Maybe it is a non-starter, an impossible dream, or a complete non-sequitur when one puts men and women together and anticipates that happiness can somehow be yielded. Or, is a real basis for happiness the joining of the two sexes in a truly loving and mutually respectful and mutually supportive relationship? In my forays looking to find bases for happiness, I ran into John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) who was described as “one of the great puzzles of 20th century literature.” He wrote over 50 volumes, including novels, poetry, essays and philosophical works. In his “Art of Happiness,” Powys portrayed women in a very dated way (at least to my way of thinking). He held women on a pedestal that most women today would not climb upon. In any event, I was inspired to use his musings as a basis for some descriptive-type poetry that I suggest could best be enjoyed by being read aloud (as are most poems I do believe).
Just to be clear: I am of the belief that women are a superior race.
********************
Woman
A woman is an artist
Who creates an atmosphere
Into which she can escape;
Where she can stay
Whole and independent
While her mate
Is perpetually dragging her
To engage in purposes,
Undertakings and mental images
All of his own.
Her world and his
Are separate crystal spheres
That actually touch
At only one point:
The point of enjoyment of each other
–An enjoyment
That would lose its zest
If what touched
Were two flat boards
And not a magnetic point
On the curve of a planetary circle.
Women are closer to nature;
Women savor deeply
And mysteriously
The general spectacle of the world.
They relish, with an indescribable glow,
This motley procession
Of sights and sounds;
Of changing moods
As the fitful fever of life
Foams and ferments around them.
The sub-aqueous pleasure of theirs –
In the chaotic motion of the life-stream –
Belongs to the innermost
Nerves of their being.Only the wisest of them
Are aware of their deepest happiness;
And, aware or not,
They all enjoy it,
Drawing their miraculous endurance from it.
They are all mediums
Of its occulted revelations.
Every woman is a sea shell,
Within whose hollow curves
The great ocean of life
Murmurs it hidden secrets.
This mystic realism of theirs
Evokes that indescribable smile
When they listen to man.Man: the abstractor of essences;
Man: the projector of theories;
Man: the creator of ideas;
Man: the discoverer of laws –
Droning on like a great metaphysical
Bumble bee on the high shore
Of the many-sounding deep.
A woman’s world
Is a coral pleasure dome,
Built upon the depths
Of the fabulous gulf-stream
Of life.
It is hard to re-enter
This earthly paradise
When the pressure of common life,
Of custom and recurrence
Have once closed those magic gates.
She escapes into her own world
Of sensation and creation –
A world that links her girlhood
With her womanhood –
A world that all other women
Can make shiver to its foundations;
A world about which
No man –
From the beginning of history –
Has any clue!
When a woman loves,
She loves a man’s inalienable self
(recognizing here that love can span one’s own gender also)
That self which his dignity –
His pride and his masterfulness –
His grandiose gestures,
As well as what his lust
And weakness conceal.
These things are concealed
Not only from the world,
But also from man, himself.
A woman’s happiness
Is rarely a mental thing –
Rarely a self-conscious thing.
A woman’s happiness is indeed,
At its deepest and most natural,
Just that very pleasure
That there is in life itself.
For a man to be happy,
His pride needs to be satisfied;
His lust satisfied;
His conscience satisfied;
His love of work,
And his love of play
Satisfied.For a woman
It is much more complicated.
Conscience has nothing to do with it;
Pride very little;
Lust hardly at all;
Neither work or play
Emerge as of primary importance.
She – woman – must have
Scope to live to herself:
To build a self-stylized
Work of Art that surrounds her
Like a mother-of-pearl shell,
Projecting her essential soul.
Happiness For Man And Woman
So, is there, then, an answer – a formula – to achieving happiness in a relationship? Let’s leave aside for this exploration same sex relationships although the roles assumed may also benefit from this one.
To be happy –
With that deep, fluid, pervasive happiness –
Waiting to brim over
From the Sacred Fount
To invade every nerve and fiber –
A woman needs to feel
Her desirability.
Her desirability relates first
To her relationship with the common elements –
Things appearing solid
(which we know they are not)
And things so related
To how the things
She interacts with –
To the cosmos.
