you are as beautiful as death
standing outside with your cigarette.

your eyes seeing further
than far away—
you can’t quit that one utterance
of nothing, or you would be left with everything
you have to say.

stand outside and forget that it hurts,
simply exhale and watch time’s tendrils blow away,
and let death make you feel alive
as it settles its tight cool peace on your mind.

you are beautiful as death,
standing outside with your cigarette,
******* impermanence in deep, deep, deep.

the end can’t come soon enough.

Hide your despair from God.
Bury it deep in your heart.

Do not think of kisses,
or hands touching skin.
Do not think of meeting with relief.

Forget the blankness of
this room in the dark.
Forget the empty,
scooped out sadness,
no longer pungent.

Only when you forget your desire
can God see it
in its truth.

Cover it in a cloud of forgetting
and turn your thoughts to the simple joy
of unencumbered being.

There you are a little god,
enough to answer your own prayer.

Here you are a demon,
swathing yourself in torment.

Hide your despair from God.
Bury it deep in your heart.

this can last forever,
this not lasting.
this can be my whole life,
this which is not my life.
I can choose this,
this not choosing.

should I choose it for them?
shall they be the knot that ties
two ropes that do not quite touch?

this is love,
this which is not my love--nor yours.
shall this be their love?
and then they'll be boats tumbling over changing seas?

or should I wait and give them that,
if I ever have it to give?

It is strange to think
that I am striding up a mountain
though I feel so small in my heart.
It is strange to think
that I am still alone on this peak,
though I was holding your hand all the way.
It is strange to think
that no matter how I cling to worldly beings
I still have nothing but this mountain and this sky.
I don't care about what I ought to be--

it never feels like enough.

How can I not
keep trying for more?

I fell in love with a shadow on the wall.
I fell in love with the light.
I fell in love in dissolving, parting,
stepping in sing song.
I fell into never falling,
spreading into every direction,
feeling and being felt everywhere, within and without,
feeling familiar and utterly new.
I fell in love with nobody.
I fell in love with nothing.
Nothing was there--I could see it
in the shadow on the wall,
in the light.
I could not see it, and I was in rapture at the not sight of it,
a face that was not there,
a thousand times a thousand times greater than love.

Yet here I am, miserable, a fool.
With no great gift of strength, or if I had one I squandered it.
A snarl on my lips and my face in the mud,
cringing all around my heart,
withdrawing my hands ever away,
dragging a great sack of rocks.

You say: Your power is effortless.
Your effort is confusion.
Be still and remember what is inside you.
It is a fire that burns sorrow clean.
It is a river that washes your heart new.
All you have to do
is stop trying to be you, or safer, stronger, or better. That is not you.
Don't keep grabbing--let go. Say "Not that, not that."
All those grey, thorny treasures are worthless.
Return to what is eternal: nothing.
A great, shining, smiling, flowing, blossoming, nothing.

Say no, say yes.

along the spider's threads I climb
to find the one I'll claim as mine

even if he's just a bite
to get me through one night

afterwards I'll stay quite still
until the next small thrill

You climbed into a boat of light.
Then the night grew, until it devoured you.

You found your great soul.
And then, you lost it.
You know it is gone forever--
for it will never come to you in that way again,
willingly, and enormously.

This is
how it almost always is.

Once, you were gently surrounded
by endless, loving, non-discrete beings.

Now it is an infinite ache and confusion--
emptiness.

Your love is laid to agonizing rest
in the grave of your heart

and you wade through pathlessness
without any reference points.

O Mourner, remember.

Your love is also there, in despair.

You've lost everything of beauty, strength, and safety;
yet you have gained the only thing of value.

You cannot truly love
until his beautiful mask is stripped from your sight.

The darkness which surrounds you
is not your enemy.

It is the greater aspect of your friend.

Be merciful towards it, even though
it causes you pain.

Remember that emptiness is love unmasked.

(When emptiness presses from within and without,
against what does it press?)

When you are also empty,
then you will be full.

Soft rain on
a cool summer night
quiets loud voices in gardens
revealing the contemplative hum
of the city in motion.

You sleep, still dressed
beside me
in your world always
slightly apart.