Insipid homogeneity.
Fitted perfectly,
Blue fabric creates conformity.
“I have a job!” he says on day one,
“Significance is mine through work done.”
Clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk, clunk
Clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk, clunk
Zip-zap, zip-zap, zip
Zip-zap, zip-zap, zip, incessantly.
“Make the recipe!”
Process kills creativity.
Production relentless, numbing mind
Industrial pawn enslaved in time.
This uniform he wears
Blue coveralls cover his body
Indomitable bravado lives.
“Won’t they listen; see what I can give?”
Beneath the swagger
An unopen door, a prison chamber,
No landmarks but signs litter the path
Yet one word do they convey -- same, same.
In - tol - er - a - ble,
Bland, no variety lost at sea,
All perspective lost without a trace
No exit. Self-medicate? Vanity!
Sloughing through sand dunes.
Blue cloth can no longer suppress
The throbbing agony across his brow
Nor the fiery stabs inside his head.
Bang-bang, bang-bang, bang the brain
Bang-bang, bang-bang, bang the brain
Roar, snarl. Snarl and roar.
Roar and snarl. Snarl and roar the demons.
Nothing matters now
The next new thing cannot save him.
No taste, no smell, no goodness exists.
Love can’t turn him from hell’s vacation.
Vain effort breaks down
Yet too stubborn to quit living
Listlessly laying upon a couch
Demons tormenting, crushing his head.
Unfit for this world?
Depression kills, debilitates.
Work is meaningless, a flag unfurled.
Fulfillment is not the holy quest.
Leaving the darkness
We must live our lives in openness.
People of valor in blue fatigues,
We have gifts to give and lives to lead.
2021
If you are having thoughts of self-harm, or feel hopeless or suicidal please put this down and call: 988
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Hours: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish.
Nature
The profound is both vast and miniscule – awe-inspiring and ordinary. We dwell in the profound, permeated, immersed, and saturated in its aura and essence.
As a fish exists unawares in water, humans exist in the profound, ignorant of its omnipresence.
Stop striving against the present. Cease with swimming toward the past.
Peace to you in this the eternal moment.
Flow with the universe. You are one with it and all that it is.
Rest.
2020
Vaccine
With a tenderness, unexpected
Her hand quivered, hovering before final fruits
Red and luscious, sweet white meat hidden within.
Snakes abound, but tempt her not
No cure! No cure! Is their incantation.
The fruit of this tree restores and sustains.
My people vanishing, becoming wraiths.
Many brave warriors fallen by my side
Unable to stem the virus tide.
I’ll take this fruit for the dying.
December 2020
In the grips of the pre-vaccine coronavirus.
Enjoy It
dive in.
swim in the atoms, the energy.
dark matter, anti-matter, matter,
all is yours and you are it!
Revel in the fact that you are one with all things.
swim in it! Drink it in!
let it flow over you and in you.
flow into all, wherever it goes.
Enjoy!
2020
Origins and Nature
a sestina
womb, peaceful and still,
It’s definition null and nil,
Resting, thoughtful, tranquil
Obsidian, explosive, violent
From whence it came, unknown
To what purpose, unrevealed.
Blind energy, accelerating unrevealed
Through hot blackness still
Dawn of time yet unknown
Immense energy so close to nil.
Creation rages forth violent.
A soft glow emerges tranquil.
First light of creation not tranquil,
Planetary dawn unrevealed.
Cataclysmic, nature emerges violent.
Primordial soup lies flat and still
Life on a planet yet nil.
The virus, killer, man, yet unknown.
Light has not exposed that unknown.
The creature lurks, he is not tranquil.
Nor will his impact be nil.
That species’ potential yet unrevealed.
The creature, he is not still.
Dawn erupts upon the violent.
Humanity steps forward out of the sea, violent.
The evolutionary outcome yet unknown
Scientists hold their breath, still,
Waiting to see, is this being tranquil?
