"Rumi told me yesterday………"

 Free-write by Julia Bernbaum

 

If Rumi told me yesterday what Rumi told me today

I would be IN

High flying like listening to so much wisdom

If I listened to Rumi day after day

Gliding seamlessly through life would happen

Seeing obstacles as clouds

If I read him upon waking, upon going to sleep, 

While waiting for the tea to boil, in the doctor’s office waiting room

I would be so high

I would touch the sky

I would not come down

I would not need anything but knowing that God is inside me,

The infinite

The impenetrable silence would enter my sleeping chambers,

My waking hours, each moment, today

Days drawn up as if by a lantern

His light blinding

Finding me waiting

Always panting

Grateful for his guidance

The why who where what when

Never felt so small

So distant

As when Rumi sat beside me.

And I would put Rumi quotes on my walls,

On the bathroom mirror, on my altar, the computer, the desktop,

Would wear buttons and pass out stickers to bank tellers

And Whole Foods checkers for I would be so bright and alive

Never to whisper a dull moment, or blink an eye to miss the beauty

Of one hand clapping in any religion, on any hill, with any priest, monk,

Poet or assassin

All walls open

Fear windows shut

For there is no time

There is no longer time

We can not wait for the infusion of wisdom

Painted across each pillow

So that when our heads at dusk find

Slumber, we are sleeping with creator again

And all the clouds will part, one at a time—

Wide rivers opening

Each gracefully jumping into pools of light

That could be of Heaven or Earth

For there would be no separation

No distance

No duty

No difference

Just candlelight forever

My sweet and sultry muse….

 

In the distance laughing, bells ringing, tolling

An audience of he-gods and she-gods

With goblets and grape-wine for a toast

To the pleasure we find at last in being alive

Anew, here, inside

Rumi, Rumi of the heart.

His holiness

Her holiness was him

Before that,  in the nunnery it was the women. She loved being busy caring for her fellow partners in Mormon style marriage even tho they were catholic. All those women together cooking and cleaning and doing the laundry and shopping and chopping the food and preparing the meals...... their periods hummed together. Sometimes the special scrub jobs couldn't be gotten to because there was so much everyday regular to do. They loved waiting on each other. In the cave under the hill, built behind the old shopping center they loved the musky damp dark that kept a chill and needing arms around for the inevitable gooseflesh particularly in anticipation of his holiness. They loved together seeing who could refrain the most to have the most space available to fill with that excitement. They picked flowers and kept clean to feel. His long skirts - there were so many feeling proud and useful that it was their fingers holding the needle making the stitch to keep his hem from just touching the ground, letting the folds move against the outline of his leg and show us the shape of his thigh or sway in his hip.

The holiness of getting up each day

The holiness of service

The holiness of chewing

The holiness of seeing

They wanted to lick his holiness clean. They wanted to wipe his bottom calling it of course letting the sun shine clear. Who could do him first? In a pile, one on top of one another pushing hands thru to find something soft. It was one of their favorite games...eyes closed, freshly showered and prepped, everyone smelling good - who can find a handle to hold to fill the unfillable hole that a lifetime of trying still returns empty space - 

Call it red

Say it's blue

Maybe big

Could be tiny too

From top to bottom

We're all the same

Meg Margolis

 

 

WHAT’S IN FRONT OF ME

 

Eyes of Beloved

say you’re fine.

Not perfect

but perfectly fine;

learning to abide in aloneness,

not taking too great a pride in it.

So plaster walls of isolation

crumble down in Beloved’s own time

realizing they are soluble substance

dissolving in love’s waters—

not impenetrable barriers of steel.

 

And the world is mighty fine.

Not perfect,

but a multiple manifestation of light and sound

His Word made flesh

signifying perhaps different images of meaning

than you earlier conceived.

But phenomena so worthy of consideration

it may take lifetimes

to fully imbibe

what is both horrific and majestic,

petty and luminous, vibrant without evident sentience.

More than words or music

(yet promised by both)

Reality is worth all the praise

time, energy and focus

given towards its acceptance;

loving it deeply into fuller understanding.

 

 

Reconfiguring the life/death question into a morphing continuum—a child is born so very in touch with its true nature of divinity; yet with no awareness of this divine connection except for that provided by caretakers sensitive enough to their child’s essence to reflect it back to the young one.  To live in this world, our child develops an ego and loses touch with essential identity.  Though biologically bursting with vitality; without this essential component, how alive is the child?

What element of grace is it that lights individual curiosity about what more there might be in this existence other than three squares a day, a warm bed and pleasurable sensations galore.  As Peggy Lee sang , “Is that all there is?”  With curiosity on fire with compassion, each of us has the capacity to re-parent ourselves; to seek reflection of our essential nature.  In receiving that reflection, we are then imbued with that knowing and are able to reconfigure our sense of who we are and begin to really live.

 

Moh Breath                                                                        December 22^nd 2011

 

GEORGE & GEORGETTE

 

George’s anger is non-existent.  However the loops of his intestines are snarled in a knot that no longer permits digestion to occur.  On the hottest day of the year, the repressive force to keep his anger out of sight drops his body temperature to near freezing.

Georgette’s anger is a wildfire consuming  trees of her adversaries,  bushes of her obstacles and meadow grass of what is annoying to her.  She is never more complete in her mind than when this firestorm blazes through her body and its surroundings; smoking ashes of what’s left is her idea of a beautiful landscape.

At the restaurant where she waitresses, a major squabble with her boss, Joe, burns him into a pile of dying embers in a heap of incinerated flesh on the floor.  Treated less royally than Georgette feels  appropriate at the neighborhood movie theater, she strides triumphantly out of an inferno of blazing velour seats and smoking velvet walls.  After an argument with hot headed husband, Carl, two piles of barbequed flesh and bones are left on their living room’s Persian carpet.  Georgette’s body is slightly more charred than her fiery mate’s but both are in a similar condition.  They can be swept up and offered as alkaline additive to magnificent lavender roses around their home filling the air with forgiveness and love.

Robert-Harry Rovin   December 10^th 2011

“To Tell The Truth”    

What is at the core

of the fruit I eat

or the heart of life,

the pith and germ of

speech and love?

What frames my thoughts

my pain, my truth?

It is the WORD

made flesh and bone

by mind in all its sooth.

 

 © 2011 Sheppard B. Kominars

“Rogues and Charlatans”

 

Rogues and charlatans

have compassed me about

as I walked through cataracts

I have dared explore.

But would I have had it

any other way, I ask myself?

Would I have chosen to keep

to the path, the safe path,

and pass silently into

oblivion without ever tasting

the rage, the anguish, the deceit

of those ancestors unknown,

unseen, unsung, who went

into their forgotten graves

without a trace of legacy?

Was this ever my choice

in life this time around?

Having chosen this before

I know this to be true:

whatever has come before

I know I wanted this life

to be as different as

a camel is to the needle’s eye.

Yes, this has been my choice

and I have passed through

into a wilderness holier

than the one I inhabited

in previous lifetimes.

Embracing it, I can taste

the locusts and the honey

on my lips, and I can see

the path I have walked

has brought me further into

Eden than I have ever dared

to come before. – And I am glad

to have my voice to herald it.  

 

[Written Oct. 13, Revised Oct. 15, 2011]

 © 2011 Sheppard B. Kominars

9-15-11  

if there is such a thing that was made by someone you would want to know what kind of thing it was. you would want to know how much it costs and where you could buy it. sometimes these made-up items you can find out what they are and you might be able to inspect a thing in detail; however, it is not for sale, at any cost. why would something be not for sale? because i wanna keep it, stupid! 

there was a group at a bus stop and they were exposing themselves for money. just get some actors and film it.

when people talk too loud i hate it because i am the one who talks too loud and doesn't notice it.

i am so fucking sick of having to have compassion and always gritting my teeth to do it and cracked broken crooked despairing smiles don't show any compassion, they are cries for compassion and i just can't help you, i just can't do anything at all ever, oh, no!

i really hate being there when a poem is being read aloud; if it is a good poem with a lot of meaning, it goes by so fast; and even if ther reader puts in the perfect stresses and special pronunciations added to a flairy fairy blockbuster presentation, you still can't get through the deep deep shit, get it through the audience's head, it's too complicated. and if it's a ditty, rhyming and galloping through puns and funny jokes and maybe it has a moral at the end or maybe not. well, that's just for kids isn't it?

the thing i hate the most: turning on the TV and switching the channels; closing my eyes and doing nothing. i do NOT hate drinking. what i hate the most is my hangover; but i'm gonna get up at 6 a.m., i'm gonna drink, and then, tomorrow, i'm gonna do it again.

9-8-11

man, during the yoga meditation exercise we do here every week before we start our free-write, well, dig: i was super-distracted by violent hatred and prurient lust. see, there are the males who come every week, only none of our regularly attending females showed up; however, a teacher from the liberal university came with a half-dozen nursing students - five foxy women! now what's a guy supposed to do with that?! my main thoughts were to murder the competition, then rape and kill the spoils, saving, i guess, two or three so i can have them to fuck and kill later. so, i know i am not supposed to be having thoughts like that except that they come into my head, and my intention heads in that direction when i absolutely did not intend to lust in my heart, i swear. if anything, my intention every morning when i get up is to love everybody, or, whatever the thing is, it takes so much fucking work to meditate on cultivating my garden of loving kindness!

 anyway, the guided relaxation has fizzed the heat...sssssss...we buried a hot coal!

i did not want to

i did it anyways though

who says i'm sorry?

my sentence is complete.

