get into it

Right before my end-of-summer allergies hit, I generally have a spiritual crisis of some sort.

Maybe it's residual panic left over from the end of summer vacations. Maybe it's something to do with my birthday. Whatever the reason, I get panicky around the first of August way down deep in my soul.

Usually I don't even notice until I'm well into it. Reading books obsessively like the answer to life is in one of them. This year I had a spiritual crisis in statuary. I bought a Buddha, an Om, rearranged the little altar in my bedroom a hundred times--tarot cards, no tarot cards, amethyst, no amethyst. Some tightly locked place in my brain still believes that somewhere there's a "right answer" for how to live my life. (And apparently set decoration is key!)

A lot of it comes back to control. I want things to be fixed, to be static, to stay put so I can keep my eye on them. I'd love to have the secret formula on how to move through life effortlessly so I can get on to other things. What 'other things' those would be besides life? I have no idea...

Luckily these desperate, seeking brain storms don't last as long as they used to, nor are they as severe. Usually, I get through them to find myself back at my center.

This year, the biggest message I got from all my poking and prodding is that I need to unplug more. Get my face out of electronic screens and the pages of books and into life. Create rather than consume. Question rather than answer. Act rather than contemplate.

Every day I feel it more: time is slipping away. 'Today' is the answer to the question of how to live life. This is not a rehearsal. There is no strategic planning phase. This ol' world is just one big improv. Time to loosen up...

boneyard conveyor belt

I had a dream, night before last, of highways and city streets, teeming with people, buzzing with activity. The cinematic progression of the dream moved in a steady zoom, over the tops of heads, over the hoods of cars. At last people and machines gave way to an endless stretch of gravestones--a planetary Arlington.

And there, in my REM sleep, between the hours of dusk and dawn, some lingering spirit whispered enlightenment to me: "This is where it's all heading."

Suddenly I was no longer afraid. Suddenly I was no longer worried about making a mark on eternity, getting it 'right'.

What more is my life than a single note in some massive, unwieldy orchestral opus? A dotted sixteenth in the music of the spheres?

Ah, but to sound a note, just one, that has all the texture and feeling of a lifetime. Passionate, jubilant, unrestrained, free! To be a single sound in all the universe unmistakable for anything but me.

I intend to play true and then fade to dust and ash.

the emperor is naked

How much gossamer bullshit do you wrap yourself in each day?

There are afternoons I can't get the stink of it off me.
Oh, but how it glitters...

So many ideas, dreams, flights of fantasy--
brilliant, lofty, radiant--
they don't do a damn thing for the sag in my middle.

All my roles and airs:
boss man, brother, Buddha wannabe
just masks that look good from the inside
when my dick's still wagging in the wind.

"Into action!"

Naked. Into the shower.

All the good intentions and helpful books
and wise sayings in the world
are just so much dirt
circling of the drain.

Best to get rinsed down
into the plumbing of the now
like a wadded Kleenex nibbled by rats.
Transcend Mr. Wilde and realize
the stars are in the gutter...

fearless heart

So many threads of my past
twist together into tight karmic knots,
I think my mind may break.

That's the idea, anyway.

What's important is a fearless heart.

Mine is such a timid thing.
Compassionate in the abstract. Petty in the everyday.
My jealous Ego squats on the beating thing
like a red, juicy egg in a nest of angry thorns.
Love and affection doled out
in bloody drips and drabs.

I'm thirsty for the world. For life.
For fresh air and an open road.
The Great Vehicle is my heart.

I want to tattoo my compassion,
pierce it with rings and studs.
Make myself a bad-ass lover of everything.
Fly a pirate flag of acceptance and gratitude
from the bumper of of a hog named 'Serenity'...
Spit forgiveness into every gutter.
Bear witness to wonder in poetry.

Rise up heart!
Spread your wings and take to the sky...
One of these mornings, I'll stop fighting anyone or anything.

Oh, Wake up! Wake up!
my wild, fearless heart.