What is beauty?
What makes one thing more attractive than another?
How does beauty fade in our eyes when nothing outside has changed?

What is ugliness?
What makes one thing more attractive than another?
Why does something ugly become beautiful even though nothing outside has changed?

What is the difference between these two stanzas?
When a pretty girl looks ugly because of her inner awareness…
When an ugly girl displays attractive virtues in her inner awareness…

Why can’t I meet a girl that shows outer and inner beauty?

If a girl was treated like coal all its life
she would only know it was a jewel to those that had the time to see the truth within.

If a girl was treated like a jewel all its life
She would not be treated differently even if she didn’t show praiseworthy qualities,
But may show these qualities due to reciprocity.

Only when that lump of coal is treated enough like a jewel will it wish to shape itself like one.
Only when that jewel appreciates her attention will she shape herself like one.

My breast is a desert
with a lonely traveler
stranded in search of water.

He knows where the well is,
but is tired of the taste of it.

I guess he’s not really stranded.

I grasp for you,
But if I handle you too much you dissolve.
You are far and I welcome you into me.

Your white face used to be so good to me.
Now I’m burned by your look
And fade into nothingness in your presence.

Thinking of each other is safe
As long as we don’t put too much attention there.
When we cross that line my heart is left foolish
As though I’ve broken a law or moral code.

Nothing is so sweet as when I think of you with a smile
Smiling back at me.
Was it something I did to merit your happiness?

Flesh and bone
Commitment and honor
Are all gone now.
What is left is the emptiness we show each other
And happiness for now.

I no longer long for your hand,
But long for your happiness
Even in a hug from you if you are happy.

But if you are cold today a hug will cause pain.
What did I make you think of?
Was it my insanity or jailing that you remember now?
Or was it that all the pain is gone and that you’re glad I’m no longer close?
This gladness is bitter anguish – not being liked.
But you tolerate me, something my sister and friends do as well.

Life is amazing when I see her smile.
Life is good when things are going great,
but bad times come too and she’s willing to face it.

I see your spirit within me and it’s growing.
You know I’m not perfect,
but we’ve always overcome our adversity.

Thanks for being a friend Desirie.

Wondering around the dance floor…
Moving with melodies…
Stomping to beats…
My body a temporary moving vessel for the soul…
Dark room…
Street lights…
Memories of dancing awaken the mystic and make it a tradition…
Dancing is best described my music…
Dancing is the last thought of the musician…
The first thought of the musician…
Celestial…
It’s not a religion…
It’s a medicine to forget our worries…
To see our universal origins of a beautiful race…
The rotation of the stars…
Circles…
Where abstract reality meets spirit…

Warm days sitting inside.
Am I waiting for something?
I got my faith by my side
And whatever comes my way is fine
even if I’m not comfortable with it,
Because I know that in time everything becomes okay.

Thinking of you still…
Trying to connect.
Connection to you releases emotion for me
Whether or not you like seeing my words.

I think of you as a dear friend and not just a friend.
It’s not because of any connection we have now,
But due to our past.

You’re across the world
and I still want to open your heart to love
even if it’s not love for me.

I want to make you smile.

If I were to:
…write a prayer that describes the empty place.
If I were to describe:
…the grace.
…the constuction of silence.
...that I can feel full.
…the awareness of breaking down addictions.
...recognizing that the voice telling me
to buy a candy bar or ******* is not who I am.
...that this voice of addiction is only the desire for identification with things, forms.
…that I know that the more I identify with it the more insane I become.
…that recognizing has changed everything.

It makes me stop writing.

How beautiful is the fairness in her *****.  It makes me.  Is the sun shining within me?  Is the lover's ***** alert again?  Me?  Is the party?  How goes within here? Is the true morn awake, smiling too?  ***** fire too?  Within recesses there stands all fire, cold fire, majestic fire, Who?

Does every night consummate in **** and *******?
Is all innocence lost?
Can I find a twinkling of a care for purity in my soul?
Or am I lost in the throws of death?

