What is Life, have you ever thought?
It is not just to exist, have you forgot?
Is there a greater purpose for us here on earth?
Is there more to achieve in this human birth?

We humans want to be happy, but why are we sad?
We live in ignorance and feel that Life is bad
When will we stop and go on a quest?
When will we be enlightened and in peace will we rest?

We are all prisoners, we are not free
We all live in cages, suffering is our fee
Because we don’t find out what is the Truth
We live in ignorance and we face the brute!

I too lived in ignorance for 40 long years
I lived with anxiety and I lived with my fears
Until one day I found out what was true
And then my Life changed with happy colours and hues

My Spiritual Master asked me to go on a quest
To put every belief of mine to test
“Wake up,” he said, “and realize the truth
Ask and investigate till you get to the root!”

I found that happiness has 3 little peaks
But man is so petty, just pleasure he seeks
Few of us are lucky, we are content with our need
And don't become prisoners of our lust and our greed


The ego and the mind, they both make us sad
We think these are us, but they are the ones who are bad
They are our biggest enemies, they stop the realization
From ignorance and suffering, our Life’s liberation

When we realize who we are and why we are here
We become free from ignorance and every possible tear
We can then live blissfully with happiness and cheer
Today and tomorrow, and right through the year

Happiness is all about being in the now
Not shuttling in thoughts and losing a Life that’s wow
The past is gone, the future not yet born
But we waste our Life as this shuttling goes on

What is Life, have you ever thought?
“Are you just existing?” this question you forgot
If we are liberated from myth and ignorance
Then our Life will have a new fragrance

There are many beliefs that create unhappiness
We live with superstitions, the truth we miss
But because these are things that we all have been taught
We accept these things which in fact must be forgot

Don't we see that nothing is ours at death?
Life is a journey and lasts till our breath
The fact is that we have just a few years to live
Why hate and regret, why not just forgive?

We all want to be happy and we chase success
We think that success is happiness
But when we look around, we find the rich are sad
If money could create happiness, then the rich should be glad

Fools we are, in ignorance we live
We can be happy if we just learn to give
Instead, we earn and earn and earn
Only for others to burn what we earn

We don’t realize that death is not the end
The body dies but for the mind, it’s just a bend
There is a Universal Law on earth
As per our actions, will be our rebirth

I learned about things that make people cry
We wail in misery without asking questions, “Why?”
Life is a treasure, and this gift we lose
Because we don’t discriminate, because we don’t choose

Our goal is Liberation, to be free from the myth
The purpose of Life is to realize the truth
I learned that if we go on a quest, we will find
Joy, peace, and bliss of a very different kind

But instead, we are building fortunes that will not be ours
Sure, we may be rich and have monetary showers
But what is the use if our heart is full of tears
What is the use of Life if it is filled with fears!

Because we don’t understand the true meaning of Life
We live with misfortune, with misery and strife
Rather we must go on a quest, the Truth to find
And be Enlightened about Ego, Body and Mind

Our goal is just one - to merge with the Divine
Instead, we live chasing wealth, women, and wine
We go on and on like rats in this race
Don’t reach our destination, we get caught in the maze

There are in this world just a lucky fortunate few
Who wake up every morning before the sky turns blue
They meditate, they contemplate the true meaning of Life
They cut through the ignorance with a sharp little knife

They are the ones who live a Life full of bliss
They love all, knowing love is not just a kiss
They overcome the ignorance that envelops most of us
They find true enlightenment in Divinity that surrounds us

What is Life in the final analysis?
It’s about being peaceful and finding happiness
But far more than just living with bliss and Joy
Is to discover Life’s purpose before Life goes by

What is Life, the Truth we must know
It’s Liberation from Ignorance knowing this is just a show
It’s about Realization that gives us Liberation
Finding true Enlightenment and Divine Unification