Humanity’s true nature yet unrevealed
With weapons and fire, it won’t be nil.
Moons travel the night sky until they are nil.
From explosive origins came forth the violent,
The ancient womb lay asunder, a garden unrevealed
Into which humans came forth to play unknown.
What small seed held such power yet lay so tranquil?
All that is or can be imagined, within it still.
Revelation unrevealed, light and darkness nil.
The acceleration continues still, origins violent
unknown, tranquil.
2020
Response to an Evangelical
You may well be one of those who live by the code of Jesus. But within the Evangelical movement, you must recognize yourself as an amusing outlier or a freak, not the norm. I know because I was one, theologically trained at a conservative Bible College in western Canada.
Brother, live in the spirit of Jesus.
Give up the man-made myths of a perfect man and a gawd breathed book.
Recognize that you are the man and change the world around you with love, not dogma and rules.
Recognize that the book was never from the source that was claimed. It was put together by men with motives of greed, power, and control over women. No autographed copies exist, in fact every scrap of the NT is at least 300 years removed from its acclaimed date. A lot can happen in a game of telephone stretched out over hundreds of people and years.
Even at that, the inconsistencies that are found theologically therein are significant.
Don't write your faltering dogma as a man trying to explain the infinitely unknowable.
Face it for what it is -- a patriarchal organization trying to subjugate the masses.
2020
The Beginning of Something
The stars are there
Night or day, rain or shine.
So you also are there,
Shining as the energy and matter
of countless stars
of which you are.
2020
Mother Dwelling
No dwelling is permanent
Nor should it be so.
The World Trade tipi
Did let us know.
Lodge poles come unbound
Skins and canvas rolled around.
Elegant monuments inferior,
Sun, wind and wave assault,
Breaking up our ideals,
The Spirit weeps at the tumult,
Fine dust blows in a cloud
Coating the lungs like a shroud.
In a cave, the Pueblo, and bears
The womb of Our Mother
The tall buffalo grass too,
Her Spirit moves like an otter,
The gather-round saw it clear,
“Break camp, move away from here.”
Throw back the flaps, let in the light,
Smoke ascends, the river’s gurgle,
Follow my flow, accept the ebb and the wave
Warriors all, yet you struggle
Accept the truth, that you live in me.
Rapids or calm, in me alone, you be.
2020
I woke up thinking of how people so treasure permanence over all things and that this is most manifest in our dwellings. Sentient beings are inexplicably bound to, and by all things.
We can struggle or we can flow. But we cannot change our situation, our nature, or the nature of all things.
This Son
Lonny has a son, as do I; born the same day,
Alike in every way, mine is white, and his is black.
A policeman pats my son on the back, "Thanks for the help tonight."
The white father of three drives away to LA apartment-life not a whisper of fright.
Halfway across the continent, Lonny's son,
Children in tow, stops to break-up a fight between two friends.
Police arrive, Lonny's son turns followed by Hades, his three small boys cry, "Papa run!"
Officers yell and draw their guns, head down he hurries to his car distressed.
He yanks the door, leaning in, he feels a tug, his shoulder burns.
Not a heartbeat to react, pop, pop, pop, seven times pop, and then a horn.
He sees lights, and the color red. His crime? Doing good while black.
I am proud of this son, my system let him down, but I will say his name.
Jacob Blake
2020
Honor
I'd rather be tried by twelve,
Than carried by six.
A disgrace to say,
An abomination to live.
Blue people live in fear aggressively.
People of color live in agony fearfully.
One is wrong.
The other is dead.
Unbear the arms.
Unbear all arms.
You can hunt with a rental.
You can police a different way.
Don't all of us deserve to live another day?
Better to die than unjustly kill.
Honor has lost its way,
But it is not dead
Four hundred years or is it five?
Our experiment continues to take lives.
2020
Unclose the Door
Unclose the door,
Unbar the way,
See the sun of this new day!
Peace and love and happiness
Are here to have despite despair and blackness.
