"satori" poems
big sweaters, ghibli, acrylic paint, cafes, knit blankets and unplanned afternoon naps on the couch, gardens, bananas, vanilla almond milk, soft yarn to crochet into ****** scarves, candles after midnight, the big trees with bulky roots, patio furniture, pianos in random buildings, the internet, manatees, the boundless colours of nail polish, peanut butter & honey, rubber boots, pens that write well, fresh new notebooks, skylights, american netflix, mothers that understand, tête à têtes, one glass of sweet white wine, awkward eye contact that turns into comfortable kissing, airplanes, fresh air, baseball caps, the female collective, the really good dark chocolate, flowers, pumpkin spice lattes and ***** chai lattes, candid laughter, yoga, oceans, high waisted shorts, striped t-shirts, docile cats, playful pups, french presses, integrity, sunscreen, meerkats, penguins, chameleons, autumn leaves, fall fashion, ruby woo mac lipstick, osho, dynamic meditation, compassion, siblings, scrambled eggs, smart phones, garageband, metronomes, hot glue guns, quinoa, ferry boats, soft hands, bicycles, real people, fat snowflakes in ample, graceful ********** backpacks that don't hurt your shoulders, hair conditioner, multi-vitamins, soft sand under bare feet, people that own up to lies, clarity, samsara, satori, samasati, visions, echinacea, lavender oil and frankincense, ambrosia apples and ripe avocados, authenticity, Morgan Freeman's voice, good kissers, ******* iced tea on a hot day, curtains, the smell of beeswax, art galleries, hand massages and foot massages, reiki, plums, mild thunderstorms, soccer ***** good surprises, when birds don't **** on your head.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
The way she came in,
She glanced at you,
She drank her black tea,
She smiles at you,
To change your Satori,
As a new awakening.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 4:48 AM UTC
Whats this world coming to
Paranoia all around
Creeping up but slipping down
The melodrama hurts me
Is this the way it should be
I question our existence
Illusory immaterial junk
Inching through the samsara
Satori says I'm not really here
Senseless matter sitting idly
In a tiny corner of dharma
Overwhelmed unimaginably by
It all.
Dec 26, 2009
Dec 26, 2009 at 8:24 AM UTC
I bet she’s beautiful,
Though I can’t see her, -
Sakura in the moonlight.
Friend, come, rejoice!
I know, you miss her -
Sakura in the daylight.
Reflections I see
When looking in her eyes, -
Everlasting spring.
Old master once said:
“Satori doesn’t draw lines ‘tween seasons”.
So what are you waiting for?
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 4:28 AM UTC
I’d never noticed the
Freckles
On your
Shoulders.
But then again,
You’d never noticed
The scars.
Specifically
The ones
On my chest,
And if you had,
I’d never
Heard
Anything about them,
Or, “it.”
It had been awhile since we’d
Last crossed paths,
Encounters always
Ending in
Collision,
Connection
And corrosion come the first
Morning after; but welcomed.
You looked good though,
And that’s how it’d always
Started,
But beautiful nonetheless –
A world-weathered skin
In the form of a twilight tan,
The vulnerable smile
With a small curl displaying
Aggressive sexuality,
And a dress, your cloth,
A critical juncture,
Of both cinema and satori,
A’flutter in the wind.
“Gift-wraps,” aside,
I’d always return to the
Form and curve of “You.”
Simply you
The half I could see
Leaving the other
Somehow elusive side of
You
To my imagination and
Memory
Of prior gallantry.
Unspoken words
Pave paths between the
Tables we now occupy.
So to,
Acts of predation await,
Perched and ready for
Gardens,
Accepted, the resulted chaos.
I wonder,
“What’s she thinking?”
As I capture a wink
And steal the sunlight
Bouncing of her
Shoulder’s freckles.
It’s an intoxication
At its finest.
Accordingly,
I sip my
Beer
And in echoes mumble,
“I want you, want you,
Want you.”
Luckily,
You wanted me too.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 9:04 AM UTC
I was sitting on a park bench
Two days ago
After putting in some overtime
When a pair of kids walked by
"Life is so dope"
Said one to the other
It was said with sincerity
Not a hint of irony
It was beautiful
I was hit with a moment of
Satori
Life is so dope.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 8:52 AM UTC
It
was not the reality,
I was unwilling to trace back.