The calender reads 2016
But its feels more like 1984
Have you heard the crying
The American dream
Lying dying in the streets
While big brother
Is strapping blinders
On our heads
And shackles to
Our hands and feet
Were being lined up
By the rows
Willing prisoners
Of the slave power
Empire of minimum wage
Shuttling our children
Off to the animal farm
Market of big business
And big lies
***** water mixed
In with the rotting
Apples of the
New American pie
The sugar isn't sweet
To the starving
In the street
While trash cans
Over flow in the back lots
Of the super market
Super chains
Of the slave power
Empire of criminal rage
And its the cold dark waters
Of nuclear waste
Soaking the pages of the calender
That reads
2016
In these days that feel like
1984
No kindness or compassion
For hands shaking tin cups
Needing just a little change
Just a little shelter
From their sad weather lifes
Living on the cold ground
Below our overpass ways
No shelter and no change
No compassion and no kindness
In the fist and pockets
Of the slave power
Empire of ignorant ways
Bullets, bombs and hate
Harvesting fresh blood
For the ink
To print the pages of the calender
That reads
2016
As politicians write us back
Into the pages of the days of
1984

Unrhymed, unrhythmical, the chatter goes:
Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose.

Beneath each topic tunelessly discussed
The ground-bass is reciprocal mistrust.

The names in fashion shuttling to and fro
Yield, when deciphered, messages of woe.

You cannot read me like an open book.
I'm more myself than you will ever look.

Will no one listen to my little song?

Perhaps I shan't be with you very long.

A howl for recognition, shrill with fear,
Shakes the jam-packed apartment, but each ear
Is listening to its hearing, so none hear.

The Blue Canoe*

Had dinner at the Blue Canoe again,
A once every summer ritual,
Open aired, open to the senses, this eatery lies,
Nestled in the grasses, on the bay, in the port...

Had the onion rings that come
Wrapped around a boat mast,
In size order, smallest on top,
With BBQ mayo, superseding ketchup.

Watched the ferries shuttling,
As the sun collapsed, exhausted,
And slipped into the bay for a quick swim.
The ferries must work till 1am.
No dunking for them, either.

The clouds were magnificent.
No, I cannot write a poem about the cloud colors.
Their shape shifting inexhaustible,
Mine eyes high on their creativity,
I'm just not good enough a poet to tamper with that sky.

Green apple wedges and Caramel dipping sauce.
Best desert idea. Four bucks.
After dinner, see Wolverine?
Nah. He'll keep.

After-dinner stroll.
Want to try the carousel?
Suddenly the Nana~Grandma is seven again
Twice? Yay!
Of course, I do, snag the gold ring.
Yes! Red ticket! Free ride!

The band is playing Henry Filmore marching tunes
In the open space nested next to the carousel.
Old people liking old music.
Oom Pah Pah. Cute but boring.
What! No Mraz? We've been had!
Ferry home. Water smooth.
Breeze, a steady, warm two knots.
Time and Temperature? Perfect.

We drank a sparkling rose.
We had a sparkling evening.
Long week, tired at the molecular level.
I think I took my jeans off, nothing else,
Never made it to under-the-covers-land.
Woke up at 245, to write it all this down,
Recalling the last time we ate at the Blue Canoe.
When I was a better-poet
For then, I wrote....

Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,

The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your ship babies to sleep.

The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.

The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian Prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
Declaring, without stuttering this time,
Peace on Earth.

The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, a very old bartender's recipe,
Salt air, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, marine gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order,
Onion rings.

These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here,  poem aborning,
Contract with this moment, now satisfied.*


August 2nd, 2013

Ask me for directions, meet me there, so we can compose jointly, drunk on senses overloaded...

LAST night a January wind was ripping at the shingles
over our house and whistling a wolf song under the
eaves.

I sat in a leather rocker and read to a six-year-old girl
the Browning poem, Childe Roland to the Dark
Tower Came.

And her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was
beautiful to her and she could not understand.

