On Koans April 16 2003
All poems
Simple
Infinite
in number
Craving to say the same
Autumn Eyes 12-18-90 2:20AM
In the cold September air
while tree trunks glistened fair
none did hear the autumn come
none did fear the winter -- none
but sweet children in their eyes
looked and were quite surprised
as the leaves blew through and round
laughing in the languid sun
and color pouring everywhere
whereso their eyes did gaze
where then their hands did touch
and trembled only in the midst of all
enamored, enraptured in the rending fall.
THE SILENT SHORES 1/10/91 2:48PM Thursday
Run away, run away, to the silent shores
of the stillpoint we shall go
And in the forests and in the fields
and burn them while the blind hand kills
men and mountain, God and whore
the bloody swords we held high
shall fall forever more
into the silence of the deep
The mountains cry
the winds will weep
and we shall to the stillpoint flow
and men shall laugh
and gods shall go . . .
into the stillness of the night.
I have never (stopped) 2:13 2/6/91
I have never stopped
to caress a rose
to smell it
or to crush it (except
accidentally
on occasions)
But (are you listening)
I want to
I will to
Kiss a rose in bloom
and dance
a dance of living death
(such sweet death)
in the valleys valed
in the rose bloom.
What Place Compassion? [A POEM OF AN ANCIENT JEWISH JUDGE] 10-23-90
In whom I might conceive
with his very looks deceive
The pleasant, the proper lord
of outstretched land--to conceive
a paradise anew ... without wars?
waged for all widowed eye to see.
But to love! oh, here comes he.
What, what? the wind is heavy in desert air.
Say, say? oh, no...nothing do I fear.
Do I feel compassion? I feel no pain
basked in lights and rainment
proper Jesuit priests did ordain.
No.
Ask not again, question never more.
It would destroy me
or lessen my being
to stone
and steel
and cold things in between.
Yes I love you, but leave behind.
What place compassion in the mighty father's din?
Far away, for eye to see
vastest hell prepared for thee,
who would love but would lie.
So go,--my love! Ho, go not after.
My love, the faint taste of honey'd lips
the drowning after golden slips
But then and again I hear myself,
and leave the laughter far behind.
And yet at his counsel
men would pause
and wait for days and years and yet..
To come to, to hear...
Good god! what do I fear?
To hear the opulent vision
is more than man should bare.
Ho, my love, now go not after--
He is dead he says but lives in me.
He is dead they say and I in thee.
HOLY WAR October 91
Our ways are not the ways of war
(steel and fire and screaming voices in the night)
but our fight is victorious still.
Each mind we match,
and strong words of our God echo in
til each drop fills their vessel overflowing
and war is forgot unto men.
(untitled) sept 30 '91
In one Law the universe bound
though to thy seekers
Derivatives
measureless
do confound
Movement is matter
and dark cessation the same--
but in other worlds
(by the one law bound.)
Hollow Men 1:24AM 3-19-91
The eye sees but does not perceive.
the mouth emanates but with words hollow
all the world is beyond the mere touch of desperate flesh
imprisoned within the essence of finite self.
Sing awhile longer gentle winds
though false in your flowing enchantment
your soft music masks my mingled screams.
There are no words, but there are sounds.
Entropy
But! are we not here now?
Though we decay into nothingness
from nothingness must we have been born--
once
and if once
why not again
and if again, why not forever.
Entropy is not death eternal
but change eternal
static.
True Love '91
Love crushes--
The serpent that
writhes
This way
--and that.
(untitled) 4-91
Feet. Stepping. Closer coming.
But not human.
eyelids seal.
ears listen again.
(break those feet.
disembody that being).
Dream of feet stepping. closer coming.
human sounding.
ears listen again.
(untitled) '91
Franny,
There are no more smiles
Where the eyes see clearly
or where lips touch against livid flesh.
(untitled) 11-29-90
God whispers in the hallway
only the broomsticks listen
And the coat rack pays him no mind.
God is waiting...waiting! oh hear,
down the dreary stairway a figure fainter
is waiting for you...will you cross
what have you lost, in an embrace or two?
In Reply 1/91
There he sits in silence yet again
and ponders with sad wonder
all the powers to perform
all the principle players drawn warmly
onto the waiting stage:
This one is the shadow evil,
This one the masque of death
There love unboundable...
and this?
What is this?
Who are you?
(dreams) 1/16/89
when the dreams fall and leave you confused
Do you lay in the field
Staring as time passes
And winter comes?
Do you speak burning words
that cast away thoughts wrong
that kill the soul and all your dreams?
(untitled) '90
[Note: I believe I was considering a bowl of corn-flakes one morning when I wrote this]
Judgment in the morning
Breakfast with the Beast
Though I feel like crying
The pain I fear the least.
