Nobody's Road

This poem is not about you, but
I feel you're worth mentioning.
It is written because
honesty will find me truth.

I feel excluded.
Yes, that's how it feels to me
when you share your attention
as a merchant would swap coin
in a market -
there's so many you can talk to
about everything and what -
what is there to talk about
but what is what,
and laughs about.

Hold on, before I name you not.
This is all in my head, is it not?
I'm trying to let go of you,
of this paragon you represent,
yet I hold out, hooked on a sliver
of your well-to-be shirt,
reconsidering.

Could you make me happy?
Could you be the one I want,
the one I've always called for,
even though I know,
I am nobody special,
nothing to spend much coin on,
offering little return in your eyes.
It is only in mine that you find lies,
because they stand in between
you and me, me and you -
one, but distanced as two.

And so apart we stand,
you in the middle of a bidding war,
me imprisoned behind a stall,
looking loneliness in the face,
watching it not smirk but smile
and mouth "you chose this."

I realise, I must have, I did.
By bending my thoughts back
into my fingertips, I typed,
on and on, the poetry of a sod.
I wanted your attention,
and you gave it to me in pieces -
never the whole thing.
I wonder, did you know I would
not be satisfied? Did you think
I wouldn't be, ever?

I forgive you.
It's best you didn't ruin your existence
while I was attempting to ruin mine.
Your smile, I still like it,
but I don't like it when I don't cause it.
That's right, I feel responsible
for your happiness.
And the 'sweet' things you enticed me with
give me no room to breathe
while I think them over and over
for their meaning.

You told me to find a girl.
I didn't. Not yet. Not one that would have me.
Yet I crave - crave - your approval
because I feel it will make me happy.

But - I know better now.
This is all in my head.
So, my happiness is guaranteed
if I just get you out of it,
at least off your throne.

You can't make me happy,
I can't reciprocate.
I tried. Clearly, I failed.
So what are we to each other now
but passing thoughts:
one is yearning for the other,
for the same nothing to be real,
and one is something
I can't touch.

This is nobody's road.

Still Life

Today, time just waits while people pause
and find a feeling.
The quake broke the clock,
timed all that was meant to be
and stopped intentions from fulfilling.

I speak without a voice;
despair: my vocal chords,
with no verbs, just sheer implosive emotion
eager to shout and save
in its scything silence,
echoing the sound of bone.

Downtrodden, Christchurch ushers in a new day
this 22nd afternoon,
dismantling the old one
brick by brick, life by life.

Now, I wait for confirmation
that my child is alive and well
and my mother's still out there breathing
and my friends and aunty and
the elderly man three doors down, are all okay.

Life is still.
All of the lights strobe red in sawdust fog,
cars rake along the city streets,
away from the concrete caveats.
The buildings creak to stay statued
before the worms start feeding under them.

Faces hurt,
ache to react and contain and release
but freeze, uncharacteristic, undecided, disabled.
These dust-covered ashen molds
from which I hope life may still emerge,
I cannot even touch,
though they have touched me.

Ominous Wish

I want to bring water from the source in my cupped palms to those who are stranded on the shore, gasping for a mouthful of that all-restoring substance. I don't care if some of it drips out through the thenar gap or the spaces between my fingers, there will still be enough to quench the thirst of those who are dying, impaled in place by the spear of their senseless habits, or those who are still looking for the stream, not knowing that it runs just beside them. I want them to drink so that I can share the solution of life with them and finally wash our problems away like dirt off our skin. I want us to be clean, not dirtied by the dust we make when we fight amongst ourselves on the land. I want the children that line up to take a swim in the stream to all just dive into the flow and be taken away to wherever the current heads. I can imagine swimming elsewhere, encountering drought sooner or later, hitting the dam I would build in front of myself so I would have some obstacle to overcome. I would not perish there while I can still drink and bathe in that which life deems most precious, its miracle panacea. I want to cure the ailments of those who cannot find breath in the oxygen that surrounds their weakened bodies. I want to follow the course where it leads, pulling those marooned ashore into the river where they may drown and become part of it. I want to give the gift that was given me, that I would receive it myself by seeing the seedlings grow into saplings, and the parts become whole.

We Really Are Each Other

Reasons, for changing the point of view may come, to change your image from 2D to 3D. To those who would rather see it as they would a television show, I have nothing to say but to make you aware that I have stirred you from your slumber. To others, know that there isn't always a worded reason that coils itself around the lies we tell about ourselves or others in an attempt to fashion a beneficial reality. Lying fails. The truth doesn't, that's why it's the best option. But we may try to find reasons, a certain intelligence that answers a 'why' behind what happens in our lives, as random and uncalled for as it may seem. I have been trying to find that, the causes all being in my past of course but digging that up and trying to reinterpret it has opened old wounds and brought to my attention my deeper, previously hidden vulnerability. And so it is, that I've had to surrender some of these feelings. Insecurities about many aspects of life knocked on my door and I answered thinking they needed my attention more than the present did. That was a mistake, because all they did was drag me outside and give me a beating. And then I went into cyclical overdrive, trying to find out the purpose of this, and the meaning and all that has gotten me nowhere but in a rut. Overthinking. I've been there, done that, it got nowhere.

So Life said to give in, to stop, to breathe. I did not listen, so the pain of perceived lack got worse. Finally, when I couldn't take it any longer, I let the moment be. And it is.