Trapped in our heads,
We lose our way,
Overcome with fears and dread.
No grub or roof or place to stay
My oneness no one can take away!
2020
Unborn
What if I am not really here,
Simply a thought,
Words without deeds,
An idea out of time?
Who am I?
What purpose do I serve?
What if after my fight to be,
Condensed to naught,
A widget in a box
A branch in a forest fire I be?
Who am I?
What purpose do I serve?
I am an amoeba
In the gut of the universe
Which in turn is a cell
In an expanse so vast it cannot be conceived.
Yet I am
I somehow move, am free
I am part of a whole
That I cannot apprehend
I stare through a black hole's eye
A porthole looking out, not in.
I want out,
Yet premature I'd be.
This vast array knows me not.
Yet I search it tirelessly,
Gathering, healing, mending
Lost and lonely cells like me.
I know me.
I am infinity unborn.
2020
Ouroboros
Can I shine a light
Even though I am white?
When a black boy takes flight
Do I lynch him with my might?
No, my lynching is an act of silence
My privilege generates colonial violence
Violation at 1 AM
That car's too nice for him to be in
Pulled over, searched, it's a sin
Humiliated for the color of his skin
While my privilege knows no bound
His life's a tragedy being unwound
Too long he's lingered in that aisle
Convicted in advance without a trial
I silence his voice; I'm a negrophile
I foster his inequality with a smile
My word to him, you choose life on the margin
Segregated from "normal", chagrined
Enough! I must act; make recompense
Your vulnerability is no pretense
Your trauma quite real and intense
Ouroboros-like unending, immense
I must treat your post-traumatic stress
By giving you the opportunity for true redress
2020
Written in memory of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man killed by two white men and filmed by a third in Georgia USA
Vanity
Silence erupts from within, towering above all words
Hordes of mercy and reconciliation drown all rhemata
The battering ram of compassion shatters elocution leaving a silent newborn species
Deeds, nay exploits, lay bare the vanity of palabras to hold energy captive or deny unity
2020
Rhemata is Greek for words
Palabras is Spanish for words
Untitled
How much dignity does one person need?
Whose honor or respect ennobles me?
Against what measurement am I compared?
Independence and Privacy?
No, naked, utterly dependent I entered this world until I crawled.
Productivity or Industry?
No, flowers, yea, weeds stand tall though blown by wind and rain they may be.
Piety or sanctimony?
No, here we find man's worst enemy; himself wrapped in hypocrisy.
A life of esteem yet self-degraded
What is beneath me in this sojourn?
In other circumstances, what might I be
A Senator hawking his favors –
Frightened pauper, curb for a pillow – a rogue, savage, uncivilized being
Have I lost what no man gave,
Squandered my one true asset in a quid pro quo for meaningless applause?
Could my neighbor join me in prison –
by my side for the same misdeed – one with honor, the other depraved?
A human right, I bestow on me
No matter place, time or condition
“Be honest; do the next right thing;
hold your head high; don’t worry what others may say.”
This creed embodied, integrity intact, let your last breath be.
What form shall dignity inhabit?
Do men and women perceive it the same?
Does ethnic heritage play in this match;
Does it vary by sex or race?
Manifestations inconsistent, do mothers and fathers think it different?
Does it involve clothing or pride
Or something far deeper, inside? What market space does it keep?
And what of sexuality?
Authenticity and veracity beaten down by ancient taboos shall rise.
Can my dignity be wounded like pride,
Or unbridled, is it free from all but me?
Bought and sold, who traffics self-esteem?
Avarice its mortal enemy,
Yet no thief in the night can slip in to steal anyone’s self-respect.
Derision cannot consume it,
A feathery dandelion pappus, it spreads its seed germinating nobility where it can.
Un-bequeathable to progeny
I lend it through my presence yet loaned or borrowed it cannot be.