A man is crossing. a big prairie, says the poem, and
nothing happens--and he goes on and on--and it's
all lonesome and empty and nobody home.

And he goes on and on--and nothing happens--and he
comes on a horse's skull, dry bones of a dead horse--
and you know more than ever it's all lonesome and
empty and nobody home.

And the man raises a horn to his lips and blows--he
fixes a proud neck and forehead toward the empty
sky and the empty land--and blows one last wonder-
cry.

And as the shuttling automatic memory of man clicks
off its results *****-nilly and inevitable as the snick
of a mouse-trap or the trajectory of a 42-centimetre
projectile,

I flash to the form of a man to his hips in snow drifts
of Manitoba and Minnesota--in the sled derby run
from Winnipeg to Minneapolis.

He is beaten in the race the first day out of Winnipeg--
the lead dog is eaten by four team mates--and the
man goes on and on--running while the other racers
ride, running while the other racers sleep--

Lost in a blizzard twenty-four hours, repeating a circle
of travel hour after hour--fighting the dogs who
dig holes in the snow and whimper for sleep--
pushing on--running and walking five hundred
miles to the end of the race--almost a winner--one
toe frozen, feet blistered and frost-bitten.

And I know why a thousand young men of the North-
west meet him in the finishing miles and yell cheers
--I know why judges of the race call him a winner
and give him a special prize even though he is a
loser.

I know he kept under his shirt and around his thudding
heart amid the blizzards of five hundred miles that
one last wonder-cry of Childe Roland--and I told
the six year old girl about it.

And while the January wind was ripping at the shingles
and whistling a wolf song under the eaves, her eyes
had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful
to her and she could not understand.

The immortal is the time before the rain
When we have thoughts of it afterward.  
By then, the mosaic of tongue and its words
Are broken stones swept away
By the shuttling broom of storm.

Gently soaring against green sky,
white world above.
Glimmers pass just under each crest.
Starry reflections mesmerizing
the eye of the beholder.
Soon begins the dance.
First to cross over
bursts free
shattering planes to open air.
Gliding on warm sea spray,
a brilliant spectrum off
silver forms taking shape.
The pinnacle moment,
poised the dancer holds the world still,
and bows.
An angelic descent,
merging back to the old world.
Murky cold envelopes the winged dreamer.
Now in pairs and trios they come.
Each shuttling into a similar pose,
stopping time,
only to fall again into the fathoms
of the emerald abyss.

Load your ***** clothes. Separate your colors from your whites. Try not to linger too long on the shirt you first met him in.

2. Add detergent, only half a cup. Fill with cold water, watch as cerulean galaxies form right before your eyes. Realize just how much of you is not you.

3. Fill with warm water. Start spin cycle. Press your ear against the machine, hear its prehistoric roar rumble through your bones(now your shakes have excuses)have it envelope your senses until you assimilate into history and star stuff.

4. Jump when the buzzer goes off. Brush yourself off and hastily transfer loads into the dryer. Persevere when the wet clothes weigh down your arms more than thoughts of him, of his smile, of his laugh(****)

5. Set the dry cycle for another hour. Try not to think about your homework, remember that he's in your chemistry class, bite your head off. Sit on the dryer, close your eyes, pretend you're on a space ship shuttling through the atmosphere, through the Earth's orbit, on your way to the moon or Venus(****, you think of him again)or Pluto. Salsa on Saturn's rings, fall through Jupiter, turn stars into sticker on your skin, add pulsars, neutron stars, and quasars to your scrapbook(even if you don't scrapbook)

6. Return to Earth when the dryer shouts beneath you. Fold your shirts. Try not to think about the way his cheeks and face folds how he buckles over when he laughs, or how you did that first when that stupid statistic about how people like to mimic the habits of their love interest(***** science, if i can't explain my feelings, neither can it)comes to mind. Don't even look at that ******* shirt, toss it to the back of your dresser. Tuck sleeves left over right. Shove away thoughts of tucking stray tendrils of hair behind his ears, the feeling of his soft hair beneath your fingertips, how he cradled himself into your arms when he gets embarrassed.