Then, with regard to herself,
To other women,
To her particular man:
She needs to yield herself up
To that mysterious
Embrace of the Universe
Where she feels
That she loves
Everything in the world –
And everything in the world
Loves her.
She becomes
A bride of the Universe.
What man loves
Is girlhood in the abstract.
He then becomes possessed
By a mysterious and strange Being
Whose ways are not his ways;
Whose thoughts are not his thoughts.
So what is he to do?
Confess his sins,
Offer up on the altar
His conquests and his pride.
It is better to be a shameless fool
In Paradise,
Than a discreet and honorable gentleman
In Hell.
Hold her as
The wickedest of all women;
And when you have gone the limit –
Think of her
As you love her best;
As you admire her most:
All fault forgotten.
The wickedest will then have died
And your angel returned to life.
Assume it is impossible for her to change;
Yet always possible
For you to change.
She is an elemental force of nature.If you, as man, are to be happy –
Your first rapturous epoch
Of love-making now past –
You must forever stimulate
That magical lust
Which a woman’s body
And the expressions on her face
So excite you.
Use every passing glimpse
Of other long-for caskets of mystery
To enhance diffused satisfaction
In the one at your side.
This “bird in the hand,”
Is a living embodiment of
All the infinite allurements
That so attract you.
So, in the end,
What is the formula –
The equation, the potion,
The posture, the stance
That will enable each –
And together –
To recapture and hol
The magic of romance?
The whole glory of going onward
Is wrapped in the formula:
That he should be man to the limit – And That she should be woman as she was born.
Happiness is then Forever being renewed By the eternal building of new bridges Over the everlasting gulf.
Perhaps of all the things that motivate one to create poetry, number one would be the joys and sorrows – the elation and deflation – the almost indescribable feelings and thoughts that are engendered by romantic attachment and detachment. This Chapter from the Eternal Sea is very self-centered in the most part. Chapter IV is in the same vein and also has a subset that includes some ‘incoming’ poems that were sent to me. There may or may not be a ‘match’ among the poems included here. Looking at what has been written, I can picture just a few situations that can be ‘tagged.’ The rest let’s just dedicate to this most delicious of sentiments and experiences, and to lovers whomever and wherever they are.
********************
Make When Now
When I am with you,
I want to be
The person I like.
Too often,
I’ve been driven by ego,
Claiming abject love.
Too often,
I’ve been a petulant kid,
Ready to run when rejected.
When I am with you,
I want to be
The person you like.
I want to fit in
The nooks and crannies –
The interstices in your life.
When I am with you,
I want you to be
The person you like.
There are lots of joys
And wondrous moments
To share, being together.
There is spiritual delight;
Closeness and ONEness,
And oh those EQ’s
[Emotional Quakes].
There is mutual appreciation,
Sharing of experiences –
Sharing of sadness and cheer.
There is a fit
Where the individual piece
Is preserved
In the jigsaw of life.
So, it is time
To celebrate
Our joys and wonders.
It is time
To bury petulance,
Together with ego’s fantasies –
Being fully aware,
Each of the other.
Can we walk those paths
That from time to time
Criss-cross in ecstacy?
Can we make when
NOW?
********************
Love’s Gift
Love
Is like
Each growing thing:
It needs to be
Nourished to grow.
Weeds choking it
Need to be plucked.
Sometimes the weeds
May be perennial;
Other times
They may quickly bloom,
Fade and die –
Never to grow again.
Some love
Yields food for the body;
Other love
Nourishes the soul.
Once in a while –
Sometimes it is a long, long while,
That very special flower blooms.
It has no reason;
It has no rhyme;
It just IS –
Is sheer joy
Happiness to behold, to savor.
A love to be IN,
To be a part of and share.
No point asking why or how;
No real way to resist.
Just roll it ‘round –
Savor . . . enjoy.
Give thanks!
Give great thanks
That life has dealt something
So GOOD!
Love
Is like
Each growing thing.
When nourished
And allowed,
We all become
A song to sing.
********************
Crossroads
This poem won me “Poet of the Year” award at the State University of New York, Morrisville – Kudos to the English Department there.