(prompted)

cross-pollination means at a commune in the sixties it got us a family of kids by the early seventies who then punked out in the eighties and said no i don't know who my father is; my mother was anybody who held me, fed me, protected me.

cross-pollination means hybrid cannabis, sativa with indica. it means different varieties of bananas and beans and be-ins.

i would want to think of a poll in the nation that was cross at the prez.

another thing that would be a good idea and i bet it's the correct choice that the teacher wanted and i also bet that the university students absolutely know that what we are supposed to get behind is how teachers, pupils, citizens, criminals and the tiny saints are all sayin what they think and then different people pick up different groovy notions and maybe they incorporate a philosophy, or maybe i think your pollen is ridiculous. only, hey, it got on me, and now i'm pregnant!

cross-pollination is about how the religions say god is pretty fuckin mad at us for screwing around, and so god demands that we pay! we have to pay! sacrifice a lamb on the barbie, give up for lent, sacrifice your only child. yeah! yeah! crucify him, crucify him! ahhhhh!

sept free writes

sept 1, 2011

so yeah i want to be a saint, for sure, a fuckin saint in the woods, beatin my meat, sex with sheep; dear deer droppings, yum; care for a ball of rabbitshit gum? seriously, though, i would really like to be out in the woods, with flowing robes, lions & lambs and all. i would just have to be able to get some concubines up there; they would have concubines available, no?

so, earlier, the over-fifty people started yakking about dating and how you're not sure what to think or say anymore these days - even though we used to fuck like rabbits in the sixties and seventies. but then the eighties came and a lot of people wound up acquiring deficiency after having sex, and so now people really never even talk to each other anymore, or it seems like that. plus, all that lying fucking bullshit about the free love - what a buncha fuckin liars! it has always been hard & fast. soft & easy.

i want to keep my personal life a secret; i know it doesn't seem like a secretive guy who writes pretty honestly about homicidal maniacisms i go through sometimes, and in my therapy group i am sure i make people sick, how fuckin off the charts and graphic are my descriptions of what i would do. but i never really do anything, except for what i actually do in my personal life, and i'm sure not gonna tell ANYBODY!

is there one minute

i thought there would be some more

one god damn minute?

 

(prompted)

her anger asked for a return scowl

her slug asked for a return slug

"oh, so whoever buys a single slug?"

"well, yeah, the customer bought a BOX of slug bait."

"what's wrong with the return slug?"

"the wife said it didn't match the others."

"was it a box of blacks, greens or mixed?"

"it was blacks, but it had one green slug."

"so the woman is angry over one green slug?"

"well, she's mad 'cause one slug isn't black."

"just give her a free box of mixed slug bait."

her anger asked for someone, anyone, soon, right now, don't wait another second, shoot me dead, please and she grabbed my gun and made me pull the trigger. there were blood and brains and eyeballs splattered on the counter top. i realized that my prints were on the gun, my DNA is in the house, and i went on the LAM immediately. here i am in paris; here i am in borneo; now, australia, new zealand, antarctica, brrrrrr!!!

write on freewrites
 

8-11-11

i breathed real fast and got high on it, and tingled. or something. and now i feel very relaxed; i was already relaxed, having hustled plenty already today, what with the primary care physician and his lecture that went along with the anti-depressant prescription, and then with the many lectures upon lectures at the dental office, where they gave me a payment plan and two torture appointments. see, i was really relaxed, man, because i went for care that i was scared about but it didn't hurt because i didn't let them do it yet, so yeah, it is like i don't have to start my prison sentence until later, i feel so free, so verily i say unto thee, free, free, now, free from your spell. that's just a song, and i can feel the feeling of the singer saying, "i didn't like your spell, it really sucked." except, see, all i wanna do is not have to get shots and drills and a numb mouth and pain, pain, pain, oh so much pain at the dentist, oh! oh! oh! i'm free from  that this afternoon, but monday morning...well, no, fuck it; i'm leaving town.

when i was a ute, i escaped to utah, and then excaped back to los angeles. after L.A., i escaped again to san francisco, no longer a ute. my ute is gone, i spent it, i remember the good parts and the times when i coulda had fun and sex and drugs but, oh, no! now that i don't have any ute left, well, shit, yes i do. i'm just as young a ute as ever, man! who says i can't get it up? who says i am afraid to jump? just because i was afraid to jump, i am no longer! i can jump! i can! watch!

i can jump so high

this high or extremely high

depends what you mean

what i mean by jump is hammer a nail.

 

(prompted)

the safety of her situation, as opposed to HIS, was that she had the money, all of it, and was in control of it, and there was a lot of it, and she was a fucking tight ass; her boyfriend began the relationship by stealing money from her purse, like as if she was a mom or a little old lady who wouldn't notice. he fucked her, and everything, yeah, because well, that is what she wanted, and what he wanted, but the cash he stole he used for some supreme happiness afterwards, and came back again for more sex and offered promises.

she was safe because of all the money in the bank, in her purses, pockets and wallets, and on her credit cards and shards. "shards"? what the fuck? you mean long sharp broken glass pieces puncturing pudenda? well, anyone with a lot of money can feel safe when they let their imagination run away to chardonay! klepto man also feels safe every time he robs and gets away with it, but see, he doesn't feel as safe as his girl, since it's completely up to here when the money is withdrawn; when the well runs dry, the boyfriend gets withdrawn. get it?

if i had money

i would buy some narcotics

i hope i get some

October 22, 2011, 09:32

one syllable free write

this is what i have to say one word at a time; it can be in a form i want if i choose to get this job; there is no verb to put curbs in burbs but to belch, not burp. slurp urps and oops goofs with goop we get at school, in class. i want to use the words "piece of ass" since it rhymes with class but to do so would be to show none. to cuss shows you have no class. say thank you please and fuck you big time. be swayed by pray freaks geek squads, squad car mods, rocks thrown by kids at cops who club kids at cost, get paid big bucks, don't go to jail, like to pass go for free park space. gas, lights, streets rails, roads, cars, jars of jam, i could go on and on but i won't and aren't you glad? I'M so glad! i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad you're glad we're glad they're glad; then, "glad," by now, sounds strange, like all of us have been had. all of us have been had. all of us have been had. all of us, all of us.

free writes

October 22, 2011, 09:09

imagine that it is in the twenties in america or imagine being in one of those countries where it is very hard to find alcohol and you have to get your daily booze from a connection who might be dressed...funny. and let's say that you read a pamphlet that told you how bad it is to drink and it convinced you to go to sobriety meetings, and so you start going, and stay clean and sober for, say, a couple of days (i'm just sayin'). now, you know that there are many shabbies wherever you go, and say, i'm just sayin', one of the grossest-looking connections who you have gotten a hold of hooch from before and let's say that he was one of the ones who gives me watered down crap, or shortened jugs, or something, and you already don't like the guy. what you started to do since you started going to meetings is you make sure that you never have any cash in your pocket whenever you go outside; if you have to go to the store, you quick run there and get rid of your  cash, in case one of the alcohol sales professionals has a drink for you ready right here right now and you don't want it and it's a good thing you are broke, so you get to go back home and remain clean today. and let's say that you are going along just fine and maybe even picking up a thirty day chip or a ninety day chip or whatever and maybe you have taken on a commitment to be a coffeemaker or a secretary/leader of a meeting, and yet, see, by hearing all the stories, the war stories and drug-a-logs, the bummers of a bitter booze hound, and it wells up in you, man, you really are craving ethanol now!

so, since you are the secretary, you take home the collection money so you can deposit it; every week you put the cash in the bank, and send some of it to a main organization, or some such shit; i don't know what they do in other places or even if it is anything like i think it might be based on the meetings i've been to. so, anyway i was walking home, with cash in my pocket, and really struggling and even praying for the strength to resist temptation, right. so the most perdition-deserving shabby says to you as you pass him, he says, kind of under his breath, to you, "...moonshine!...moonshine!..." and he says to you i got some really good hooch here, only five bucks, and you pull out some of the offering and thereby get drunk...alone at your house; then, when it is gone, you take some more of the offering and go out to get another jug, and then another and pretty soon the money is gone and you have had so much that you pass out.

in the morning you face the musical hangover.

the first and last thing i want to do is assault and murder the shabby who got me started last night after the meeting, the one who shorts us; but then there was the last guy last night, the one who had compassion and friendliness and gave me a free drink on the spot, in the doorway by the corner, and he gave me an extra jug (since it was my last five dollar bill). do i want to kill him too? i fuckin' ASKED him, so how can i kill? besides, the good dealer and the bad dealer are both actually unaware of what they are doing, and if i killed anyone, they wouldn't even know what happened, and they would be dead, which, as far as i know, means, well, DEAD.

FANTASIZING MURDER, REALLY GRAPHICALLY MAKIN' A GORY MOVIE OUT OF IT, YEAH: it takes away my urges. am i bad?

October 15, 2011, 08:56

share the elf

they said take all the stock of a company and divide it up equally and give the shares to the employees. fuckin simple as that, where the original owners get somehow fairly compensated. why not? well, for one thing, the world would end after first everything fell apart and most of you have already died. of course, if they don't share the elf, you will die sooner, perhaps immediately. want to try?

September 11, 2011, 08:26

never tell the truth

 never tell the truth. that's what i say because that is what they say, "Never, ever tell the truth!" when my objection is my mommy taught me to tell the truth on every occasion, my new alley-friend said let's go lie to the cops. why? because we provoked them and they chased us and they caught you, since it's your first time, since you are a small kid. i'll get away and you can say you didn't see who they were talking about they asked you specifically about a tall kid in a leather jacket and big decorated steel toed boots; when you said "I don't know what you are talking about" and did your best to look them in their sets of eyes, this little kid standing there, obviously lying, my heart is beatin so fast and these pigs are getting ready to pounce on my ass and i don't know if they are gonna kneel on my back and snap me and then they're gonna have to do a cover up and as i lay dying right up until that ever so alluring and distracting tunnel of bright  white light... i get to learn the exact details of how peacekeeping forces cover up children's torture murders.

