Country Sounds

You are welcome to these words,
Out there, in the heavy night, roaming;
You are welcome indeed, O nameless brother,
So be still;

I know how the sun shines differently;
These sepia weeks are mine too;
And I know that your dying wish was to live
One more hour, just one more;

But I would kill you again, brother,
Just the same;
So gather your chains,
And leave me my pretty ashes

A Scrap Of Paper, Reclaimed

Standing in awe before a streetlight
All around, darkness mingling
With the ghosts I knew by name
Brushing up against a cone of illumination
Silent, silent;

Above, a red moon howling
Shearing stars, already dead
Themselves ghosts,
Masquerading as angels;
Their glimmering remains
Not unlike the light I sat beneath
Half a warm night, wondering
Where they end and I begin

Twenty Feet Of Ice

I'll never lose you
That's not how it happens;
You'll simply vanish
And all the reasons we'll weave,
Drunk on cleverness
Amount, in the end
To nothing at all
Except, maybe, our shared solitude
Born, as we are
So alone, elemental
Natural, and pure
Like the fading glory
Of a great glacial tide
Receding for the last time
Into memory;
But these journeys go on
Joining mountains with the sea
Carving continents like paper hearts
Everywhere, divided;
The spirits we see or don't see
Are brought together in time
Rock and water
Valley and sky;
Not finding is a blessing
Not searching, better still;
When I stopped to rest, and found you
Something in me disappeared
And now, lighter,
I can walk a little faster
Overland,
Distant and dreaming
To my northern home

Lawrence Was Here

For a long time it seemed like things had shifted
No more mountains crowded my imagination
And the river had long since vanished
Leaving a void desolation too terrible to contemplate
Only the scars of the past to remind me that I had lived
Like black jewels in the dust
Of a desert so far reaching and hopeless
I could hardly bear the sight of it~

But it seems an oasis can be actual or illusory
In the spirit of the seeker
I saw yours and knew I was saved, or doomed
And stayed my course in hope of something, anything
A little water, a little food
Perhaps a circle of shade to make my death easier
And in all my struggling, it seemed worthwhile
To follow the rising sun~

What We Take And Choose To Leave

I walked gently along cushioned streets
Stopping every so often to reach out my hand
For I was blind, in my dreaming
And reckoned the world by touch
Feeling the presence of objects unseen
The imposing mass of a house
The perceptible sway of passing trees
Though seemingly bound for some final end
I was content with the journey

A coastal wind, ocean scented and familiar
Swept me confidently along my path
And in my mind, it was a golden river
Filled with things half forgotten
The sad voices of the past
Swirling in the currents which surrounded me
Permeating so deep it was like a bonding
And in my sudden lucidity, I understood
That no journey is defined by its end

Front Porch Blues

None of my poems are ever finished
They simply grow and become strange
A syllable here, a comma there
Until all I can recognize is my own incompleteness~

As though I could ever write enough
To tie the whole monstrous thing together
This mass of memory and defeat,
Love and it's consequences~

All of it defies capture
Like some semi domesticated beast
Familiar, but still very dangerous
Barely suppressing it's natural violence~

Nothing honest is meant to be chained
I understand that much
And if we are insane, then let it be a liberation
Let it be a reason to live~

No Need For Sequels

I'm alone now on waves of terrible nostalgia
For places I will never see again
And perhaps never really knew in the first place
Only this pain in my chest to keep me awake~

I've swallowed the raw promises of life
Chasing each bitter mouthful with fine wine
And living hard within a silence too deep to define

There's no way to see past these walls tonight
How many miles now separate us
How many trials, verdicts and appeals?
A confused wind knocks at the window~

Then a voice of reason from my bedside drawer
Thoreau is expounding his pondless lament
With a comb for a table, and a sock for a tent

Deserve Has Nothing To Do With It

What did you think would happen
When I finally stopped asking?
Did you see a future full of joy
And the easy security
Of my predictable love?

Didn't you notice that our bridge
So carefully built
Was never meant to weaken
But only to endure
Or else collapse?

No logic could have saved us
There was never a purpose in words
Our perfection was silence
And the power to weave
Those things we need, but refuse to receive

Auspicious Signs

Looking back from a mountain top
One does not see the beginning of the path
A flower falls, we go on living
And say that death comes too soon
But too soon for what?