Ignoring the last scene
forgetting where I have been
afraid of fear, surviving in the dark.
Though all it took was a moment of serene.
After all darkness just needs a little spark.
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 10:15 AM UTC
One more chalice of amber
Encrusted with hopes and dreams.
One more sip from the cup of life
To ground what we believe.
One more breath of neon vapor
That lifts us from our knees,
Frees the wrists of shackles
And clears the way to see.
Repeat,
Ad nauseam,
Until the truth is found.
In the depths of depravity
Satori abounds.
A glimpse of nirvana
And all that was lost is found.
For now,
But as the amber nectar turns bitter
The smoke is powdered on our lungs.
The vapor has all gone while
We hiss our words in tongues.
But in the morning when all is said and done
You awake to true satori,
The road to understanding has only just begun.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
~
March 2025
HP Poet: Mike Adam
Age: 66
Country: UK
Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Mike. Please tell us about your background?
Mike Adam: "Slum east London, dysfunctional violent childhood, playing on bombsites. School, dungeons and kidnappings, sad little boy. Love of dogs and plants and rocks. School: Beckett Shopenhauer, work, college, work university, 1st love lost, travel Asia beaches and mountains, monasteries, monks, Bhodidharma. Work, work, work, Lady J (published collection), retirement, happy at last."
Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?
Mike Adam: "Began writing 10 years old, HP about ten years."
Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).
Mike Adam: "Poems gestate and arrive unbidden, laid like turtle eggs, a little hole, sand flicked and forgotten."
Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?
Mike Adam: "From 1,000 posts perhaps start with the latest few. I call them "mercifully short," easy to read but, given time, you may unpack a great deal."
Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?
Mike Adam:
*"Ryokan:
Why ask who has Satori, who has not?
What need have I for that dust, fame and gain
Montale:
Life that seemed vast
Is briefer than your handkerchief"*
Question 6: What other interests do you have?
Mike Adam: *"Amidst the first suicidal mass extinction in history I am grateful to read new poetry and garner hope from young poets still expressing themselves in beautiful combinations of words so thank you all for that...
Who am I?
I don't know"*
Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much Mike, we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! It is our pleasure to include you in this Spotlight series!”
Mike Adam: "With gratitude, Mike."
Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Mike a little bit better. We certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez
We will post Spotlight #26 in April!
~
Mar 2, 2025
Mar 2, 2025 at 4:45 PM UTC
Satori is a word that originates from Japan. It literally translates as 'awakening' and is used to describe a moment of 'sudden enlightenment'.
To attempt to understand this as an experience, try this:
Imagine your mind as being a glass prism situated behind your eyes.. It breaks up reality in a similar way to how a glass prism refracts light.
What goes in is pure and whole, but what comes out is broken and fractured. When the mind is active, what is received by the eyes is broken up into tiny little manageable pieces of information. Then for convenience, it will discard anything that it considers to be irrelevant, or 'not fitting' [what you already believe to be true].. Then your body will react according to that particular interpretation of reality. That's not to say the mind is bad or wrong, only that the mind does not see Truth, but only what it allows to be true..
When the mind falls silent the prism is removed, and you become just like a mirror. Light goes in through the eyes and your being will directly reflect what is being received.
See if you can catch the next time your mind goes silent. Be aware of the stillness it brings. Notice that the mind will want to judge it or describe it. If thoughts come, acknowledge them and let them be on their way. Just watch them. Treat them in a manner similar to watching clouds float through the sky. Stay with this feeling and remember it well.
For in that moment, all will be revealed.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 3:29 PM UTC
The other day in a bar
a young man threw down,
called me out, and Said,
"How do you
become a poet,
oldtimer?"
I sat my bourbon down,
looked him dead in the eye,
thought I might fling
an impossible koan
to take him out,
but instead I answered.
"Listen close and I'll tell you true.
It's all in the Muse, kid.
Not a muse; The Muse.
The only Muse for you.