And what will it get me but a few strokes of joy
Followed by the degradation of my heart.

W-o-m-a-n calls to me…
Do I answer her cry for me.
My imagination is spinning a tale
That will make me reason to pop open my laptop by my bed.

Jesus said:
“Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter.
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

So too must I stay awake and fast and pray
until this desire goes away
just as the flesh dies.

Only He willeth within me.  What's within me?  Sunshine, moon, heaven's stars?  All here.  Heaven's stars sunk within.  He willeth to open doors.  He waits, gives, creates, gives, kindles, gives, loves.

Ponder awhile during test:  what will cause love, unity, true paradise, and glorious success?
Again, where is the spring's success?
When it causeth the spring's waters to manifest.
Yes, the spring's true paradise and glorious success.
How the spring's waters ever come from the spring's true paradise and glorious success.
But who knoweth the spring's success save the spring's waters?
Colors of the spring's true paradise: unity, love.
What true paradise.
Who can speak such love.
Sincerely true bliss.
Love animates, waters emerge.
It's sun give hope waters and success in matters.
Here true love abounds in matters.
Hope upon hope, true bliss.
Here sun gives test.

I’ve seen enough **** and ***** for a lifetime.
It’s growing old now.
It’s a mix of lust, addiction, and fantasy.
Mixed together seeing the same thing
And not having love.
It’s confusing and misplaced attention.

Methinks that when I’m alone praying
I catch a glimpse of the mysteries
That lie enshrined in Thy Being.

Hints of understanding
Melodies of clarity.

When I reflect on my own station however,
I’m held back by the dust that is my body
To fully see clearly where your blessings
Stem from.

Oh it is your Word,
That hath been created from Nothing.
I guess it will forever remain a mystery.

And when I grasp for you with eagerness for more
It’s like knowing how destitute a gnat is
And how miniscule a worm is to Thy stars.

Best just let the Spirit come and go as it may.
When my cup brims over I’ll know how lucky I am.

Sin, something I shouldn’t get worked up about,
But I feel that I betray you when I sin.
You comfort my heart so that I feel okay to transgress.
I pray for forgiveness and
With some abasement felt I am still forgiven.
It’s not like I’m hurting other people.
Just turning to passion and desire.
I see no road into the heaven of purity.
It is fake to me now.
It is fake because the most pure woman I know divorced me.
She turned her back on me
And I’m supposed to want to be pure?
When will I meet a person who will treat me right
Whom I can call pure?
My friends are pure for lending me their ears
And spending time together thinking of each other.
The people that treat me the best aren’t perfect.
They are just learning everyday like me
Or are stuck in sin like me.
I have my demons.

There are people I miss.
I miss their touch and the physicality of it all.

However, now I have a profound peace
Of the presence of Baha’u’llah.
The Spirit of patience, of wisdom.
It pervades my heart
And I say to myself:
“How long will you sulk over your ex?”

I have less than I did when we were together:
In the physical.
However, I have more spirit in my heart now.
I’m stronger for putting up with your weakness,
Your vanity.

However, I see I have the same vain imaginations in me.
Will I ever fall for a spiritual person
Without needing her to be able to fulfill my chemical desires?

I want to throw away the possibility for another relationship
And cling to the idea of singleness.
But it is the incessant inclination to create offspring and secure love
That drives me crazy still.

Who will I meet?
I don’t want to desire another woman if my search will end without promise.
But I continue in my folly.

Alas, day by day my desire pulses
And it is still greeted with empty dreams.

I’m packed full with opposite dispositions
Subtle ones.

I progress towards the Maker
One dark bedroom at a time.

We stopped talking weeks ago
except for the occasional “hi”.

How I wished we could’ve hung out more and been friends.
For some reason you stayed in your bedroom
Every time you were here.

You’ve moved out without a “goodbye”.

If we meet in the future I’m sure it won’t be more than a “hi”
if even that.

My friend you’re gone
in your lonesomeness
with no ears for me,
escaping conversation
so that you may fulfill your desire.

