A goddess lay resting one cold winter night
In a soft bed of jasmine she sighed with delight
Warm in her blankets with dreams in her eyes
Sleeping for beauty and gaining her prize
Well after dawn she woke from her slumber
She rolled to her side and she trembled like thunder

Deep down inside, a familiar sensation
A twitch in her *****, in need of attention
Smooth slender fingers traversing her chest
Stroking her belly and squeezing a breast
Cupping herself, her hand overflowed
Gifts to mankind, from heaven bestowed

Massaging her mountains of honey and butter
The touch of the skin sent her body aflutter
She reached for a ****** with finger and thumb
Felt something tingle, and started to hum
Her heart beating faster, her breath now increased
She twisted her torso in need of release

Like greek alabaster, a pillar of marble
A temple of flesh we can worship and marvel
The priestess lay back and explored with her hands
A summons to action, her wetness commands
Caressing her lips and primed to explode . . .
... But I'll need a few minutes to finish this ode

It’s as old as the wind and the rains
It survives in the pit of our brains
But we’ll never be free
From the primitive sea
Till the cellular memory wanes

In stillness the senses grow pleasant
With inner abundance no peasant
The coin of the realm
He receives from the elm
And spends every ounce in the present

At the door comes a knock or a beating
That demands an uncomfortable greeting
So you hide from the guest
And deny the request
For this most unavoidable meeting

If you can bear the brunt of a thousand callous elbows
And hold your ground among a throng of hungry fellows
If you can stand the stench of liars who rise above you
And keep your thoughts on the one or two who love you
If you can bend over backwards with stress and tension
Or stand up tall with undivided attention
Or lean from right to left with ease
And not just wiggle in the breeze

If you can sense your tragic flaw and give yourself a laugh
Or lift a shining kernel from a crusty stack of chaff
If you can chase the spirit of wanting that burns a man’s heart
And loosen the desire before it tears your soul apart
If you can drink from both cups of joy and sorrow
Or wait for now and drink tomorrow
Or see that coins are all two-sided
And know your fate is not decided

If you can take a page of Kipling and follow every letter
Or find your heroes’ faults and do their deeds one better
If you can stand alone and know that you’re right
And surrender your words for good works in plain sight
If you can bite your tongue and accept it with grace
Or let your thoughts go drifting in space
Or focus your mind on everything pleasant
And know that forever survives in the present

If you can forgive the crimes of those who write the rules
And let go of the past and the pranks and prep schools
Without forgetting what you stand for and why
And never believing it’s useless to try
If you can do what you can to steer clear of strife
And act with respect toward all forms of life
You’ll be the pillar, and carved out of wood
And – what’s more – you’ll be misunderstood

Confronted by battle Arjuna disputes
But Krishna proposes more pious pursuits
Accepting one’s duty
With transient beauty
Concerned with right action but not with its fruits

Like an onion whose layers have lifted
The Self with sharp vision and gifted
Is shedding its skin
To expose what’s within
It’s consciousness pure and unscripted

Just what are you hoping to find?
To advance you must empty your mind
There’s no need to search
Or belong to a church
Simply strive to patient and kind

An unkindness of ravens may pester your soul
And challenge your heart till your patience is full
Embrace them with grace
Put yourself in their place
Not until then will your spirit be whole

It’s time for the people to form a decision
Just see how they struggle to hold a position
With lines in the sand
They can all take a stand
In a loose coalition of bold opposition

We often get lost in our bubbles
Caught up in our very own troubles
But it’s equally rotten
For those we’ve forgotten
Remember that everyone struggles

There’s a partisan grinding an ax
Over aliens snacking on cats
And a nifty new notion:
Postpartum abortion
So let’s blame the checkers of facts

The tilt of the earth turning evenly orthodox
     Seasons are changing observing the equinox
               As hours of light
               Are on par with the night
     The leaves will soon gleam with the color of Goldilocks

It’s a doggie dog world so watch where you step
Foot in mouth syndrome is spreading like strep
But a house of prevention is worth more than liqueur
Have a spoon full, a mind full, are you feeling demure?  

Inside effects may include outlaws of vision
But don’t freeze your auntie, make a thawed out decision
Keep on pugging, plugging a way
You will fly like a beagle, as every doc has his day

While thyme keeps on dripping into the tincture
And limericks rhyme everything, except the kitchen sphincter
Now refill your subscription and do as I say
Because a Hornaday keeps the doctor away

And give us this tray, our daily meds
While terrier-ism threatens to Smirnoff our heads
It’s a mystery wrapped in poodle, but misery loves coventry
And it takes a heckuva lot, to go parking up a wrong tree

Just another Shih-Tzu day, making trouble in paradise
Ain’t nothing but a ground hog, gone skating on the nice
Though I wouldn’t herd a fly, or let a wafer stray
Don’t doubt the Roman knows my aroma was built in a day

