Growing up Ashamed in /of the USA

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I grew up ashamed, it didn’t help that I was smart

I said mean things about our country &

I knew people hated me, and they knew why

Truth is Evil if used without love,

I wanted to have friends,

What I was: Alone

Sometime we don’t know, that our focus is outside,

That what we hate is merely an aspect of what’s inside

And so an opportunity for grace Is waiting on its knees

I’ll be no harsher when I’m judging my country

We tend to take everything so seriously,

Criticizing my Country, the good old USA

Is my most Patriotic act, in grace it is received,

Born with these eyes, no wonder I lost one.

Still burning bright, I love what appears to bring me joy.

Still what hurts causes scars in both

And we carry them too this day

I wonder why reflection is so difficult

Or is it the change that is denied?

No matter that the money flows

Our new cars on the way

Cruising straight to hell

For sure we know the way.

Is it radical or conservative to say

Our consuming is eating the earth alive.

America has led us here.

As my actions every day.

Holland

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The grey spring tease’s me with blue skies

Brilliant sun from another time

I move hesitantly toward

Another home with more friends

Than my heart will allow

So it breaks and opens anew

This longed for homecoming

Into my own heart of hearts

Pain was the only lover I trusted

Now I find that it was only

An invitation into silence.

This quietness that has stolen over my body

Slows my reactions, and speeds my heart,

Like a soft caress from the divine

I am swept away into this love of sensation

While this body has indeed become a temple of god/dess.

Energy releasing beyond even stories of healing

Doors opening where there were only walls

Wanting dissolving into accepting each moment of life

Again, clumsily, with what grace I know,

I point towards silence.

A Truth - 2009

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This gentle beauty

that you are

Radiates light

form and soul

shining outwards

as life.

Memory

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Love is a bobby pin lying under the bed.

Later someone wonders if something is to be lost or found.

The bobby pin never wonders

only loves. Longing for

what it once held.

Consumption edit from 2009

All that is necessary is an apathetic,

sedated, distracted populace.

No mater how good fine or

freedom loving, all that is

necessary is their inaction

and the world is lost.

School of Night

I woke a few years ago thinking of a lover as old as myself, "Suzy Creamcheese" a petite and pretty little brunette who slept and comforted me many days and nights and introduced me to cocaine and Marin and many things when I was still a teenager in San Francisco in 1977, and not very adept at getting myself around. She was usually up for a friendly fuck and I love her now more than ever and miss her. Yet she remains with all my loves, in my heart for as long after I am gone.

It is interesting to realize I have more of my life behind me than ahead, this fact puts some of my current feelings and mood inhabits different perspectives. I often think that I am alone and miserable, when in reality I’m adopting a perspective that brings with it much pain and alienation that is unnecessary.I may be isolated and morose, but this is a result of my own choices and actions as much as any objective truth that is fixed and unchanging. I often wonder what my life is like when I am happy and care-free as opposed to depressed and unhappy. While my life is full of  responsibilities and tasks these are the results of taking responsibility for my own life rather than ignoring it.  While I would like to find wonderful friends and lovers who give me all I desire, The fact remains that I am responsible for my perspective and mood. So often my own anger at myself and “the world” overwhelm my desire and ability to enjoy and act in a happy and free manner. I have much to think about in this vein.

I don't know if it's aging or not feeling like I've met my life goals

It's not that i don't know that you love me, but that
I can never go home, and that's what i need.
Wish me the best you can, try not to hate me.
I hope I'll see you someplace better,
or that i'll be able to appreciate what is.

I stand in the halls of sorrow after everyone has gone

Every seduction, hope and love has died between her doors

I stand in the halls of emptiness finally all alone. The loves

That might remember me will fade and soon be gone, even my

Grand Nieces and nephews will forget my name in time. And

Perhaps some idea spoke to stranger in passing will make some

Other less pained, then I have at least attempted my life’s desire

In love and service albeit, in vain.

2009?

My take on Suffering (continued)

I started out with the perspective of personal unhappiness. Fixed and factual; just a reflection of the pain and suffering that is endemic to this planet especially at this time. It still feels that way at times, yet i can see it is unhelpful to be rooted in this belief or perspective. I choose not to continue the violence towards myself and others. For it is violence to not accept love, beauty and awe as well. Life is (for me) neither good, nor bad, it simply is an experience that is. I may need to write more about this , but let me continue on the thread i am meandering on and get back to appreciating without judgment in a bit. I love to write about love, not as a Hollywood saccharine sweetness, but as a force of the universe, a god, that we are between, Like Venus (love) and Mars (war) we on earth orbit between these tow poles, often forgetting that there is more space than matter in the universe, and we are surrounded by space, and when we allow ourselves some space, it is much easier to deal with emotions or reality, for they are (however powerful) only occurring temporally in vast spaciousness, that is also within us.

I have come to question the validity of "my"feelings, as they tend to loop, and if (or when) i carefully examine them, I see that they (the feelings) are habitual and originate in very early experiences. So what is happening actually is rather than be present, with a situation that is unique and never to be repeated, In fear, or unconscious habit, I contract and lose touch with reality and emotionally fall into a traumatic loop of the past. It's so bizarre actually, It's like time travel, and the irony is I'm missing out on life and so of course there is a deep knowing that life is pointless, if not lived now. So this desperation or seeing that I'm not present can reinforce the hopelessness in the moment.

The real miracle or wonder in life is as soon as i accept whatever is going on (even me not being present, or "looping") I seem to have access to the present which is (not to be overly cliche) truly a present or a gift. For I am surrounded by beauty and love and horror and destruction, yet i am not starving, or being tortured (except at times by the past) and I have been given the key, and i have been encouraged to walk out of the cell of my beliefs, into freedom of not knowing.

I love Leonard Cohen, he speaks of this so eloquently. "I don't trust my feelings, feelings come and go". He also speaks of how the inherent flaw "crack" in everything in the physical world is where "light" or god comes in. There is that moment when you see your beloved as less than perfect and all of a sudden, your heart is sundered open for there is no going back in love, only forward into what is to be.

We have no choice, if we truly love, for love cares not for us, it only cares for its inevitable movement forward into life, into to what is, and to be, and again and again, we fall to our knees, saying "yes".