August 04, 2011, 09:12

at the socialist library

there is a capitalist library in my neighborhood, but i am at the socialist one, where they give me time on the internet, fifteen minutes, which is almost up. my tapping of these keys is making hella noise, and i don't like to make so much noise, so i am outa here!

July 23, 2011, 07:57

work

television radio books on tape digital video disks left wing radio station

on this internet journal i have made it public, so it is like a blog.

the only hits i have ever got are hits in the face, right?

as long as i use zero profanity and zero possible evidence i can talk.

i am storing this on this because i don't want to lose it on the internet i can keep it forever but it cannot contain evidence, no evidence here

lately i have been writing on sheets of paper on both sides not dates, just scribbles, and now they are strewn all over i gave up keeping track i just thought i'd say that.

July 02, 2011, 07:52

 first day of the (work)week

first day of the (work)week, my week starts on saturday on duty easy job. i got onto this live jounal so i could at least type, write. whenever i write here i have to make very sure that i do not use profanity, hint at criminality or blasphemy, and the internet is not a place to toy with hate speech. but i have been having a deblitating tennis elbow from typing and playing guitar, and i realized that i have to lay off for a while; but coming here to work with this intenet, cool keyboard, and i brought my wrist band, so i couldn't resist. it hurts like hell but when i don't type it hurts like hell.

the music is john mclaughlin, very smooth and you can tell it's him.

whenever i think about conservation i always think about the end of the world anyway my own death anyway is there any evidence that there are rats' asses given about our grandchildren?

i could go on and on but i have to stop because...oops! my arm fell off. it's on the floor. i just picked it up with my other arm and i had to screw it in, which was turning it around and around a hundred times; my arm i was using for twisting is not my dominant side and my entire bicep and tricep and forewristhandthumbpointer no exceptions so-o-o-o-o-o weary! and still the still the penis hadn't screwed far enough into the vagina, and there was wiggle and finally i got my arm that had fallen off re-attached and i was exhausted, and now i can't even type i am so exhausted...but wait, i can prop my tennis elbow up like this, i can lean back in my super office ergonomic reclining hot rod, oh, yeah. no, doctor, i don't feel any pain, i can feel the arm and fingers producing survival for me. i know i had to do this and i am doing it!

my question now is how did my arm fall off all of a sudden and then i had to spend an hour to screw it back in? the answer, of course, is, that's why we ask for miracles.

June 08, 2011, 00:39

 last hump day

i have been working graveyard hump day since i went full time; tonight, when i came on at midnight tuesday i traded with the guy who has been doing swing tuesday and from now on he's gonna do wednesday graveyard. so, that, of course, is very good, and it is what i wanted so i can now have a good yoga class on wednesday at 1:15 pm. as it is, it will be the last time i have this shift and have the difficulty of sleeping in the morning, so that will be great! next week, i can really be rested.

April 09, 2011, 08:02

it took a while

it took a while, but it was soon enough, because here i am, listening to David Bowie Oldies, at work, with their computer and internet, and MY FUCKING SHIT THAT I WRITE THAT WILL (DEFINITELY?) BE SAVED!! just like for sure i am saved, thanks to the BLOOD OF THE LAMB, oh yeah! man i want that blood all over my jaws and neck and chest and dripping, dripping, and now i am puking lamb's blood! AAAAHAHHHAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

THE THING THAT I LIKE TO DO ON THE INTERNET IS CHECK MY YAHOO EMAIL. here's why: i subscribed to a muckraking website who sends me updates about nefarious deeds, dirty nasty doings, and our reactions to ACTS OF GOD. i love to read about how bad people are so that i can practice hating, more and more, over and over, humans are so bad, bad, bad. i already know that you are all a bunch of fucking asses, stupid asses, irrationalists!

HOWEVER, i feel an addiction to check that email, to surf the web for atrocities that the world is doing to me.

i know that the first thing they're gonna say is the fuckin' sex and then the war and, absolutely the elected officials. i am so sick of what they have to say about all those clean and sober types, and being a pig with a ring i am led to the lowest muddiest garbage pit: CELEBRITY INS AND OUTS. but i am also so-so sick of engaging in that shameful behavior; so, yeah, i go back to finding out about THE CONGRESS AND THE BOYS.

my favorite would be a lesbian story about some lady congresspersons getting together with one or two of the already outed gay representatives, and maybe THAT MUSLIM GUY FROM MINNEAPOLIS, too...anyway, they start the QUEER CAUCUS, and immediately the half-dozen or so lezzies in congress are immediately outed. right. and then there is a party. yup.

immediately!

March 13, 2011, 08:33

the need to write and breathe

the need to write and breathe: well, the need to breathe is a no-brainer, but there is no need to write; nobody ever ever said there is a human need to write. not on the same level as the need to breathe. in fact, you breathe whether you like it or not; if you have an assignment to do a report, you may not like it and may not want to do it and you can say fuck the term paper. you can't stop breathing but you can stop writing and i am sure you wish i would stop.

only i am not going to stop, because of the need to write; just like i can't stop breathing or doing anything that i do.

March 06, 2011, 10:46

 free will

the radio program says that some people think that the brain is a confabulator; so, when i do something, i say that i chose to do it. but it was a behavior that i did without choosing.

no one who ever does anything can do otherwise.

thinking about this, believing this gives me comfort, and i feel that i will never get in trouble for anything, at least with myself. if i get in trouble with someone else, they are making a big mistake; whatever i did, i couldn't help it.

March 03, 2011, 08:16

first day of work this week

nothing exists

when i just read a book that convinced me nothing exists, it made me want to go wild. instead, i went okay.

 according to science, when you chop it all up, they used to say then you got the tiny atoms; then they started chopping up atoms, finding nothing, absolutely nothing.

so, if you got the world situation, and all your family and friends and people you want to meet; and maybe you're happy or sad...all you gotta do is chop it all up until it's quite invisible, intangible and non-existent.

remember, not everybody else chops the world into tiny bits; actually, nobody does. but when i see that everything is going according to no plan, and "life, the universe and everything" has no purpose, it gives me a lot of comfort, man. because it makes me innocent...Oh Yeah.

and even though i hate your guts because of how you harmed me, i have to forgive you. because it's all just happening.

plus, i can't prove that the world didn't come into existence five minutes ago, including all my memories, thoughts and relationshops (insisting otherwise).

 

March 3, 2011

 free-write

my routine here has been to not think ahead of time what it is i will be writng about. this has been about as impossible as you want to imagine! see, i have evidence (from the free-writes i saved) that i guess, every single time, i had been thinking about what i was going to write, and then wrote about it. for example, one of the things i wrote was about listening carefully to what other workshop members were saying and writing. this would be instead of my usual strongly enforced habit of not caring about anyone but myself; plus, being very upset and self-destructively reactive when you motherfuckers shine me on and are not in a onstant review of the many valuable features of John Duke.

the evidence that i was thinking about my free write ahead of time is that i actually remember thinking ahead. so, today what i thought ahead about is whether there is any freedom of will; my personal philosophy suggested that there is no such thing; and not only that, but nothing at all actually exists.

it is all a magical puff which immediately disappears.

that i obviously believe and speak and act otherwise is not evidence that i exist, or that the world is here. i feel tired and am looking forward to a good night's sleep, but, see, whatever is gonna happen is what is gonna happen, and i don't see things very clearly, anyway. obviously.

i find it a great relief to see that i can do nothing to change the world, even though i wanna try harder. i always feel like the shoe's gonna drop, or the other foot will come down.

March 02, 2011, 00:36

 hump day notes

i love my song

wednesday marks the middle

they call it a hump

a lump of information

in hour head

a three martini lunch

instead

a wednesday afternoon

is always dead

as we get led to friday

a day we all can see

wednesday is our destiny

wednesday marks the middle

they call it a hump

i am so fucking sick and tired of everything do you want me to make a list?

...well, sure, as long as your beefs are mine and if you are funny or grippingly emotional, shoot me!

here is the plan i have, since i work graveyard every wednesday, and have to go home and go to sleep in the morning and then go to my yoga class after lunch; i usually can't sleep, so right now i am incapacitated thinking about how i will be incapacitated at some time in the future, but, see, i don't feel so god damn incapacitated at this moment.

"at this moment"

right now

what does the left want right now

what sinister shit is the right wing up to

at the beginning of this hump day

what are the revolutions that are going on?

well, there are my own personal ones

and then there are the political ones

it all has to do with having and not having killing (uh, making a killing) and not being killed

everybody in my neighborhood scours the sidewalk for crack some people sift dirt from planters and vacuum bags what makes me not an addict is i don't go to meetings

i hate a particular actor

why? well, access to so much dope, for one thing prescription pain pills, for many medicine cabinets i also hate the little girl celebrities with their coke where is my coke?

do i have to sit here on this job all hump day?

and then have nothing?!

(nothing like what rich people pop-n-snort) so i hate them all the same way i hate myself when i overdo it?

no. i don't imagine blowing my own brains out.

actually, i don't imagine killing anyone it's hump day what's going on is this going to be edited?

the leader who everybody says is crazy?

who isn't crazy; i have guns here and will use them.

if the bad guys were passing out tablets of acid, wow!

how does that make them the bad guys?

the good guys are the riot police

get some good peer counseling from a cop, sure.