Image by Pixabay
A crossroads,
Creeping through those inner parts:
The interstices of marrow;
The backstairs of the psyche;
The third eye’s retina,
The final jangle
Of each ganglion’s pulse;
Memory’s yet-to-come input;
The light rushing ‘round the corner
To confront my soul’s
Beyond tomorrow.
A pulse, a beat, a cacophony –
Sounding and playing
That ‘other’
Who’s been a part of you;
That soul who, of late,
(So sad “of late”)
Whose vibrations have set off
That who wave
Of sympathetic notes,
Until each mini-second
Of each hour,
For every day that I live,
Sounds with the potential
Of the love that who will deny . . .
Exists.
Of love that cannot be denied;
Sounds of the realization
Of wishes – past and present –
Sounds echoing but a moment
In the eternal span of time.
A crossroads, I devine,
Is near – or here.
Which path, which road,
Can we kick up
In harmonious steps;
Joyous dust that will play
Tunes of delight,
Sorting itself into masterpieces.
Kaleidoscope of love,
Fusing with growing strength
Until its power and light
Melts two super beings
Into a galaxy
Whose power sweeps all before it.
Or, do the lovers
Take separate paths:
Tears moistening
Purple forget-me-nots,
As distance renders the bond
Between two suns.
Memories
Have been etched in the paths –
Yes, bittersweet renditions
Of nagging regret and uncertainties
Over what Union with realization
Might have yielded.
There spins between these orbs
That gentle, lovely soul –
The “we” –
Springing from the essence of each
That grows with each day;
Each revolution
Spinning off a mass
Whose light may outshine
All others.
Though spirit drags
Crossroads there is.
Here is my hand,
Tomorrows call
And we must go on.
Will you take that hand
And match my tread
On the road
We both can trod?
********************
The Last Note Of Your Song
I really like this one – the concept of being “the last note in the song being sung,” in the final ‘act’ of someone you love – unconditionally – just shivers my timbers (love that phrase also!). Music, to me, is the universal language – it speaks to all who hear it and creates a whole other sentiment and understanding from words – particularly if the words are ones you don’t understand because they are in another language. Life itself has an eternal music – an eternal song.
The fire of life
Burns bright and burns strong,
Energy is singing
Life’s eternal song.
That energy flows
Into matter and music,
And we human spirits
Are created to use it.
We were created,
Humans, tigers and doves,
To experience life’s dealings,
It’s travails and its loves.
The fire of life
Burns bright and burns strong
I want to be
The last note in your song.
The lesson is simple,
Open and clear,
Be in the Now,
Be Present, Be Here.
Do understand that the eternal quest
Is to be at ONE,
In the Creative Spirit’s nest.
The fire of life
Burns bright and burns strong,
It’s the space between the notes,
In Love’s sweet song.
The music you play,
It’s best loud and strong,
Makes me want to be
The last note in your song.
********************
My Love Lies Inside
I can feel
The spot
Where you lie.
It’s on the left side
In a revolving curve,
Underneath
My heart.
I reach out
To bring you in.
The melding seems
Not terribly hard.
Then,
I tuck you away.
My love
Lies inside.
********************
Life’s Magnificent Charge
Bubbles burst;
Rainbows disappear;
Warmth and light
Are followed
By biting wind
And darkest night.
Joy can dwell inside.
Visions paint
Our brain’s eye
With every colored hue.
So, too,
Love sits in the saddle
Of a charging steed –
And, oft times,
Falls off.
Nothing, here, though
To stop
Life’s magnificent charge:
The struggle
Up the hill
In stickered wood,
Reaching the exhilaration
Of the top.
********************
Life Is For Living
Life
Is, oh, so many things
When a smile surrounds.
Life
Grabs and holds me
When I listen to your sounds.
Life is for living
When love is a-giving:
Life is, oh, so many things
When you are around.
There are many forces
One can’t ignore:
All the Kings’ men and horses
Are here to assure
That life is, oh, so many things
When you are around.
Life has its reason
In each and every season,
My senses get pleasin’
When you are a teasin,’
And life IS for living
When you are around.
So keep up the music,
Be with it
And choose it;
Love is the harmony
That the soul sounds.