The flower is your teacher
Why speak of progress and live in decay?
The universe is blooming within you
So much more than words can express
In transient breaths of emptiness

Playing At Emptiness

"I'm dying to live", she said
Soft and meaningless in the velvet dark
While I lay still, absorbing nothing
Like the night itself
Indifferent to the illusions of love
Wanting so much for her to see
That living well
Is graceful disintegration
No lessons to learn
But like the moon, rise and fade
So I said, "life is a word, not what happens to us"
And closed my eyes
While she sat and cried

The Grace Period

The more I feel it slipping
The more I let it go
It's all or nothing
So I ask for nothing
And receive eternity
To try, try again

Not yet, not yet
Not ready, not set
Another year, another lifetime
Grinding out the dream
A kalpa for you
A kalpa for me

Adam's Rib

Don't come around here, as if the sun
Were your constant lover, and I
Some sort of sickly constellation
Too distant and dark for your mind

Because baby,

There's always extra room on a sinking ship
Disasters are a matter of opinion
Eve wasn't deceived by the snake
She knew Eden was a mistake

I Sleep To Be Closer To You

Hey beautiful, I saw you today
But didn't bother to call
For what could I say
After all this time away
Except that I miss you very much
And not a day passes by
Without your smile on my mind

So I'm here again, in the early hours,
Resorting to words
These empty symbols I can't seem to fill in
Without your blessing
As if every line and simple rhyme
Is your soul's gift to my impoverished heart
Long ago claimed by your wonderful name

But when dreams finally come
I'm amazed at the feeling when I see you
Sometimes it's too much
And I wake suddenly to an indifferent world
Cut off from your touch
A kind of dying, each time I lose you
To the callousness of dawn

Voyagers

Do you remember the tides of your birth?
I see the ocean in your eyes
From an impossible depth flows our common essence
It's form, your beauty
More enchanting than any horizon
Our names were written on ancient waves

Sun-kissed, radiant, gleaming
This planet's music is our mother's voice
Soothing an endless desire for freshness,
A need she is always willing to satisfy
Perhaps the only solace to be found
Adrift, as we are

In a solitude shared
Your spirit is what it chooses to be
Plant the tree of life and watch it grow
All things to their proper season
Your greatest perfection
Is your love, awakened

Autumn Enso

Sitting here in your open palm
It seems like a dream
For the lotus I plucked only this morning
Now rests neatly in your hair
And all the trees of my private valley
Have bent to your approach

Even the moon has begun to circle
Closer, to light our meeting
All the world is before you, my love
In every way, it is your servant
And yet somehow
We see only each other

The Rain Garden

People talk about nature
Using holy language
And say that spirits exist
In oak trees and oceans

I see the reason for this
But nature would not
For what is an oak tree
If not the ocean?

And what is a language
If not a million blades of grass
In the boundless expanse
Of our shared valley

So you can listen to rain
And ask for absolution
But the lake in the sky
Will never reply

For we are not guilty
Only lost in ourselves
Like the mountain and the river
We are the cause and the effect

Wandering

The way to Cold Mountain
Is not explained in any book
Unless you can read the autumn sky
Or decipher an ancient riverbed

So put down your pages and breathe
Open your mind and receive
What a poet calls his muse:
The freedom of formlessness

One Thousand Steps

Here come the saffron figures
Their all seeing eyes, fixed
On heaven's molten soul
Monks of no-man's land,
I am your worldly witness
No Gautama, but a prince
In a society of princes
A self-made royal peasant
Still turning the wheel

Ananda, where are your sutras?
The Fire Sermon has cooled
Buddha at the beginning, Buddha at the end
Our journeys are made on holiday
Without commercial interruptions
Lord, I am no warrior king
Full of death and honour
But a mountain worshiper
Searching for my Lhasa

Quiet Lives

Walk with me a while
And I'll show you where I come from
The rusty shacks and rosefields,
The dusty lanes and derelict dreamscapes
Of my interminable cradle
Set to the music of a wandering moon

Rising over a land bathed in transience
Too deep for a shallow stroll
This ocean of scenery
Is the heart of the matter
So walk with me a while
And I'll show you where I come from

