TIDAL ACTIVITY

A full moon, waves crashing.  Childlike I crave attention.
All a-flutter in the midsection and sitting with it, buddha-like.
An opening at the base of my spine like the Hudson River
forced back by the strength of the tide.  Sea water rushing in.

Indian Summer warmth. Sweaty love from years past when
the moon didn't even register.  Why was that again?
Dolphins confused by the current swim toward Canada.
I dive into the stream and release the dam from my mid-section.

Too much iced coffee and I'm babbling again.  Chakra two, check.
Moving upwards toward my chest, the residual tingly sensation
from my previous journey upriver.  A kiss is all I really crave.
Saliva and tastes of you and me co-mingled with moonshine.

Reflections on the still water.  Two puddles that are your eyes.
Mine deep sockets of need and flesh and goo and cum seeping
from the aforementioned mid-section opening up the length of
my spine.  Zap!  Shooting straight through the top of my head!

Sparks flying to the moon and back sending ebbs and flows to
the tidal activity below.  Dolphins circle in brackish water.
The current shifts and back to the sea we all flow.  Nature doing
its thing just as it should.  Rising to the surface, I open my eyes.

DREAMS OF THE MOTHER

The other night I dreamt that was living with a much older woman.

She left me, cleared out the apartment. I stayed behind with nothing.

I Awakened to the knowledge that I am nurturing myself.

The Mother energy, the feminine, lives inside me.

I crave it, yet I now know it's right here.

I am released from the suffering of a needy child.

I am now my own mother.

My samsara is strong around this.

SURRENDER

I heard a man say you experience surrender when you no longer need to ask the question, how?

He maintains there is nothing more or less than what is happening now.

Sadness comes. Thoughts enter and trigger the pain. Joy comes. Experience triggers emotion.

Presence is always available. Accessing it seems to be a choice. Sliding away with thoughts feels like no choice.

Confusion, doubt and reorientation, the self awakens again, bringing peace.

The inner and outer experiences shake hands.

I have made friends with the shadow, merging the dark with the light.

I seem to be able to identify the ego, that trickster who loves to trigger suffering.

The rest is what I am on the A train at 8:49 in the morning.

Now it's 8:50, clock time.

The man also insists time is an illusion on the inner. On the outer I'm heading to work.

It seems I don't need to accomplish anything more as each moment is an ending and beginning.

Motivation ceases and life takes its place.  That is, until the ego re-emerges and the pattern circles back around.

Fatherhood, creativity, partnership, friendships, cooking cleaning paying bills. This is my relationship with life.

There is a small ache in the bottom of my spine as I stand here on the train. It's okay.

I feel my thighs tingle a little with the weight of my upper body. It's okay.

My head is lighter than usual as I am spared from thought for at least this moment.

My face is relaxed. The inner body calm.

I taste the coffee from earlier. I notice my saliva is sticky and then my throat begins to tighten up.

A thought is rolling in...

My chest tightens a bit.

42nd Street. Changing trains. The distraction brings me back around again.

In each circle there is surrender. 

The fact that it's a circle and not a line is a most interesting revelation.

THE GUEST

you're lucky you don't live inside the quicksand that is my soul
i'm constantly fighting to release myself from the muckity muck
a whiny sniveling man-child, a sad lonely oversensitive lad who wails
and wails and wails and wails, tempest tossed and fragmented
at one moment strong, creative, full of love and piss and vinegar
ready to be, ready to live, ready to solve the problems of the world
then down into the abyss i fall again, no hope, no answers, no joy
 
re-surfacing i see the shining faces of love, remnants of what once was
desire, expectation, wanting, longing, needing, holding, loving
passionate fire, healing elixirs, airborne connective tissue, earthbound
i crawl and crawl onward, moving backward and then toward me
toward you. contrary confusing echoing laughter lights the way
where am i?  where are you?  what happened to all those i once loved?
the child appears by my side smiling, bearing the gift of sight

i see more clearly now but then the shadow appears and fear takes hold
it leads me further on, further on toward the unknown.  i resist.
let me go!  lead on! give me strength! the day turns to night
the sky opens up in a deluge soaking me to the bone, my shoes
float away. barefoot and cold i seek refuge in the dark forest.
in the distance there is a house, windows illuminated with a warm glow
i stand at the doorway with great expectation and with courage, i knock...

