If You’ve Ever Loved A Child
I lived a happy life.
No matter what people
tried to make me,
I found my moments.
If you’ve ever loved a child,
you know.
If you’ve ever loved a child,
you’ve been broken.
If you’ve ever loved a child,
you’ve been reborn.
If you’ve ever loved a child
you feel the disturbance.
It’s so clear, in contrast
to purity of your relationship
to your love of your child.
You have a relationship with love,
the object, your child.
The object of your love
is your child.
The relationship to your love
is yours alone and is
pure.
Once you experience the pureness
of your love (for your child),
you can never see the world the same.
The veil is meant to be removed.
Love is meant to reign.
Life does not have to be full
of conflict and war.
You do not have to be full of
conflict and war,
unless you want to.
And this is the disturbance
you become aware as you deepen
into the purity of your relationship
to your love.
You see it everwhere,
the ripples and waves of pride
and violence
and hate
that have surfaced.
They have surfaced in the world
as they have surfaced in you
and we know have the beautiful choice
to face our hate, face our violence
as we see it for the beacon
of hope that it is.
Hope for transcendence,
hope for love,
hope for peace,
hope for freedom.
Think of your child now
and your love for them
and imagine, now, the part
of you that loves
and now,
the purity of that part of you
and of the bond between
you and love,
like coming home
and being home
at the same time.
And now,
read the news of the world,
and reveal to yourself
that the news of the world
is the news of yourself.
This is waking up.
This is the path to love.
The disturbance is a gift.
If you’ve ever loved a child,
you know.
Drastic Measures
You can’t listen to your parents
Because they’re enchanted
By the world they created
With every choice
And they’ve forgotten their
True responsibility.
You can’t listen to the kids
Because it’s not fair to them
I want an answer so badly
I want an answer so badly
But not from you.
I think drastic measures are called for
And I’m usually right
Of course maybe the measure
Is sitting on the couch
As the wild fire burns all around
Maybe the measure is letting
Yourself be consumed.
Where Love Lives
I said NO to my son
With full meaning
And commitment
And love,
Not for him,
For me and for life,
And so for him.
I didn’t help him
And so I helped him the most.
He only understood the feeling
Of not being helped
He did not understand the lesson
And that doesn’t matter
Because I did
And that’s my job
His job is to be upset
And to not understand
My job is to say no because
I love myself
And want to teach him
How that exists.
How.
How.
And so I feel the pain
Of NO
I feel the pain of my son
Feeling his pain
Feeling un helped
Feeling confused
I feel the pain of my own
Contradictions and
Hypocrisy
I feel the pain of his pain
And I do nothing
To relieve it
But also I do nothing
To make it greater
I am there with him
As me
As observer
And protector
And I am not deterred
From the lesson by his pain
And I am, while all of this
Is happening
In love.
Warmest Hearts
A warm fire
and warm hearts abound
if we don’t have to fight
we can love
but if we don’t fight
we can’t love
be ourselves
there is no fear
only people we hold dear
and in the space
where one holds
there are mountains full of gold
and shining sun
and refreshing lake
no need or desire
for you to take.
Warming fire
warming hearts
a place below
the stops and starts
that runs constant
full of fruit
The place I know me
and I know you.
It’s not where we live
and that’s ok
but it’s within us
every day
and every minute
and every second
there is this way.
Put down your weapons
don’t hurt yourself
the place to hold
the place to play
is underneath your prideful way.
Warmest hearts
and warmest fires
light the soul
and life inspires.
Put down your weapons
war is retired
warm your heart
and warm your fire.
The Hard No
If you don’t think boys need structure
Clear roles, clear rules
A hard NO.
A fundamental NO.
Just try it and see how it goes…
How’d it go?
A hard no. A crystal clear,
“that’s not how it is” or
“that’s not how it’s going to be”.
I think they know
I think they can smell your accommodation
And although they want it like a fat man wants a cupcake,
Somehow they also resent it, they resent your accommodation
It’s offensive to them, even thought that’s not concept they understand
And you may think they’re getting something
Getting away with something
And they know they’re getting something
And everything might think that is straight up love
Give it, get it.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
It’s deterioration.
That’s the only thing being achieved.
Give them what they want,
They deteriorate
You deteriorate.
They don’t know it but they resent it.