And you'd better start looking now
because it can take your whole life."
I finished my drink.
"Next time," I said," ask me why
the bridge flows, but the water
is motionless."
He sat stunned,
philosophically
out-gunned.
I sat my empty glass down
and slowly walked away.
Another notch on the handle
of my Karma pistol.
No matter how good you are,
they just keep coming.
~mce
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 8:48 PM UTC
*I open my mouth to sing
but have forgotten the words.
Snow on their heads
the mountains too have forgotten.
At least the butterflies remember how to dance.*
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 4:41 AM UTC
All I Need is this moment
I will not walk on by
Thirsty by a mountain stream
Without the tears to cry
Denial and delusion
Have not worked out so well
Existing in confusion
Creating my own hell
Love teaches me to really see
What is beneath the surface
Known by the heart but not the eye
Revealing my life’s purpose
In a flash Material World
Gives way, but what is this
A signpost points the way to
A sense of eternal bliss
I am glimpsing sweet moments
In the awakened state
The Holy Instant, satori
Where oneness replaces hate.
Dec 1, 2016
Dec 1, 2016 at 10:00 AM UTC
Moon on the horizon.
Soft breeze rattles the
brambles out by the
old barn.
The cat enters, looks
about and begins to
speak.
“Fears take flight after years
of drinking the tears away
while the days responsibilities
are laughable in the light of
satori's brilliant realization.
Silly, silly man, thinking reality
something to achieve, a destination
to discover, a journey to undertake.
Listen and I will tell you what little
I have learned burning away my
short time on this horizon of
understanding.
All that is transitory is a metaphor
for the eternal and all that is eternal
is a metaphor for the self.
The self is the collective consciousness
we all share and what we share is our
experience of being.
Being is nothing but an illusion created
in the mind of God while God is simply
a metaphor for eternity in the mind of
man.
Now pour me some kibble for I know
many things, but do not possess opposable
thumbs”.
I woke with a start, cursing the spinning
room and swearing never to mix Jameson
and Absolute again.
The cat finished her kibble and crapped
in the litter box.
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 12:52 AM UTC
In the
chasm
between
two thoughts
lies the garden
of bliss.
Easily found
but not easily
entered...
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 12:40 AM UTC
Sometimes I just want to be sad.
And I want to not care about anything
And I don’t want to feel bad about doing anything
And the only thing that would matter is to make myself feel better.
And feeling anything would be better than feeling like that so it wouldn’t matter what I did, and there would be no regret, no fear, and lots of pain. Beautiful, immediately real pain.
And I would cease to think and I would cease to think about thinking and I would exist as an element, reacting.
Just reacting.
And experiencing the dance.
Because, I want to feel it.
Really feel it. None of this phony derivative ********
I want Satori.
I want to not think.
I want to not want to do anything but to do it anyway.
I want love in its most disgusting explosions.
And I want people. Beautiful people. Especially pretty girls.
And I want to be good for them even if they think I’m not.
I want to heal people.
And I want to help people who need help but don’t know how to ask.
And I want to hurt people in a way that makes them who they want to be without realizing it, and I won’t realize it either.
I want to accidentally get everything right,
And I already am because nothing can get got wrong if the getter’s got no wrong left in the universe.
And I want plants.
I want Brassicas to spiral towards me because they realize the sun is unattainable and distant and that I am right here all the time with love.
And I want walk through all of the blackberry, and raspberry, and wineberry bushes so they can claw at me and stick me and bleed me. And they can grab me and never let go of me so that I can die there and they can absorb me. And we can realize we were never truly separate in the first place.
And I want Rhododendrons and Laurels to weave themselves into my home because I want to be sheltered by life and love and I want my surroundings to reverberate growth as I reverberate appreciation.
And I want to appreciate everything more.
And I want to feel what the river wants me to do for it.
And I want to hear from the wind where I should stand so that it can enter my skin and lift my soul above my body and I can experience weightlessness.
And I want the sun to explode, just so all life on Earth will flash before its own eyes and we can experience all of it again. Together.
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
Sunshine breaks through the windows,
warmth and wind beat upon my forehead
and a smile breaks out with sheer joy.