Life is . . .
Just so complete
When you are around.
********************
Sweet Nectar
The sweet nectar of life
Moistens the dewy petals
Of the lovely flower
That is your soul.
I,
Bee-like
Fly to draw
The nectar
For my new hive.
I leave
Undisturbed,
But enriched.
Blessed be YOU:
The flower
Whose nectar
Has become
The sustenance
And sweetner
Of this new life.
********************
NYPL (New York Public Library)
The big central public library of the NYC system is at 42nd street in Manhattan – (no one ever says ‘Manhattan’ – it is ‘The City’ or New York). The main entrance is framed by two stone lions. I stood there fairly often and wondered what they were saying and what they cared about – if anything. And such riches inside – although relatively hard to access.
The lions turn
The other way –
Cathedral of knowledge
Framed our joy,
Temple of learning
Knows nothing
Of the twists
Fate can employ.
Cold books,
Scratchings on paper,
On shelves
All properly in a row.
Yet, outside,
In the warm drizzle,
Emotions
Create the glow.
The spark
Grows to a fire;
The flames fanning
“True Love.”
The lions turn
Another way,
Which condition
Is the real one?
Which state
The ultimate Truth?
Can all those collected words
Give the answer?
Does it lie
Under that roof?
Was all that
A temporal flush of emotion,
Or rather the coming together
Of the one and only truth?
I am caught up
In the challenge;
Where is the answer?
How to pick,
How to choose?
Perhaps,
They are inseparable
And by choosing
One would lose.
********************
At First
I met a woman during dance classes at The Omega Institute – I was single at this time, having relatively recently gone through a ‘friendly’ but still difficult divorce. Would another woman enter into my life? This poem reflects the ‘odyssey’ that ensued.
At first,
You smiled at me –
Just an ‘innocent,’
Sweating through five shirts,
Trying to figure dance steps
For a performance
I would only get to watch.
At first,
You enticed me.
You came back,
Smiled a lot,
And was always ‘there.’
At first,
How nice it was
To have someone
Excited to see you
And seek you out.
We talked;
It seemed so easy and ‘nice.’
I got “hooked.”
At first,
You confused me;
And, yes,
You told me
It would be four months –
At least –
Until I could come to your house:
I came the next weekend.
At first,
I slept as a guest;
Then I held you –
God, holding you
Was the nicest place
I’d ever been
In my 21,870 days.
It made me feel
That I wanted to do it
For another 31,930 days.
At first,
You drove me crazy;
And then there was raised
The specter
Of discomfort and mistrust.
You didn’t believe me;
You thought
I would intentionally hurt you;
God, that gave me
Such pain.
I trusted the truth would prevail –
And it did.
The scars healed on us both.
I came to want to be near you –
Lots;
To refocus my place
Of Being in life.
I wanted to be a support system
For your life’s goals.
And then,
You said I was crowding you!
The ground fell out
From beneath me.
At first,
You had opened for me
A new door to love.
I loved your music,
And making music with you.
I loved your laugh,
And laughing with you.
You picked me . . .
There I was, laughing with you.
I loved
The comfort of your home
And being comfortable there.
I even loved
Your regal pair of felines
And figured we all
Could have a wonderful life together.
So
Where was this explorer to go?
I thought I was
On the ‘right’ path,
Yet kept running into
“No Trespassing” signs,
Seeing nothing
But brambles ahead.
At first,
You had picked me.
How nice it was
To have someone –
Someone you grew to love –
Excited to see you;
To seek you out;
And make you feel welcome.
Oh,so good!
Holding you
At that time
Was being so close
To feeling at ONE
With the source
From whence all comes.
So, now, (that now was a couple of decades ago!)
Can we move
Past picking out
To create what comes next?
So, now,
Is there a path
To your heart
And love’s life
I can follow?
Will you take my hand,
Will you take my heart,
Will you dance with me
To the Universe’s beat?
At first,
You smiled,
Enticed, picked . . .
Confused –
Where will it end? (It did)
And as my friend T.S. Eliot said in The Hollow Men:
“This is the way the world ends,
not with a bang, but a whimper.”
