Breaking Waves

     Here are the next two prose poems in the current series I've been writing.

                           BREAKING

     they say it's better to bend and bend so not to break     the green branch does this but the dry one snaps in two     yet sometimes breaking's the only way to change     how would the chick get born if the eggshell didn't break?    and what about that glaze of ice splintering on the pond each spring?    if I can't break with ghosts from the past I won't grow     if my heart was never broken I couldn't offer you safe haven there now

     on the other hand some things shouldn't break but they do and we can't always fix these     friendships for instance    I remember one that shattered into a thousand bleeding pieces     no matter how long I searched I could never find them all     other treasures we wished stayed whole are bones    vows    dreams    fine crystal    castles in the air    families    certain toys    and the human spirit

     then again a break can be a gap in time or space which let's us rest and opens up to unexpected worlds     when I take a break I stop pushing too hard and plodding grimly ahead      freeing my soul from the constricting carapace of cause and effect I come back home to the reality of here and now     a break can be a widening crack in my prison cell's wall     it can lead to a breakout     a hairsbreadth escape as liberating Light pours through!

                                 ***

                             WAVES

     heaven and hell and everything between course through me in waves     yesterday I danced on the foaming crest     today I founder in the turbulent trough     I'm not a granite cliff but a sort of walking ocean through which ceaseless waves rise and fall     much is lost in those waves     much found     when a wave takes me it engulfs like my uttermost reality      when it throws me down I splinter into shards of yet another shattered world

     I think I was conceived smack in the curl of a breaking wave     there's this rawness in me     this need to thrust onward     this oneness with the surge and tumble     it's a rootlessness     a restless becoming     don't be fooled when you watch me standing quietly or sitting still     I'm cascading wildly somewhere     far out at the glittering edge     nothing but towering sky above     unplumbed depths below

     One day you'll wave as I pause briefly     silhouetted alone on the glowing horizon     and I'll wave back     but I won't return I'll keep going     I'll keep going until only my absence remains     just an empty space filled with the rising sun     I'll keep going    borne by that final wave which carries me beyond all others     beyond even these breakers of love and grief     horror and gladness     I'll keep going     until I find you again

                              ***

    

                                        

Turn And Smile

  I was in a dark place when I wrote "Smiles." Mostly (not surprisingly)  smiles have a happy association for me. Yet everything has its dark side too--even light (shadows), and there are times when I become more aware of that aspect, and have more need to express it. It's all part of the Great Dance.


                             SMILES

     so many smiles I've drowned in    then they went away    like a beached fish I flopped around on the shore of their absence gasping for air    other smiles stayed but I didn't    I pulled back so far inside not even a bloodhound could find me    when you smile my buried wound might gape wide again in response    it looks like a smile but it's not it's a cry for help or pity or just the lament of an animal knowing it will die

     somewhere there's a smile which never stops -- the primordial smile of the universe    life and death are submerged in it    cruelty and kindness    the deepest trust and the worst betrayal    that's why a human smile can mean anything    that's why when I smile at you you should open and shut at the same time    we often mean well but when a predator bares its teeth you better be wary you can't be sure

     the withholding of a smile can be a weapon sharper than the keenest blade    children get sliced to pieces though they still walk and talk and pretend to be whole    if only we could recover the unsullied truth of a baby's first smile!    if only I could splice your smile and mine into a changeless and serene embrace!    I can't escape the smiles that enthrall my soul and the smiles that plunder it    every day    every day

                               ***

   On a happier note, I never stay in a dark place too long. I arrive at a "turning point" -- a moment of truth when I'm able to change course and turn back toward the Light. Sometimes this metanoia can be a terribly hard rite of passage, but it's alway possible. All that's required is my soul's total and unconditional surrender.