DEATH'S PRESENCE IS LIKE THE NIGHT

Deaths presence is like the night,
Swallowing all our pain.
Sometimes disaster strikes, it's true,
Yet we cannot help but feel delight
In the very rays of the sun.
Each day brings new fragrances of cherry blossoms.
Crops come and go with the seasons.
Constellations appear and reappear with each revolution.
Seeds replenish the earth.
Among the ruins, the devastation, something grows.
Something we can all see.
Something we can all feel.
And this something gives us reason to carry on.
To carry on.
Tomorrow we will open our eyes again.
Wider maybe.
We will cultivate love, kindness rules the day.
We will dance, sing and embrace,
Choose words wisely, show reverence,
Nurture with a quiet presence.
Tomorrow we will open our eyes again.
Maybe even wider.

ALL I WANT

In the space between us,
All I want is your love
All I want is your gaze upon me
All I want is to taste your lips
All I want is to know your joy
To feel the vibrations of ecstasy,
The goddess twirling with desire
In the space between us.

With endless possibilities of wanting
I am on the road, a ragged pilgrim
Lost in the wilderness
Each moment begins and ends
The wheel of life turns, slowly
All I want is time to cease
Past present and future
In the space between us.

THERE MAY BE ONE

A vision of the one, the other
Came to me last night in the shape
Of roundness, brownness, smoothness
No nationality, no borders
Able to give and receive pleasure
Comfortable in her own skin
Embodies wholeness, oneness
There is a sweetness and a toughness
She doesn't take any shit!

She mirrors by reflecting and deflecting
Loves herself and all travelers
Allows for healing but doesn't stray
Understands fragility and weakness
Provides goddess like strength!
Lives with an open heart
Breaks down and gets back up
Sees the past present and future
In every blessed moment!

There may be one, and there is
I know it! She exists in every woman
I see her! On the train, in books
In movies, in dreams, in poems
On the street, in my daughters eyes
And in the beloved, often disguised
If only it were revealed, unveiled
By every woman man-child alive,

There could be unity, peace on earth!

There may be one and there may be many
I have my eyes peeled, my heart open
I have doubt, yes, and I have faith
The great mother has me in her arms
Giving me determination to yield
I succumb! I am on my knees!
Plant a tender kiss on my forehead
Out of it I will grow strong from your loving touch
I will be whole again, I will be home!

In the name of universal suffering,

For those of us who are bereft,
Who yearn for the mother's touch
Let us bow down and touch the earth
Supplicate in surrender and sacrifice,
Give great thanks for the goddess within,
The other emerging as if from a dream,
And the awakening spirit all around us.
May we all be one!

INDIGESTION (or why the codfish is nearing extinction)

My friend Margaret Howard seems to have evaporated.  There’s no sign of her. Makes me wonder for a moment if it’s her or me that’s disappeared.  I pinch myself. I’m still here.  I press my face against the window and attempt to stare down the winter.

My wife called me at work today to see how I was doing.  Okay, I replied. Upon my urging she opened the window a crack and a small offering was made. A reference to a side of me for which she has little fondness, I gathered. The other day I channeled my beloved grandfather on the West Side Highway. He was a yeller. My father is a yeller.  I’m a yeller.  My son is a yeller too. Sitting on the passenger side, a car swerved dangerously close to us so I let out a frenzied cry.  Or a frantic scream.  Maybe a hysterical yap. Whatever the case, it startled my wife who confessed, with slight hesitation, that she is sensitive to these rather overwrought reactions of mine even though I’ve bellowed and boomed with similar outbursts since we met, fifteen years ago. Surely she took this one to be a critique of her driving skills although I had no conscious objective to make her feel unworthy.  Just typical of me, I mused. However, afterward she experienced acute stomach pain lasting for several hours. The timbre of my voice pierced her very soul.  And lately, I’ve been contentious. The tension between us is palpable, and we both yearn for it to come to an end. She wishes we could be friends again.  “So you want to be just friends?” “No, that’s not what I mean.”  I’m sure we both wondered, “what’s next”. And it was time for her to pick up the kids.  Outside, the sleet was also palpable.