A human right, I bestow on me
No matter place, time or situation
From this old sensei try and see,
“Live your life in harmony, in honesty, in humility
Care for others, help, heal and share
Respect life, nurture equality and justice everywhere.”
This creed embodied, integrity intact, let your last breath be.
2020
The Nomad
Broken, during my first decade
I’ve always been broken, really
Shattered vestiges of mind and emotion
Twisted, wrecked ideals of heroism
Torn, the gauze of core beliefs
Lost and losing, my third decade
I’ve always been losing and lost,
Wandering the unexplored and uncharted
The path of the less chosen pursued at cost
Cain wanders, feared, fearful
Humanity aches in me
Dwelling in an inappropriate place
This vessel poorly formed yet perfect
Competes in a race, not of choice;
Compunction, compulsion alternate the pace
Rarely finished before I leave
Unknown genesis without end
Proffering myself to the process, then flee
Outcomes unseen swirling, churning in the flow
Yet still predetermined
Hurt and dying by my own hand
I am the nomad
I am woman, man and child
Vainly struggling for distinction
on the path to nirvana bliss
What is it in me, that madness
Claws invisible boundaries?
Is it Cain's fate driving me to challenge thee?
No, the tent is far too small; the walls too tall
Knock them down; knock them down
It's been revealed, accept my plight
In each day, each person, each way
Destroy less good; harmonize with mystery
Quietude in the static, rest in the flow
Still, a drone I can't be
Are those grubbers that I see?
Panchromatic, pan-sexual, pantheists
Panhandling the current and the flow?
These are revealing the oneness
That we all may know life without boundaries
I live in pencil, delibly
I swim, the water remains whole
I swim away, the consummate water, still,
No me-shaped void exists, no mark left behind
It is enough to be
Hurt and dying by my own hand
I am the nomad
I am woman, man and child
Vainly struggling for distinction
on the path to nirvana bliss
King of the hill, a young man's game
Do-it-yourself celebrity,
Online fame, fighting for likes, links and esteem
Power ranking the vain, profane, and mundane
Cain's curse makes them futile
Mighty wars, human history’s
Path in an ever-changing sea
For the men who will not do the next right deed
There can be no peace, only war is their plight
Cain's curse marks pointless greed
Sacrifices null and void
Services are rendered in vain to whom
Religious servitude debases,
Penance cannot heaven's gate unclose
Cain's curse mars their ecstatic exultation
The poor abide eternally
Riches can't buy integrity
Mammon, who creates the dragons' greedy lair
Leads men to the putrid still waters of death
Cain's curse on the vacuous
Maimed and hurt by my children’s hands
I am the universe
I am woman, man and child
Patiently guiding one and all
on the path to Oneness and bliss
Rest now my child, accept the pain
The pathway in, never the same
The way to Oneness breaks all, do not resist it
The darkness distorts and deforms existence
Warping those who deny
Give up striving against the flow
The swirl, the churn and the eddy.
Putrid standing water is separated,
Dwelling in death, not eternal but leaching
through the aquifer of time
Six decades in, I grow weary
Ever touching, ever cheering
Come my love and see yourself as I see you
Perfection is us; we need not add or strive
Rest is here by my side
2020
The Devil and the Demons
You boys with binary lives,
Who cannot accept complexity,
Your loss of privilege opened you up
To the demons of supremacy.
Stop competing for the mythological zero sum.
Your saints are slayers
Who live within the either/or,
Whose terror reign unlocks your prayers
To the demons of mass-murder.
Finish with fetishizing death and uniformity.
Boys who oversimplify,
Victims of your own oppression,
Your trek through abandonment swirling
Blinds you to the devil’s rejection.
Cease your protestations of all things not white.
Grow up, you binary boys,
Who fancy yourselves supremacist philosophers,
Your hatred of the other, by demons deployed
Serves no greater good, only your evil choreographers.
Tremble before the devil, you who are about to die.
2019
Unbelievable Haiku
Unbelievable.