********************
My Soul Just Ain’t The Same
Head kinda heavy
And chin hanging down,
Fighting through the
Earth-bound fog;
Eyes, mind,
Lifting up.
Then rose salmon
Cotton-tieredn cloud.
Mountain tops rounded –
But not bowed:
“You are your own best friend.”
To live, then, I am learning . . .
Damn well, how.
But,
And this think
Is an essential part —
A true nub of me:
My soul ain’t the same
When it is not
Connected to “WE.”
In fantasy land,
Church into theater is re-made;
On the screen
Don Quixote’s a-questing,
Seeking Dulcinea
A scullery maid.
And, yet, I dare . . .
I do
Dream the impossible dream,
And turning homeward
Search for the path
Upward to the sky.
Crescent moon,
Long and erie,
Piercing through earth-bound fog;
Then still looking up . . .
Arriving –
But not going inside.
Stars fixed in random beauty:
Fixed by each of our searching eyes;
Crossing then –
A flash of light–
A “shooting star” . . .
Fate; Kismet;
Calling to Westerly shores,
To goals near and far.
My soul is a good one –
So welcome journey-mate and friend.
Somehow, somewhere
(Oh, I know)
I have discovered (with you)
That place where that road
Has an end.
There are beginnings:
Myriad dreams.
Gazing upward becomes normal.
Life is so much fuller,
It does seem.
So choice:
Here you face me (us).
We know it’s no game,
Something is not quite right –
And to fix it I aim.
So hear you this message;
Think of the shame
When we are not together . . .
Our souls
Just ain’t the same.
********************
Special You
Cheeks:
Whose muscles stretch
In joy and freedom.
Mind:
Wide, absorbing,
Released.
Emotions:
Unmixed, real,
Warm.
Ears:
Grasping the rumble,
The deep depth
Of you.
Nose:
Filling
With a special scent.
Limbs and blood,
Nerves and muscles –
Body alive
As it draws
Breath of you.
These poems focus on a variety of ways that the questions that underlie our perceived existence: “Who Are We? Why Are We Here?” – questions that serve as the foundation for examination and for finding paths and some answers that have come to me over decades, where these get explored. I don’t really ‘know’ if there is AN answer that is universal – although I do postulate one for exploration and pondering.
********************
ZERO POINT FIELD (ZPF)
∞
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
Implies that every particle,
Without exception,
Relies for its existence
On a ground field of energy
That is interacting
With everything
Everywhere.
Energy as explicate order
Is enfolded in, and emanates from,
An implicate, transcendent order
Of pure energy
That is infinite and absolute.
Our material selves
What is called manifest form –
May be compared
To a standing cloud
Of no substance
Over a mountain peak
Where a dynamic process
Of condensations and evaporation occurs,
As droplets of water
Form and un-form
In the air
Over the mountain.
∞
***********************
Questions
How did it all start?
Where will it all end?
Through science and religion
Mankind has pondered
And wondered.
These are questions so immense
That the answers may come
Only through the eternal
So, day by day,
We take thin slices
To occupy ourselves –
To apply OUR science
And OUR religion.
In the day by day world,
We seek rest, change, learning.
Peace comes in the babble
Of a flickering screen,
On a playing field,
At a resort,
For the weary mind.
It comes in the silence
Of a meditative mode.
You know what? Whatever Is –
Is all that there Is.
Is the physical world,
The imperfection
In the otherwise Perfect Universe? -Or-
Is it that
In our perfect Universe Contains
What we have Otherwise thought
As imperfections?
If we are moving
Away from Creation (The creative force)
At just over
The limit of our ability
To perceive –
Then we will never
Be able to perceive Creation -Or-
Is it rather that Creation (and the Creative Force)
Is infinite.So,
It continues,
It continues
Throughout the Eternal Sea
It continues
Forever.
********************
On Course
In this I call my life
Nothing ever goes wrong;
Each heart lives to love,
Each voice to give song.
We are here, spread out,
Smooth, not knurled,
Spirit’s manifestation
Experiencing the material world.
A part of the Creator,
A chip off the sublime
We are energy existing
In space and in time.In this
I call my life
Nothing ever goes wrong;
Each soul lives to give,
Each voice to make song.
