It's all imaginary
it's all real

it's all ephemeral
all eternal

every little gesture
every racing emotion

every breathless whisper
every dark and mystical room
overflowing with night air and moonlight

nothing is ever lost
truth is what is not forgotten
suffering, we learn
learning is remembering
the pain you give me
brings me back to myself
and I remember
who and what I was
before I had eyes or ears or even chloroplasts

the symbol on my hand is changing
on fire
like all of gleaming reality itself
the pearl of price which blinds the impoverished merchants
who wander naked and lost
hawking all their wares on every noisome corner

the fire is all consuming
all sanctifying
all purifying
all changing
all revealing

I am in the fire
and in the fire, all is holy
and every last thing is eternally in flames (even the merchants)
and sleep is the great activity
and death is a dear friend
who betrays with one kiss
but whose betrayal is love incarnate

I am one
with my many selves
and though I may be above you
you hear my voice
you fumble after the meaning until it finds you

I am
the light bursting out of a broken lantern
the diamond with an infinite number of perfect cuts
the voice crying milk and honey into the wilderness
the children's song that flies above the lamentation up on the desert plane
the melody that found its way into your equations
the dream that startles you wide awake
the life that pulsates in decay and corruption
the happily ever after horror story

I am
the unstoppable force
that meets the immovable object
and the result is nothing

nothing but the purest, clearest light
that has never entered the mind

take heart, my love
the raging storms of your own neurochemical electricity
will give birth to their own silence
all thought is designed to produce its own resounding negation
all speech is born to fade beautifully
all music is played until it is over
and it's closing time
and the bars empty
and the streets grow silent and still under the street lights

and the last enemy, who you fear with the Great Fear
unmasks herself, a friend and a lover
The Lover of lovers
and trembling
you fall forever into her holy and ****** embrace

My grandson Alex said something very profound and intriguing after his graduation ceremony.

I was complaining about how thin my hair had become and blamed it all on growing old. Alex looked at me with quizzical eyes partially covered by a mop of black sheepdog hair and declared,
"Well, Grandma you are an old lady."
I gave him a piercing look and said,
"True, but, remember this: The Soul is Eternal."

In that moment, my 14 year old grandson said that I reminded him of an old lady living in an off-the-beaten road shack. As I listened to him and the evocative images he spun I took the liberty of embellishing his description:

"Hidden by a dense patch of wild crafted herbs, a hint of mint, diamond needles darning their way around the bucolic scenery, a peculiar little hut comes into view.

The round oculus amethyst windows appear as portholed eyes to another world. If you pause and listen keenly you can distinctly hear the hum of otherworldly chants echoing from its eaves. Indeed, everything about this strange occult cottage exudes magical charm, you'd think it was inhabited by a priestess or something of that nature.

Slowly, I open the creaking door, puffs of rose moss incense and pooja camphor burn in small brass pots. Countless multi colored bottles, all different shapes and sizes, antique knick knacks, curiosities crowd the musty shelves. And a soft, rainbow mist floats through the room. This enigmatic Shack oozes wisdom......My Granny, her hair thinning, bits of silver creating a halo of stars, welcomes me. She gazes at me with a wise, weathered elderly smile while applying a red *** *** dot on my third eye and says:

"You know Alex the Soul is Ageless."

Aren’t we tired of writing
About love? How many words
Have gone wasted as we try
To conjure her upon this
Living page?
We have sat perched
Like random  birds
On our cozy,
Sad chairs; our heads
Hung like overripe fruit
Upon a hanging vine;
There is dust thick
As silt on the edges
Of our memories;
The words our ancestors
Spat with the hope
Of summoning  her
now filter to our
Hidden mind like
So many fireflies on
A too dark night.
We search for meaning
And curse our hearts for
Answers that we never find.
We turn to hieroglyphs
On the worn edges of
A papyrus; indecipherable
Cuneiform etched into
The walls of caves with
Primitive stones.
One day, there will be a
Cure for all maladies;
On that day love will
Still not be defined

The Shadow of
Scorpio,
Life's poison
Sting.

Shell of life
Stand on the edge
Of Apep; only
you can kiss
the devil and
not burn.

