"bardo" poems
They come to me with problems That they can't handle. With a smile,
I drop everything to help them.
What they don't know is,
I'm facing a battle.
But they just think that
I'm a happy little helper.
The forces are joining up, Gathering everybody they can
While I stay here just trying to ignore them.
Black and white,
Dark and Light.
Go head to head
As I watch in Bardo
Waiting to be claimed.
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 11:09 AM UTC
In my first life, I died
The year I turned 25,
And now that I’m in the hours before I taste my second,
I want to make it all the way to
28.27 years
cause when you divide that by 9,
You’re left with pi.
And because the universe isn’t just a
Straight line, you’ve got to use a formula to get around,
Get all up on that pi d because piety just
isn't logic enough for me, where even the repentant
Are told they’re going to burn in purgatory, sweetheart, please.
Being alive and feeling was
sometimes hell enough for me.
In just a few hours before I’m sent through that
Tight tunnel,
I want to be judged by the god of
3.14159, the baker that made me
Mr. Blueberry Buddah
Master in the art of reincarnation.
I want to be birthed **** with just a dab of pure whipped
cream for a soul,
Drizzled sweet with the blood I never watched my
mother bleed for me
on the morning of my second birth.
But I gotta say, this bardo shit's pretty odd,
Here the sky ranges in color gradients too specific like
“violent salmon” all the way to “lukewarm smoothie”
But once I get out, I know things will be strange,
owning a life that’s not quite mine to lose.
And even though I’ll have no answer to give, I desperately
Want someone to ask,
Stranger, tell me, how did it feel?
Theoretically, I’ll respond,
Well, I was kicked back into some ancestral dream
To meet everyone I will ever be, everyone
I have ever been and
Once I’ve met all of them,
Everyone I will never meet again.
And they'll ask,
Friend, is that why babies take so long to be born?
Yes, its because they’re shaking hands with the universe
On the way out of the womb.
At least, the one who will reach nirvana
After this life cycle circles through.
Lover, if I were to meet you again, will you remember?
Does your soul still have my story
Etched on it somewhere,
Or will you be washed clean of me,
The tabula rasa upon which Locke never wrote?
I won’t remember you, but
I have faith that you’ll find me,
Even lifetimes grow apart after too long.
It’s all about the company you keep because
They never stay.
And if that should happen, well,
We just met each other in an inconvenient life.
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 2:26 AM UTC
Once I hoped to write like Ginsberg –
but Allen Ginsberg went to hell.
His bolder Buddhist poetry glitters,
then opens like an empty shell.
In vain one searches for the pearl
within the lyric art he showed us.
Open wide his rotten oyster –
seek the center of the lotus.
Perverted lost Semitic soul –
lyrical ranter, mind unhinged…
He celebrated sin and shame
while crew-cut culture cringed.
His beatnik aircraft took off fast,
flew into bardos of the ******
promising enlightenment –
but the cockpit was unmanned.
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 8:06 PM UTC
In the bardo*
you are floating
aboard the barge of couldhavebeens
and moments that were unseen
not the world
not a boy or a girl
lost
Lost boys are found toys for Thor’s hands
to play with
Lightening lick of guitar solo
striking health into blushed cheeks
Soon you’ll no longer need to be
painted
The eye patches will be removed
and pirate life won’t mean
Scrounging and wishing for an oasis
you’ll throw a life saver
throw a light saber
Glisten the sparkzap through tables
laden with all that’s been spat
from vitriolic minds
Listen
sore elbows from nudging bad spirits away
Blades of bone
and intention can saw through sadness
to the light beyond
like the sky’s pinholes
Stars aren't the cuttings of children
the dark is just a covering
Poke a finger through
Don't fear if you get stuck
for it is only the backdrop to a stage
hiding the mass of light
only there to protect us from blinding joy
Like sunglasses
So be one with your sadness
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 6:02 PM UTC
If I can but
squeeze through
the narrow Bardo
one more time,
perhaps
I'll get it right.
- mce
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 10:28 PM UTC
I'm hoping you have no doubts I'm writing this to and about you. : )
Thank you for finally letting me know you know I'm alive.
Just thinking about talking to you makes the butterflies go crazy.
My heart beats then skips a beat when I see you around town and I
swear it's strictly by accident. I'm not actively following you around.
I haven't been to sleep because I'm up thinking about you
but not in the sick and twisted Bardo way of stalking then killing.