Each time we awaken
From the eternal soup,
We go off a-questing
And return to regroup.
Unconscious creates our reality;
Consciousness bears her fruit;
It is for us only
To conceive as we would suit.
In this I call my life
Nothing ever goes wrong,
Each spirit lives to unite,
Each voice sings that song.
********************
You and Me
If
All is ONE, and
One is ALL, and
IN THE BEGINNING
There was God, and
There was a beginning,
That was, is, and will be
Evolving (or ending?), and
This Path, You and me –
(We are one you know)-
We are traversing from
Beginning end
To
End beginning.Then,
How to figure out
What is the job
We have to do
In this SPACE?
If it is so
That all there is
Is NOW,
Then presence –
PRESENCE –
n this NOW
Is what is required.
A PRESENCE,
Awareness,
Of the glue
Holding the atom,
And holding
The three hundred billion galaxies
Each containing three hundred billion suns –
Energy
So vast, and
Space even vaster.Space,
Absolute zero (we thought)
Around Black Holes
Absolutely hot
(‘We” haven’t been there yet).
Ying/Yang
Everything/Nothing.
ME and YOU,
YOU and ME,
Creation,
Evolution,
Devine energy.
The saying goes:
“You can’t see
The forest for the trees.
”How to be ONE –
Lost in
You AND me?
********************
Listen
Listen
Listen to the whispers
Of the Universe:
The eternal vibrations
That underlie all sounds.
Listen to the sensations reflecting
Each soul’s story
In this time
And in this place
We call our life.Listen
Listen to the thundering silence —
The silence that inspires;
The silence that supports;
The silence that determines and defines
The vessel that contains the bounds and boundaries
Of existence – of possibilities;
Of all that ever was;
Of all that is;
Of all that will ever be.
Listen
The notes we play
Have a deeper melody –
A baseline and rhythm
Underscoring the top notes.
Listen to a melody that knows the sounds –
The sounds of what was
Before the Beginning;
The sounds of what will be
After the End.
Listen
No crashing symbols;
No Ode to Joy;
No Angel’s choir;
No thundering God.
. . . A Silence . . .
That is much,
Much more.
Listen
Listen to the ebb and flow,
The ebb and flow of
The Eternal Seas of Creativity.
It laps upon each shore,
It soothes the weary,
It inspires and uplifts.
It is from where we came,
And to where we shall return.Love
Love is created from the silence;
From the space between the notes.
Listen to the music of silence!
Listen to the music of love
.Listen.
********************
The Restless Sea
The restless sea
Once again returns
To its seduction of the shore:
To tempt, to caress,
To tenderly wet and smooth,
And, at times,
To frothingly pound and ravage,
All according to the mysteries
Of the pulling and pushing forces.
We, as the ultimate shore,
Pounded or caressed,
Smoothed or roughened,
Await the next surge –
Not quite sure in our expectation.
We await,
Knowing surely that it,
IT will come,
Then withdraw,
Gone once more
Returning to the Eternal Sea,
Leaving us with the memory
Of a wave from the Ocean of Time.
May we appreciate then,
The majesty of the shore,
Proud in its existence,
As the waves hit and withdraw –
Some as smooth and impeccable
As the infinite grains of sand
Washed between the ebb and flow,
Some grow or incarnate as
Jetties of rocks.
In the jetty of humanity,
Extending into the Eternal Sea,
We are worn and changed
By the restless sea –
Finally dissolving
Into the Sea’s mass –
Becoming once again
Part of the whole.
These infinitesimal parts
Combine to form the shore,
The substance of what we call
Life –
Clean and white,
The Foundation for the future,
Building on the past
For a purpose, undefined –
Yet divine.
The droplets of life
Are held in a crashing
Tumultuous sea,
Riding the tides,
Their ebbs and their flows,
Emerging.
What was once
Washed up upon the shore Is gone . . .
Except that we know
The traces of their presence,
The legacy of what was.
They existed,
They have made their indelible marks.
They have returned
To enrich and make
More perfect
The Eternal Sea.
Life is richer
For the cycle –
For the legacy,
Their contributions.
May we never lose
Awe of what transpires.