7. Hang up your dad's formal shirts, your brother's tank tops, your mom's blouses. Blane your fatigue on the time of day rather than your depressive disorder. Blame your depressive disorder on your tendency to box yourself in and hold your own head underwater and struggle to breathe.

8. Accidentally close your eyes too long but just long enough for your mind to project  slideshow presentation of him standing off to the side, lingering for someone you wish was you (but it'll never be you, you know this like you know how two opposite symmetrical particles annihilate each other upon impact, a fatal encounter)

9. Throw back the tearstained shirts, socks, and boxers into the dryer. Set for twenty minutes. Almost forget to change the lint filter.

10. Stand there, numb and wet-faced, as the machine rocks, focus on the shaking of the tumbles to remember where you are, who you are.

11. Realize how often you lie to yourself(it doesn't take a genius to recognize a pattern)(remember Matt, Jamie, Julia; all fatal encounters, the stray neutrons in your equilibrium)Realize this is self-destruction. You are matter searching for antimatter, the particle searching for your antiparticle. You love the pattern(you're a routine-loving virgo, after all; you live for periodic patterns)love the cycles like the seasons. Like Persephone taking summer and spring with her every year, you are both Hades and Demeter. Cherishing new companionship, mourning the loss of your heart and soul.

12. He is the bull, you tell yourself, and bulls trample. Bulls stomp and wreck and dance and fly, but bulls are wild and untamable. Bulls don't belong with China-shop girls with scorched tongues and thumbs and an affinity for loving supernovas and jackhammers.

no way you could know that
I have driven US 80, when
the Pennsylvania Turnpike
was considered a legitimate deathtrap,
and 80 was a god-send

shuttling back and forth tween
Cleveland (o/k/a The  Burning River City) and NYC,
in the crappiest weather man
could just about tolerate,
and 84 was just an
incomplete dream then,
so we one day,
could skip that idlewild,
Passaic, New Jersey,
back in '69

indeed the Pocono deer that
came through the windshield,
luckily, legs first,
after smashing the radiator,
that I dragged by hooves
to the side of the road,
still well recall, for that
was the first time I touched a
living thing dying in my hands

when I broke my arm in
Tannersville one summer night,
they drove me to the big city,
Scranton,
woo hoo,
cause the break was bad ,
they need to operate,
so they left me there,
w/o any anesthetic,
in the hallway(!) till morn
and a "see ya later kid,"
how they did things in a tough place
known as central Penna.,
which now I think of
semi-fondly as the place where
a piece of me was left buried
and I am still alive to swell tell

but people were tougher back then,
even me, a city 13 year old boy,
cause I had dreams of  girls,
wonderful girls, who had powers in their bodies
that could do things to me in the Poconos forests,
that were unthinkable (for them) after crossing
over the Hudson River,
and that was plenty
anesthetizing

so dem my bona fides,

and Now I Will Write
just another overdue thank you
for Balise, who writes
with a coolest heated blazing detachment,
and then at the very end,
IN ALL CAPS,
smacks you on the head
via the heart

writin'  
of
this n' that,
Mass and men,
worshipping a river called the Lackawanna,
the bleakness of a not quite grimy poverty,
(I worked in  Republic Steel warehouse)
that made grey a bright color,
and the sun was invisible from October to May,
in a world where people PROUDLY,
clung to their guns and religion,
(you arrogant out of touch Harvardian snob,
Mr. Obama prima donna),
you had to see it to believe it

of
herons and beer cans,
of parents and pain,
so exquisitely,
that I would gladly
drive to Tannersville again,
right now,
if I could, if I could,
yet learn that skill under her tutelage,
which by the by, is why some call me
still crazy, still crazy, after all those years,
crazy from a balise,
a wintry blizzard heating the readers eyes, and
who reads my footnotes
and thus
only this woman,
knows, better than she ever realized,
where his undulatin' poems come from...