I haven't been searching for your address or where you hang
out like that anonymous lunatic posting that on Craigslist forum.
I still want your phone number but only if you want to give it.
You asked the impossible melting snow against weatherman's
predictions and you got this hold over me like I never felt before.
Are you a keeper of unworldly secrets of magic or someone who is
quite lovely and is just plain an extraordinarily special and gifted lady?
I'd like to discover that for myself if you would agree to meet me at
Little Bohemia it's aka Lil Bo's by us locals to hear a Jazz band.
It's a public place and I heard it through the grapevine you popped
in a few times but I can't say that's true, I wasn't there and it's hear say.
Person said you entered alone but didn't sing and it looked like
you were having a good time being a chatty patty and hearing the band.
The more I get to know about you lady the more I want to discover.
You got a wish and mine is not as impossible as yours I'm hoping.
I want in my life a lady like you who oozes confidence when she enters
a room and when she's being chatted up by complete strangers.
I will be in the parking lot watching the door and enter if you enter.
Hoping to see you Friday night and hoping to see that gorgeous smile.
Hoping you agree to meet me but if not I will keep on hoping for that.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 3:44 AM UTC
"Uma corte recheada de incertezas.
Diz o mestre:
- A todos vocês condeno essas correntes ventrais.
Condeno essa pressão cardíaca, essa confusão mental.
Não desejeis vós que o sentimento profundo lhes fosse concedido?
E quem há de me jurar que com ele não viria tremenda descordenação,
tremendo derrocamento?
Ouçam o bardo correndo louco entre as paredes de pedra.
Ouçam o gondoleiro, barcarolando as canções de amor.
Ouçam o basbaque som dos encantados,
os afeiçoados e doados de coração.
Eis a verdade, corte, corte de sentimentos.
Jaz aqui o vento que me tragou a esta ilusão.
Gritam altissonantes os mares,
arriscai-vos corações,
antes que o mar os leve a vossos esquifes,
antes que seja muito tarde para arriscar.
Porém que seja espúrioso o vosso amor.
Pois é sentimento que se perde em lamentações,
e para vive-lo, arriscar é necessário, não aja com esquivança,
uma vez entrelaçado, o amor é mais que a promessa,
é a eternidade, é um fado, é um facho,
é imensurável,
é imane,
é ilibado,
insinuante sinal de maravilhas,
ofusca os olhos de quem sente,
faz plenitude e traz saudade a quem não tem,
mas ainda sim muito além,
é uma reta paralela, e dele deve ser padrinho em solenidade,
é um pardieiro implorando piedade, e nós somos a reconstrução.
Então amem corte, mas paguem o preço,
na labuta e na luta,
pois o amor é um mestiço, meio amargo, meio doce,
mas é nato em perfeição."
Oct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012 at 10:38 PM UTC
for Herman and Mary
Old friends. New days. Years like miles fall away.
A visit, a visit. Time collapses. Walks and talks.
Memories in an instant. Tattoos on the brain remain.
This world, inconsequential and uncaring, but home.
Pain and failure as knowledge. A maturity of knowing.
The zig-zag manifestation of life. Pearls of moments.
We live a succession of dangling modifiers. Syntax.
Dreaming the most legitimate activity. Breathe.
Here but not forever. There is no full stop.
Only a pause in the Bardo for tea
And then a flowing outward to see.
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 8:12 AM UTC
Love
Minus blood
Flood
Minus water
Touch
Minus hands
Words
Minus Meaning
Astronaut
Minus spacesuit
Treasure
Minus loot
Welcome to the helm
Of your own spirit vehicle
Welcome to the realm
Of questionable miracles
Welcome to the future
Welcome to bardo, baby
Nov 19, 2011
Nov 19, 2011 at 7:11 PM UTC
dreams of bardo--
neither dead nor living
seasons pass
.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 4:53 PM UTC
a sight for the
eyes to behold
one thousand bodies
washed upon the shore
a curious treasure
for the sea to cede
gracious undertows
yield hungry ghosts
wrapped in blankets
of seaweed
suspended in true
states of bardo
occupying a beachhead
between sea and land
cycles of tides churn
The Wheel of Life
a quivering moon
lights pathways home
strewn bodies of liberated
souls molder in the sand
proper alms for *****
and squawking gulls
Dedicated to the people of Japan and
the victims of the earthquake and tsunami
Oakland
3/14/11
jbm
Nov 5, 2011
Nov 5, 2011 at 10:21 PM UTC
Saw a pair walking down
the street. Her hopping,
Him hoping—holding a
Cigarette Poised,
A gymnast balanced
Between shaky fingers.
