~

Chalked up to experience
erasers pounding in a sea of dust
     white marks on black thoughts
over and under the text book meanings
  torn pages litter lost feelings
     and no one cares what the teacher’s name is
as the bell rings and hallways fill
  with empty stares and blank expressions
          dialing forgotten combinations
*of locker stashed dreams

In my deep state of awareness
an apparition strikingly similar
in form to me in many ways appears,
"What are you looking behind me still?
I am an ancestor of ancient, in your linage,
countless generations before"I hear the words
"But I see myself far behind you too
we are all one, so no confusion in multitudes
my quest for noumenon has only begun,
isn't it what you tell? Time to break loose,
from all the illusory identities, bindings.Adieu"

Center of all our experience..this we know..but
looms a question..when time appears in its solitude..
lone standing..independence declared..it also echoes of
separation..suffering..of a brevity with loneliness tinged..
and hope departing..we ask and wait for something
unknown..clocks persist ticking on and on..gloom directs
sitting on a storied park bench..then lo an inkling..time is
not found in this experience while sitting..mind rebels
at this most outrageous inkling and shouts fraud..but
the inkling is a message with eternal dressing..and
a primordial center our experience Now claims...

It is all
up to
our
discretion.

That is,
simultaneously,
our greatest gift
as well as
our greatest curse.

I'm putting the tea to boil...
finding a spot on the earth in which to sink,
a heart string to play, my mind to think
and untangle a knot of toil
I'm putting the tea to boil

Something warm to come
porcelain cups and waiting lips
hibiscus leaves and rose hips
within the heart a thrum
stirs a ripple in a steeping conundrum

My last verse has gone missing
it’s sound, sans words, lost half in slumber
so half awake, and torn asunder,
by answers hissing then bristling
then comes the awaited harmony of a kettle whistling

Seeking meaning,
it abounds.

Assuming none,
none is found.

I shall concern myself
with neither
the past nor the future
right now:

The past culminates in the present,
and the present is the gateway to the future:

I'm going to learn and anticipate,
but, most of all,
I'm going to live
right now.

Sometimes,
ideals push us forward.
Sometimes,
they hold us back.
We must
remain their pilot
lest we, ourselves
come under their attack.