Everything happens for a reason, for there is a cause to everything. I will know them when I need to, and I will know what to do when I need to do it. There is nothing but illusion, speculation, avoidance, fear and whatevers outside of that. Rather, there is nothing outside of that! And this is peaceful, because we are always in the place of truth, as we are truth. It is a conscious choice that we must make to awaken and to live as true people, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, hair colour, nationality, miscellaneous differences. Everyone's form is different. Life breathed it that way. Life breathes through us. The lungs, that is to say the Source, is the same.

That is joy. To know that everyone is the same, and that we are here to really discover and aid each other in discovering that we are one. As Kim Eng put it, "We really are each other."

Silence/Intention To Know Silence

Silence, is deeper than the energy combined of an eagle and an angel, both soaring and calling the firmament a path between homes. Neither struggles to find comfort in the absent because both know where they are is where they ought to be. One could say they don't even know the absent, the otherwise, for to them the air is present and that is all there is. Owls are the same, although they prefer the night to fly over the day. I think they can all tell that the world is quiet. There are no clouds that separate and no creeks that divide. It's just one whole plain, varied in its form to display its sheer beauty, inherently simple. Mountains rise up and appear to tear at the sky, but the intention has always managed to make way for the action.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's in a song by Madonna which was subsequently covered by the cast of Glee, so it's not an idle signpost to a broken well. The wrong thing done for the right reasons is still the wrong thing, although one could dispute that if something 'wrong' is done that its reasons must have been flawed at some point. Intentions can be misguided by illusions that pose as lights, as true guides. One can tell they are fake by their ephemerality. Nature doesn't crumble, by contrast. Yes, seasons happen, leaves fall, grass grows, but there is a certain intelligence at work here, something or rather somehow knowing what to do, when to do it and executing it with exact precision. To understand it we could call it Gaea or Mother Nature, because what it does looks to be similar to what human beings do. But I suggest that it doesn't do anything at all, and it merely is. Perhaps it fulfills all its desires through its being. We have a relationship with nature that we honour. We all share in the miracle of life. We are connected via the 'being' because it is the same. Discover this by going amongst nature and listening, appreciating the sounds of insects, leaves and wind, but also the silence, in its incomprehensibly peaceful depth. And breathe, letting the quiet resonate, radiate and remain.

In it is within. Out it flows, not as displacement, but as courage, as romance - a short whisper and a gentle murmur that says absolutely nothing but means everything. Heroism? Threats? None. Just connection, the reason and result of being one.

We Are

Love, it travels by everywhere,
Reaching us where we are most,
In the heart
In the mind.

I'd digress if I wasn't being honest
When I say I care.

I am learning how to speak from my heart,
Finding out that there are simple ways
To unite those pieces fallen apart
In love.

And for this to occur, there must be peace
There must be acceptance and truth,
There must be the things that are already there
For they have never gone anywhere.

And love, love, it never disappears
For it is more than what meets the eyes,
More than a box of chocolates, more than a surprise,
It's more than what makes it up
Because it's whole.

This sentiment, it yearns to expand
For it holds its holy place in all the land
In all the land
Where it flows, it transforms,
Where it breathes, it seethes,
Where it springs, it knows its way
To a brightest day,
Today.

And it's all around, in every space,
Upon every face,
There is the light of grace
Through which we see.

Are we not lucky?

We are free.
We are love.
In many attitudes, forms and formlessness, we burgeon
And touch each other's hearts with our own.
Whether we cry out in pain or in joy
It is love that we employ;
That which we call upon, we already have
And so we are reminded.

Are we blessed? We are.

We are.

We are.

Walking Through Walls

I am in a room. I know this is a room because there are four walls that prevent me from seeing what is beyond them; thus I am confined to a space that is seemingly separated from what is beyond. These walls serve both to prevent me from witnessing the truth that lies on the other sides but also to protect me from what is there. So I can be scared of what's beyond. Rather, I am scared of losing what is here.

If there were no walls, I wouldn't know where I began and where I ended. I'd just float in space, having to suffer whatever is everywhere because there would be nothing that divides, nothing that protects.

Yet I assume something. I don't actually know that whatever is beyond the walls will hurt me. It is an assumption I make because my mind is scared of death and it knows that what is beyond will might attack me it and kill me it. But I am not my mind and I know this because I am still alive when I don't have thoughts swirling drunkenly in my head. When moments of peace and solitude descend upon me, such as when I have been awake for a long time and my body feels the need for sleep but cannot because I willingly and intentionally stay awake, thoughts reduce in number and intensity because they have much less energy to waste unconsciously. At those times, my world is calm and I know in those moments that I am alive, because I breathe in the crisp air, and I can feel it reach my lungs and then slowly disperse to every cell in my whole body.

So because I'm not my mind, I must be something else? How about, I am.

What lies beyond the walls could just as well be what lies in this room. In that way, the walls serve no purpose but to divide, to separate, and in that case they are separating space. But space is infinite - that's to say, walls cannot divide infinity, so even if mind death lies behind the wallpaper then mind death also lies here, in a different form possibly. There is space everywhere, there is nothing everywhere. This is who I am: nothing - not yet.

And me being in this room is a distraction from the truth. There is no room, there are no walls, there's no division, I am nothing and I am everything. Thoughts need to survive, I simply am, so I can either chase my thoughts away and hit walls and fear getting out of rooms, or I can simply let thoughts be, just like I am. That means there are no walls, and I can walk through, free.