Early December roses.
Yet another bloom.
2019
Motoki
I am not the Past
I am not the Future
I am the River
I flow; I wash
I wash to heal
I flow to make whole
I lap against the rock and sand
Always touching
Never touching
Dislodging yet saving and settling
I shape the earth
Yet the earth shapes me
Those who touch me know my benevolence -- my life
Fierce and swollen waters recede, revealing, restoring
Serene and strong currents propel, carrying, buoying
Some see me
Some feel me
Few flee me
Yet fewer still enter in
I am the River
I am the Way
I am Life.
Be the River2
2018
Live
The past is there & then.
The present is here & now.
There is no future, no higher up, no deeper in.
There is only this place right now.
Live at peace with yourself.
Draw all things to yourself.
Experience all things but linger not,
For consciousness is corruptible.
Dysfunction can overtake it.
Live in honesty about this plight
Master yourself; you will master your plight.
Consciousness dwells in an earthly frame
Generated by your human brain.
When it ends, so will you.
Live to the fullest while you may.
2024
The Universe Weeps
Love does not own,
Nor will it possess.
A sprout, shoots forth, it gives its best.
Illusion escaping its bonds, into openness.
I saw a tree grown
In the shape of a chair.
Tortured branches bent to the will of one.
His dominate art cloaking what he’d done.
I saw a curly head girl
Yellow flashes of gold in her blond hair.
Her face was pleasant as it could be.
Yet her soul tortured and twisted like that tree.
The universe weeps
For this misshapen pair.
Yet as I cry their husks are pierced
My grief waters, their thirsty hearts unfurl.
We see a solitary thing,
And miss a universe.
The girl is me; the tree is you.
The lost, lonely, and broken in togetherness.
2020
Debate
When the rhetoric stops, the fear is palpable
Express your desires, your worries, your words of wisdom
The inalienable things within you
When the rhetoric stops, kin is torn asunder
Embrace your family, your kindreds, your mates of soul
The collective unconsciousness knows no bloodlines
When the rhetoric stops, the inhumanity is unfathomable
Abide no regret for your inaction, your civil obedience, your tacit approval
The luxury of regret is for the dead
2018
Religion
I cannot see Yemen, Calcutta, or Darfur; do these exist?
Drones and cholera freely devour; famine and Death are loose in the world.
What four are these? Why does no one care to act on behalf of the trodden masses?
Am I delighted to see God’s Will decimate humanity and the planet?
Who will go for us to stand in the gap for this desolate sphere?
Human agony flees the tetragrammaton of terror;
Pursued by the fourth, fatal horseman,
Rejected by jingoists clothed as Jesus; turned back to face death in utter despair;
Having reached and viewed the beginning of relief;
Captured and returned to torment with the full knowledge of freedom.
God Incorporated has dropped the veil.
The Holy of Holies is now open and for sale.
No time for orphans and injustice, the poor we’ll always have among us.
Shareholders, politicians and lobbyists do the Trickster’s bidding;
All pretext gone, the myth dead, the unbridled four, rule through their greed and lust.
Our Mother groans beneath the weight of this horseflesh.
Swirling detritus, increasingly for the eye to see;
Acidification approaches; the tipping point nears; oceans dying
Tortured by her children’s incessant scraping, boring and drilling
She colludes to rid herself of our dominion.
2019
LYNAY
Life is not a zero-sum game.
We all win together, or we all lose together.
Would Jesus malign and abuse illegal immigrants?
Would he refuse refugees entry into a good, safe country?
Would he turn them away from a hospital?
Would he send them away hungry?
Would he deny them a voice in the public marketplace?
How would Jesus behave toward the least of our fellow humans?
Would he drive them to a doctor’s appointment?
Would he incarcerate them for a victimless crime?
Would he punish the person who steals out of necessity to feed family?
Compassion is not weakness. Sharing is not losing.
2019
LYNAY means Love your neighbor as yourself.
The End for Now