One gulp

One gulp                                                                                                     

There is no instead; no road not taken.

No opportunity lost nor circumstance forsaken.

We ride a tiger through an evanescent realm

unable to steer, stop, start or climb down.

Best make ourselves cozy as possible

high up there in the catbird seat;

ride the necessary rough and tumble,

become soul witness,

keep silence, suspend judgment

until the tiger turns upon each of us

and all our accoutrements

slip from their perch,

our whole accumulated world

devoured in one gulp.

O child of God, the more you distance yourself

from the game the nearer you are to God.

Hair shirt

Hair shirt       

Wool gave Sufis their name – 

desert ascetics in their harsh prickly robes.

I wear my own hair shirt these days.

O how it pierces, bites and stifles!

Where once they went unnoticed, taken for granted

comes now the stings of my arrogance,

sanctimony and self-satisfaction, my disdainful envy,

the rash flaunting of my cleverness

and my own vaunted exceptionality. 

O how now they chafe and bind when in retrospect

I compare my past (and current) sad posturing,

my feeble cloaked disguise

to the mute humility and renunciation

to which I so achingly aspire

and view so unequivocally as the next

fated stretch of the path set before me.

O child of God, self-knowledge is always painful

yet ultimately liberating in its prickly impracticality.

Castle in the air

Castle in the air                                                                                        

I’ve built a castle in the air, 

rooted precariously in the clouds.

I move through it daily inspecting

inconsistencies, shifts in solidarity

and alignment – yet also marveling each step

at its impracticable beauty and intricate improbability.

It began with a frail hope, then a desperate faith.

Now a feckless audacity keeps me

roaming its uncharted wings,

knowing what an absurd indulgence

my efforts are considered

by almost everyone stuck in the mire below.

Riding the clouds, built upon the wind,

having perhaps not a whit of substance

but, o I have found nothing

on terra firma to outweigh its promise,

its solace and my holy obsession

with its lofty, ethereal beauty.

O child of God, to reside within the mystery,

rise above everything on earth taken to be true.

Slow of speech

Slow of speech                                                                                         

How fearful and sad – Moses,

descending from the mountain

aware he could bring down only

God’s words – not (as he had witnessed)

His voice and fire.  God’s living truth

carved rigidly into stone – fixed, deadly,

visible from a thousand different views.

Slow of speech was Moses, his inarticulacy

even more pronounced and urgent

on the twist of his tongue around

the terrible, majestic truth of the God

he had to leave behind

whose presence below would have

broken all commandments, sealed all promises

and set burning His truth

into the hearts of humanity.

How could he explain?  The laws are a method,

a benevolence, a beginning, boundaries along the path

and God is always and already among His people

even though they know Him not.

O child, God conceals Himself in a cloud,

saying, no man sees My face and lives.

Treasured postcards

Treasured postcards                                                                             

This may look and read like a poem

but for me it is simply another piece

of evidence to be numbered and filed away

with poems of the past like treasured postcards

sent from my Beloved.  Reread over the years

to bolster my faith when I find myself at sea,

alone in the dark, my hand seemingly slipped from His.

Not the art of them nor their elucidations.

No, their very existence is my evidence,

the blessed assurance that my Lord

is with me, responding then, now and always.

This poetry is not mine.  I haven’t it in me.

These poems are the patient, particular

answers and encouragement He has given me

through the years, leading me onward,

quenching my doubts, quelling my fears.

His prints are all over them – typed out onto a blank screen

but written all the same in His generous flowing hand.

O child of God, trade in your circumstantial evidence

for the conviction of real experience.

The poseur

The poseur                                                                                              

To become One you must first become two –

so say the mystics.  Disassociate yourself

from the poseur, become the nobody you are

and always have been.

From a hair’s breadth distance

view your old self,

separate enough to allow

any urgency to wane,

your every karma-generated impulse 

easily ignored, discarded

until you are without substance,

boundaries, weight or authority,

vulnerable enough for your dew-like

existence to be absorbed again

into the Oneness you always were

and have never been otherwise.

O child of God, you left out the vital part

about divine grace and leaping over one’s own head.

The inner voice

The inner voice                                                                                          

I speak less these days. 

I live alone save for the Silent One

Who has no need for words.  Perhaps,

some of His more human ways

are rubbing off on me.

I say His name more than ever

but it’s silence I prefer –

long stretches of it, as much as I can bear

inside and out, in my mind and throat,

silence more and more

so that I might also give and receive

(more and more) the real things.

O child of God, heed the inner voice

and whatever you do will be a blessing.

Save God

Save God                                                                                                   

No one loves Me, said my Lord, as I should be loved.

And if I were daring, could I not say the same

for myself among my fellow human beings?

No one knows (save God) my soul and history entirely

and thus a judgment by others (and myself) out of ignorance

is rendered that invariably negates true love.

I love you more than you could ever love yourself,

said my Lord also, speaking from God’s perspective.

Loving me utterly because He is in truth one with me.

Out of ignorance is my love lacking –

out of ignorance is my love piecemeal and provisional –

for my Lord, my God; myself and fellow beings.

Ignorance is the chain that binds, the veils limiting

and clouding the expression and return of our own true love.

O child of God, you speak boldly of love

while never having had a real taste of it.

A brighter lantern

A brighter lantern                                                                                     

All talk about the Path and the Goal,

said my Lord, is a lantern carried by a blind man.

Afraid of the darkness and feeling no one

near enough trustworthy (save myself)

to traverse the perilous way, I have begged

time and again for more light!  A brighter lantern! 

A blind man needs a staff in his hand, said my Lord. 