 

i would say that as long as i have a fortified house, there would be no need for me to worry about a thing; now, of course, when i go somewhere, i might get mugged, but what are you gonna do, not never go nowhere? skip work, play hooky from school, shine on my friends and relatives? either that or decidedly do stuff, you know, your thing. do your thing does not mean kill your penis or fuck your life goals. my thing is mass murder. not doing it, just thinking about it, and thinking it through to a mental wank.

after the satisfying mass murder (let's call it a triple murder) i get away somehow (it doesn't matter how it really happened - see the director's cut) and now i hope they pin it on the wild one. just think, though, i am coming down from the high you get from three kills (and boy were they so fine!), and i am getting comfortable and even starting to actually fall asleep curled up in some bedding behind a bush in the park, and i am debating with myself: you better not move from this spot for probably as many as three days. but what about water and food? and if i fall asleep, they will handcuff me in my sleep and take me in! but what happens is i can feel myself falling alseep and i win the argument. my little ol' id wins again, since i just can't fucking help myself and the final argument which said just stay hidden and still and no one will ever get you won. it was better than stay awake and get ready to run. run where. i'm outa here. g'night. mmm...

so, then, and remember it doesn't matter what the facts are, this being a director's cut (jugular vein). they come and put me in jail or i wake up amazed to be uncaught, well-rested, non-awaringly strolling into a hamburger joint and getting breakfast, and i see the headline: the wild one is on the front page, and he was judged juried and executionered. i can't believe that all i have to do is go home and shower and go to work; the only problem is my bloods, my homies...because i know i am gonna have to tell somebody about this, how fucking damn cool it is to be free after having experienced the high of indiscriminate mass murder. rat-a-fuckin-tat!

 February 25, 2011, 08:32

people think that my writing is amusing.

my psychologist had to cancel my appointment because he was taking his partner to the emergency room; not only do i have sad feeings about my friend and his friend, i also have concern about my recent journals which are locked in his cabinet. these journals have so much good stuff in them, just like all my journals from the past, well, decades...containg good stuff, words i can publish in little chapbooks and sell.

my thought has been to actually print up said chapbooks, but i am waiting. for what?

February 20, 2011, 07:59

the first thing that comes to your mind right after you make a decision to record it is that your arm hurts, you have tennis elbow or bursitis and yet you are typing; is it because you have a paid dispatch, is it so you can eat? no. i am not hungry. well, i mean, if i am, i have food. here. at work. yup.

it goes along with my philosophy

love of knowing where-it's-at

whatever happens is not the result of me or you or them; well, it was "them" if it was anyone huh? nope. see, the whole, say, concept of one thing causing the next, the whole idea of next is, well, it's next to go. it's a present moment thing and you can get it when you get it. or help it along with drugs and workhouse and yoga? or, whatever. i really don't believe that there is a damn thing you can do about it. "it"!

i do not mean to say that you cannot do your exercises think of the ones that you do sometimes YOU CANNOT SAY I CANNOT DO THOSE good point; you would win that argument.

but i don't want to argue; do you?

if this were a web-log i would tell you that i am eating hamburger helper dinner with no meat cooking it in the desk clerks' microwave, adding my own cheese and crackers.

February 19, 2011, 11:42

scribblings

subdued

the sub dude was subdued

to subdue is to tackle

i am subdued by my deep notions-

why go through a courtroom

if you're not going to carry it out?-

look what gets clung to

the best feeling ever is both

grabbing and releasing

letting go and holding on

the purpose is not to give you salve

i just can't stop The Bib Bang from oozing it isn't what you never had and it's not your choosing

 

you think you got it made

is that the bed or the deal

you didn't work, you played

live in the house upon the hill---

if only all people drank continually

who would drive the trucks?--

the pure experience

since you are where you are at, and have this experience, it is pur. adultery is rejecting its purity. what is wrong there must be something wrong. you think wrong is the betrayal, but it's all very pure.

a pure experience includes acceptance and productivity; and acceptance of productivity (and products!).

I learned love folding laundry - by turning Benny's t-shirts right side out, by matching Danny's socks, by using bleach and separating out the whites, by not putting into hot what might shrink, by using stain remover on Shelley's black knit tops, by folding Tia's jeans  just right or making sure that Emme's favorites didn't end up wrinkled with lint.

The  bags of laundry were heavy. We had to drive into Fairfax from Woodacre, usually evening, after dinner, not that often, maybe just a couple times a month - Shelley was a thrift store shopper meaning buying something new for tomorrow is easier and more fun than going to the laundromat - Benny hadn't yet added on a laundry room and bathroom spa to the house he and his dad built.

Sometimes I'd take small batches home to do when I'd be by myself. I would load the machine inspecting every piece wondering if I needed to turn it inside out, if it would really matter - each sock, all those soft cotton tee's, each sweat pant leg and jeans galore, one after the other had my attention. . Folding so carefully took my mind to filling my time with loving and it wasn't just 1 person, it was 5 - Shelley, Benny. Tia, Danny, and Emily whose presence made me want to wake up each morning and be alive to live out all the different parts of every day in her service. I was her god-mom. She was my god-daughter. Shelley my best friend, Benny so safe to love, beloved Tia, my hero and Danny dear, so like me. I was never happier.

Meg Margolis                                                                                                                                                                        August 2010

Mercury

 

The small tooth

(his first) falls

from his fist

to sigh beneath

the dark wet

lashes of his sleep.

 

In the deep blue shadows

of his pillow

the young child dreams:

Bright orbits

of imagination, bone and light

 

He wakes

to find

a silver Mercury dime

and some part of him

spirited away

in the night.

 

 

Venus

 

Blue Lady sings a song

sorrowful as Palestine

sweet chariot fall.

 

You are a meteorite

slanting through the Pines.

Your touch both

intimate and cold

at once

the brush of a cotton sheet

falling from

a body asleep.

 

You are the pale

 light of morning.

You are mist.

 

 

Earth

At noon the cedars are an electric green
the limestone bluffs a pale yellow
the water is dark
and sparkles like mica
fish breathe.


Mars

Mujeres. Indians. Faggots. Whores. Young black men.
Vets. Baby girls in Asia. The Children of Abraham.
Africans. The mentally retarded. The people of East
Timor. The poor. The poor. The poor.

 

 

Prozac Love

 

Nothing surprising jumps out of my hands.

They have been wrung of chaos

and a passion for emphasis.

They look waxy and are dumb

as unlit candles

They won’t hold a pen or a fist.

 

But the floors are well swept

and the books are arranged

according to size.

Nothing surprising jumps

out of my shelves.

 

We go to movies a lot

to escape the humid afternoons.

 

Outside

the day is colored

like a ‘70’s game show.

 

Why are we talking

about Las Vegas, again, again?

 

Everything

looks faraway

as if seen

through toy binoculars

held backwards.

 

All the doors

are purple or yellow.

 

They open and shut

wagging their tongues

like telephones.

 

Now the windows

fly away.

 

At the end of the block

(which is a great distance.)

 

a little man dressed in black

waves a Stetson and shouts

 “Faster, faster. They’ll get away.”

Then disappears

around the corner.

 

I shuffled forward

as fast as I can.

I want to run.

But, I’m afraid to lose a shoe.

 

Let go of my hand, please.

 

Don’t you hear the accordion music?.

 

Please, let go of my hand.

 

My chest feels like

soggy cardboard.

 

I can poke my finger

through my heart

without finding its center.

 

Poems bleed

on my tongue unspoken

 

Let go.  Let go. Who are you?

 

 

 

All this Talk about the End of the World

 

All this talk about the end of the world

the Mayan Calendar, Nostradamus,

nuclear winter, global warming.

One despairs at our willingness

to give up on our existence.

 

Admittedly, I do worry

upon reading

that we are fighting

farmers, fish and Native People

for clean water.

 

But, I’m still not ready to give up on the planet.

 

People speak of omens

and strange things happening

everyone has

their favorite dooms-day scenario.

 

They argue and wave it about

like an ideologue

at a political rally.

 

That’s what

a lot of this is about.

We all want

to be a part of

something larger

to sustain us

until we reach

the final credits

rolling on the screen

 

Everybody wants a happy ending,

to be among the survivors

in the golden sunset

at the movie’s end.

We all want to go riding shotgun

with the Hollywood cast

as they head back

to southern Cal.

We all want to relax

to look to heaven

and hum the theme song

 from the Poseidon Adventure.

 

No one wants to hear that

their final scene was in the first act.

That their lines were cut. 

They don’t want to be

 the black character in a slasher pic.

 

But, not everyone makes it to the final act.

 

All this talk about the end of the world.

People interpreting signs and omens.

Giving the finger

 to scientific fact.

 

When did we decide

that science was just

another superstition?

 

That prophecy

was entertainment?

 

When did we agree

that we have no obligation

to the future?

 

Yes, our time is limited.

 But the sun will dance

and the earth will spin

long after we have given in.

 

Upon awakening

in the morning blue

it’s not Gabriel’s trumpet

I listen for

what I strain

to understand

are the strange mutterings

of my heart

speaking to

the gathering light

and wondering

of a response.

 Jesse James Johnson                                                                                                              2011            

                                                                        

“To the womenfolk I am about to meet.”

To know me and for you to know you, then we can skip the getting-to-know-you period and begin to interact.  Once said, “The first rule in any relationship is, I can’t read your mind.”  This is always true to a great extent.  If you want connection or you want solution, you make a request or an immutable demand, or even if you need a break before what comes next on the schedule today, then pray tell do tell.  If you cannot say it, grab a pen and a pad.  Doodle up a sign and show that around.

