we poets spend lives
writing praise and penances;
the wine of our souls.

While you're waiting for things to happen, drive out to the sea.
Make a pact with your past to stay away from the future, without the haste and stress.
Take a swim, plunge into an icy cold bath.
Remind yourself that you hold beauty, the mirror doesn't always accurately reflect.
Find solace in the simple, remember that you're great.
A little bit of self care, can go a very long way.

Bleeding through like milk ink art
Your eyes splash the morning with color
Cobalt, sea foam and jade
I want to paint you
Paint you with my adoration
All silky acrylics and soft oils
Sweeping across the canvas of your smile
With the brush of my tongue
My fingertips
I would add to your already glowing masterpiece

Golden laced
repeat patterns dance
beneath closed lashes
Sunlight finding it's way

through shimmering ripples, 
I see before me
Woman of the Water.
Stance of resilience,

silloute to sky. She
skims the surface.
An apparition.
This Goddess dancing atop

the waves. Paddle in hand,
solid upon her watercraft.
She knows her strength, gliding
above a sparkling world of secrets.*

~Christi Michaels~June 2015~

Copyright © 2015 Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved.

It will be different with different people and it will be different at different times. If love really grows, this is the way: first you fall in love with the woman because her body is beautiful. That is the first available beauty - her face, her eyes, her proportion, her elegance, her dancing, pulsating energy. Her body is beautiful. That is the first approach. You fall in love.

Then after a few days you start going deeper into the woman. You start loving her heart. Now a far more beautiful revelation is coming to you. The body becomes secondary; the heart becomes primary. A new vision has arisen, a new peak. If you go on loving the woman, sooner or later you will find there are peaks beyond peaks, depths beyond depths. Then you start loving the soul of the woman. Then it is not only her heart - now that has become secondary. Now it is the very person, the very presence, the very radiance, the aliveness, that unknown phenomenon of her being - that she is. The body is very far away, the heart has also gone away - now the being is.

And then one day this particular woman's being becomes far away. Now you start loving womanhood in her, the femininity, the feminineness, that receptivity. Now she is not a particular woman at all, she simply reflects womanhood, a particular form of womanhood. Now it is no longer individual, it is becoming more and more universal. And one day that womanhood has also disappeared - you love the humanity in her. Now she is not just a representative of woman, she is also a representative of man as much. The sky is becoming bigger and bigger. Then one day it is not humanity, but existence. That she exists, that's all that you want - that she exists. You are coming very close to God.

Then the last point comes - all formulations and all forms disappear and there is God. You have found God through your woman, through your man. Each love is an echo of God's love.

Osho

Eyes are blue gleaming diamonds,
words concealing gold dust
are sealed between the lips
that avidly taste thunder,
expression of my hidden hunger.
Hands bind me closer til
rib cages say "No more"
Like nibs, nails on my back
write ****** verses direct,
forcing one to spread eagle
as the orchestration moves to crescendo
itinerant eyes emit sizzling light,
the cloud that engulfs , caresses every inch,
a bamboo grove in wind
dances whispering love, in many tunes,
tells one to lie under it's canopy, I submit,
hear my songs from a secret center,
eyes speak the lingo of  love, light spills
heart beats against heart, in mad frenzy,
we need no words any more.

I really appreciate all of the poetry
But some of you are way too deep for me
I'm like a deer in headlights
When I read some of your writes
Some even cause my brain to slightly bleed

Of course I wouldn't say I'm surprised
Okay maybe just a bit
But when I order up writes
I prefer mine with fries
And a little something on the side I can sip

So please pardon me my stupidity
As this all plays out on the run
Like I said what I find
With some of your writes
My brain goes into severe deep freeze numb

· · · – – – · · ·

Stardust drips
in Southern Cross directions
lost at sea
floundering in the nothingness
counting seagulls
and island torches
branding the sky
with delirious connections
traveling beyond the speed,
22 knots to nowhere
and sinking fast

SOS carved
in summer clouds
threatening distractions
floating silently in our heads
as we bail out,
tossing salt water worries
overboard as
barnacle beliefs wait
beneath the surface
of our dreams

A lone timber,
nails protruding,
rotting slowly
is held for dear life
as tridents and trishulas
flail in withered hands
breaking seas,
angry waves bend
dissipating into
misted blankets as
foghorn signals
bellow in needled warnings
like a skipping album
drowning in its
own repetition

in this world we're living in
it's so easy giving in
it's harder to stand and fight
to try to do what is right

with love we could shine
a light from your heart to mine
we are all the same inside
let's let go of foolish pride

Elusive moon beckons dark currents,
     sand's sparkling pageantry  
             drifts out midst frothing tide,
submerging lover's imprints 'neath
     the realm of alluring seascape illusions