trust silence
with the world
trust stillness
with your self
Endow them both
your perfect faith
and begin to know
victory

Toilet
flushing in the distance
Old teabag

A young professional's
perfume
Bright bedroom

Soap and fresh sweat
Trapped in layers of clothing
California winter

Admiring a cookie
half dipped in hot milk
---plop

Demanding nothing
But your smile
Life's a dream

Brother,
Let this be a consolation
That there is no Great Battle
no Mighty Beast
to defeat
no bloodied soldier
to be redeemed
--only pitch darkness
where hideous dragons
seem to dance in circles
around you

Open your eyes
Again and again they call out
"Look at me!"
Like a child
needing your love

Your thoughts can only echo
their mad howling
With no end
-abandon them
for the original fear:
To see the altar within
Defiled

Open your eyes
This is the only step
that needs courage

Watch and release
Watch and release
Until peace is restored
And pain ceases

Light never remembers darkness
And all the monsters
You have made
To fill it

Oh you fretful bee!
All Heaven and earth are yours
God never runs empty

Don't go running again
Will you stay?
every moment
twinkles and dies
Unhappily
without you

Happiness
A heart wanting to burst
Waiting for sleep

"What do you see in me?" she asked
An ever-changing woman
Never the same one two days in a row
In the same morning
Or within the same hour
A multitude of you
Not one ever failed to make me laugh
Not one I'm ever unwilling to love

"Are you sure about me?"
Am I sure about you?
As sure as I am that I exist!

Our meeting was nothing more
Than a quiet return of a memory
a gentle waking
to love's eternal melody

Show me the breathless dancing
Of all the stars of time
Or,
Show me her smile

If doubt would keep you hostage
Look into my eyes


--How precious you are to me

Peace is not taken
It is given in its entirety,
offered up readily
to that arrogant pretentious *******
who deserves to die an early merciless death

When you see sin
Look again
If you still see it
Look again
Keep blinking until you no longer see it
this is the way of the Mystic
At the end of this way is the Promise

Time crucifies sight
Soften your gaze
See the fully blossomed flower
In the slumbering rosebud
And love her as so

In bitterness, you forget joy
And look upon your life
Like it was always so
In the briefest of joys, you laugh
And skip, and dance alone
Like you never left heaven
Like Love never left you
For a moment

Discipline
has absolutely nothing to do with you
And everything to do with your tiny lords

Gasp!
An honest expression of disbelief
As you were about to pump
conditioner
Onto your lavender loofah mittens
Never recognizing
your common way of doing things

You prepare food to read a book
Food to go to work
Food to study
To watch a movie, to know somebody
Close it, keep the jaws still
Your mind will follow suit
And you'll have the world to boot

To think of God is
To think of nothing at all
Aren't thoughts suspended
In watching your lover sleep?
It is no different.

Chosen more and more
Silence fills the ears and becomes
sort of louder than your thoughts

After the long meaningless hysterics
And lengthy broodings on the historics
What once fought for its life now yields with less bitterness
What once thought it was on its own, now asks for help

So, on the river bank she sits, eyes closed
Shaking terribly, for love, for thorns
Indeed, a hundred thousand thorns she carries
Thank God, indeed, for the Comforter's Song

Whatever trembles in fear
Surrender them to me
The holy bath of the eternal is fire
And out of my gentle fire is your light freed

Your vision as yet is faint and weak
So hold my hand, and ask me for the way
I can never tire of you, and I can never tire of your asking

Your feet are weary from your long pointless travels
So let me carry you, and together we'll extend miracles
And leap through space and time

Your heart is in pain from the thorns you keep
Let me take your precious thorns
So you may see light dancing all around you
As I do

Whatever trembles in fear
Leave not one unsurrendered
You need them not
And love you truly need.

**Never will I leave you;
Never will I forsake you.

Baby piranha
Achoo! Bubbles in the sea.
Bubbles in my heart.