********************
Who Sayz?
Two hundred billion times
Two hundred billion,
Someone sayz –
That’s how many Stars they say there are –
The calculation is
10^24 stars.
That’s a 1 followed by twenty-four zeros.
Where did they come from?
Where will they go?
Someone said:
“They come from the Creator –
From a Big Bang.”
Imagine that noise!
Someone else sayz
There’s lots more ‘stuff’
We don’t know about –
Real dark stuff:
Stuff that really holds things in.
What’s on the other side of that?
And, by the way,
What was before the Beginning?
What will be after
The End?
Someone else sayz
There’s another way
To look at things:
Move our concept of
Beginning and End,
Move our concept
Of left to right,
Of yesterday and tomorrow
To only NOW –
And NOW,
And NOW is infinite –
Not only is IT “possible,”
But everything just “IS.”
The two hundred billion times
Two hundred billion
May be just a drop in the bucket.
Think about all the life
Teaming here
Just on this ONE planet.
Think about all
Your thoughts, and
All your dreams, and
All the possibilities
You KNOW are possible . . .It is like
A long row of eateries –
And just as we stop at McDonald’s –
Not because it is good,
But because we KNOW it –
We aren’t threatened;
We are comfortable with the familiar.
So huddle the masses;
Who wants to walk to the edge
And jump?
Of course it is scary,
And FEAR is so controlling –
So determinative.
Two hundred billion times
Two hundred billion –
That is a lot of sunshine.
Walk to the edge . . .
Why not jump?
Who sayz
You can’t?
********************
The Many Are One
The many teachers are ONE,
The voices become a chant,
Sung together.
It is variations
On a theme:
The beat of our ONENESS
Is solid, pervasive,
Resonating and filling all space.
The melody is simple,
Clean and compelling –
Like the notes of
Master Beethoven’s Fifth.
And, AH!
The variations:
Billions of us
Playing with these notes
On instruments we have modified
And individualized.
The many composers are ONE,
Their names,
Their silences –
The space between the notes.
Such communication:
Playing the spheres
Of Eternal Spirit’s Orchestra,
Communicating more than we know
How to hear.
Listen, listen,
The music is eternity.
The many players are ONE.
At first, the discordance
Of the orchestra tuning –
Each on her own instrument,
Working to create the pitch,
Striving for harmony.
Then, attention to the conductor,
The baton falls,
Enlightenment enters;
Cacophony becomes waters
Falling over the cliff,
Plunging into a deep pool . . .
Of BLISS.
********************
Dimension
Dimension,
Onion-layered.
We move along
A green-white sliver,
Bending back upon ourselves.
The brain machine functions
For the unnamed mechanism.
Unnamed?
It seems man’s quest
Has been to find that label.
And all science’s endeavors;
And all philosophy’s semantics;
And all of discovery’s yields
Have been a left-brained tour-de-force
To come to another layer
In the onion-layered Universe.
Sure, some of us inhabit,
Maybe even understand;
Some, maybe, can even commute
Among the dimensions.
Onion-layered Universe.
We peel back the green-white slivers,
Looking for the truth about ourselves.
Then what?
The quest gets Major League status.
Our onion plays with untold numbers
Of other onions –
New dimension:
Onion/layer/onion –
A universe of onions.
Beyond that?
Onion Universe plays
In a league
Of all kinds of vegetables.
Each, put together,
In different ways.
Beyond that?
Leagues of all kinds
Of growing things.
And beyond that?
An infinity of beyond,
Of Universes,
Of Gods.Onion-layered Universes,
Peeling back the green-white slivers,
Opens the mind and being
To answers
And more questions
The Quest is infinite,
Going to two points
The Center-In, and
The Center-Out.
And the line that connects them
Is everything, is creativity,
Is the eternal Now.
And you and I – “we”
Can even start from that line
That is everything
And explode it,
And stand on it,
And be with the infinite other lines.
And explode And Explode AND EXPLODE !!!!! HALLALUJAH! Wow . . . wow . . . wow!
And
All
You
Gotta
Do
Is
Let
It
Be.
********************
WHEW!!
Stars and flashes;
Spining wheels –
Streaking meteorites;
Foaming rapids.