My heart responds to what my senses acquire.  Sense beauty, then beauty received.  If a statue of cold, rigid marble, then I grasp my own hands behind my back and treat you like a museum piece to be observed and left unaltered.

The heart feeds on the meeting of the minds and if you cannot explain to me how to work your control panel then I am not buying your Wild Berry Candies from A9 or B6.  I call out to you the way I do.  If you shrink from my voice, what did it touch in you?  I am not a hot stove or salt in the garden.  I see you as I do and I greet you like any good thirteen-year-old with a large vocabulary would: with words and mostly words that manifest pictures that I feel will move you, change you as they changed me when I evolved them.  Time is fleeting and even Rapunzel had her hair pulled after years of loneliness before she got her prince.  Love is the how as we awake in the morning, we make peace with the empty impression in the bed beside us that is still warm to the touch.

Zak B me.                                                                                                                            November 4th 2011

Sept 9/22/11

Alone among the trees?

Right.

Anybody who thinks she can be alone

among the trees or anywhere

is kidding herself

lulled into the delusion that any of us can be autonomous

in creation.

 

I am who I am because my parents lost a baby before me,

a baby that would have been a girl.

I am who I am because they didn't get that divorce,

the divorce that almost happened while I was inside my mother,

young, scared,

missing her father

and her grandmother.

 

But that near-divorce,

the trauma to my unborn body,

my psyche and nervous system in formation,

stays with me,

and though I never knew that baby,

and only remember my great grandmother as a shriveled, blind, and near-deaf old woman,

they are part of me

more than any tree.

 

That's why I know I can't be alone in the forest.

Rosanna,

Leopold,

Ghislaine,

and that unborn baby girl

are all with me.

Within me. 

Fuck Mary Oliver and her fetish for trees and dirt and flowers.

for once I would like to read one of her poems be about something real.

Like sitting in a room, in a building,

a tiny apartment

with a tiny fridge and and a tiny microwave

a computer her only connection to the world outside,

as all of her clothes hang in the substandard 20-inch square closet,

or thrown on the floor in a big,

methane-producing pile for all I care.

 

Alone,

pretending she's self made,

her own creator, yet surrounded by people in that building,

the modern tenement the property manager calls mini lofts,

sold to hipsters as the ultimate urban experience.

 

They sit alone with their iMacs, iPhones, and iPads,

connecting to iPeople around the world,

over a complex but invisible web of separation

desperate to connect to anyone,

as long as it isn't the the old man dying in the next apartment,

the man who may need help

changing his shitty diaper

or heating a cup of ramen

in his shitty little microwave.

 

But that would ruin the illusion,

all that reality,

reaching through the walls

instead of standing among the trees.

--

Rev. Denis Letourneau Paul
BodySoul Care Program Coordinator
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
234 Hyde Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

I Wondered As I Heard the Grand Old Man

I wondered as I heard

the “grand old man”

talk about himself and life,

though it was clear

he was certainly old,

just now how grand

he really was.

It’s a sort of noble swell

I get inside

whenever I stand close

to weathered white,

but right now I feel a bit afraid,

a bit embarrassed

at the labored smile

that threatens teeth.

Oh yes, some might say

it’s disrespect

to turn away,

but what is there to do

or see or think

when a man is old

and has had his say?

Now, as he speaks,

his voice shuffles

slow and halts

with spasms of conservatism ,

like the cough

of a grim pilgrim

so near the well.

Let me remember you

without this shaking head

and frosted gait,

let me remember you

instead the man

whose poems spring from birches.  

 © 2011 Sheppard B. Kominars

    
Zach T    poem from faithful fools    7/2/2011      

   

My Journey With Breast Cancer 

   I am an imperfect flower with a malignant lump in my right breast in the garden of life. I believe in the Great Spirit, the maker of each and every one of us. To the Great Mystery who is perfection in Being, I am a beautiful flower, flowering my scented petals in the winds of life. I am a member of a club that no one wants to join. The Breast Cancer Sisterhood club – wearing our pink ribbons over pink t-shirts with a pink baseball cap to match. Some women with hair, some without! I wear it all proudly like a marching soldier in a pink uniform. All my Cancer Sisters march by my side. I am not alone. We are one even though my journey is similar, but separate from theirs.

I think about the day the bomb was dropped on my former life, September 9, 2011. My life has changed over this month and a half. It will never be the same. It is difficult, but not impossible. I feel as though I am baring my soul and wearing my feelings on my sleeve. I feel so very vulnerable, and am told this is normal by other Breast Cancer Members. What a great and compassionate club we have. What an overwhelming price for admission to the club that nobody wants to join. My empathy stretches beyond the women in my exclusive club to other human beings. I wonder if they can feel me and my compassion as I write. My understanding is there. My heart unfolds with the melody of life's song. This is a solo journey, but traveled in good company.

I do not have the energy to waste on those who detract from, or do not support my healing from Breast Cancer.

My motto is “Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying”, and I'm All About Living!

Sacheen Littlefeather  2011

“Coming To Terms With Life”

Those Stanford graduates

got a bugle blast of truth

when Steve Jobs told them

death is a great opportunity

to clear out the old and make

room for the new.

Graduation means moving on;

Death is moving on. 

So welcome it on the bench

beside you instead of turning

your back and pretending

it will happen only to other

people –  never to you!

The breath that passes

between your lips is precious

even when you do not

know you breathe it!

And the past cannot be restored

without the loss of all the joy

and beauty that has barged in.

Unfurl your banner of exultation

instead of the limp flag of surrender

when the parade is almost over:

Steve knew that’s what survivors do!

 

[Written Oct. 6, 2011; Revised Oct. 9]

 © 2011 Sheppard B. Kominars

You help me, strange man.  I try to breathe when you say so.  I try to write when you say so.  This will help me leave my hurt in a place not known to the rest of the world.  At last I shall be free.  Faith will out and I will calm down.  I will see you all once more and we will all talk and talk and talk and not stop.  My pain will fade.  I will breathe once more.  You will not have gone from me.  We will meet once more and more and more.  I will calm down.  I will it.  “Good night, Sweet Prince,” you all.  I go on and on.  Don’t quit me.  Not more.

Marsha Campbell   October 13^th 2011

Single Syllable Exercise

I feast on your fat mind.

I lose a piece of it when I have to leave you.

At first I love you .  Then you leave me.

I trust you at the start and then you leave me.

Do not love me if you plan to leave me.

I cannot breathe.  I can’t not breathe.

Breath comes to me full of grim sips

and then I let it fly out of my mouth.

     I see nothing.  I hear nothing.

From you.  You are gone.  Then I am gone, too.

I am a saint, Max said.  He meant

I would not leave my love for you.

and give it to him or him or him or him.

     My life is a hymn to rage.

You just try and leave me.  I will

not let you.  My feet are in the clouds

and my head is next to God’s.

     He will look down on you and say,

 “How could you?  How could you hurt this girl?” 

     And this girl will cry at the fact that

through her you and you and you were hurt.

     When at last can I sing once more?

I look at my ring made in the form of a clef

and it gives me hope.

     I write what I have to write.  I think

What I have to think to write.

Marsha Campbell   October 13^th 2011

 

            “Engraved Invitation”

It’s there, you know,

you just have to find it --

your voice, that is

at least as important as breath,

for it carries on it

your quenchless spirit sparging

your life and resurrecting

you when you have died

among the confusions and

contradictions of other people’s

convictions and certainties.

I know it takes time

to find your voice,

and that’s just the way it is.

I also know that to find it

you must practice giving yourself

permission to make mistakes.

If you don’t know how to do this

just remember what you did

the first time you fell down:

you just got up, for if you hadn’t

you’d still be sitting there.

Of course it takes some courage,

but so does buttering your toast!

If it doesn’t all melt,

you eat the slice anyway.

And know that the more you dare,

the clearer the words speak

the communion you have

come to the banquet table to enjoy.

 

[Written Oct. 6; Revised Oct. 9, 2011]

 © 2011 Sheppard B. Kominars

Pain gives me somewhere else to focus.  If my apartment is full of spare pillows and empty apple boxes except for the entryway and directly outside the refrigerator, I may spend more time in those uncluttered spaces.  If the boxes and pillows represented pain, they would be there in my system and I might discover the importance of the entry hall and the space in front of the refrigerator, where I formerly did not spend much time.

The mixed blessings of pain are:

Counting the stairs up to where I parked.  Counting how many bundles of firewood I am taking on this camping trip.  The awareness that she/he is out of earshot and so I cannot beckon her/him to provide succor, kindness I want to receive.

The mixed blessings of pain are:

My hypothermic legs regaining tingly, stingy feeling after the boat ride across the lake in shorts in the fog.

They say, “Pain is just weakness leaving the body.”

Pain comes from an ill-maintained balance – for as long as you can remember or just since you started the kettle boiling and smelt burnt you: flesh.

I want the tea and I pick out the flavor and I start the water boiling and then I reach out my hand and lean on "something" just long enough to have that old daydream of smiles and twirly slides in the park and I am rudely snapped free of that image by the scent of somebody, me, burning…smoldering…now! (And not in a good way.)

What was my initial goal?

Oh, right.  Hot tea.

Hand under cold water for thirty seconds and then I’m off to find my cat cup before the whistle sounds.