                           TURNING

     turn I tell myself    but saying and doing are two different things    I want to go on the same way as always    even though it always leads to a dead end or worse    turning means surrendering the known and risking the unknown    turning means letting go    dancing clueless    pivoting my fate on a wing and a prayer    there's no growth without turning    without turning I'd calcify into a breathing corpse

     how effortlessly the swift turns    skimming over a pond     and the oak's branches    they're parables of zigzag becoming!    no straight line calibrates life    what can't twist and turn petrifies    what won't open out to possibility clenches    a denying fist    turning's the way I incarnate my love    turning's a kiss I exchange with the universe!    turning and turning I align my soul with the wisdom of the stars

     turn with me now though every fear screams "march straight ahead!"   turn like a river's course    like the tide at its ebb    like this Earth as it spins through an ocean of space    turn to face me then turn away then back    I see now there's really nothing but turning    I see now a single changeless direction doesn't even exist!   when a butterfly emerges from the cocoon and spreads its wings    that's the way it sings "I'm turning!"

                                ***    

Dreaming My Toes

     "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," Prospero observes in Shakespeare's The Tempest, "and our little life is rounded with a sleep." Perhaps these words were echoing somewhere in the back of my mind when I wrote the following prose poem.

                          DREAMING

     is this the dream of a dream of a dream or am I awake?    maybe I'm more awake when I dream    bit by bit I peel the Infinite Onion    each peeling fascinates    yet its only the tiniest shred of a Reality that's boundless and inexhaustible    I feel the sunlight on my back but I know the night's deepening inside me    if you're dreaming me dreaming this please wake up    or sink further into your dream to where I keep watch for you

     perhaps there are countless universes cupped within each other like nesting dolls    each is the dreamworld of the next    every word every touch matters yet differently each time    our altered heartbeats echo strangely down scintillating corridors of mirrors from dimension to dimension    we're intergalactic time travelers    half asleep half awake    a million light years divide us    but we grow so much faster than light!

     when people no longer drink thirstily from roots webbing out like subterranean antennae through the loamy sediments of their dreams they begin to sicken and die    or else go crazy    programless cyborgs crashing helplessly against the sterile walls of cyberspace    I carry my dreams in a wind-colored knapsack and take one out to wear whenever cold calculation threatens to freeze my soul    here    I brought an extra dream-coat for you

                                ***

     I never wrote a poem to my toes before. But now I wonder how I could have lyrically ignored them for so long. Viva my toes!

                           MY TOES

      thank you little piggies for hanging in there all these years    forgive me if I've ever taken you for granted as I know I have    you line up so alertly by size places    flex so eagerly as if trying to grip the earth    wherever I go you thrust right out in front    even willing to be stubbed just to get there first    remember that warehouse job when both big toenails were crushed?    they turned black and finally fell off    you guys are my heroes!

     I think of all the times I stepped on a land mine    blundered into a quicksand bog    or recklessly waltzed where Angels fear to tread    yet you never complained    never cringed in abject surrender    never begged to be let off the hook    no matter how rough the going or how long the march you always showed up and did your best    with ten more friends like you I'd be king of the world!

     not only that    you were my earliest playmates:    this little piggy went to market    this little piggy stayed home    this little piggy had roast beef    this little piggy had none    and this little piggy...went "wee wee wee" all the way home!    look    you can still wriggle and splay and I realize that's how you laugh    one thing's for sure -- whenever my toes curl I'm in heaven!    we've been loyal buddies for a lifetime and even death won't part us

                                 ***   

A Stone And A Breath

     Here are two more prose poems from a series of 30 I'm currently writing. Each turns out to be another discovery. Beyond the title, I never know how one will start or how it will end. Even simple words like "stone" and "breath" have multiple meanings, connotations, associations, interconnections. All these in turn converge with what's going on in my heart and mind and life at that moment of creative expression. Finally, there's an inspiring Spirit, or Muse, which I hope will infuse and transform my efforts. But this visitation can never be assumed, only supplicated. As T.S. Eliot wrote: "Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,/Every poem an epitaph."


