Unwritten rules

Unwritten rules

They keep scrupulously,
cupped hands, upturned faces,

the unspoken, written-down rules
of the One who came

not to teach but to awaken,
while the unwritten rules

slip into one ear and out the other;
their hearts like fire through a cheap hotel

or myrrh through a thurible;
they sift the gathered evidence

ashes in hands
while leaving undetected

the living voice that nudges
gently the lover; either practice

dangerous in the extreme
but with an intimacy in the latter,

an inwardness beyond the rattling bars,
in the long-sought-after Constant Companion.

O child of God, His voice is the deep one
your heart has been ever aching to hear.

The sole discordance

The sole discordance                                                                                      
 
God is everything I am not.  Apparently.
Everything but little ol’ me,
 
the bubble over the Ocean drop.
Everything not the self made of Self,
 
asserting its appropriateness
by its very existence.  Up against that
 
ubiquitous voice I have no say
for anything in the world
 
I wish not to be the way it is
or to resolve and go away
 
or to not exist at all;  I have no say
because what is not me
 
speaks with the premeditated,
authentic, primeval voice of God.
 
O child of God, you are the sole
discordance in a chorus of Oneness.

Every paramount moment

Every paramount moment                                                                       

You know what the mystics say – don’t look forward

to anything but who can live hopelessly as that?

Who owns a bible where the list of begats

are as dear as the shalls listed in the beatitudes?

Plowing the fields equal to crucifixion and resurrection?

Every motion and emotion, thought and word

holy, essential, singular, irrevocable and worthless.

I mean, priceless, matchless, every paramount moment

and the appreciation of it

the mystics tell us, is loving God.

O child, you must encounter

your Father through the heart.

The opposite of love

The opposite of love                                                                              

Love asks no questions, You said.

Doubt, apparently, is love’s opposite,

a rocky, futile path to truth

avoided by the highest form

of fawn-eyed credulity.

Our impotence exposed, truth found out

when inquiries cease altogether.

Not hatred then, not indifference,

but doubt is the opposite of love,

love a blitheness achieved

only by the death of the lover

asking no questions from the bottom of a grave.

O child of God, whosoever will

lose his life for My sake shall find it.

Pastel "Field of dreams" by Joe DiSabatino

Field of dreams

Ruminations on Rumi

Ruminations on Rumi                                                                              

When was I less by dying? Rumi asked,

encouraging us over that dark hump

but, one day, apparently we shall dispense

with all considerations of loss and gain.

At the forked road divest ourselves of preference,

stratagems and ruminations.

No true path or every path taken as true,

the art of pleasing God quietly set aside

to please Him by the art of quietly setting it aside.

Encompassed in our empty arms,

witnessed through our wide-open,

awestruck, love-drenched eyes

the agony, rapture, the dispossession and gain, 

the anguish, solace, pleasure and pain,

every distinguishable aspect razed, leveled,

hammered and pressed into hearty, holy unleavened bread.

O child of God, surrender involves a loss

only superficially similar, by faith, to death.

Quirt and spurs

Quirt and spurs                                                                                        

To doubt no quarter should ever be given,

that pebble in the shoe; worm in the apple,

beam in the accuser’s eye.  On one seesaw’s end,

the fundamentalist tends its grave,

while beyond the pales, the inquisitor goes

to great length to rid himself of its stench,

to soothe if not to quench its constant roil and prickle.

It’s not speculation so much the enemy 

            as its disreputable companion uncertainty;

tamping down the dirt, pretending it doesn’t breathe

or squandering valuable prayer time doing battle,

the strategy and research to chase it

from our well-ordered lives.  For how can we lovers,

the great faithful ones look ourselves in the glass

if we find not there conviction?

O child of God, queries and uncertainty are quirt

and spurs to propel you toward the goal.

Pastel - Have Mercy by Joe DiSabatino

Have Mercy

Slicing through

Slicing through                                                                                        

There’s a sword vertical in the body,

stiff and true, the hilt near the boot,

tip below the throat, the chest a keen,

curved blade slicing through, slicing through;

a whetted wisdom near the heart, below the head,

too sleek to be held back, when one can bear

the wielding which does not allow for respite.

A keen sword soon to get buried

somewhere in the plowed brown earth,

the soft tissue, the unbroken vast sea

of whatever this is where we are

slicing through to whatever is beyond.

O child of God, bring forth the blade

by calling His name and never holding back.

Spell Czech

Spell Czech

Ewe won't two bee leave ewe
or righting a grate owed two God

sew ewe dew you're vary best.
Ewe mite rime, hear and their

or knot, butt sea that ewe
tale you're tell sow awl

weal here you're preys,
you're him to Hymn.

Bye an buy, two bee sure wee
Finnish write, sum poets

yews spell Czech.
Eye did and did knot

sea won airer, sew plane,
my him and owed two God

awl in ardor, strait frum thee hart,
rite frum my vary sole.

O child of God, sum thyme's thee sine
mite knot reed watt ewe won't it too mien.

Pastel by Joe DiSabatino

Out of the Blue