Nautical Miles

Once more, you've led me away from disaster
From the dark seed in my soul
Creeping, silent as death
Once more, your light has withered the plague
By which I shall again be afflicted
That strange enemy, and brother, of my heart

My love, there is no time for empty words
So put away the pen, and I will not pick it up
Desire's muse is the open sky, and your wandering eye
Fixed upon it's mystery
Like Ulysses, borne away on winds of fate
To some lost and lonely shore

And though I keep your name upon my door
Who will you be after such a journey?
What terrible scars will mark your beauty
And deceive my loyal spirit?
If the sun is still your master, follow it now
Follow, my love, and find what remains of your native land

Dichotomies

I was never lost
Until I lost you
And discovered that life is not lived
For no reason
And, that reason is not found
In blind searching,
But rather, in helplessness

Cape Spear

There is no solace like an oceanic sunset
How it's light pours into you
And each gilded wave, rising
Tells the story of your life in splendid colour
While budding stars bless your eyes
And salt stained breezes
Carry distant prayers
To be born in the freshness
Of innocent hearts

Sea Level

When their foundations begin to shift
All mountains become pawns
Of a greater game
In which no mountain or man
Can hope to remain unchanged
But not understanding
We trample and rage
Leaving our scars upon the earth
As if we were the force of creation
And not simply
It's imperfect result

This Mountain Kills People

When I was eleven, it occurred to me
That Melissa in math class
Could in fact
Be the answer to all my problems
Her flowing hair and subtle smiles
Led my awkward mind
To believe in what?
Tentatively, we'll call it love

Then, at fifteen
There was Melanie
More than I could bear
She had me counting sheep
While the streetlights played shadow games
Through my bedroom window
Mixing Pearl Jam and Live
And all I wanted, was her soft hand in mine

Twenty gave me Kristin
But our town was too small
For expanding ambitions
And not even her eyes could see
That nothing really changes until we do
Those familiar afternoons
We passed without a word
Too full of the future

These I can see, plus a hundred more
And each is kept close
Defending their legacies from Time, that ancient thief
Of all that guides and nurtures the soul
The thief of love
So whether fresh and fragrant
Or set in stone
I'll keep them all, and continue home

Romeo

What I really want, old friend
Is to give you up
But my feet won't obey
They've gone off like rogues
To stalk the empty lanes
Of memory's twisted city

And thinking now, that the light of a star
Is the evidence of it's demise, I understand
For at their beauty, we've gazed and wondered
And steered our ships for home
Navigating by ghosts
Because death is reliable

And lovers are not
Just ask Romeo, if he will speak of it
How the centuries describe
Our blind devotion
To false endings, twists of fate
And the inevitability of stars

Four Years

If you've spent any time
On the Hamilton waterfront
You'll know how the lake shimmers
Just around twilight
When the couples are winding
Through Bayfront Park
And looking west
From the floating gazebo
Those sunsets of gold
Leaving empty spaces in your soul
And how the air seems to swirl
Around the dragon boats, moored
Like long sleeping serpents
Among the cattails
Waiting for their call of duty
And you'll understand
That these things are all simple
Honest scenes of an evening
In a city defined by raw truths
But with the right ears
You can almost hear
The gentle swaying of destiny's chime
Sweeping down the mountain
Over the bridge
And away beyond a smoky horizon

Days Apart

Climb the old maple
And it's strength becomes yours
One seed in the earth
Two hearts in the sky
All great lovers
Are born to die

The Ferryman

Siddhartha, you are lost now
Among the hungers of this downward life
On a pilgrimage of suffering
Waiting to become
The everlasting child of the sun

Much have you seen
From the wisest have you heard
Enduring all hardships, you have forsaken and renounced
Faced death and desire
Tasted lust and loss

Oh Siddhartha, do you hear your lover's call?
For Kamala is waiting
Beyond the garden you will find her
Sweet Kamala, a spirit like yours
Lying together, you will be as one

Or does the river possess your gentle soul
Whispering of life's passing
And the futility of mortal love
The many eyed river, your holy teacher
Listen now to it's emptiness

Siddhartha, your sadness grows the world
The moon is your companion
All paths your lotus eyes behold
Endless is your journey
Bearing the Om across time

