Three:
All my brothers shuffle
as if, off to the gallows
or like they just got off a horse
after a hard, three-day ride.
In the sky above, silver-black birds
wrestle for dominance. They do not
realize that they are talon-locked as they fall
to their deaths.
Hold onto something strong or
lash yourself to that rock. The masks
of Mara are many and you have
vowed to reveal them all.
The rings of an oak tree and my
fingerprints are similar.
Could we be related?
Five:
Stop pretending there is anything you’d rather be doing:
A scratch on the floor, streaks on that window,
light filtered thru weeds, somebody’s heavy footfall,
that stain on the carpet—beauty everywhere you look.
Seven:
Pain. What pain?
Pleasure. What pleasure?
Just observe being a
mass of tiny shimmering
glimmering bubbles.
Tiny bubbles in the shattering
fluted glass of the universe.
Eight:
Now they walk without aim
knowing all is lost.
All misery, pain or pleasure
All doors open
No hands on the wheel
No wheel, no hands.
Ten:
They say just before an earthquake
or a great fire all the animals
in the forest flee.
That’s what it felt like this morning,
hard to tell if it rained last night
or was just about to now.
There
behind the pagoda
on her side
lies an oak grandmother.
Her scabby trunk,
a condo complex
for red squirrels.
Her shattered base black
and sickly, the root ball
as high as my head
Mosses sprout,
slugs frolic,
mushrooms rejoice.
If not for her son
who braces her on
the down side of this hill
she would surely yield
to gravity and roll into
the stream bed.
All my brothers shuffle
as if, off to the gallows
or like they just got off a horse
after a hard, three-day ride.
In the sky above, silver-black birds
wrestle for dominance. They do not
realize that they are talon-locked as they fall
to their deaths.
Hold onto something strong or
lash yourself to that rock. The masks
of Mara are many and you have
vowed to reveal them all.
The rings of an oak tree and my
fingerprints are similar.
Could we be related?
Five:
Stop pretending there is anything you’d rather be doing:
A scratch on the floor, streaks on that window,
light filtered thru weeds, somebody’s heavy footfall,
that stain on the carpet—beauty everywhere you look.
Seven:
Pain. What pain?
Pleasure. What pleasure?
Just observe being a
mass of tiny shimmering
glimmering bubbles.
Tiny bubbles in the shattering
fluted glass of the universe.
Eight:
Now they walk without aim
knowing all is lost.
All misery, pain or pleasure
All doors open
No hands on the wheel
No wheel, no hands.
Ten:
They say just before an earthquake
or a great fire all the animals
in the forest flee.
That’s what it felt like this morning,
hard to tell if it rained last night
or was just about to now.
There
behind the pagoda
on her side
lies an oak grandmother.
Her scabby trunk,
a condo complex
for red squirrels.
Her shattered base black
and sickly, the root ball
as high as my head
Mosses sprout,
slugs frolic,
mushrooms rejoice.
If not for her son
who braces her on
the down side of this hill
she would surely yield
to gravity and roll into
the stream bed.