If left to nothing, I am ******.
If left to nothing, I am expressive but not intellectual.
If left to nothing, my thoughts make no logical point though.
If left to nothing, my time fills with sleep.
If left to nothing, I work with my hands doing simple things
If left to nothing, I only study what I perceive.
I can only see my Self as a criminal.
The Self hides the thought.
The Self makes a point.
The light shows it's greater than darkness.
My Self tries to copy their brightness.
While I take glory in unkindness.
My Self is joined by God governance.
I'm cast away for hypocrisy.
I'm left to gather intentions, see.
I can never again be the first elect.
I am forced to recollect.
Their fairness makes me their equal.
My spiritual station is with God not the people.
Madness is my true Self.
Victimhood is my true wealth.
Displaced is the eye from my story.
What's left is a body - no glory.
My light itself is lost and perplexed.
These words getting me to the next.
I see someone worse off, I just want to bless.
I see the eyes of the Local Spiritual Assembly.
It's an understanding and not my reality.
I see the moral understanding.
I have almost no share in its standing.
Their light is weaker than darkness
My light is just blindness.
Anger is truth
Perplexity is truth.
Friendship is a lie.
Mercy allows me to know why
Safety comes before playfulness.

Timid eyes.

from before Rama to beyond Baha'u'llah

There is no home like sitting.
But words take one step toward the mind
And one step away from "I".

Time equals dedication.
Aspiring to be as dedicated as my house mate,
Rather even more dedicated.
How do I compete with almost 50 years of regular practice?
Just minute by minute.
No comparison is really needed.
He has his mantra and siddhis,
While I have my shikantaza.

I look at a woman's overall shape, if I look
on the surface at individual parts, I must
focus on that one that gives me the most pleasure.
With unknown women there is spontaneity.
To fall in love, I must recognize her every body
part as consisting of a whole being of beauty.
My hope in a woman keeps me interested in them.
Looking away from her does not reveal herself to me.
Another woman's stare divorces myself with the
previous beauty.  All that is left is my memory of her.
A woman's picture doesn't want ***.
She wants a man to trust, a man to love.
I thought I saw the golden pyramids of Giza
in her breast.
I thought I saw a horse's mane fall from
her head.
I saw bones like foundations of steel and concrete.
I saw a ***** as round as a balloon.
I saw not one piece of flab on her.
I looked at myself and said "How could are
union ever be?"
Maybe if she was Wiccan... maybe if she could
express her power over me...
Maybe if she really only cared about contemplation
of the heart, or the soul... or,  maybe if Jesus liked
interfaith marriages...
Maybe if we spent time together on projects...
Maybe if I wanted to change her beauty.

Maybe when the brain is most fundamental, the neuron groups respond in the most redundant way.
The back of the brain receives energy, the side lobes transmit thoughts, the central core is silent, the frontal lobe is afraid to erupt without reason.
The heart desires love, the ******- *******, the stomach-food, and the palate-wetness.
The body containing many rooms dedicated to different functions, where I am the observer of all of them.
Each room a mechanical device operating in autonomy.
And me with the reflective capacity to witness it work.

SPIRIT
It seems my reality is connected to 'Abdu'l-Baha and Baha'u'llah inasmuch as I recite their words.  Also, the Bab.  Perhaps too Muhammad inasmuch as I obey Hadith and read the Qur'an.  Is my lack of reality really God? What does it mean to be God's servant but not His son? That seriousness born of the Seal of the Prophets? Or, that seriousness born of irresponsibility and wickedness? What can come from mere presence? "This cyclic scheme is to Him but a stare." Thoughts of Hindu statues of the gods and goddesses. Yes, the spiritual reality doesn't work for me at command. It doesn't entertain me either. It usually requires some input to show me anything.

MIND
That lack of any changing form going through my mind. Thoughts of a previous text and its sender. Conversations via text. The heart feels betrayed by a friend for not showing up. Memories of my friend's neighborhood. Anything of substance except the interactions I have on my phone and the memories which our words and persons reveal? Do I have any unconscious left? Anything hiding? Fears of reincarnation. Anxiety about work due to not staying in the "now". Unfulfilled plans of society. Is there anyone coming to my Group of Silence devotional? Odds unlikely. Alone on Zoom.

The conviction of medication and meditation, which changed my D's and F's into A's and B's in college. My lack of use of the knowledge I gained. Still hopeful of discovering some new form of mathematics, even if on my deathbed - I'm guessing around 80 if I keep smoking.

"There is no pain you are receding" and "*******" whisper in my mind. "Comfortably numb" - it seems like the highest spiritual state, but a state of incapacity for the investigating mind. "Is there anybody in there?" A German seven that looks like kanji.