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 6:42 PM UTC
Propositions about
the afterlife are futile.
Do you believe in God,
heaven, clouds, harps and cherubs?
And then you die and discover
that you must lead many more lives
searching for perfection.
Do you believe in the Bardo,
in reincarnation, in the sweet
possibilities of getting it right?
And then you die and find yourself
on a fluffy cloud surrounded by
annoying cherubs whose harps are incessant.
Or will you become a mute patch of earth,
that is wet and dry and favored by worms.
I have closed the eyes of the dead
and all I can tell you is they were dead.
What happens after is futile surmise.
You believe or you don't.
But believing is not knowing.
And when you know, you will not say.
~mce
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 at 3:30 AM UTC
Now at the brink
of winter...ashen
bardo light of becoming.
Those who fear spaciousness
will shudder.
With the leaves gone,
there are no obstructions.
Dec 12, 2016
Dec 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM UTC
Como la brisa que la sangre orea
sobre el oscuro campo de batalla,
cargada de perfumes y armonías
en el silencio de la noche vaga,Símbolo del dolor y la ternura,
del bardo inglés en el horrible drama,
la dulce Ofelia, la razón perdida,
cogiendo flores y cantando pasa.
859
i miss you
and find myself wondering
where and how and if you are
you are because we are
and you are part of we
but are you free?
i remember how you just hate anything
the least bit tainted by the supernatural
yet you believe in the good
and work for the peace
you are relentless
about the consequence of a thought.
perhaps that's why peaceful buddhists
beckoned you across the sea
and why you were happy in their place
i see you now again in their midst
in their bardo - awakening
where the sun is always setting
and souls are recycled
these folk gave you a great gift
for bardo is the proper in-between
to finally unwrap your sadness
and be pleased with all you are
but you were christian first and still
and have chased jesus all your life
you've met him often in his varying disguise
and so encouraged, uplifted us
i remember your lessons
your direct manner
the joy above your sorrow
the hope above your hurt
you always left a warm space after
you have left it again with us.
Jul 21, 2012
Jul 21, 2012 at 11:51 PM UTC
The other night I met Mark Twain
I passed the invisible frontier into a
Large area like a deserted fairgrounds
In the darkness of the coming night.
There were others there, not many as
Dark figures passing when I came up
To him, as to an old acquaintance not
Seen for a while. I said this place quivers
As between day and night- like any moment
It will change and we will not be here at all.
Just at the end of twilight it was.that He said:
Yes' but where else could we meet-That did
Seem to answer all my questions; and I woke
Knowing I had been somewhere else, a place
Between where something more and some-
Thing less can coexist in a fragile balance.
Like the attic of all beloved memories -not too
Far away to travel to when we must know still
They are, a place where they live and are real.
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 11:24 AM UTC
So many lives
to come this far.
Each story fragile,
imperfect, incomplete.
Still, the Bardo mirror
says more to go.
So sad to know
that Love remains
at least another
life away.
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 3:27 PM UTC
Hardly, my friend.
The Dharma shrieks
a diamond radiance
from my heart.
I do not fear
the turning
of the wheel.
I revel in it.
I made this world;
creator and arbiter.
I control my destiny
by controlling my self.
I choose how to live,
where to live,
with whom to live.
I know what I need
and take it.
I make my desires
into my truths.
My karma is strong.
It is not my karma
to surrender, ever.
My other lives
roiled with war,
death and destruction,
but never surrender.
What to fear in this one?
Only fools fear death.
Death leads to the Bardo
and the Bardo leads
to another try
at conquering life.
I sit where I am
and I choose who I am.
My heart feels
the circle turn
and I exude its
diamond radiance
once again:
action in inaction;
order in chaos.
I make my freedom here
in the still spoke
of the spinning wheel
we call life.
Let the Universe
look after itself.
I have other worlds
to conquer.
~mce
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 8:38 PM UTC
Áureos buriles en pulido mármol
Graben su nombre; que su busto esplenda
Alto y severo; que su sien decore
Lauro apolíneo.
Musa del bardo que cantó las hondas
Selvas y ríos de la patria... Musa
Libre del Ande, que a su tumba vienes,
¡Pliega las alas!