Confronting profound consternation
The positive faces negation
But for unions that matter
Illusions must shatter
To welcome the reintegration

Straighten your mizzen and steady your oar
Set sail for the hub of your centermost core
Arrive at the middle
Unravel the riddle
Return to the One and debark on the shore

Raised in the valleys and fed by the seas
Borne on the breeze with the birds and the bees
Gifted with birth
From the womb of the earth
My origins are not unlike those of the trees

There’s a skeptic I know who remains inconvincible
Certain that logic is something invincible
Loathe to accept
The secrets well kept
Unable to pinpoint the primary principle

There’s a need for severe repetition
And when objects are out of position
A ritual practice
Restores the exactness:
Obsessive compulsive condition

An assault with no sense of compunction
We enter this perilous junction
It’s so disappointing
When missiles are pointing
And fueling electile dysfunction

In a desolate desert where peaches are scarce
An oasis appears and a goddess prepares
To ****** her next partner with apples and pairs
And proposing a union she takes me upstairs

Into the skyline and over the weather
To a room in the clouds we inhabit together
The book of life opens, she reads me my rites
Informing my dreams for a thousand more nights

Our foreplay, like Gospel, begins with a word
Whispering wisdom and secrets unheard
While waves of effulgence wash over my ears
And unspeakable lightness conveys me to tears

The courtship completed she lifts up her veil
Undresses her figure and shows me her tail
Her gown on the floor in a soft silky heap
And we drift to the bedroom where cherubin sleep

Melting like butter, collapsing before her
Her miracle strength has me backed in a corner
And so I surrender, no use to resist
Beaten by Ishtar, I wait to be kissed

She spreads herself open, unnaturally wide
Receiving my body and spirit inside
Inserting my tome like a book on her shelf
We form an anthology, bound in one self

No match for a goddess and giver of life
And yet we conjoin as a husband and wife
The muse and the poet are spun in one strand
Just see how my pen is now firm in her hand

With one leg in heaven and one in my bed
I recline and receive her celestial head
Arousing my mind and exchanging our dreams
Through visions that swim in ethereal streams

Perusing her volumes and rarely seen stacks
A scholar who studies the shadows and cracks
I reach out to ****** her wavydark hair
Her substance reflecting like dust in the air

I dip in her inkwell again and again
In search of the words that will flow from my pen
Receiving and giving, a cycle unending
Eternal rewards from the muse I’m befriending

There’s a monk by the name of St. Francis
Who strolls in the forest and prances
       While whispering words
       To the mammals and birds
Who religiously fall into trances

Shaking my head as I shuffle through Nod
     And wander through darkness on scabrous old feet
     Where the fruits are forbidden, and might I add strictly
     But the knowledge is ever so sweet

     I’m Under the Influence of sir Malcolm L
     And M. L. von Franz has me under her spell
     Seeking the change that I wish I could be
     While my dear inner Ahab I struggle to quell

     To search by escaping through tropics and trenches
     Determined to make every ocean my home
     My singular purpose: the potion that quenches
     Still I drink that I could theme alone

     In this watering hole will I bury my hatchets
     A sickness that’s cured is an ailment forgotten
     So choke every sorrow and drown your regrets
     A soul that remembers is cursed to go rotten

     With penalties and interest forever compounded
     I’m astounded to watch how my recollection grows
     The proverbial wisdom that’s also called madness
     Is purchased on credit and paid for with woes

     Drifting asea to steer clear of collectors
     Engulfed instead by tempests my own
     Echoing voices demanding comeuppance
     From the depth comes a cry that disturbs every bone

     These howling reminders are issued below
     From under the surface by more than a beast
     My pirates on deck keep me bound to the mast
     Always in earshot and never released

     Mostly a head but with hardly a face
     My nemesis, massive, can scarcely be seen
     Not to be measured through time or in space
     From his cousins’ cadavers our data we glean

     Less than a man, I stomp on my stump
     And promise to silence the primitive brute
     Guided by starlight, unable to sleep
     Harpoon at the ready and eager to shoot

     **** the torpedoes and to hell with the crew
     Set sail at once for the wide open blue
     Don’t be seduced by this monster in white
     His message is wicked, no less than it’s true

     He feeds on your anger, you’re never too old
     To listen instead of exerting your tongue
     Or shaking the hinges of Davy Jones’ locker
     On the floor of the ocean where Melville met Jung

Psychic vicissitudes working cross purposes
One thought dissolves and another one surfaces
Feelings are fleeting
So watch as you’re greeting
The many sensations that consciousness furnishes

There’s a pastor who speaks with a twist
With his lips puckered tight as a fist
From the nave he’s been heard
As he whispers the Word
Of the Seventh Day Adventriliquist

There’s more than one method to meet the divine
The road to salvation is not a straight line
Skeptics, recall
Worship no god at all
While the foolish insist that there’s no god but mine

