RINPOCHE AT ESALEN II
You cannot truly have a meditation
until it is broken he says
I sit deeper than I have ever been
deepened by 28 kindred souls
as deep as they can go
He hits the crystal bowl
one quick ringing note
A trap door beneath me opens
and I fall
BREATHE
The Buddhists say
“Breathe in all the pain of the universe
and breathe out love”
For the longest time I thought
in my Protestant work ethic way
this is important for the good of the world
and I should be doing it
Work hard breathe in
work hard transform
work hard breathe out
Protesting somewhat now I see
It has nothing to do with doing at all
and little to do with me
If you do not try stop it
you will breathe in the pain of the world
for it is all around you
If you do not try to stop it
you will become one with it all
and breathe out what you have become
LAWYER RAP
(or I SUED TWO LAWYERS FOR 18 MONTHS AND ALL I GOT WAS ONE RAP POEM)
The road to trials
is paved with miles and miles and miles and miles
of files and files and files and files
Piles and piles and piles and piles
of files and files and files and files
And I’m going down that road
wading through piles and piles and piles
plowing through files and files and files
And I think of all these pile of files and files
used to be trees and trees and trees and trees
And maybe these trees – some of these trees
came from woods where Robert Frost walked
the woods where paths in the wood diverged
and where he took the one less traveled
And I wonder how I got on this path
and how to get back to that place
back to that place in the woods
back where the paths diverge
Spend my days outside instead
walking through live trees
live trees instead of dead
TONY CAMPISI AT THE ELEPHANT ROOM
Tony Campisi plays Jazz
on an old tenor sax
notes you can’t play on a new
Brass as rich as stone walls
in an old world church
soaked in a thousand years
of latin mass
Tony Campisi plays Jazz
and somebody’s cryin, somebody’s dyin
somebody’s fallin in love – right now
HANGING TEN WITH DEBBIE
When she was alive
she was just so damn alive
It makes her being dead
just so damn much more dead
We were together
the day the Challenger exploded
and the day the Gulf War started
Violence all around but we never fought
We just laughed and played
and howled at the moon
And surfed ten years
on that sweet sexual edge of almost
then she died
If either of us
had leaned ten degrees closer
we might have caught the perfect curl
and saved the world
Three degrees and we might have been
two reef torn bodies on the sand
but I block out scenes like that
I just see her innocent wave goodbye
I just watch the uncaught waves roll by
DORSEY BREATHES
Dorsey breathes deep
at Jacquie’s workshop
Drives through pain
like Houston traffic
Coughs up fifty years
of smog and burnt rubber
Parks under a tree in River Oaks
and lets her six year old out to play
[/audi
KAUAI LIGHT SCARS
There are two
jagged lines across my palm
where I learned to use an axe at six
and a fingertip crushed by a grader at seven
There are marks made by light
that will remain forever too
here are a few still pink and new
Airport greets with morning rainbow
rare cardinal flies in for our meeting
Chinese screens roof tiles blue
getting to know you
Four hundred gathered
sacredness of Huna and Hula
A Wessel becomes a vessel
power pours through palms again
Flowers wrap the torch lit towers
dancing to Elvis “The night is young
and so are we in blue Hawaii”
Millennium poem a gift to all
little saint Tutu honors with a lei
passing it on is sacred enough
to say what I have to say
Rainbow in the valley of mists
forms a circle with us in the center
Walter the bear gives us a wave
to prove that we are there
A can of spam, coke, chips and thou
alone on a beach at the end of the world
COUNTERPOINT
If you’re going to grow old anyway
Consider doing it as an artist or a poet
Waxing powers may well meet the waning
Tides coming in meeting waves going out
Coals cooling as the iron tempers
BEFORE AND AFTER YEATS
The Athens of America
Timothy Leary dubbed our Austin town
Whatever opinion you had of him in life
you must admit he is dead right now
Just witness the round bellied Socrates
peddling wisdom in South Austin agoras
The poetry movements in galleries
still afoot above Sixth Street
from midnight to dawn
Comedy and tragedy enough in Hyde Park
to have no need for Greek theater
And yet the center will not hold
Attack is everywhere
Enemies with impervious armor
threaten to cover the sacred South
Monthly skirmishes break out
between the Nobles and their foes
along the Northern Borders
While all the young Turks
fill the Parthenon with dynamite
oblivious to every warning
the roof may blow off
THE GIFT HORSE
It is not so simple
If you question every action
you will find forces pull in other directions
If you look in the mouth of the horse
not all teeth will be straight
and many may have been grinding
for some time
It is more likely
that happiness will be found
by looking deep in the mouth of the adage