I believe Margaret Howard may have been abducted by the Tea Party Movement. Perhaps she’s even joined forces with Sarah Palin, dug herself deep into the Christian right.  I may have to attempt a dangerous rescue mission. What has become of my once upon a time friends?  Middle aged and lost. Caught in a time-space vacuum that only spits you out when you’ve been chewed up. It’s really a regurgitation process, life.  To explain: in order to find happiness you must be fully digested and vomited out onto the kitchen floor.  Then someone, likely your spouse, will take a wet rag and wipe you up.  Not wanting to put that rag in with the rest of the laundry, you will find yourself thrown down the garbage chute.  You are then taken on a joy ride in a NYC Sanitation truck and deposited onto a barge heading for the North Atlantic where you are unloaded into the grey waters with the few remaining Codfish.  One of those fish will probably eat you unwittingly before it gets hooked by a Portuguese fishing boat. If you’re lucky you will be sold to a Dominican market in Inwood, Upstate Manhattan, where you will hang for weeks, maybe months as a piece of dried bacalao until you’re purchased by a well endowed mamacita with the intent of making a finger food out of you.  Her husband will then force several portions of you down his throat and, shortly after, proceed to shit you out of his oversized asshole and flush you into the East River. That’s la vida loca, baby! Oy mami!

Before my wife hangs up she lets me know she’d like to talk later.  I sit for a moment to marinate on the conversation concluding that if I refrained from yelling in moving cars (at least in her presence) things might improve.  It also occurred to me that it might only take a small peace offering to relieve the indigestion and move on.

BIRTHDAY POEM 1/24/11

It’s really a crapshoot whether we’re facing a dryer or wetter future.
On the first day of my 45th year, things may be chaffing a bit.
Ignored all calls, emails, twits and twats from friends and family.
I fancy myself a misanthrope so mustn’t indulge in such twaddle.
Sitting on the A train, eight degrees outside, crowded already at 175th,
Fat Asian lady to my left thankfully scoots over to the next seat.
Skinny pretty Jewess takes the middle providing me a more comfortable ride.
I imagine what it would be like if Miranda July were here to guide me.
Or to consult with Yoko Ono, who may have appeared in last night’s dream.
Due to my nightly ritual, the inhalation of marijuana, it’s all a bit foggy.

I’ve written too many to do lists; my need for order can be overwhelming.
Perhaps if I allowed chaos to reign it might actually do me some good.
At 125th, the Jewess exits and the seat exchanges skinny for chunky.
All quiet save the low din of iPods; vacant stares all around.
I’m remembering my old friend Margaret Howard now…
How beautiful and seemingly unapproachable she once was;
Her perfect skin, strong broad shoulders, deep blue eyes and red lips.
We connected once; there was a moment, an open window maybe.
On the corner of 8th Avenue and 57th Street I kissed her briefly on the lips.
It was our collective birthday and I invited her to see a play.
John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation”, a hot ticket back then.
It didn’t really occur to me that we could have spent the night together.
She later married a Republican actor, had two kids, and moved to Kentucky.
I still live in New York City married with two kids and a dog.
I’ve been thinking a lot about her body for some reason, and her skin.
I think about all kinds of women these days in this way.

At work I spend my days listening to egos engage, especially my own.
Invitations to fulfill my desires, followed by guilt daring me to deny them.
My old friend Windi See works with me now, I got her the job.
She’s pregnant with her second child, a boy this time, glory be.
Today she confided in me her life is lacking so, in turn, I confided back.
It was a sad wistful discussion disrupted by a work related call.
Earlier I got an earful from the Creole beauty in the office next door.
With a need to be heard, I’m often her sounding board, which can be taxing.
Twenty seven year old issues, certainly not mine anymore, but entertaining.
Sometimes just watching her get all worked up can be a real thrill.
Overall, it’s a fair exchange, and I’m a willing participant.
Windi and the Creole are looking for answers and turn to me.
I’m looking for answers and am grateful that we can turn to each other.

One forty fifth and close to home; Dylan in my ears.
Highway 61 Revisited, one of my small comforts.
An urge to check into the Chelsea Hotel; single bed, desk and window.
Hand padlocked to a pen, I would write; nothing stopping me; no hindrance.
No nagging regrets, no unfulfilled dreams; only the muse.
No internet, no smart phone, no Facebook; no distraction.
At home I am not a king, I am Dada, chief cook and bottle washer.
Also dogwalker, bill payer, bookkeeper and slave.
Don’t get me wrong, I see potential for domestic bliss.
I mean a little coconut oil goes a long way…
Especially when applied with passion and love.
Instead, at night I crawl into the sheets on the right side.
Lungs engorged with my nightly sleeping potion.
Dreams await; sometimes they keep me alive.
Sometimes though I wake up unsettled and angry.
Either way, I am halfway through life and the door is ajar.