A Dialogue Of Departure

You asked me to explain myself
But that can't progress
Unless we can listen to what isn't said
And see past what's written
Those clever little meaning traps, still fresh in our eyes
To go beyond everything, including ourselves
And maybe just try
To be what we are inside
Those children we can still hear
Under layers of age and acceptance
Because I think it's important not just to know
But also to feel
What can't be transferred in these dialogues
Like eyes open, minds free
And the simple human subject
Of maybe you and maybe me

A Formulaic Faith

There's no telling how long this can last
If a day were a month
Would it be enough to explain?
Could we walk and just let go the hours
Those dead days of wondering
And wandering too
Heads held high to support sinking hearts
Would it make up for all those lost evenings
If we saved just one?

Nocturne

The tyranny of a day lived
In samsara's wheel
The world beyond sight
Becoming a vague heaven
Where your body is a flame
Full of abstract angels
A purified corruption
Flowing deeper than love
Past the five gates
And all our words
The wheel renders mute
Until silent remains
Trace the edges of your smile
Like snowflakes gently falling
Into my evening tea

My Inheritance

The great irony of searching
Is that one loves the search
And not the finding
To have a thing destroys it's value
There is no integrity in ownership
We possess our hearts
And are the caretakers of our happiness
But a rose does not bloom
Because we expect it to
Neither will an oak tree grow
For our need of shade
So why do we suppose love to be different
And harvest our souls in the spring?

Half The Cat

Leonard Cohen, in his robes
Is he still writing?
I hope for more words
More wisdom, more love

Perhaps greed is not the way forward
Though it be a wanting for the best
Desire is still desire
Count flowers instead

It's raining now, small drops on the window
Mr Cohen is with the breath
Perhaps already a buddha
His path is a beautiful one

I drink my tea and try not to drift
Because I know these robes are earned
With poems, cups of tea
And raindrops on the window

Islands

Every time I return to you
It's a homecoming long awaited
Wherever I go, I am tied to your shore
And the hardships of my journey
Are dissolved at your door

Torres Del Paine

This is my path, freely chosen
To come so far and leave you behind
Planting a rose of remembrance
In the dust of your body
And bending to kiss the soil
That gave us to each other

But your kiss is also this summer moon
Inaccessible, you rise on dark waves
Beyond mountains, you speak to me
As our sorrows mix the night
And the words we left to die in silence
Surround me now like mist

Similar Scenes

I've never met anyone
More terrified of affection
The way I looked at you
Like pouring silk into fire

And your awful vacancies
Returning again and again
Without laughter or love
What kind of heart is blind to itself?

Nothing Given

Don't tell me about destiny
Because I've seen it's shadow
Creeping like poison
Across whole continents
Devouring the innocent
And smiling, shark-like
While we prayed
To hollow idols

Our great slogan of salvation
Lies in ruins
A defeated witness
It never had a chance
Not in these trenches
Where the dead sing
Like joyful prophets
Of a scorched future

Of Acceptance

All children can see the dharma
Being never hidden
From innocent eyes
Neither obscured
Nor buried
But flowing free
It embraces young hearts
Like a velvet sea

And our love too,
Was an acceptance of truth

So many evenings
I've thought of your questions
And my shallow answers
Which were actually pleas
Dying to be born
Of a sorrowful need
A spirit constrained
And forced to it's knees

And your moon-pale face,
Searching in vain

Lost in haiku landscapes
Or Neruda's golden coast
Your heartbeat echoing the raindrops
Of our first night together
Rhyming bliss and despair
The heralds of our love
A hopeless dedication
To a hopeless affair

For A Friend

Feeling tired, I sleep
It takes no learning to do this
Yet my mind rebels
Overburdened with lessons

The sun is not taught to rise
Only our hearts need such instruction
But a master understands
That the river of life

Is not a river

Salt Water

When I first saw the ocean
Standing in the waning light
Of an east coast evening
It seemed to me a dead thing
Ominous in it's size and wholly alien
And my father, more accustomed to the sea
Pointed out England
His hand on my shoulder
Reassuring and steady
His huge voice mingling
With the crash of wave on cliff
Suddenly so close I could feel the spray
Clean, pure scent of the Atlantic
Which is not dead at all
But so alive that I couldn't comprehend it
The mother of the world
My father's gift to me