Tuesday lasses
we all have classes
get up and go
there’s no time to waste
join the flow
there’s no reason to wait
everyone’s hustling
coffee guzzling
bus shuttling
paper shuffling
syllabus assessing
apple-watch checking
there’s a fall-like feeling
making things more appealing
file off of the bus
and join the crush
trudging up science hill
thru the doors up the stairs
climbing in pairs,
in class, at last,
setup and relax.
I open my binder
and hand in the assignment
the guy beside me can’t find it.
and the TA moves on
the guy’s upset and I get it
he’s frantic and grim
I pretend I’m not watching him
as he ransacks his rucksack
too late, they’re taking roll
carelessness takes its toll

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 17, 2017)

The trains come every few hours
bringing layers of night in compartments

of sleepers, processions of dark
to convalesce the whispering

cottonwoods. The station windows
are dark. A rare hotel window

glows yellow from a lamp.
Someone is reading

about Mary Colter.
Her stone property wall

like a bulwark against our passage.
The overnight swooshes of the convoy

fade out into the flat horizon
while stamped sheets of tin nichos

unbent themselves in quiet pops
downstairs, old Harvey keys

snug in drawers. Is this the night
almost one hundred years ago?

Or will we all wake up with the trains,
shuttling into tomorrow?

What’s the use of crying, in a Yesterday that’s gone?
What’s the point of worrying, in a Tomorrow not yet born?
Why not live in bliss and joy and peace?
In the present moment be happy, be happy, can we please?

Be happy in the NOW, this moment is a Gift
Smile and dance and celebrate, don’t just exist or drift
It is in this moment, that we can choose to be happy and glad Let’s not
lose this moment, to memories that make us sad

Yesterday is a place, that we just can’t go
The past is an illusion, it’s like a dream- a stage show
There is no way of being happy, in a moment that has passed
The only thing it will give us, regrets that will last

The future doesn’t exist, it’s just another dream
It looks so very real, as long as we worry and scream
How can we be happy in an illusion of the mind?
Let’s wake up to the NOW, let’s not be blind

Everybody wants to be happy, who doesn’t want this gift?
Who doesn’t want to enjoy their life with a lift?
Everybody wants pleasure, nobody wants pain
But they look for it in wrong places, stressed and in vain

Of course, we can be happy, in every moment of life
It’s a choice for us to live, with happiness or strife
If we decide that we want bliss, joy, and peace
Then we must be happy before this moment will cease

Happiness is not only becoming a millionaire in this world
Are the rich the only ones happy? See this truth unfold
There are many who are fulfilled and content in life
Though they have little, they are happy and they smile

What’s the secret of happiness? It’s being happy in the NOW
Not shuttling from the past to the future, we must not go
We must learn to remain in the present moment with ease
Then bliss, joy, and happiness will blow like the breeze

Our mind is like a monkey, it jumps here and there It doesn’t let us be happy,it wanders like a hare
If we truly want happiness, turn the monkey into a monk Being in the present moment fixed like a tree runk
The way to joy is ‘Surrender’, to the Lord’s divine will
Not living with hope and expectations, not worrying about bills

The future will unfold, as per the Lord’s divine plan It’s for us to be happy, whatever comes in our pan
Why live in regrets, of the past that’s already gone
It’s the Master’s wish that happened, why regret all that’s done?
The way to joy is to accept the Lord’s divine will And not curse and nurse, and rehearse every ill

Happiness is simple, if we learn to live in the NOW
Joy and bliss are possible, for those who go with the now It’s not in the
future, nor in the past, but in the present
We must realize that happiness happens moment by moment

Be happy in the NOW, that’s the only way to be
Don’t be worried in tomorrow, to there we cannot see
Don’t rehearse the past that’s dead and gone
Be happy in this moment, as if we were just born