day's almost over
Sun's almost gone
an entire star hidden in the shadow cast by a speck of rock

high on caffeine
while falling asleep
trying to push myself past a mindful minefield of lyrical cynicism

scraping around bottom
goring the core
make a wish upon our shadow star to be a whimsical poet-to-be

flimsy words arise
then fall away
and the head's emptied again from nothing worth remembering

could be better
could be worse
not qualified to judge due to never passing the bar set for myself

eye-ing the time
passing me by
feeling the throb of decay in fingers' muscle memories of home row

finally the night
and darkened peace
stopping to let the words sink in, refresh the mind, and rest the eyes a minute

just resting my eyes

I remember feeling a sort-of sense of
vertigo
looking down at my mother lying
in her coffin
Difficult not to see
my own waxy lifeless face
lying there
someday
doomsday
and it was like looking down on Earth
from Heaven
or maybe I was standing on Earth
and looking down into Hell
for the first time
seen in the empty face of
this life that I came from
this person I came out of
my maker
now just a lump of dead weight
a heavy pile of stilled flesh
eerily still
like a life-sized doll
The light that created me
that started the spark that still flickers behind my eyes
suddenly gone out
and nothing left behind but
a sagging sack of meat and salt wearing
the too-fancy clothes that
she only ever wore to funerals
That is where I came from
That was Home
now gone forever
and someday soon
it will be me
lying there like a pile of clay
wearing too much make-up
but there won't be anybody there for me
holding my hand for hours
rubbing off the make-up
exposing the rubbery grey-blue skin underneath
the way my father so lovingly did
for her

I want to write a poem
but I have to write code instead
There can be a kind of poetry in code
especially my code
I'm proud of the elegant design
of my loops and logics
my streamlined systems
My code flows

pulling the User along effortlessly
guiding them gracefully from one end of the black box to the other
and out again
No Errors
My code flows

secret haikus left in comment blocks
for other programmers to find
like digital hieroglyphics on virtual cave walls
test data populated with pantheons and
mystical chants from faraway lands
My code flows

water of ones
in sea of zeroes
pouring through me
from aether to mind to muscle to machine
bit by bit
block by block
stacked upon stack
module into module through function and parameters passed
My code flows

flows through me
until the integer flips
the Boolean switch
change of state
status update
now compiled and crystallized
Executable
and then passed on
leaving me
out of my hands
disseminated to The Users
like a prayer to a congregation
I hear the clicking fingers of their choir
singing the song of my code
now flowing through Them

it's not that i'm blocked
though i don't have anything particular to say
at the moment
i'm just tired
couple of long nights
back-to-back
not enough sleep
another one looming ahead of me tonight
the weight of it all holding me down
thoughts coming slow and sluggish
every yawn another pothole on the road
to creative output
sometimes i wish i was a machine
a poetry machine
that never stopped
never stopped
never stopped writing
never stopped creating
never stopped expressing
just feeling and saying and doing everything in poetry
all day
every day
never needing a moment's rest
never needing to do anything more than this
to keep my clockwork heart ticking

It's been five years
since the Moon spoke to me
And I did my best to listen
and remember

I'd never been more lost
never felt more alone and confused
never been closer to death
than I was that year
Technically an accident
but living so recklessly
"accidents" become a near certainty
so I am not free of responsibility
I nearly ended my self

Grasping at straws for months on end
Clutching at any whispered fragment of hope
of a Way Out
One morning
I heard a news report
about an upcoming celestial event
a Total Lunar Eclipse
of the Full Moon
I barely noticed it
thought nothing of it
changed the channel
and landed on a cartoon
about the embodiment of the Tao
in the Spirit of the Moon
and something clicked
I know that click
I'm intimately familiar with that click
I have been my whole life
But it'd been almost a year since I'd last felt it
I thought it was gone
gone forever
but here it was again
from a news report
and a cartoon
a cartoon!
of all things
but unmistakeable nonetheless
something about the Tao
and the Moon
and an eclipse

That night five years ago
the night of the eclipse
I didn't know what to do
I almost gave up
but I finally decided to go through with it
out of a sense of absolute desperation
I had nothing left
I might as well
At the appointed time
I took my posture
half-lotus in front of my altar
set flame to candle
and recel
I tried to relax
to let go
to empty myself
I found my Center Mind
and reached inward
to the Void
When it was time I let myself go
drifting up out of my body
flying through the atmosphere
floating in space
above the Earth
staring at the glowing white surface of the Moon
filling my vision
with cratered beauty
and profound grace