Friends Of The Way

Lying in my bed
I remember the old stories
From birth to death
A momentary scene
Rivers and mountains
Do not meditate

You And Me

Because life changes too fast
For our slow longings
I want you to know
That here
In this unified heart
Lie the pieces
Of your poet's soul

Itself a vision
Born before memory
Sister of the sun
Child of the sea
Your eyes betray cosmic relations
Like speaking stones
Carved to match

You and me

Haiku

Midnight rain
Dispels my grief
The crickets too, are silent

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

Dewdrops in the sun
An old dog shuffles slowly
Past my front door

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

Evening mist
Obscures my path
Churchbells cut the silence

Foreign Affairs

Thousands are born in the morning
A thousand more die under the moon
What kind of teacher is war?

Families huddle together
Waiting for dawn
But the sun is well hidden
And the lamp is burning low

Tell them it's for God
And watch the tears flow
Bullets explain nothing

Words can make sense of death
But never relieve the pain
So I sip my wine, as devils dance
And angels pray for change

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Civil_War

Cedar Street

They told me everything
As if they knew
Confidently blind
And floating on lies
I smiled at my accusers

Remember how we laughed
Like brazen gods
Along summer avenues
So natural and clean
More Eden than Adam had

Those great golden evenings
Are so much fantasy now
Baseball games and barbecues
Scent of burning oak
Revealing the tenderness of youth

The Southern Road

I can scarcely imagine
A mountain's joy
Heaven reaching
While rooted deep
In native soil

To be a lonely Everest
Conversing with the moon;
Prayer flags in the sun;
An eternity of solitude
Watching truth erode the lie

Holding

It wasn't the way we met
Though I remember it well
Spring nights like velvet
And your voice, wine colored
Flowing out
River-wide
Seductive amongst the banter
Of mannequin strangers
Inspired something
Long forgotten
But suddenly alive
In your beautiful eyes

Civil War

Your eyes were a judgment
A condemnation of broken pacts
Sealed long before my time
And left shattered
By some ancient nemesis
Writhing still in your memory
As the years pass slowly
Like autumn clouds
Across a vintage sky

Haiku

Midsummer storm
Old trees sway gently
In the rain soaked breeze

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

October sky
An eagle circles once
Then disappears from sight

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

Autumn campfire
This slumbering moon hangs low
Over ancient peaks

For The Road

More than the talks
And uncertain requests
The prideful demands
And intimate tests

What I miss

Is your breath
Sweet, as you slept
Cradled in dreams
And my soul, finally clean

Moving On

No wonder we suffer.

I can't remember ever being told growing up that it's a virtue to be content. Instead of compassion, I learned self interest. The terms "value" and "worth" were inextricably tied to the material world. I've heard it said that the advancement of a civilization depends directly on these principals. That without greed and dissatisfaction, there would be no progress. This makes sense to the kind of mind I'm supposed to be programmed with.

But it's not right.

It's not worthy of us.

And it reeks of cheap parlour trickery. Nothing about the concept of true progress suggests to me the continuation and development of a paradigm based on casual exploitation, veiled apathy and willed ignorance. To advance at all, we'd need to shuck off the entire mess and begin building from a level human plane of understanding. The proud myth of individual/familial/nation

al independence is quickly dissolving like so much magic smoke, leaving only a lingering sense of fragile smallness in those of us so long convinced of our self importance.

It puts me out of place.

It leaves me on the fringe.

I feel isolated as I write this. The further my thinking takes me from mainstream methodologies, the less connected I am to that ease of spirit which exists in familiarity. Why am I here? It's a question with innumerable answers, none of which can reflect the absolute terror I experience almost daily when confronted by a future not asked for or wanted. Separation is something so crucial and dangerous. And solitude has always been a refuge. But now it's different; now it's about getting in touch with what can only be described as a merging of truths.

Purpose

My parents always told me there was beauty in work. They would use expressions like "labours of love" and warn me against building castles in the sand. To my childish mind, these jewels of aged wisdom rang decidedly hollow, and I would cringe at their usage. Now I can see how appropriate the analogy is. The best works of our lives are not built with tools and toil. Those are just the surface elements. They're built with dedication and love and sacrifice.

