I retreat into myself
Into the corridors of me
I lounge on the well worn flagstones
Gazing on the marble columns
Arranging tapestries and paintings in
A more perfect order
I stalk down old hallways and explore unnamed galleries with a
Single candle to push back the deep
Sometimes rooms are filled with old Furniture
Sometimes entirely empty
Once feeling brave I held onto
The threshold of such a room and
Stretching out I hold the candle aloft in the chasm. Nothingness, darkness complete the light puddles at my feet pitiful.
When I recall that yawning abyss the silence of
It persists.
In ballrooms I play Chopin's waltzs' for no one  in particular
Yet I take my bow and my place at the head of a table set for a score of kings
I lay on marble steps trying to guess the riddles that my echo whispers
I climb the  towers and the spires to dizzying heights and many weeks I was lost in the labyrinth of cellars of basements of tombs beneath
I have seen strange things lately: a chair upturned or
Bed unmade, quills still wet, and doors open and shut of their own volition in the inky black
I swear I have seen before
A tall figure in a hooded cloak dart
Into the shadows, and it did not seem
Altogether human

I read for years inside my library  
And have spoken at length to Shakespeare and Plato
I have seen Yggdrasil and the seven hells
And sped through time with
H.G Wells. Of death and moon, of birds and galaxies I am enamored.
Tea with Julius Ceaser, chess with Captain Hook.
Breakfast with The Buddah
Coffee with The Christ
Did you know that Captain Ahab takes His water with a squeeze of lime? No Ice. Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain know me by my first name, I have fenced with the Gods of Olympus and of Asgard and I remain undefeated. The divine crowd my hearth and many nights have been passed here in quiet conversation, with Confucius, with Archimedes, with Epictetus, Davinci, and the brothers Grimm
I have lived ten thousand lives and Will live another ten

-Without a single thought of you-

I wander
To my garden
Gently lit by paper lanterns
The path is smooth and heady
The amber blossoms
And weathered sculptures
Make my eyelids heavy
Monuments with fists clenched beat my
Ego ******
New flowers sprout from the ivy throat
Always things are grown but never overgrowing
I steal through the hedge maze that only I know
To the secret center where no plant grows
Pavilion and pond
Where no bird sings year long
In that quiet I endeavor
To look without fear
Into the pupil of forever

CLVI

First of all, condemn the life thou art now leading: but when thou hast condemned it, do not despair of thyself--be not like them of mean spirit, who once they have yielded, abandon themselves entirely and as it were allow the torrent to sweep them away. No; learn what the wrestling masters do. Has the boy fallen? "Rise," they say, "wrestle again, till thy strength come to thee." Even thus should it be with thee. For know that there is nothing more tractable than the human soul. It needs but to will, and the thing is done; the soul is set upon the right path: as on the contrary it needs but to nod over the task, and all is lost. For ruin and recovery alike are from within.

(Handbook for Quarreling Lovers)I THOUGHT of offering you apothegms.
I might have said, "Dogs bark and the wind carries it away."
I might have said, "He who would make a door of gold must knock a nail in every day."
So easy, so easy it would have been to inaugurate a high impetuous moment for you to look on before the final farewells were spoken.
You who assumed the farewells in the manner of people buying newspapers and reading the headlines-and all peddlers of gossip who buttonhole each other and wag their heads saying, "Yes, I heard all about it last Wednesday."
  
I considered several apothegms.
"There is no love but service," of course, would only initiate a quarrel over who has served and how and when.
"Love stands against fire and flood and much bitterness," would only initiate a second misunderstanding, and bickerings with lapses of silence.
What is there in the Bible to cover our case, or Shakespere? What poetry can help? Is there any left but Epictetus?
  
Since you have already chosen to interpret silence for language and silence for despair and silence for contempt and silence for all things but love,
Since you have already chosen to read ashes where God knows there was something else than ashes,
Since silence and ashes are two identical findings for your eyes and there are no apothegms worth handing out like a hung jury's verdict for a record in our own hearts as well as the community at large,
I can only remember a Russian peasant who told me his grandfather warned him: If you ride too good a horse you will not take the straight road to town.
  
It will always come back to me in the blur of that hokku: The heart of a woman of thirty is like the red ball of the sun seen through a mist.
Or I will remember the witchery in the eyes of a girl at a barn dance one winter night in Illinois saying: Put off the wedding five times and nobody comes to it.

knuckles ache
peel back the page:
Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus
cluck the tongue
boys outside throw jabs
over a cracked
cricket bat
a father frets over
investments and client work,
simple things.
I read on
wondering how so many words
committed to tranquility
could be attributed to so many men
when women
trained stoics since the womb
would pen epics -
if only they were not plucking stones from rice.

I chipped golf *****
Onto the putting green

In a hidden Canyon
Bright Cloud
An hour or so before sunset

The cloud drifts through the sky
Emanating light
Radiating sunlight
Dazzling light

I am overwhelmed by nature's beauty
I observe the Tao
I take part in the changing
The final hour of daylight

Sun cloud
Floating through the air

Sunset
In the distance
Pink Cloud
Barely light outside

Now it's dark
Bright moon
Full moon
Clear moon

I really saw
I watched
As I listened to Epictetus

Great and mysterious is this planet

"The unexamined life is not worth living" -Socrates

"KNOW THYSELF" -- Socrates

"Wise is he who knows that he knows nothing." - Socrates

"Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well." -- Epictetus

"No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but things which produce certain pleasures bring troubles many times greater than the pleasures." -- Epicurus

"Natural wealth is both limited and easy to attain, but wealth, as defined by groundless opinions, extends without limits." - Epicurus

They announced
It was the end
Of the world today

I just smiled and laughed
And thought
It will all be okay

And so what
Is after this life
We will one day see

Heavenly and peaceful fields
For you and me

I create what it would
Look like
In my own mind

And I envision
How I would pass the time

A conversation with Socrates
Maybe Epictetus too
Oh how intellectually stimulating
And good for you

I will climb pristine peaks
Wade waist deep
In crystal waters clear
Great love is always near

This little Toshiba netbook
Is having some problems functioning

I always took good care of it
I think it's four years old by now

I thought I would be able to afford a regular computer by now
At least I had a few interviews

Still no luck
Oh well

If the powers that be
Won't hire me
Then ***** it

I have a B.A. Plus 16 months for the credential
I still live here at home

I will have lived here 17 years this upcoming October
Looks like it will be another year or so
Before I finally move out
I'm not really sure?

Geeze I'm a living saint for goodness sakes
A ****** and never been drunk too

I sit in my room watching history documentaries
And reading philosophy too

I don't expect to fall in love
I just want to make a small salary
Enough to have my own small apartment

I wish I had some more good friends
Hmm well I guess I'll go chip golf ***** now
And listen to the golden sayings of Epictetus

You have to love yourself
You have to believe in yourself
Because everything is so hard