Zak B. me

July 15th 2011

Raindrops So Clear They Ask To Be Polished

 

 

As if they had a shape, a groove out of which one could scale, maybe as a building would or a tree, or even a mountain would. That’s right; a place for your feet to be, to start your work.  Matter of fact, I would want to ask the raindrop, what color it preferred the polish to be. And of course, if it said red, I would have to stop right there and run to the corner store.

      Better would be my next question, what would be the use of raindrop polishing and where would it be headed in its next incarnation.  Another thing; what was it like not to be a phantom like me and my buddies are? But no matter, would really love to know, do raindrops ever get to go to school where possibly they learn to work out their eliteness. That would help me a lot knowing that my spiritual side also has an infinite side to it.

J.R. Johnson

7/7/2011

---

Sapphire Blue

The military gently knocks

Sapphire Blue waits in a vestibule

for a letter that will never arrive

Sapphire Blue waits in a vestibule

for her soldier who will never return

 

THINGS ONE HAS FORGOTTEN

 

     "All things one has forgotten

     scream for help in dreams."

          --Elias Canetti

 

These nearly six years since you passed away

My body has forgotten how it felt

To lie so close together we seemed to melt

Into each other as night bled into day.

After bereavement words are useless: gray

And lifeless lumps of language, failing

To flower into meaning, madly flailing

Against hard silence, leading thought astray.

But in my dreams I welcome your embrace

Upon the star-bedazzled quilt of night,

Forgetting morning's numbness will erase

These astral bodies spun from breathless light;

I shatter sorrow's shadowed carapace;

As pain falls free, astonishment takes flight.

What If I Were Human And I Had To See Miserable Homeless People Suffering All Day Long?
by Ed Bowers

If I were human...

I would scream for help instead of
Stand in silence

If I were human...

I would not be me
Until this was fixed.

If I were human...

I would not be
Too strong to cry...

If I were human...

I would be too vulnerable
Not to care.

If I were human...

I would know
What its like to be alone.

If I were human...

I would never let
The other people die.

If I were human...

But I am not human...

I am a tree growing out of concrete,

Thank God!

 

 The writing exercise was to focus on the first sentence, which was given as a prompt-- "A run over zinnia lay weeping its juices into the asphalt"-- and be open to what wanted to be written after it.

A run over zinnia lay weeping its juices into the asphalt.  No crushed human body could call forth any more compassion from the heart of Jesus.  Loving white light surrounds the macerated petals.  The tender strength of this light creates a protective barrier around the fallen flower so that traffic moves easily around it, honoring its exit from this world into Heaven’s endless realm of love.  The soul of this once radiant red flower dances with the sparkling white light celebrating its release from a life of beauty and service to pollinating bees and hungry humming birds. The blossom’s joy in its dance with the Master’s light whirls it ever faster so that crimson soul and heavenly white light appear to sweet Jesus eyes as celestial peppermint candy.

And with the true spirit of conservation, where nothing is wasted, the Holy Spirit arranges for a bull mastiff recently turned vegetarian to cross this same street when the light turns green, pause near the zinnia, bathing its crushed body with her broad, moist tongue as she laps the fallen beauty into her warm, waiting mouth.  Amen.

Moh Breath

June10th 2011

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

DOUGHNUTS IN THE RAIN

 

I’m such a weirdo in the lonely nights

my heart contracts and sprays me with its lies

until we drill for super agitation

and reap the nation’s woes

then you or I

on seeing what is best to make creation

of gods or mire or slides or eyes or cries

we gently focus on initiation

as if the night could tremble with fixation

into the genius of the bright and wild

we long to tremble with a special thigh

in agitation and within imagination

is gifted to our sight a fine raw sign

to not deny surprise

is its own reward

 

move forward with your sexy tabulations

and don’t deny how quickly you will dream

 

of rustic days’ and nights’ interpretations

beyond the silver chains upon the sea

beyond the words’ most sacred me

I ask your realization what this means

as only I will know the secret sweet

a wedding of the widening of the free

 

Marsha Campbell

May 26^th 2011

*****************************************************************************************************************************

beauty has her way.
beauty is not to be taken lightly,
oh no.
my mother told me recently that her mother taught her
"you have to suffer to be beautiful".
and my grandmother was,
beauty in every false eyelash and hair dyed till her death.
slim and manicured, a real beauty.

beauty has her way.

as i write this i feel the sweat under my arms from a day in the sun.
i rolled out of bed today and dressed without showering, something i rarely do.
often i shower two, sometimes three times a day:
once in the morning to wake, mid-day after yoga practice, and in the evening to wash the day from my skin.

beauty.
in search of beauty.
the beauty addict.
beauty-

in yoga practice 5-7 days a week
beautiful
why not?
beauty is on the inside but no one can see it when it's hidden far beneath the surface
why not bring it up, show it, wear it like a badge?

beauty is not to be taken lightly.

i practice to find beauty because i am so silent most of the time.
beauty will speak for itself.
i have discovered this:
if i can not speak, my beauty will speak for me.
showing not telling, a measure of dignity.

trust me, i was not born to be ugly--
i have gained weight, wore a rash of acne, had teeth dangling from pink gums with gaps and braces.
this did not become me.
to become ME i decided to be beautiful.
it was something i wanted--
or, maybe it is the desire of the gods, as martin prechtel teaches, who long for us to show our praise for their many magnificent gifts by adorning ourselves and taking pride in our appearance
...this is not to say i spend money on fine clothing--
but wear rags, handed down to me with great pride and creativity.
boots that walked to my doorstep.
even my underwear was handed down to me, most of it.
rarely a day goes by that i can not trace some article of clothing i am wearing back to an old friend or a friend of my mothers.

beauty.

so, beauty becomes my life's work, like a constant project, something i must invest in and renew...

but sometimes i wonder
what to do with it--
what then, if so much of the time i would rather be invisible
or, what if i can't measure up--
greeted by smiling friendly faces, if really i just feel sour inside
and sad and strange?
how then, does beauty become me....

i am living with this, and wondering sometimes how long i can keep this up
when it's the purity of heart i really want to wear.
this reaches far beneath the skin,
such a paradox...
to develop one as equally as the other.
to cultivate outside and in, dark and light.
so many things to reap and sow,
so many things to compost and surrender.
but how did i get to all of that--
when it's something i have felt ORDERED to do, by some inner drive we can not merely call shallow:
the drive to be beautiful.
why?
the drive to be beautiful.
to be my best, to shine through
because otherwise i am just hiding...and i have done plenty of that.
the story of the ugly duckling-
with crooked teeth.

i come from crooked beauty*.

~julia bernbaum
saturday night write on
june 18, 2011

*reference to the film "crooked beauty" addressing issues of mental illness by ken paul rosenthal

********************************************************************************************************************************

March 12^th 2011 “This moment brings me…”

Zak B. me

Fairfax Community Center

This moment brings me…one more Oreo cookie.   What would you do with fifteen minutes?  That’s long enough to make a new life and then take a shower.  The drive thru wedding chapels in towns like Vegas could knit two lives together on paper in that much time.  You could boil water for tea while dancing to eighties rock tunes on the radio.  Fifteen minutes, 900 seconds: a far cry from a whole day, but these are the brush strokes with which my parents taught my babysitters to paint my world.  Any longer and I could lose focus.

The experience of the office here being populated is distracting.  I choose to acknowledge that and attempt to move forward.

The little Zen Pocket Reader has a quote,

“It is easy to be distant from everything.

It is much harder to be aloof.”

As I head out into the world with my adult self, I find “distant” was my default screen, my safety security fence.  Jurassic Park electrified.  Now my life requires me to be aloof.  Apart from, no matter how close.  Temptations of drinks and desserts and later nights than I can easily snap back from are all on offer.  In many moments of the day, I must actually make judgments against my mission statement, if only I had one.  That question of, “Will you regret this when the sun comes up?” is right there in front of me.  This moment brings me closer to the next decision and the words I will tell myself to make that decision alright.

*******************************************************************************************************************************

Date: April 15^th 2011

Location: Enterprise Resource Center

Author: Zak B. me

Prompt: “Measure Up”

 

 

Hand me the spatula.  Now is the time to taste what is.

No measuring up.

Pure pleasure.  As a child seeing Christmas and knowing this is the only house in the world and I am the only one getting presents.  The concept of pure thought or a universal truth blows away any thought of the beyond this room this moment, this corner of the forest this rainstorm.  The realization that here I sit in a theater and I have to shake off the performance to remember what city I am in, and  who drove to the show.  Was it me this time?  Both scary and beautifully transcendent, the realization that I just experienced something on the stage on the screen that suspended, if only temporarily, my world beyond these walls.  The ability to unlink and fluidly hook back into the part of my life that affects other people is a true luxury, and at the same time an necessity if I will move, as I desire to do, to the next level of consciousness, again, if only temporarily.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Sometimes I forget to remember that is all I need to do just right now.  Every now so often, food and water, and sleep are a good idea, but not key right now.  Breathe in, breathe out.  On a personal note, when I go jogging, I get to choose the pace of my breath.  All I need to do right now when I run is collision avoidance and breath regulation.  No need to measure up to anybody else’s pace.  I cannot.  I must keep my own pace or I will fall away.  I learn what it is to hot dog for some spectator or to lose my own pace to try to dance down the field with someone who does a faster mile pace.  I must, as the poem says, “taste what is.”

*******************************************************************************************************************************

Zak B. me

Fairfax Community Center Festival Day

June 11^th 2011

“Mystery, after all, is God’s other name.”

The space between mind and body.