The Sea calls.
The human race
In its petty pace
Is evolving
On the shore.
The masses of cells,
That within us dwell
Stretch back
To a spark from the Sea –
Nothing more.
And I sit on the deck,
Wondering what to expect:
What has this life
Got in store?
Out past the horizon I gaze,
Filling out all the
Parts of my days
With creative energies
Coming to the fore.
What is the Force
That charts the course
And, in the end,
Tallies the score?
Who pilots these senses?
Who creates all pretenses?
What is it
Behind life’s door?
And I sit on the deck,
Wondering who gets the check –
What has this life
Got in store?
Each of these cells
Is connected
One tells;
We are linked together
Forever more.
And the Sea calls
To each part of the Race
To pick up its pace
To move in,
Away from the shore.
Connected we are:
Each cell,
Each star –
Listen . . . here it is:
Big Bang’s Primal Roar!
And I sit on the deck
Oh, what the heck,
We are Now and Here,
We are all ONE,
Forever more.
********************
Time
Time:
Minutes, hours, days –
Steady flow of events,
Upon events,
Upon events.
Remembering
Things, places, people –
Remembering lives and loves;
Lines in space;
Creating past . . .
Anticipating future.
Prescience:
Blessing or curse?
Remembering no time,
No place –
Blissful all nothing.
Remembering at ONENESS
With things and no things;
Going past creation;
The eternal void.
Meeting pure love,
Peace.Time:
An ‘interesting’ creation
For embodiment to relate;
For being on a plain
Where material selves
Can dance.
Hear the music –
That is the eternal language
Of the Universe.
Engage in the practice
Of Being –
The place and space
That time underlies
And surrounds.Time:
Hold it in your palm;
Turn it around
And inside out:
Play with it.
Time flies;
Time drags;
Time stands still;
Timeless –
Whose time?
Got the time?
Tick . . .
Tock.
Blessed silence.
No time.
Forever more.
********************
Irresistible
Sunshine
Tops a comely landscape
Of gently weathered
Hills and vales.
I walk proud and strong
On the high road to selfdom.
Has that brilliant flame
Always burned to drive
Down the path to tomorrow?
Did spent sands
From The Eternal Sea
Cover molten creativity,
Stuffing the eruption?
Domesticated sun,
Spinning in monotonous orbit
Within the Universe
Of endless circles,
Flies off in a tangent
Of creative confusion.
The magnetic attraction
Becomes irresistible.
********************
We Can Be One
More –
Than the obligatory
Saying in words
And knee-jerk reactions.
More –
Than external acts
For others to see and applaud;
More –
Than recounting what was;
Or anticipating
What could be.
I reach into the ONE
That is The ONE
That moves you,
Thinks you,
Spirits you,
Is you.
I experience a soul
That is wise and whole;
A spirit that dances
In the space between the stars;
Lighting not only galaxies,
But also, other souls.
I bathe in that light –
Holding a mirror
Of clearest cut diamonds
For you to see
Your many facets
And how your soul glows.
I feel and I “know”
That we are ONE in many ways.
I sense that attraction
Will pull us into a world –
A world of answers;
A world of contributions;
A world of meaning;
A world of knowing –
Knowing Who We Are
And
Why We Are Here.
It is the trip we came to take;
It is the path to be followed.
As you so wisely said:
“It never gets boring!”
With love . . .
That is, in the end
What is the best and only thing
ONE can offer.
We can be . . .
We are
ONE.
********************
Liminal Moments
Liminal moments
Imbue our lives
With mystery and meaning.
These are the inexplicable experiences
In which the visible
And the invisible worlds overlap.
This is the intersection
Of timelessness with time,
Expressed through metaphor and poetry.
These are the soul-level perceptions –
Subjectively significant –
Understood in the heart.
These moments,
These experiences,
Provide intimations
Of a divinity in ourselves
And in the Universe.
These moments are the basis
Of the perception of an underlying ONENESS,
And of after-death communication.
They are called sychronistic,
Psychic or mystical experiences.
© Mary Lou Quinn
Image by Pixabay
© Mary Lou Quinn
The Eternal Sea of Creativity 