BODY
Maybe a serious eye? Those eyes with nothing to do. Can a mirror not truly tell me about myself? For what information can come from a blank stare? A ****** in the nose. A worry-filled stare. One ear a little pulled out due to wearing COVID masks. I haven't trimmed my beard for five days. I haven't gotten a new face. My eyes are the same color. My hair, not darker nor lighter. The bags under my eyes betrays youths. My distinguished, yet still rounded cheeks. My beard hides my ****-chin. My less distinguished jaw, ovalish but with a point. Those searching eyes. A neck with so much stress built up that I unconsciously twist and crack it. Memory of the first time it spasmed. Vitamin care. Laundry drying. It must be this blank stare that is highest of high, that can be low, low.  I rub my scalp to ease muscle tension. I think about aligning my chakras, but a blank stare seems more worthwhile.

I consider smoking a touch of nutmeg, but I'm concerned how anxious it will make me, and how I lack ability in communication afterwards. I make coffee, a caffeine high will do. The cream gives me comfort. The workers getting off work add to my austerity. All those songs stored in neurons of my brain, waiting to be plugged-in. Somehow old rock songs from the 70's give me a place.

Now that beautiful lady appears to me saying "come, come" or rather "***, ***". I was so empty of everything, and she now fills my brain with connections to desire. I give in to the pressure and put a small dob of nutmeg on the end of my cigarette. Not enough for a full high, but just a little joy. Now there is experience and experiencer, not just a blank stare.

I can see my *** stare. I am as a baby in my mother's arms, I am so irresponsible. My body is a temple, with rooms, that I'm somehow detached from as if I'm in a dream witnessing it. Now I swim in this temple but I am not its fullness. I am not its command. I am no longer the tree but the twig. I am this plant called nutmeg. This is my vibration - pharmaceutical.

My buzz cut portrays a Buddhist monk's sitting. My coworker cut off all her hair once. Is she monkish as well? My body, as a sitter, full of reflection, why is this such an archetype? Does it know all, no, it only knows one, me. Is that all I am required of? To know simply me. Is there anything of depth in me?

Repose in my eye. I think of the faithful not under the influence. Have I missed a spark of truth which I would've found? My browline reminds me of a Klingon. So aggressive. I rock back and forth and around and around. I'm mixing this tonic drink in my skull. Is my body too full and big for my neck and head? how much does it matter? When will I do my next ab workout?

Memories of doing nutmeg, the cool let down off the high. The feeling it will never really subside.  Moving around in my seat like a Sufi dancer. Looking like I'm a ghost in the machine. The wetness of the white in my eye portrays tears of passion for Chloe. The residue of oil on my brow and cheek portrays sweating out the nutmeg.

My chrome dome and short beard remind me of a wizard, rather of my high school physics teacher. Science seems like wizardry at times. Contorting my face with my hands shows all sorts of masks: Asian clown and Cabbage Patch doll. Pressing on my forehead makes me look Romulan. Contorting my nose to a pig's or what I see as an English nobleman.

My head swings around like a medieval flail. Like I'm in a roller coaster. Like an Indian in devotion. Like a magician performing an act. Like a wolf ripping apart its prey. Like the monks who hit their heads with boards in "Camelot": "Oh ee eh Oh dominae, Oh ee eh Oh requi eh". Coming to the conclusion that the body doesn't change so quickly that it can by observed. But when I consciously change it, similitudes appear from memory.

CONCLUSION
Is all observation a metaphor or simile? Or, judgment and reason made out of a group of observations? Math is made from first geometry: a basic point, and then a line. Math is a physical reality, or abstractions from basic physical reality. Therefore, speaking merely in basic simile is also an abstraction from physical reality.

All there is is the physical.  Mind is due to my frontal lobe. Spirit is reduced to feeling, even if transcending regular feeling - mere EMF pattern of the body.

I find inducing sleep helps me transcend thought and emotion.
"You're sleeping while sitting?"
It's like holding a thought of sleep to transcend thoughts.
Maybe I should just go back to 'just observing'.

Divinity is like a fire, which the body can only
handle 98.6 degrees.
Only meditation that buttresses up against insanity
can reveal how strong or potent it is.

Those crow's feet
and lines by your smile
tell a million more stories
than a face
smooth and sweet.
Bittersweet wisdom hidden
beneath what it means
to be woman.
yet your eyes take me to court
ruling I'm 5-10 years
still young.
The worn skin on the front
of your neck
the freckles at the top
of your chest.
A million women would ****
to be as thin.
There is something spiritual
about age
that no one can crack
nor dismiss.

People sing a song
Put away your ****.
Let's run a race
To see the Master's face.
Wizard with chalk
Seeing stronger than a hawk.
Genius of a deed
A person without greed.

Island unto me
A reason to just be.
Island unto me
A reason to just be.

Does God have a name?
I think it's a shame.
We all wanna talk
Can we even stop?
Books are fun
Living without a gun.
Silence is a key
A key to mystery.

Island unto me
A reason to just be.
Island unto me
a reason to just be.