Real starts and the falseness of preparedness…dropping into a half pipe with a blindfold on…seeing through a garment that shouldn’t show through.  Do I tell her that her left ear is full of sunscreen? Does anybody chew that gum from under the desks or does it just go to waste?  Airplane…cramped…  Do I tell him his belly is on my armrest or do I assume he already knows?  What about the people who are sorta broke, but not broke enough to qualify for socialized medicine?  Would they choose to be more broke just to qualify so they can get prescriptions and food all in one month?  Should people be able to apply for permits to carry rotten fruit to political debates?  The tiger just pretends to be secured in his cage.  No need to disrupt the paying customers.  Melting together, walls down, warmed and blending.  Why would we spend time with you?  Don’t you have better things to do than to spend time with us?  What could we ever teach you?  What would you be willing to share with a room of perfect strangers and perfect kids?  A wall-to-wall confessional.  A search for intelligent life.  A salon, ehem, SAH-lon, for a guy who can’t afford the haircut, but has the comb.  The implement of mass interaction and the wall of words some of us would climb out of our skins without?  “Settle.  Settle.  Settle.”  Why not “Live.  Breathe.  Discover.”?

********************************************************************************************************************************

            GO GIANTS GO!

            The team felt as squnched as a bunch of frogs by a pool that is drying out.

Only ooze left...ooze and muck.  The Giants?  Well, they used to be Giants.

Now they’re slouchers...mud-suckers...losers.

            A man walked down the trail that went from the road to the lake. It was Matt. Faithful Matt. He was an adoring fan. He loved the Giants. He looked down at his team lying all flopped around the water’s edge and heaved a deep sigh.  Sam Bronowski, Joe Korabi, Serh Halloway...all of them.  Looking more dead than alive.

            Matt took a deep breath and let the words come out as a soft whistle betweenhis teeth. “Go Giants go.”    A head turned toward him. It was Mort Simmons, best catcher in the whole world. He sat up and looked at Matt, mud on his face where his mask should have been.  “Sorry man.  We did our best. We did our best, game after game.”   A fellow next to him rolled off a log.  It was Seth, who spoke bitterly. “But you can’t just keep on doing your best.  Get too high, you’ve got to topple...bite the dust.  You know what I mean?”  “That’s some kind of law.”  said Joe, who’d been under a bush. He stood up and his shoes made a sucking sound as he pulled them out of the muck.

            “Guess so,” said Matt. “Never thought much about it.”

            “Feel that way myself,” said Joe, who’d been mostly in the water. 

            “What?”  asked four or five voices.

            “They got medals, and 50,000 bucks apiece.  And Marilyn Monroe.”

            “Shit.” said Ernie.

            “Shit.” said Seth.

            “Shit.” said Kramer.

            Just then a huge alligator surfaced from the center of the pond.  It was  reallya HUGE alligator and it swallowed the whole team in one gulp.  Matt watched from the sidelines with the wisdom of a seasoned fan, and loudly proclaimed, in a sort of ordinary voice:

           

            “GO  GIANTS  GO!”

By True

**************************************************************************

 

Breathing is God’s sea. I go to look for the little lost lamb of Maria Josefa --The crazy grandmother in the House of Bernarda Alba. Where I find Maria Josefa I will find the lamb as she carries it in her arms and begs “Little Lamb, child of mine, let us go to the shore of the sea.”

She wants to find peace in herself and her “child,” a safe place to go get away from the craziness of the women’s household where everyone is a prisoner of the ruler of the State called Bernarda Alba. She wants to go where wisdom and clarity are the norms.

Goodbye, Bernarda Alba. Goodbye—we are leaving you now for the sake of God and the song of the words drawing the water further away and closer within. They give us their song. The waves are singing our thoughts

Marsha Campbell

June 16, 2011

 

Writing you have to like it better than being loved you have to like

it best when being shoved i cant find another line to rhyme

does that?

oh Bless, let it go

let go and let God,we say in aa

does that?

oh BLESS,LET it go

easy does it but do it

another saying we say in aa

i cant wait to break through the gate

the one that the horse whisperer

on the other side

whispers invisably through the breeze on somedays and like

yesterday,gusts on the mountainyelling,come through,come throughcome

through the gates of passion, for the craving,for complete surrender

to your dream of writing and reading .

the coyotes

on the other side

yip yip yiping me from the other side of the gate making me giggle on

some days and roar with laughterother days that when i finally

surrender to allowing myself to build the stamina when im submerged in

the craving and passiion of writing and reading that i will find

eternity and peace.

the pink thunder heads above are as ferocious looking as a buck

stamoing its leg saying come closer but not to close and at the same

timethe big eyes of the deer like the powerful pinkl orange purple and

silver thunde head cloud clap encourages me to stay and feel at home.

what does all of this have to do with an A degree from college of

marin hanging on my wall?

R.H.'s voice

5 more minutes

i dont know but the aanouncement reminds me of when i walked up the

high road while ago behind san rafael high schooland come upon a

uprooted pine,

was it alive?

i dont know

i git scared looking at the rootsthe needles and cones were laid to

rest beautifully, browns and greens deep

but

the roots

narley and endless

a long story to tell

history

as i picked up a eucalyptus buttonand felt the root hopeing for commmunication

the san rafael misision bell rang

5 oclock-quitten time

a sort of spiritual whistle blow

then the crow cawed a new beggining

 

ps

6 oclock ,actuallly-a little overtime

-Bless Krieger

Dancing feels so good, especially when I get the moves and the timing.  I felt a bit lost when I joined the Zumba class at the gym.  Now I can mimic most of the moves.  I learn more of the sequences in each class.  And the teacher even told me she sees improvement in my dancing.

This could be used as a metaphor for life: When we try something new, we might wobble and not know how to do all of it.  We might not move like the advanced folks do.  We may bet tired or confused before we get through a whole sequence of linked actions.  The truth is… I am really doing a lot of self-directed activity that I never did before and I hope to keep it all in a dynamic balance.  My mind is on, my body is alive, I can affect changes, albeit little, in my sphere of influence.  I helped a non-chore-doer roommate set up to do his chore and I stopped before I actually did the chore for him.  I praised him afterwards.  He went from a “never” to a “sometimes” and I did not break a sweat over his chore.

Little changes: milk instead of soda, fruit instead of candy, go to sleep before midnight so I can get up before noon, send thank you cards or say thank you to key good-doers in my life.

Less negative drama leaves more time for contemplation and doing useful, positive tasks.

 

Z Bourke

The Girl

 

She is so small, ragged and dirty. Feral, really. Blood crusts over knuckles of clenched fists from cuts made by punching brick.

 

I lean down carefully, washrag in hand to clean the wounds. “Give me your hand – it’s bleeding.”

 

She steps backwards, making herself even smaller.She looks for a shadow in which to hide.  She is shaking, although it is not cold. She sniffs the air between us like a wild beast.

 

“Come here, give me your hand. You’re bleeding,” I say. I kneel down, trying to be small so as not to scare her.

 

“Am not bleeding.” The offending fist disappears behind her back. Her blue eyes glare.

 

“Let me see, baby. Must hurt.”

 

She shrugs. Slowly, I reach out and touch her arm. Gently I move it out in front of her. She cringes but allows me to take her left hand in mine.

 

I blot gently with the cool washcloth, blood staining it from yellow to red. “Oh my,” I say.  “So much pain.”

 

“Don’t hurt,” she grumbles. “Don’t feel nothin’ at all. Don’t exist.”

 

“Oh no, baby,” I croon. “You exist. You exist.”

 

As I watch, she gets even smaller. She shrinks and shrinks and shrinks.  Finally she is no more than a piece of charred remains – the child is gone.

 

I take the charred remains in my hand, then put them in my mouth. I swallow hard. The girl is gone. Only bitterness and the tang of blood remain.

-Jolene

THE LIE

In places, where the clouds had worn away,
We glimpsed the emptiness that lay beyond:
A sort of dullness, featureless and gray,
Polluted water in a stagnant pond.
Concerning God--to our dismay--we found
Thousands came forth who claimed to be the One;
Each drunken would-be Christ displayed a wound
Some doubting Thomas would then dote upon.

Churches were empty, congregations gone;
In mosques and temples, a great rummage sale
Commenced as sacred trappings were torn down;
Communion wine was quaffed like roadhouse ale.
Some thought it best that we'd outlived the lie;
Some trembled at the vast, unfeeling sky.

Robert Lavett Smith

Keep Twitching

 

Keep twitching.

The impossible does not hold still.

Love is a miracle that comes and goes.

The moment keeps moving.

For now I am impossible to hold.

I am flame.

But I do not move.

Moving is impossible.

 

The now is frozen.

Hold still to see what’s next.

Where I am going is to

The moment of a destination that won’t stop.

 

Gone starts another go.

Move I do, but from where?

Is there no where for love?

I arrived so the moment died.

 

I whispered what I heard you say out loud.

Your word was “love.”

Peace and war both thrive inside

That noun, that verb.

 

What I heard you say

Has to be lived

Before it becomes

A poem.

 

It is dangerous to write a poem.

I passed what I heard you say

To someone within.

He cried.

What I heard you say

I will remember forever.

Give or take

A few million years spent in deep sleep.

 

What I heard you say is something

I will remember to forget

And forget to remember.

 

This is beyond me.

I have no control over love.

 

All loves go where what I

Heard you say goes when I’m gone.

 

What I heard you say

Will never be enough.

 

Ed Bowers

 

 

Today is the first day of the rest of my tomorrows leading slowly, definitely to death.  I’ll say “Goodbye” now, in case I never see you again.

 

What the space says is: Run away North, North, always North—that’s where freedom lies for a wild horse like you, like me.  Find no fences the the further you go—only mountains and canyons and prairies—to help you.  I’ll bite at the bridle that restrains you so.  And you can follow me to and beyond freedom’s threshold.