Wake me! Wake--too late.
Compassion wails far away
And I feel cold
And much too old
To be in my undying youth.
(untitled) 6:46AM '93
Death is not my master
but a friend
that depresses me
and wants to chat all the morning
and after.
things of war 2/6/91 2:47-3:12PM
[Note: Read too much Sylvia Plath, and you too can write poems like this.]
things of war
and unsigned reprieves
these
are the tines of life
trilling round
and ever open wound
you know not
what i may think
and keep it that way--
you bloody freak.
No. leave my mind alone
(all the gods are gone
on a killing spree)
Daddy daddy
what do you see?
the village burns
and this heart in me
(SWEARS
you)
will never
k(no!)w
pleasure
again
out--
there
the napalm falls
in a misted rain
while
tall men call
about the burning plain
what do you see?
was it you?
or(oh god)was it me?
(She smiles in silence) sept 30/91
Every breathe I'm dying
(and she stares into the flowing fields of dawn)
Every word fails, with the winter come
(and tears fill her tender face,
washed by brilliance,
and the wind-swept dawn).
I have heard of a thousand pleasures of body and mind--
(but she turns her face
towards the radiant dawn)
--of a thousand ways to die and be reborn
(but she . . .
WILL
NOT
DIE!)
And stillness sits in silence,
burning in the now.
The sun rises in the eastern mist
the moon parts the river vale
and fast young fingers yearn
(CAPTURE)
for a few sweet moments
(TREMBLING)
mouth--
in mouth,
and eye--
within eye . . .
(yielding.)
The Last Poem sept 1 '91
Innocence
in the way she wakes without moving
(deep within)
and whispers in her warmth
smiling.
Cold, hard, the morning winds flow favoured
swirling through the far forest trees
mere inches
from his hands
(he dispels)
is touched, and gone--departed
the invisible essence
whirls to slaughter
in the receding now
(blinding the blade
that cleaves
essence--all)
While she waits
and contemplates
many voices, whispering in her one mind
(which she too dispels)
with bright eyes turned inward,
and light to lay the sun ashamed
and laugh to win the heart of kings
to her side.
Sweet the sun of a thousand tears
after the flowers have dropped away.
(untitled) feb '92
Cognition
comes in waves
receding
what deeper, baser instinct
finds without hope
cold cognition abates
grim thundering swells dissipate
in unseen eyebeams
reflecting now
Time was and will yet be.
Cognition sees, disseminates
untamable cacophony
into fine finite particles
resembling all.
Wholeness partitioned
is wholeness still,
though not whole
and what seems representative is only that.
cognition
knows but can not feel
the deeper, baser instinct.
(untitled) 5'93
And then I would speak to them of love for the devil
sympathy for the sinners
and defiant acceptance of the damned ...
for what a wasted world
without evil
Void then even of the slightest sensation
that draws the body into blackness
thoughts barren
acts unclean
Why praise a single blossom
lost amid a world of such-same blossom
but--
the one flower
blooming in the desert
How sweet each petal
to lucid eyes
to hardened hands
and to our own hearts
ever-
blooming
hope.
(untitled) '90
What is happiness? to be as God.
What is misery? to know that you are not.
(untitled) 1-9-90
They never understood, though they think they do now.
They never have, and they never will, for quit in fact
it was never about understanding at all.
An evil god laughs in the unattainable darkness.
Humpf. They are so sure. But it is merely a ritual,
performed tirelessly to a god dead to them long ages.
They change and manipulate to suit their own
immediate needs.
Well--so be it:
Hating eyes carve red lightning from across this self-consuming dream,
and there he waits--feeding on us all.
(untitled) Sept 22 93 5:49AM Monday
In those brief few seconds
when I open up the door
and allow compassion to come crushing all within
and lift hands,
trembling and streaming
across an unforgiven sky
I...
sink into exhaustion
armour covered
inward fade...
and I...
breathe
and I...
washed with darkness
close my mind again.
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![[Left Statue]](images/statue93_left.png)
![[Right Statue]](images/statue93_right.png)
![[Votive Candle]](images/votive.png)
![[Marty]](images/marty.png){kind=small}
As for the scribblings that too infrequently litter this page, most are mine.
And some are by old friends (as to which is whose, I'm a little fuzzy on).
The reasoning behind the cards of course, especially that of the smoke-filled
coffee-drenched donut-shop, speak for themselves. At least to me....![[Psycho: Jerrold Swafford]](images/psycho.png)
![[Ralph's Donut Shop]](images/ralphs.png)
![[Search '92?]](images/search0.jpg)