And I waited
I watched as a shadow crept across the face of the Moon
from East to West
as the Earth behind me
moved slowly between us and the Sun
And I waited
until the shadow blotted out the Moon entirely
leaving me in darkness
And I waited

And nothing happened

And I felt something inside me break
I had been so certain
that click had always meant The Way before
but nothing had happened
I must really be Lost then
so I gave up
and started to let myself fall back to my body

Just then
the eclipse broke
as the Earth continued on its Way
the shadow began to leave the face of the Moon
a brilliant crescent of white light blinded me from the eastern edge
and I heard a voice that was not my own say

All things that Are, are Change

As amazing as the experience was
a voice inside my head
that I did not recognize
I was still let down
What it had said was
hardly news to me
a paraphrasing of Heraclitus
"All things that Are, are Fire"
The only Constant is Change
Nothing is Certain
except Uncertainty
et cetera
I knew that
had been living it
for years
the purview of Chaos
Nothing is True
and Everything is Permitted
Kids' stuff
arm-chair mysticism
Tell me something I don't know
I said
And the voice answered

You cannot be Good
You cannot be Bad
You can only Be

And suddenly I knew
what should've been obvious
all along
Good and Bad are entirely subjective
just ideas
not Truth
their existence depends entirely
on our particular point of view
at any given moment
there is no single thing in this Universe
that is entirely Good
or entirely Bad
every single thing is both
Good and Bad
depending on your circumstance
your point of view
how you look at it
just as no single thing in this Universe
is entirely Yin
or entirely Yang
every single thing is both
Yin and Yang
that is the Way
that is the Tao

How had I lost sight of that?
What had happened to me?
I wanted more
I knew there was more
I asked the Spirit of the Moon
What else?
and Manni-Moon-Yin replied

Look on the Bright Side
Make the Most of it

Again it suddenly seemed so obvious
it followed naturally that
if all things are both
Good and Bad
then it must be our choice
to view them either one way
or the other
Joy is not a circumstance
Happiness is not an event
something beyond our control
that we must wait for
wait until it happens to us
No
It is a choice
it is something that we do
or don't do
So if there is Good in every single thing
then all I need to do
is choose to see it

Reeling
Overwhelmed
Overcome
Humbled
Awed
I asked
Is that all?
And Manni-Moon-Yin replied

You are Amazing
And so is Everyone Else

Human existence is
astronomically improbable
We should not exist
We are the end result
of a billion
one-in-a-billion chances
all coming up Jackpot
even the worst of Us
is an absolute ******* miracle of Nature
the most amazing thing in the known Universe
the Living Embodiment of Tao
a Human Being
an astounding accident
a chemical formula so complex
that it has become aware of itself
and I am one of them
and I should never lose sight of that
I am one of these ridiculously
outrageously
amazing pinpoints of sentience
and so is every single other person I will ever see
or hear
or touch
or encounter in any way
throughout my entire life
Each person is an Individual
and I can't know them
can't know their experience
or their circumstance
so it is unfair
and pointless
and rather ridiculous
to try and judge them
when we are all equally amazing
each in our own Way

I said Goodbye then
to Sifu
to Master
to Manni-Moon-Yin
and slowly fell back to Earth
back to my body
back to my self
anchored by Knowing
by finally Knowing
something
some True thing
again
with certainty
and clarity

To this day
I do not know
whose voice I heard that night
the Moon Spirit's
or my own
my Unconscious
and I don't care
it makes no difference to me
either way
because the words that voice spoke
are Truth
undeniable
inarguable
solid
foundational
Truth
and I will remember them
for as long as I live
and as long as I remember them
I will never again
be lost

the lunch lady likes me
because I smile at her
every day
and say Hello
and call her by her name
because I took the time to learn her name
because I asked her how to pronounce it correctly
so she likes me
I can tell
by the way she smiles at me
and says Hello
and calls me by my name
she doesn't do any of this for anyone else in line
just me
and I can tell by the way
she gives me extra portions
a little bit extra
a second small ladling
of everything she puts on my plate
more than she gives to anyone else in line
my plate is always heavy when she gives it back to me
this is her way of being nice
the only way she has to say
Thank You for treating Me like a Person
and not a Food Dispenser
and so every day when I get my lunch from her
and she heaps an extra portion out for me
and I take that too-heavy plate from her hands
it makes me feel very happy
in my Heart
but also very sad
in my Stomach
as my pants feel just a little tighter each day
and I know she is giving me too much food
and I can't eat it all
but also knowing
that I would never
ever
want her to stop