The Sage is only one form of life or attitude.
There are many other attitudes that I must portray
To feel a sense of connection.

Lao Tzu wrote:
“(Sages) conduct the teaching of no words.”
Silence is special to me.
When it rests in my heart
It allows me to soar in the realm of transcendence.

Lao Tzu wrote:
“They work with myriad things but do not control.”
It’s like my alter ego of Facebook
Trying to control the thoughts of others
With my own thoughts.
In reality I’m just sharing ideas,
But sharing can take on it’s own demon.

Lao Tzu wrote:
“They succeed but do not dwell on success.”
I’m on a successful curve in life right now.
At times I’m afraid I’ll lose what I have.
Success seems to be the dream of a lot of people,
but what is success?
I’ve heard there’s a place in our brain that
Judges gains and losses.
I think my only alternative to dreaming of success
Is to simply BE.
This is said as if I didn’t need to say it.
All positions of reality are true in their own realm,
But when comparing them
What can beat the Sage?

Lao Tzu wrote:
“Too many words hasten failure.
Cannot compare to keeping to the void.”

The silence of non-attachment.
Living in the satisfaction of now.
Old arrows pierce my skin,
Yet not allowing them to penetrate my mind.

Yet I’m trying to push myself to be better,
But better is relative
And I’m abiding in eternity in non-action.

I go to work, eat, sleep,
Communicate, read, and entertain myself,
Yet not attaching to a better reality:
Such as a better body, a keener mind
Or a more pure soul
I’m thanking God for my existence just the way I am
Knowing that the only place to be is now.

You’re being replaced with other attention now.
I’m finally talking with other women.
I realize now that you were a huge section of my time at one point.
That’s what made us a couple.
It’s when I left the country and our talking faded into small chats
And then arguments, stress, conflict.

I’m jaded by our divorce.
It makes me have little hope of another marriage.
It even makes me not want to spend time on trying to make another one.

But I might only be kidding
Since I’m really just waiting for my new friend to message me back.
New relationships have so little webbing it’s hard to tell if they exist.

“Thanks for the ride.”
I often say.

With no car and only a bike or a bus
To get me around.

If my friends (or even strangers at times)
Will give me rides I can only
Say I’m blessed.

I hate those contraptions that
Buzz around.
So cut off from others unlike a bus,
Yet so fast unlike a bike.
It can take you anywhere unlike a bus.

I’m in love with cars just like every other American,
But please cut down on the greenhouse gases
For the future.

I still hate cars.
Maybe even those that have them think the same.

For each aching heart of mine that wishes to grasp Thy treasure
the treasure is taken form my fingers and placed at wholly a higher level, so that my aching doesn't stop.  

The fire of my heart grows hotter
with each passing day
and the illumination of Thy Being wholly belittles my consciousness
every time my heart seeks to look at the glory of my attainments.  

No Will is there but Thine own
and no soul can replace the cup of Your love and embrace.

I am vain.
No matter how hard I try to be spiritual
I'm left vain in earth's reality.

You need time,
but if I even say "you" it feels like "me".

I've seen the same course before.
We love
Then "you" move away.
Then you progress.
The rest of your future
I don't want to mention
because it will jinx my heart.
However, you kissed and held me
even after I thought we fell apart.

You're smart.
Not just in responsibility like I viewed my ex-wife
or scholastics like another.
You're smart emotionally.
You said, "I don't hold grudges".
You said, "I still care".
You're so smart I can't behold your whole heart.

Ah, now I see
you're like a forbidden love Madeline.
Pleasant in the realm of being you walk
but I can only assemble words of vanity
when you are gone on a walk.

Independence you are.
Lady liberty.

Why do I want someone who's needy?

Methinks the very Word of God comes from
The uncomprehension of those who Worship
You in the daytime and the night season.

You come once in every age
To unlock those minds and hearts
With the fragrance of beauty and Reality.

There is so much unlocked now
And so few yet to hearken to Thy Word
That not until 2823 or 2852 will another
Messenger come to help us.