                          A STONE

       a stone is a point we can start from     return to    is there someone home inside?   the space there could be huger than a universe!    many stones arrive as messengers   small   smooth   polished    others are almost heavy as boulders    I've sought solace in their shadows    if I give you a stone I offer the part of me living within it    if you give me one I'll keep it for those times I can't be alone

     here's a small heart-shaped amber-colored stone    translucent when held to the light    you can see faint striations embedded    this is the only stone I'll never part with    this is the stone containing five deaths and five rebirths    while hidden deep is a hologram of the Milky Way    if everyone cherished a stone like this the killing would stop    the companionship of stones is greater than the violence of nations

     find the stone you won't part with    and the Furies can never abduct you    find the stone that nestles in your hand like a tiny beating heart    it will grant safe passage through all nine circles of hell    a sacred stone trails an invisible thread connecting to a secret star    all the news we need to know hums back and forth between them!    the whispers of stones and stars we've never imagined crisscross at the crux of our souls...

                              ***   

                           BREATH

     breath after breath I'm paying out my life    many more have come and gone already than remain    what the sum total will mean I can't say    nothing at all if I go just by the numbers    less than the barest whisper of a whisper among the infinite worlds    yet there are no other breaths sweeter than these    I'm absurdly attached to them!    although every one I draw must inescapably be given away

     I want each breath to count for something    but thousands go by while I'm off on a comet    clueless    or possessed by all-too familiar demons    what could be richer    rarer    than each individual breath?    how do I make each one matter    taken and returned with impeccable attention?    when I can do that my own breath unites with the breathing of oceans and mountains    it's only then my soul comes home

    when you and I meet and our breaths mingle    who can calculate the consequences?    the rhythm of the births and deaths of stars transforms us!    one day this truth will be known everywhere and lived full out    each breath will be treasured--a gift more precious than bushels of diamonds!    when I breathe my last breath I want to breathe it with total conviction    to know I'm connected unconditionally to All-That-Is

                               ***    

    

         

Branches And Faces

      In my previous post I concluded with the first in a series of new prose poems, along with its companion drawing--a vision of an Angel holding a lamp illuminating the good green path of life. This is my Spirit Guide and Creative Muse. These prose poems represent the next evolution of my writing, but only as that literary change corresponds to the further evolution of my soul. With these earliest prose poems I was still tentatively feeling my way into new territory--which is why "A Branch", although already in the three stanza form which characterizes each poem of the entire series, is so brief. But in the second prose poem presented here--"Facing It"--I began to expand the size to nearly what it would be for the rest of these pieces.

     This commitment to continuously "make it new" is the only way I know to prevent burning out and drying up as a writer--keep growing, keep changing, keep reinventing my creative self, keep starting afresh with Beginner's Mind.

                          A BRANCH

     forking this way but not that   it's my life    both green and dried out    fruitful and barren    once the buds crowded and jostled for room    now I carefully tend each    never knowing if there'll be more

     certain olive branches were extended but I refused them    others I offered were spurned    I craved peace but feared touching    the branch of my being angled farther and farther from the rest

     but still    a branch    still connected to something immense    unknowable    with roots that plunge deep    beyond sight or hearing    when the wind takes me I dance    not needing to understand why

                               ***

                           FACING IT

     face it    that's what we say about death    truth    facts    the music    even as our face itself breaks apart    sags down    splits up into creases and fissures    I try willing my words to crackle with the fire of twenty years ago!    but something's missing and won't come back    a billion brain cells    or maybe just the delusion that what they thought actually matters

     little by little    like it or not    my face turns slowly away from this world    my attachments here     my craving for another body to hold and be held by    another heart to break with my going    faces that once were fixed stars gradually disappear    long forgotten names stare blindly from an old address book    I release them all    they fall through my hands

     turning slowly away from this world    what is it we face into?    what new world compels our attention    requires our gaze?    I can't see it clearly yet    but certain contours are forming    certain shapes emerging    their meaning seems to be this:   what we call "love" is only a fraction of the Reality    we must be emptied out and cracked wide open to receive it!

                                 ***