The Poetry of Your Life

What spectacular thing can we say happened on June 12, 2011? Nothing comes to mind except the lifting of a black mood. I want to record something I wrote awhile ago about that thing I sometimes do...meditation. I haven't been able to achieve this thing because my mind has broken through the gate and has run away temporarily. So I must write this to remember what it was like to have my mind in its pen, grazing.

Today I realized there are layers to meditation. When you first sit down, you are faced with an onslaught of arrows; aches, pains, you're not this, you're not that, She's this, He's that, restlessness, the ache in your side, the hopelessness of your spine, the sleepy fluid in your sinuses, the elusive words of the chapter, the sins of your body, etc. etc. But if you face these arrows and breathe, you will descend deeper into a primordial mind ooze, an inchoate place where there is movement, exploding suns, collapsing black holes. This is the place where the images rise. Your back won't hurt anymore, your sins dissolve, your breath deepens. If you wait, you will see them, gopher holes, oven mitts, potted plants, thorns. And these images are the poetry of your life, metaphors for you to turn over, see what's hidden and what, with proper attention, may be explained.

Here are some poems:

48. Let the Genius Spin Gold

Let the genius spin gold, let her writhe

and birth out a red quail with a seraph's eyes.

Let the ship's anchor fall through her throat

in one fell swoop and pummel the acid

tongues in her stomach.

She walks around with a terry cloth towel

absorbing the crystalized thoughts of her

mind. Enough, says a small voice to

the left of her right ear. This voice is a

prayer that unearths the root covered in

fine dirt and happy worms.

Get the fuck out of the house says the

booming drum to the right of her left ear.

Call your mother.

But the washer churns, gurgles and spits

like an infant and there's always something

on the stove and in the oven. Even on one

hundred degree days.

She wants this, to cut a path to the river,

get down on her hands and knees in the

wet sedge, dunk her whole head in at

high tide when the water is shifting

and blessed.

Dunk, yes, her whole head, yes,

come up drenched in stone cold

blessings, swallow nothing, yes,

not a word, nor a thought, nor the salt

on her tongue, yes, nor the air she is

destined to breathe, yes.

49. Worlds

You learn to straddle worlds with a parade of

people at your heels, your own miraculous face

mirrored in the pits of their eyes.

In the first world there is the bathroom sink

with remnants of pearly soap and facial hair.

There are clouds that come to soak the Earth

for days.

There are books, rivers, torrents of symbols

filling the airwaves.

There is a dishwasher with its maw open

waiting for filth; crumbs jammed in crevices

as bothersome as dead flies.

In the streets, there are people who walk sideways

with pincers, hard crust shells, and twitching

black marble eyes.

Sometimes, at night, under a grapevine arbor

with staccato light and arcing stars, there is a

gathering of wits. Laughter.

The door to the second world lies behind

your own beating heart. Here life ripens,

as it should.

People wash your feet, open doors to

elegant rooms where you dance with lovers

who whisper your name among applauding

hands.

In the third world, you have missed the bus.

The keys to your car have turned into

wasps in search of a hive.

The river's one hundred year flood waters

rush under a severed bridge. Attached to the

bridge is a sign for the ferryman, but he

has already gone.

You must do one of two things, swim to the

other side where your loved ones are curled

in their beds like grubs, or wake up.

So you wake up.