I think we have the wrong idea about work because our culture has evolved a separation between what we do to survive and what we survive to do. There's no unity of purpose; just a few lucky people doing what they love and the rest doing what they have to. The explanations for this are many and true: a vicious consumer culture, social fragmentation, media manipulation, division of labour, overpopulation...on and on. And at the bottom of it there's this fundamental split, between occupation and existence.

But shouldn't our works be our lives?
Can't we alter this paradigm to develop something more human?

I think it's worth recognizing that beyond bank accounts and banter, there is another very important element of happiness. It's measured by our need to be engaged in meaningful effort. And maybe we should be listening to that instead of what our fears recommend.

Smalltalk

There is truth in the classroom
Among dusty old notes
Woven in lectures
And injected by rote

There's truth in the pub
Flowing raucous and free
In every old story
And smile you see

Truth's in the sunset
Beyond theory and song
But the moment you realize
It's already gone

Truth is in words
All tangled and stuck
Like a mind full of questions
Or a heart with no luck

Blindness

I found a little diamond
In the gutter, out walking
Shining bright in it's squalor
Proud and indifferent
To the busy passing feet
Themselves too proud to see
What treasures lie hidden
From frantic hearts

Traces

My hand on your trembling cheek
Is what I remember
When I need to remember

During long evenings
Or sometimes in dreams
I see the tears in your eyes

And when I start to say something like
"You don't have to go"
My heart swells up to silence the sound

The Merging

Through all our wandering
And waking life
Beyond dying, dreams
And transient strife
Consciousness flows
Like a river of flame
Formless and strange
Down ancient slopes
Through valleys of hope
Gently to merge
All wisdom and courage
In the golden womb
Of a lotus bloom

Dylan's Mode

Saying nothing, our eyes betray
Simple truths of separation
Subterranean promises
And long nights in the city

Moonlight falls in easy waves
Cold and close and calm
Kiss the sky, she softly said
And set to earth your weary head

Haiku

Mid winter storms
Your soft footprints, buried
Under fresh snow

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

Autumn in the forest
Falling leaves do not disturb
These ants on my path

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

Cold rain on the window
This flickering candle
Illuminates my room
---------------------------

Early morning snowfall
The old church
Is silent

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

Afternoon sun
Walking by a pond
I notice my reflection

Ships

When the world you know turns cold
And the ships of your golden youth
Fade to pearls on the horizon,
Know that I'm gazing on that vastness
With the same blue eyes
That once saw only you

So take your withered heart
And wash it clean on the tide
Fill the ocean up with crimson tears
Let your shattered spirit bleed
Until, empty and free,
You become the evening sky

Forest Paths

I found you on the forest path
Sitting quietly by a stream
And when I asked for wise direction
You spoke words as from a dream:

To the west, you said, in gentle tones
No poet travels far
The roads are full of bandits
And the towns are choked with cars
A greedy mind rejoices
At the sight of such a place
But hear me well and watch your step
In the west is want and waste

Then glancing up to greet the sun
Your face a mask of time
You spoke again of distant lands
Spinning truth inside a rhyme:

The eastward road is winding long
With snares to halt the weak
A thousand tests of virtue
Shall a seeker surely meet
But if by chance you make it through
Your heart will find it's place
I see in you a thirst for peace
A desire best embraced

Your words, I mused, are very strange
But which way shall I take?
I see no clear advantage
The decision's hard to make

But the choice, you cried, is ready made
Does the wind not whisper it's name?
Listen closely to these ancient trees
Are your spirits not the same?

All My Friends Are Bodhisattvas

All my friends are Bodhisattvas
And when they visit, robed in red
I ask them twenty questions
Like a heart plays with a head

Faces framed by sorrow
Eyes like sun kissed seas
They speak of holy mountains
And tell me god is in the trees

I offer tea and coffee
With mindful, practiced care
But food is never mentioned
Their appetites are spare

And when evening's golden child
Has blossomed into night
I hand them each a poem
Expressing joy and deep delight

They come to see me often
These gentle friends of mine
Because my home is always open
For freedom's light to shine