There’s more than one method to meet the divine
The road to salvation is not a straight line
Skeptics, recall
Worship no god at all
While the foolish insist that there’s no god but mine

To live a good life that’s effective
You have to be somewhat selective
Your mind isn’t frozen
Your thoughts can be chosen
The truth after all is subjective

From an ego that can’t be surpassed
The star-spangled insults are cast
So vote for the hooligan
Make this place cool again
Just like it was in the past

Respect the true source and you surely will hear it
Only the wicked have reason to fear it
To obtain inner peace
Just learn to release
And never forget to be mindful in spirit

The progress is slow but perpetual
Impassioned as well as habitual
Avoid second guessing
To honor the blessing
And live every day like a ritual

When driven by mere acquisition
On the glittering path to perdition
You may seem to go far
But with no guiding star
You will fade like a dim apparition

Where behavior is deemed detrimental
The impact appears incremental
But anger infuses
As loathing reduces
Your soul to the size of a lentil

The sages admonish edacious pursuits
So soften the ego and strengthen your roots
Don’t work up a swelter
Over hunger and shelter
Just learn to subsist on intangible fruits

When you look to the truth as your task
Then you may find it’s too much to ask
To go searching inside
Where the monsters all hide
Underneath your most virtuous mask

Where the olives and ego were pressed
Three brethren fell into a rest
At a crossroads inside
He was forced to decide
In the garden where Christ took his test

Into a tunnel beyond darkness and light
The soul makes a journey under cover of night
The course of this voyage cannot be explained
A path toward the life source which cannot be named
Its secret location no road map reveals
But he who goes searching must trust what he feels
The circumference is nowhere, the center right here
But to even the wisest it will not appear
Hinted at only on the hero’s return
No shape to behold and no form to discern

It’s hard to accept in our rational age
When every known fact has its own wiki page
But among the cold data a gap still remains
A sense of experience eclipsing our brains
A sense of emerging, belonging and will
An aura of something consisting of nil
Neither tiny, nor mammoth, nor cool, nor hot
For all that it is, it most chiefly is not
Neither seen, nor touched, nor felt, nor heard
Borne on the wind like an unspoken word

Latch on to life if your ardor is able
Every last option remains on the table
The one became real
With the turn of a wheel
And someday will come when the truth becomes fable

There once was a prince with attachments to matter
In search of a way to make enemies scatter
Deep down in the well
He learned a new spell
And when he arose all illusions did shatter

'Twas the night before the Big Bang, when all through the void
Some notions were stirring, towards Darwin and Freud
Superstitions rejected and hung out to rot
It’s shocking how quick we completely forgot
Where cryptical symbols were sacredly spoken
The stories upended and images broken
From out of such Chaos, a chariot of Truth
An empirical prancing of paws on the roof
Now, Newton! Now, Einstein! Now, Herr Oppenheimer!
Now listen! the odious tick of the timer
From the Apple of Knowledge forsaking the plums
For probable visions and practical sums
When wisdom, by Turing, is put to the test
Then where are those letters to Santa addressed?
If coal from the mischievous miscreant’s stocking
Keeps motors of industry ticking and tocking
Then icecaps will vanish from under the elves
And Bezos will eagerly fill up our shelves
So with glittering objects and shiny bright trophies
We bid you Good Luck with a train of emojis

Discover the medicine maybe abuse it
The day could arrive when you choose to refuse it
Live it and breathe it
Or take it or leave it
With patience and time you can learn how to use it

Enduring the Culture of Wow
To reduce our attention and how
Just a swipe at the screen
But it’s not what we mean
When we talk about Being Here Now

From the pages of Peanuts came Linus
Neurotic but here to align us
From his blankie one learns
About coming to terms
Lest our character flaws should define us

There’s a middle-aged mother who’s said to be frisky
She knows that the quest for true wisdom is risky
But rather than scripture
She holds an elixir
A cocktail of hormones and breast milk and whiskey

There’s a force with a name known by none
It’s referred to by some as the one
And it can’t be dismantled
Nor spoken or handled
But through it all things will be done

Regardless of what one believes
The universe waxes and breathes
While ebbing and flowing
And always unknowing
The Tao, without purpose, achieves

I feel like it’s better to listen than talk
And faster to run, though it’s wiser to walk
A field to be tilled
Or a cup yet unfilled
For this is the way of the unsculpted rock

The whale is a fish and a mammal in one
As white has all colors and also has none
               The grandest of creatures
               With paradox features
Unknown and untouched by the light of the sun

It’s not that my truth is superior
Or that your way of life is inferior
We both would agree
And a blind man could see
That we value a vibrant interior

There’s a comforting concept of metempsychosis
The spirit moves on while the flesh decomposes
But the birth rate’s exceeded
So new souls are needed
And this is the number one problem it poses