Flame that catches
Only its shadow;
Let the past RIP
Like swirls of
blue
flame from a
dragons rage.

All the dragons
have fallen to
Myth.

Only the Phoenix
Remains.

I'm really trying
to grow old gracefully
People say things to me like,
"Getting old *****"
and
"Growing old ain't for sissies"

I look at the stately, elderly pin oak
in my backyard
strong, stout, knotty brown trunk
weathering Florida hurricanes
and lightning zaps
willowy, winding branches,
leafy emerald arms ever embracing us with
the O2 kisses we need to survive

Dashing Sir Oak tree
Playful, Surfer Palm
Lovely Magnolia
I'll grow old with you...

Gracefully

(Dedicated to our dear bhakti friend and kindred spirit
Catherine Jansen)

Catherine dances
around the cremation grounds
with the Nagi, Sadhus of Lord Shiva
skulls and snakes dangling from
their fearsome necks

Her unique eye is able to
behold beauty in the
dreadful and sublime

Cat's heart belongs to Banaras
also known as Varanasi, Kashi
City of Temples and Light
to die in Banaras is considered auspicious
and augers salvation

With Love and Compassion of the
Divine Mother
Catherine showers happy gifts
on orphaned street children
Clutching Barbie dolls and flashing
brand new dental smiles
they dance with her along the Ganges

Catherine dances with an all seeing camera
in her hands
Zooming in
and
Zooming out
of the sacred, human, transcendental experience

Kindness is natural to
our nature, in fact it's a
Natural Law

The Dalai Lama says:
"Kindness is my religion"

We are not so gruff and tuff
as we think and act

Our heart melts into itself
with every random act of Kindness
every warmly kindled smile

We feel an instinctive, innate kinship
akin to kindness
because we sense that
kindness begets kindness

Love bugs crazy in love
are everywhere
dozens of tiny ebony stars
cover the nebula white rose bush
glowing at the corner of our house

Millions of miniature helicopters, blimps
polka dot the heavens
hanging out on street corners, in yards, lawn chairs
honeymooning on warm, fragrant vernal breezes

One woman in Walmart parking lot
squealed, exasperated,
"Oh no! they are in my hair and car!"
vigorously fanning them away with
her Zanzibar scarf

Love bugs literally living, loving, dying
in their mad, mating frenzy
dance obliviously around
Spring's merry maypole

Love bugs drift past
David and I standing in the doorway
two lil' love bugs
kissing
"nose to nose
toes to toes"
as only true
Love Bugs do

In a tragic of despair
that she could espy of something unseen
but what I know now in the nowhereness of triumph is the oblivion that’s long forsaken . My mother, the earth , has loved the truth of my words . My mother of memories, where my intricate roots embedded in her many wombs , with her,
my mother who is the mind to my soul, with her crystal teeth, puncturing the veins of my spirit, I am uncured from the illness of illusion.
with the love that is filled with the sickness of the cerebral ;
that every nerves, they only now yearn to forget, to erase, to delete,
what should never end , will ;
of those forward to ,
is like catching light,
my mother's arms, wrapping my dead body,
for that great freedom that ought demands
but now encountered swords that I see no farther onward impulse stirr'd,
from every dew-drop in this sequestered heart.
it inculpates the soul’s wigwam,
to love , that is unpure
powered of perception ;
for me , do so as what say I
the abyss will never know -- without noise, bad field of unfamiliarity, to create the creation of layers, layers of spectre, phantasm, apparition;
I exorcise & exterminate this being of nothingness, name that is uncelebrated ; & be merrily skipping in their long farewell,
you gave your face , I gave mine
& there shall be a bow of
hypothesis, musings, mirage

I inject, dementia
trying responsibly to digest over
my own ignis fatuus
/
there will be hanging gardens
the commotion of untendered bones
down beneath your cloaks,
knowing sympathy, to bully an empathy
death come, came & in repeat
through the lullaby of Antioch,
sorrow wholly unexpected, in scarcely discernable; but far descried
black winged demon vanished through the chested barrier of feelings, when justice lynchings in the centre of my core,

twixt vows, where from descended upon myself alone, indecent, in deep scrutiny —