They grow to hate you and the world,
And as you continue to give give give you just can’t figure out why this ungrateful little fuck treats you so poorly.
Merry Christmas
It’s Christmas and
Christmas is what I know
So that’s what I’ll call it.
I’m stretching to get outside myself
But I keep snapping back
So then I stop and try a different tac
My snapped back self
The one I’ve tried so hard to get away from.
Because really I can be myself and not be an assassin
People are delicate not really
But what the fuck, if they say they’re delicate, shouldn’t I believe them?
And if I don’t believe them then I’m the assassin.
Assassin, Asshole… No difference.
Merry Christmas
Shitting Pretty, Good Job.
Looking back,
most people in ESP were full of shit.
Looking in the present,
most people in the world are full of shit.
Being full of shit, I do not believe,
is the problem.
Looking back,
most people in ESP were willing to look at their shit
and knew they had it
and knew it affected their decisions and actions.
Looking the in present,
most people in the world are unwilling to look at their shit
know they have it
and know how it affects their decisions and actions.
Looking at your shit is hard because it sucks.
Looking at your shit is not something your pride wants to do.
Your pride wants you to think that your shit doesn’t stink.
Your pride wants to separate you from your truer self.
Looking at your shit is hard because it feels like shit.
It feels like shit because it’s supposed to feel like shit.
Looking at your shit changes your life.
Acknowledging your shit affects your decisions and actions changes your life.
Cleaning up your shit as a result of either of these changes your life.
Denying that you have shit…
Denying that your shit stinks…
Denying that your decisions and actions are affected by your shit…
Keeps your life exactly the same as it is now.
But maybe no one will notice,
especially if you do a good job
or are pretty.
Somewhere Inside
I float up, steam on a winter morning
Curling into myself
I curl and return to me
You
No. Not yet. I am still steam
Vague and shifting until I disappear
Steam on a Vermont Winter day
Grey and malice
Two souls defending false echoes
With hatred and competition
But the land is dormant
And covered in frost and ice
Somewhere inside, it is warm
Somewhere inside steam, not from coffee, rises and shifts and returns to itself.
Somewhere inside.
It’s Hard to be Friends
I’m talking with friends about Trump
and impeachement
and we don’t agree
and it doesn’t feel like friends,
but I’m going to try harder,
because I think we are friends.
When someone says they don’t agree,
what are your options?
When you’ve laid out your arguements
laid all all you have
and it’s crystal clear to you
and they still don’t agree,
what are your options?
I think this is the question it would be good to answer,
before answering the other questions.
Because I don’t think we agree.
And I don’t think it’s because we don’t have the “facts”.
I think we don’t agree because we feel hurt
and unresolved in our hurt
and our fear of being hurt more.
Who wants to be hurt more?
What are our choices in this, however?
Will we hurt others so as not be hurt more ourselves?
What if these others have never hurt us?
Or more difficult, what if they have?
This seems fundamental to me,
this seems like a foundational principle,
this seems like MLK, Ghandi, Buddha, Jesus,
this seems like non-violence.
This seems like peace.
But we may not be ready for peace.
It seems as if we are not ready for peace
by the way we treat those we disagree with,
and that’s “ok”.
“Ok” in the sense that it’s better to accept it
than to pretend we want peace and justice
so much that we will use force and violence
to achieve it.
Using force and violence and hate and anger
to achieve Peace and Justice is a way worse world
than might is right.
Give me straight up, honest bruttishness
over wolves in sheeps clothing any day.
So I guess, maybe it’s hard to be friends,
maybe that’s the point,
what is it worth to be friends?
Do you believe you can achieve Peace and Justice
through hatred, anger, violence and force?
It’s going to hard to be friends if that’s the case.
Art
Thinking about publishing
What do I have to offer
So what if it’s all falling into place
So what if you saw it
And wrote about it
Without regard for publishing
But with an idea that someday
Maybe someday
It would have more value to people.
It always had value to you
That’s why you do it
And you’ll keep doing it
No matter if anyone reads
But wouldn’t it be sweet if you
Could earn a living with it
Or even earn a pizza?
There’s nothing that you engage with more
Nothing really that’s more pure
There are other things you like to do
But on a scale, writing’s true
I just think it’s cool, it’s a snapshot
In time, a very peculiar time
And I think a snap shot might be helpful
Might be good
It’s art after all, not opinion
It’s all art.