Ara intocada de su ardiente culto
Fue siempre el Arte; y con unción votiva
Dio, como ofrenda a los eternos Númenes,
Ánforas bellas.
Arcade nuevo, de la selva andina
Hizo, en sus cantos, a los dioses templo;
Y ellos oyeron, de su lira acorde,
Clásicos ritmos
Himnos los suyos armoniosos fueron,
Cantos de hosanna, que cual triunfo vibran
Hoy, cuando extraños ¡Poesía sacra!
Ajan tu veste;
Veste que siempre fulguró distante,
Peplo de diosa en consagrado plinto,
Y hora, arambeles que en el hombro lleva
Vulgo profano.
Frentes se inclinan a su paso. El cielo
Radia en fulgores, y el silencio crece;
Y óyese, lejos, en azul de altura
Vuelo de águilas.
Raudo desfile sobre erial galopa...
¡Potros salvajes que cantó! Las crines
Sueltas al aire... y al tropel de cascos
Tiembla la pampa.
Potros pamperos... ¿Los oís? De polvo
Nubes levantan, y al tocar la cumbre
Rápido el viento, retrasado vuela,
Vuela tras ellos.
Rojas corolas cual la sangre suya,
Ecos de bosques y armonías altas,
Fueron de su alma, segador de ensueños,
Lírica siega.
Frente a sus ojos se extendió anchurosa
Selva de siglos, con inmensas aguas;
Tierra fecunda, y el azul cortando
Fúlgido el Huila.
Toda la tierra tropical; e inmenso
Campo a su vista, con hervir de savia;
Y ávido entonces de laureles, hizo
Suya la selva.
Sueña una garza en su visión de bosque,
Tiende a las ondas el nevado cuello,
Y alza en el pico, destellando en iris,
Vivida escama.
Fue claro río que en radiantes días
Ceibas y palmas contempló en sus ondas,
Y albo de espumas, reflejó de noche
Rubias estrellas.
Diáfano el cielo palpitó en su canto,
Alas de cimas por sus versos se oyen,
Y álzase de ellos, cual de vasos níveos,
Hálito eterno.
Áureos buriles en pulido mármol
Graben su nombre; que su busto esplenda
Alto y severo, y que su sien decore
Lauro apolíneo.
787
Read these words
and you will know why
though we trip through
the Bardo ten million times
or lead a billion lives,
my karma is to follow you
forever, beyond endless time,
through limitless space
until infinity itself vanishes
and we are the all, the only
because त्वां कामयामि.
May 15, 2015
May 15, 2015 at 3:43 AM UTC
Weary of the same old same old?
Don't flee your imperfections.
Instead, double down on them.
Stand naked before a mirror
like the one in the Bardo.
See what is really there rather
than what you'd like to see.
Your soul will either
turn cold as a frog's *****
or explode like a **** lab.
Instantaneous suicide or
blinding enlightenment.
Die, awaken, or just
continue to muddle through.
Corpse, Buddha, Zombie:
Which of the three
would you rather be?
Oct 30, 2016
Oct 30, 2016 at 10:11 AM UTC
que poca mentiras tenes de chiquito a chechuas:
Lyrical y poeta
Poeta y lyrical
Media luna y cracked jokes
Cakes and misfit animals
Se van a open para vergasos
Los movemos antes de llegar
Muebles no carga
Sangre equivocada de cuero
Boludo
Los libros se cargan solos
Poeta
Los libros en las tinieblas de la mente
Poeta
Girando sin parar la cabeza va
Después de todo es más que un sonido
Todo lo bonito se admira de repente
Todo lo feo se arrepiente uno despues
Que es lo interesante de tu pareja:
Baudelier, se sintió frío al escribír sus poemas o estoy mintiendo.
No podemos rescatar la madre de la sabiduría.
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 12:30 PM UTC
bardo smoke...
love like life, limb
and charred wood.
fragrantly black in
the nausea of a fire's
sleep.
as life and death say:
repeat after me.
so repeated, now as
never before.
a love that's found itself...
for the last time on earth.
may i be blessed to hold
her in all her suffering.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 12:12 PM UTC
Thy breathing is about to cease. Thy guru hath set thee face to face before with the Clear Light; and now thou art about to experience it in its Reality... wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky, and the naked, spotless intellect is like unto a transparent vacuum without circumference or centre
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017 at 1:06 AM UTC