What if you discovered that the puppet master was just a tangle of other puppets...

Interconnectedness is paramount to who we are, to life itself
To get loose is not to get free -- to get free is to love the strings you keep

Benevolent bee
Buzzes to death for his queen
Somehow…not enough

See — the ant has learned
To pierce the silence fully
Still I try to speak

Man sits with himself
Flower falls under his shade
Reminds him — look up

Humble king’s castle
Heart of the just dominion
Gone with the high tide

The shade of the tree
Kills the acorn at its base —
What's an injustice?

Thoughts disconnected
All you remember is one
Feeling you’re left with

Standing in the rain
Trying to wash it away —
I’m made of water…

I know reflections
Of a thousand other mirrors
This - the path I tread

Persuasive noises —
But when you offered your ears
Then I was convinced

When the sun rises
It calls not for attention
But it sure does shine!

Volumes on silence…
You could fill a library;
Then what has been said?

You either smilin'
Or you silent; by choice or
Broke rights and violence

The steam yields as so
I slurp and gurgle my tea
Oh, jasmine blossom!

Nothing requires
A fall leaf to pass through it
To become the sky

What's needed to see
World peace -- a miracle, or
Magnifying glass

Purest of water
No longer has room for fish
Let life be fishy!

Set your bundle down
Satori in an instant
Pick your bundle up

Wherever there's rocks
Watch out; eventually...
Those rocks come alive

The cell phone rings once
But the ringing in my head…
...The sound of your voice

The great orator
With open ears I listen
For the wind speaks not

As the world crashes
To the world I wish to see
Which me should I be

Signage won't matter
Nor the road paint that you lay
Love is not one way

Little thistledown
As anxious as you and I
But never ill-judged

Everybody knows
But we all feign a defect
And that is our role

I went for a skate
Down to the grocery store
I forgot my shoes

Blind men have few friends
See you with their heart…scary
Your mask won’t work here

Martyrs bear its proof:
They've already remembered
I's what they forget

What is ****
Is it not my fingers flying
On this here keyboard?

Why do you see death?
Winter is but the absence;
The mother of life

Prized beautiful beach!
Plant your heels!  Lasso that wave!
Ride, surfer cowboy

But which way is which?
A cardinal direction
Is an empty dream

Chimp's lost son dangles
Mighty effort to hold life
Found when she drops him

Master's makeshift meal
Weeds whistle with the widow
Mourning matter makes

His feet stir with longing
Baggage barely clinging to his fingertips
He escapes the outbound missile
Crosses the platform as if it was an existential crisis
And catches the wind
To blow him home
Away from the way he resides

Loud truck rumbling
A strained love call from tree tops
Man picking mushrooms

I remember the weather the day that I met you
Sunny; with a storm in your back pocket

I remember your beauty
Vividly shone through
The tears that you knew to erase it

I was your rock
Steadfast, protruding
A cold slab for bleeding
The demons out of your soul

But after four years
You were all bled out
Dried was the well of your anguish

The wars we don't acknowledge
Are the only ones that we prevent
Where there is a just cause for fight
Extend a smile, and play, crusader
For your enemy is your most vital friend

The sound of tear streams
Tears the patterns asunder --
Deafening silence

Mother offered us trees
We cut her bare

Mother poured her blood for us
Black, like tar

Mother gave us her oceans
We fill it with our trash
As if it wasn't already full

Now she has little left to give
But people

Are you ready for our great divide?

When sheltered from rain
You’re fixed on the greys above;
Play in the puddles

I'm wasting moments
Waiting for you to come back
Here I am

And she said,
"The **** I have to deal with is unreal"
And I said,
"You're right"

Do you mourn the wind
As the particles pass by?
Their death brings spring-time…

Keystrokes in dim light
The moon is a winter’s cold
And I feel frozen

You frame the picture
But the picture is a frame
What have you captured?

This morning I woke
And was excited to see
Squirrels under a tree

Memories are just
A tightening behind the
Eyes that looked on you

Power and privilege can be chased if you're addicted to the change you can create.  Even if you're bold enough to claim righteous deeds, you become untrustworthy.
But even as you least expect it, power and privilege will find you in life, and it's that kind of power -- when the universe bestows it -- with which you can absolutely be trusted.
Champion your dharma and live out your dramatic truth in all the universal glory.

Waiting for crossroads
One day you'll find -- there's no path
Crossroads all the time