My body soaks
in the peaceful surroundings
as I rest soundlessly upon my bed of clouds.
My heart is tucked under the gentle wing
of bliss,
like an eaglet nurtured
under the comfort of her mother
as the noble pair soar high
above the land.
My still mind
mimics the pauses between the swaying breeze;
The utter silence that illuminates
the peace within.
My body shakes with awakening
as my self experiences satori
for the first time.
As I intently observe
the life force flow in and out,
now is love,
and I finally am.
As I bask in the glowing sun
that peers through the blinds,
I have been blessed with sight,
for now I can see.
Dec 15, 2010
Dec 15, 2010 at 5:21 PM UTC
I endure -
this is
the way of the unblessed
in a land of storms;
A moment expands -
scared river on the hills
then back
tumbling
sandwalking
in a land of worms;
Holding hope
by the beat of heart,
closures
ever birthing
in a land of proms;
And then a candle
burns through -
fragrant at night;
The blessed
have their heavens;
The unblessed,
satori;
Feb 21, 2025
Feb 21, 2025 at 1:37 PM UTC
Are we destined to commit, to bathe in same mistakes
over and over and over again?
yours truly...STILL
after years and years
still hasn't learned very much
it is my wish for you that
yoy achieve that satori moment
before its too late
Namaste
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 6:59 PM UTC
Green grass, over the fence
Oh, how she wished something would happen.
Sometimes, I could imagine a duo as Hector and Debbie,
Trusting the process and accepting prophecies.
Things like Hector's passion about music,
Persuading rhythm alike classic romances.
Of how he wanders histories behind every key,
He strums his fingers in swift, never off-key.
Hector is somewhat lucky to have a sister like Rowanne,
Checking his contents for loopholes, because then she found one.
Chapter Two, 'Hector goes into a sponge state and has a satori',
To the point where he meets a maiden, named Robin.
Conglomerate, quartzite, sand stone, and cigarette ****
Why not, let's seek the mighty Debbie's hunt?
Her hook of appreciation is beyond inspiring,
One's looking at the bright, fuzzy picture in the magazine,
Yes, she thought.
Chapter Twelve, Debbie had truck lessons taught by Lenny.
He asked permission from his Dad in the field of gloom.
Debbie and Patty stood inside a thriving mountain of rhododendrons.
Hoping it wasn't too late, she thought the word 'soon'.
A poet would like to bid its period in this closing narrative,
She would like to walk further and swim deeper to the medium paged papers.
This selection of scenarios frames to the advocates,
Criss-cross, criss-cross,
Oh, how she wished something would happen.
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 5:26 AM UTC
Satori is beyond words,
yet any words with which one may use to describe it are correct;
explain this.
May 24, 2011
May 24, 2011 at 6:50 PM UTC
Set your bundle down
Satori in an instant
Pick your bundle up
Dec 2, 2018
Dec 2, 2018 at 9:44 PM UTC
once i awoke and suddenly
got kinda satori :
„i dont love you anymore“.
this is salvation from
the labyrinth of sorrow
I will again enjoy the rays of light
and black coffee and the walk
few days went by, since I tattooed
in my mind this formula
„i dont love you anymore“
but all these little joys (in the days without you)
were so transient
they meant nothing
in comparison
with my all-colored feelings to you.
Even the pain is like a petal of flower
I grasped that „i dont love you“ just doesnt work
and I write you a thousand and second time
how much happens between us-till to deafness
I remember so much-of cause in vain.
songs unsung, unspoken words and phrases
Sobs and screams and jokes in which you
Still come true , you came
you didnt lost on the bend of fate ....
in thousand second time I count the days
of being blue, they all without you.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 2:19 PM UTC
no need for conversation here
chet baker on the stereo
reminds me of the words we share
when time has no place else to go
immobile as a broken clock
still on the wall a bird inside
long separated from the flock
not knowing where to find a ride.
the need to flip the record soon
Inspires me to lay down my pen
move through the crescent-lighted moon
and drop the needle once again
then listen to the falling man
bend summer into one last stand.
Oct 9, 2022
Oct 9, 2022 at 10:53 AM UTC