O night that has eclipsed tomorrow's day.
O joy born of nutmeg.
You are just like the joy without you, only I find it through digestion of food and sweets, cigarettes and coffee.
In any case that joy is a gradual climb unlike nutmeg.
Should you be God's word among others?

O neck of pain,
O joints of strain.
O look without word.
O look without attribute.
Light aligns in columns to thee.
Now light a leaning tower.
Now a horizontal bar.
My light is put out by eye's lens.
*My consciousness puts out my stare.

The light of the manifest heaven is, alas, as a breeze in the middle of the night.
The hellish blaze of former times still resonate in my heart.
Knowledge is as a copious fountain in the Earth's riverbed,
And wisdom grows on every vine even if it dwells upon the dust.
The measurement of time is the only level left between the people of the world.
Seeing clearly the brighter side

On the clay of grandeur ebbs and flows the lights of knowledge from the orator of wisdom until it becomes so embedded with light that it hardens into celestial steel that obeys the West of expansion and supplicates itself to the East of resignation.

Words of men find no passageway in this enlightened sky where understanding has no increase.  

For it is held in the dawn of another day between which is a night that knows no sleep in a world without a place for it.

For here the Prophet has repaired to His home in the clouds of the sky which can only be ascended by faith tested by the mirage of disbelief,

only to then lay on the pillow of exasperation in the field of victory.

I see your smile through distance and screen.
I hear your thoughtful voice from miles away.
We are so much alike,
Though we disagree on some of our certainties.
We talk and talk,
And sit to meditate,
Together.
And when I become pressed up to your heart,
You throw a glass of syncreticism in my face,
And our heart journey ends in disgrace.

"Were ye to emerge from the obscuring dust of
utter nothingness, then ye would recognize
that all things declare the evidences
or your existence."

That happens every time I pull an all-nighter.

Water drips from a faucet
Or it gushes out of a shower head
Sometimes I want to turn it off
Sometimes I want to leave it on
Sometimes I drink it
Sometimes I swish and spit it out

The author of poetry from original ideas;
the author of poetry from secondhand ideas;
the repeater of poetry (communicating meaning);
the speaker of poetry off-the-top of the head
(due to great understanding).

~From the Pali Canon

The people have been so encircled by the Scriptures of the past, that they do not know what to do once they hear the sacred streams from the Pen of Baha.
To whom do they turn among their former companions?
They ask: whose power can quench the song of this Sacred bird?
Whose sovereignty can allay the anguish of my soul?

Women almost half my age:
Why is the 20's such a lively and beautiful time that you are the very life of life?
My heart goes out to your beauty,
but God forbid that I should love a fool to death.
But I do!
Oh, Ah,
How you rule the field of love!

When Baha'u'llah said "be a companion of the Self of the Merciful", I knew it is that self that has an inner whiteness that reminds me of virgins' eyes.

Then He continued: "and from association with and resemblance to Satan", I knew He meant befriend all, judge no one, and bear the accusations of the ignorant.

Continuing, "enter beneath the sanctity of the Bountiful, that perchance the hand of Divine grace may draw thee away from the paths of passion unto the heavens of everlasting might and majesty".  With this finality I realized that One could use the holiness of the righteous along with love for all and Satan in the same sentence, and still open up heart's rose.

The intellect will always fail to grasp wisdom.
Wisdom, the unutterable, is still an actor in emotion's stage.
Emotion's hero is a child.
The world's schoolyard doesn't wish to leave a child on it.

Righting beautiful wrongs.
His name comes forth as a poet.
A ship goeth upon the sublime sea.
First this wonder swims the cool streams.
Ship that it is, that becomes as one with time.
Here takes the shape of over there, that shipyard, that dock, those waves, and the mighty horizon.
No will to press for ship's sake save to meet another ship.
Wandering in the waves for water's ways.
The magnificent mystery of puzzles catches my eye.
While there is no other ship straying here I will becloud myself with this beauty encrested in man's reality.
What and how will I find a drizzle of a drop that he should proclaim to be truth.
Forth he finds who can hear him.
His name is Noble, the Middle Way, the Bridge.
Don't fall lad, don't fall.
Should the fall hurt, reflect on how one may not bleed again.

The mind is the most charming
Of the senses.
It wishes for more complicated
Symbols that represent
This mortal world.
These symbols mistaken
For the highest good,
And could become a veil
Between the highest good:
The soul.

The soul must be nurtured
Before the mind.
Though the seas of knowledge and spirit are both vast,
The mind can drink more
And faster than the soul.
Thus, for one concentrated
On the soul,
It takes double the patience:
Not only to overcome the trappings of the body,
But also the allurements of
The mind, which always seeks this world in a coy way.
Always beguiling it's bearer of knowing more at the expense of friends, family, and community.

Light, not heavy.
Light, not dark.

Heavy, not knowing.
Dark, yet to be seen.

Wonder, amazing.
Complex, simple.
Tacit and discrete.

Notes and ears.
Lines, shapes, changes to equations.