 

I’m so sleepy and finally relaxed beyond tears now I can visit my current flawed lover at the new hotel where I’m going to live tomorrow and hope he is not cruel.

 

I like all men, my shrink said.  And that is why I imagine almost all of them in my bed.  I even brought a can of peanuts to this show, which is better than a movie to satisfy my soul.  Ahem.  A him.  A hymn.

 

Journaling Results

 

1. God is Back  (Space)
2. American Idol  (Space)
3. Julio Iglesias  .  (Dot) (Glow)

my imaginary friend

accompanied by my guitar

 

Marsha

June 2^nd 2011

 

Free?  Write!  Dance along, little blue Papermate medium plastic pen.  Pull intelligible nonsense from my hand.  I need to see something I do is meaningful to others who do similar things.  I run so hard, literally, to keep my body in functional shape.  They see me and compliment me.  Awesome.  I keep my car fueled, clean and on the road.  I didn’t run over that dog.  I screeched my tires instead.  To be able to write like I could revise into a pleasing piece seems to be the goal.

Quick in the mind, yes, but not when I am under pressure.  Debate team is not my home.  The truth is…the truth is…the people outside the room shouting and laughing and pretending they are happy and pleased are what they are, mostly unaware.  The idea to them of honing a skill other than pan handling or being able to take down more booze faster than their drinking mates and to still be able to run from or B. S. the cops when they come, is now foreign.

Most of my life now IS honing skills, shining biceps, slyly choosing groceries that will agitate me less from the artificial colors, untold piles of MSG, and seventeen different names for sugar in the ingredients list.  There is not a lot of laying back and being done to or consulting my accountant about how well my holdings fared after Bin Laden died.  Sandpaper, 100 Grit, to the side of the face – remove some skin, don’t leave too deep of grooves….This is gonna hurt….Just like it did or more.  Body – I befriend it, treat it with as much compassion as a dog I wanted to respond to me when we hunt together.

 

Zak B. Me

2011/05/13

The following is to be sung to the tune of "Keep Smiling" from Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights"

Voir Tout En Rose

Laugh though your fear is showing

Laugh though your tears are flowing

Laugh like your happiness is ever glowing

Don’t let true love elude you today

Don’t let clouds obscure your sunny day

Give yourself a lift

It’s a gift to see

the bright side of everything

Voir Tout En Rose

Laugh though your fear is showing

Laugh though your tears are flowing

Laugh like your happiness is ever glowing

 

                                                   Barbara Belle-Diamond             

 

 THE TRUTH OF YOUR RIGHT FOOT

               "A name is not a leash."

                    --Mary Oliver

All of our bones are pilgrims, truth be told,

Journeying far beyond their sheaths of flesh

Toward dreams of incandescence that unfold

Deep in our inmost darkness. Pliant, fresh,

They burn the slow fuse of the marrow low;

Patient as saints, they bear our loneliness;

The farthest stars are kindled by their glow;

They flare out bravely in the emptiness.

But, after all, a name is not a leash;

Naming the body does not make it ours--

It is the expectation of release

That finds us at the summit of our powers.

The truth of your right foot is that it stands

Firm and unmoved upon unstable sands.

Robert Lavett Smith

 

WHAT THE SPACE SAYS

                    for Robert-Harry Rovin

What the space says is, "I have filled your life

Without your noticing, as water does

That filters through the worn earth's sieve of strife

Like liquid silence strained through hurt and noise."

The space is all that will be, all that was;

It isn't vacant--has solidity--

It is the air where great cathedrals rose,

Pointing stunned spires at eternity.

Space was, before its opposite came to be,

Before the Mass was burdened by its mass;

Rough blocks of granite are hewn from density

Lacking in permanence, and they shall pass.

What the space says is, " I am space, thy space.

Thou shalt erect no emptiness in my place."

Robert Lavett Smith

What the space says is not important enough right now to note on this page.  What's important is to remember why I started playing music in the first place.  How much I enjoyed singing as a kid and romping around on the floor to the sound of that folksy Saturday market CD.  How soothing music was when my heart was really broken for the first time. How playing in a band in high school inspired thoughts of harmonious relationships - how I wanted to write a philosophical treatise using playing in a musical ensemble as my primary metaphor.

I had two semi-religious experiences while playing the trumpet in college.  And, listening to my fellow musicians while also knowing the pieces well seemed to be absolutely essential components of what made it so magical.  I even wrote a short poem about it or rather part of a poem.  The playing was effortless and the dancing of our spirits, our energies arose without any forcing - communicating in a way that I didn't realize was possible with a musical instrument.

And, now I'm searching for the right kind of music and the right group of people.  From there, we will take to the streets to rejuvenate the life that is there.  To bring it out and call it forth in ways that will change people.  This is not about money or making a living - this is about sharing a joy too precious to keep inside behind locked doors or hidden in the dark.

Music can transform the musicians and no doubt the listeners as well.  And, change is something we can no longer avoid sparing.

~Joshua Mann,
  June 2nd, 2011

Exposed Truth with Every Whiff

Exposed truth with every whiff. Smells like Vaseline. No more truth… why would I want it? Does it come in a bottle? Does it come in a can? Is it pink and fuzzy or hard and cold? Do you want to know?

I looked in my refrigerator. The apple had moved to the back and turned black. The bottle had leaked and was now glued to the shelf – hard, cold fact.

I watched the cat sleeping, her whiskers twitching in dream. I lie with my hand in her fur. Reflexively she scratches my hand. It draws a round drop of blood. Fuzzy warm truth tinted with hurt.

Then there is what happens inside my head. The lies a hurt mind tells itself in the lonely pre-dawn hours. The lies I try to live through. The lies I know and love so well. The lies of what I am and want and need. The lies incubated in the moist dampness of abuse and deprivation. The things I had to tell myself to get through the day.

I much prefer the truth when I can remember it. That the ice tea will be cold and refreshing. That the brick wall will be rough and unyielding as I drive my fist into it. That the grit of dirt will rub my feet inside my shoes after having worked in the garden.

The truth of thoughts and feelings and needs is dangerous. I much prefer the momentary lapses into the here and now.

Jolene

“Grasping On To or Letting Go”

Fiber.  Suppose there is a connection between the health of the G.I. tract and the brain like there is between the circulatory system and the teeth.  If you first, experience constipation and, second, plaque coats your teeth, is it likely that first, you cannot let go of thoughts or things and, second, your arteries have gunk covering their inner walls?  You can find the teeth/blood vessel connection in the medical literature.  Are parts of my life really that interrelated?  Does it matter if I eat good food as to whether I choose to read good books, or just watch T.V.?

The East-West Medicine discussion is so interesting.  How did they figure out that a spot on the bottom of my foot, when pressed, can help my kidneys function or my sinuses drain?  Who thought of giving someone who is allergic to mold a little “homeopathic” helping of mold each day until the allergy disappears?  When they first thought to shoot radioactive dye into a vein, how did they discover a way to monitor its movement and use that to make medical decisions?  When we examine the connections between these seemingly unrelated things, the application of this knowledge allows us to live a few years longer than the people at the beginning of the last century.  To understand and investigate these hidden connections of biology, we have to be able to stop and take a breath and settle our minds.  From whence we began, I bring us back to the merits of fiber.  Mistakenly, I thought I was going to escape in a plume, a cloud of toilet paper, but I must continue to entertain and prepare, myself -- and you.

By Zak b. me

Seeing brings me around when I scan the album of images of the things and beings that have added so much to my life.  As I sort through them, deciding what to keep and what I can post on craigslist, I realized that these things and beings have added depth to my existence, and by having to choose it makes me realize how much I care about them, and how they have cared for me.

I could have taken better care of these things and beings that I cherish, like I do when they are new to me, are intriguing, unusual, or loving.   I pay special attention to them and want to spend much time and effort caring for them, using them, and being with them; they are in my heart and mind.  Then, gradually their uniqueness wears off, I become accustomed to them, or perceive something that is bothersome.  They become a responsibility, and an obligation.  They need maintenance, and attention, polishing and time.  Slowly, the object or person gets less interesting and a subtle neglect creeps in, and a loyal and trusted thing, or being holds a lower priority, and feels undervalued.  How did I take that for granted?

"Oh, I really should replace it, or trade it in for the improved model, or something or someone will be more interesting or exciting" I think.  I can give more, and find a way to keep my interest from drifting and these things and beings will show that, and they will know that they have value, and are loved, even as we fade, together. \

I am sorting through these things and beings, and the seeing brings me around.

Scott

Why she flowered at this time in her life was because she had experienced what all life had to give her up to that point.  She had been saturated by life’s experiences--the joys, the sadness, the births, the deaths, the anger, the tragedies, the re-births, the laughter, the love, the anxiety, the depression, the compassionate moments, the spiritual and emotional metamorphosis of growth, the physical pains one experiences and sometimes forgets, the mental breakdowns and all that goes with it, and finally the understanding that through that grand tunnel of all of these, life’s experiences coming to the other side of being- the incredible side of understanding, the great awakening or AH-HA moments that one has in a moment of quiet, zen-like reflection- life becomes a reflection of oneself upon a still, fresh, clear, quiet pool of water.  A mirror image of life’s experiences.  No judgments. Just years of growth through the passage and tunnels of time, by the same external clock that we all march to.  Tick, tock.  No matter how rich or how poor- we all march to the same clock and what we make of our experiences, and of our growth and our abundance in our experiences is indeed our own.

Sacheen  4/09/11