And He has provided me one of a sort,

merely out of compassion – a substitute for sight;

shown the methods of probing with it,

my hitting upon many a brief, comforting revelation

when I have been unable to move forward

any other way, incapable of perceiving Him

always near and ever ready

to provide all the guidance I should ever require.

The lover needs his hand in the God-Man's, He said.

And I am groping blindly now for that hand,

ready to discard at last the false

and temporary solace of the ineffectual lantern,

the rigid, unwieldy staff.

O child of God, it is up to you and your fate to grasp

and yield to His omnipotent authority and shelter.

Some enchanted evening

Some enchanted evening                                                                                     

you may see a stranger, you may

see a stranger across a crowded room . . .

and o how many and often a crowd of strangers

comes between that beautiful One and myself!

Taps on the shoulder, the commandeering of elbows,

various pitches; elaborate dances and wild melees

all the while my trying to keep a steady eye

on the stranger moving silently through the room.

Moving pure and graceful through the room,

parting the crowd effortlessly with each step.

Seeming to come nearer . . . ever nearer.

An irresistible urge to touch His garment;

an effort to tear myself away from the others;

to push through, move beyond;

fly to Him, fly to that preternatural,

healing figure of enchantment.

O child of God, how many and often a crowd

comes between you and your true Self.

Hope

Hope                                                                                                          

Give up hope, said my Lord.

(Not in so many words.)  Give up hope!

Always of the future is hope,

a comfort only of the mind

(never to reach the heart)

cheating the lover of real communion

and comfort in the everpresent moment.  

True comfort is an exchange with God,

hope its poor substitute,

an effete avoidance hidden deeply

among ever clever diversion. 

Hope is fear, a flight from truth

and its requirements;

a non-acceptance of suffering

and the necessity of suffering;

of human vulnerability and mortality.

O child of God, hope, like all indulgences,

holds you far away and veiled from God’s truth.

Approach God

Approach God            

Approach God without strategy.

Yes, yes, that’s a good strategy.

No. Abandon strategy.  How can I avoid it

when every approach is a strategy? 

Abandon desire.  How do I abandon desire? 

Cease to exist.  How do I cease to exist? 

Abandon desire.  ‘Round and ‘round. 

‘Round and ‘round.  So what’s the answer?

Love, Meher Baba says.  Love escapes

the paradigm, the paradox, the impossibility.

Love – the abandonment of strategy,

the end of desire, the entry into non-existence.

How to love?  Through His grace.

And how to obtain grace?  Through love. 

‘Round and ‘round.  ‘Round and ‘round.

‘Round and ‘round.  ‘Round and ‘round.

O child of God, it’s instantaneous, simultaneous,

non-sequential.  Approach God through love.

Another name for God

Another name for God                                                                               

My Lord allowed Himself

to be named Father of Mercy,

perhaps to keep us reminded

subliminally that we are ever and utterly

at the mercy of God the Omnipotent.

The religious of us tiptoe 

around this terrible truth 

by the assumption of a chosen status;

by ritualistic appeasement, petitions and blandishments.

Others seek solace in an existential detachment –

even to the point of atheism -- to avoid

any possible threat of judgment,

a comparative sense of inferiority

or simply because they place nothing above

the god of their mind. 

God is Love, said my Lord

but it’s not our sort of love – attachment,

affection, infatuation; pity and remorse.

Love is simply another name for God –

His unimaginable Oneness.

O child of God, child of the Father, pray that you might

one day know the true meaning of mercy.

No real choice at all

No real choice at all                                                                                                     

So I end up in a small, unfamiliar room

alone, bound hand and foot, gagged,

strapped to a chair wedged into the corner.

Only my eyes are mobile.  I can look toward the bed

and long for a return to sleep

or I can view a turbulent, eventful world

through the windows and dream of escape.

Instead I shut my eyes and adjust

to my helplessness as best I might.

My mind still roams, if I let it, rampantly free

through those windows and beyond.

I might amuse myself for a while longer

with imagination but even that

soon will start to jade and sate.

So I must learn to climb down, climb down –

off the backs of random thoughts and hope,

of negativity and insecurity, let them gallop on

without me across the titillating dreamscape;

accept my bondage, my impotence as my due;

trust unreservedly to God’s mercy and ultimate benevolence.

O child of God, even the very last choice

you make is no real choice at all.

A child of Meher

A child of Meher   

I heard of a man named Mercy,

those drawn to Him known as lovers

and ever since that long ago day,

in spite of my distrust, I have inwardly        

longed to be wholeheartedly

one of those sisters and brothers.

But how might a man of so little love,

so little mercy align himself honestly

with the lovers of the Lord of Love;

the Father of Mercy?  I have remained a beggar

outside the gates; listened to their songs of love,

even composed a few myself of praise and complaint,

expressing my allegiance, my hope for love,

my gratitude for the still-open invitation;

marveling at the path I have taken

since I first heard the mercy of His name.

O child of God, however stubborn your fears,

you could never deny – you are a child of Meher.

(drawing by Rich Panico)

A life of whim

A life of whim                                                                                            

This poetry is not mine

but I sign my name to it.

What is my name

but a metaphor for the unnamable?

I don’t know who I am or even if I exist.

This is the poetry of my attributes,

my sanskaras - not me, not mine.

A procession of suns and moons –

rise and fall, rise and fall. 

Breathes my chest –

rise and fall, rise and fall.

Torrents of thought rise and fall.

It began on a whim, said my Lord –

a bleary goal without need or desire;

a lack of requirement – unnecessary,

this plethora of suffering and failure.

O child of God, the whim of illusion

requires a life of whim.