Broken Lives
Are there parts of my life that feel totally broken? Things I can’t swallow, or things that I’m chokin’ down to my stomach like mom’ soggy spinach That make me wish 2020 would vanish? When I think of my dreams, many unspoken Or my successes that seem like merely a token I am pressed down by their sheer magnitude And fear an awakening that’s brutally rude What if my dreams vanish the moment I’ve woken Never to manifest, like a warm bath I could soak in Instead they just taunt me, escaping my grip And the cold dirty tub water is the water I now sip Sometimes I wish that I wasn’t a dreamer That my ambition was less, so I could finally relax Instead Im racing so hard I could break my femur Which would keep me in the red and out of the blacks I am broken mostly in invisible places Like my heart and my soul and just stuff like that So it’s hard for the repair man to know how to fix me Because the instructions are in Spanish and, I think, for a cat. Without the instructions I have no choice but to be Just who I am, without hope for an elsewhere And I think that’s my ticket to finally become free That I’m slowing to stillness, in this one hell of a year.
The Truth Is…
The Truth is a concept The truth is our experience The idea of there being one truth is not truth And there is absolutely no absolute truth You can search for the truth, like a truth sleuth But if you force yours on others, well that’s a little uncouth If you want to know what’s true, just catalog what you go through Our idea of truth as something out there, Is what turns hope to despair and causes wars to flare and societies and families to rip and tear At the fabric of their own tapestries and drapes But the truth is that truth comes in infinite shapes And colors and sizes. You can’t “figure out” truth and hope to win prizes. The truth is simple, it’s matter of fact. It is the substance of our experience from moment to moment It is the sublime taste of my afternoon snack And it is the trauma or joy that my life tends to foment The truth is made of perspectives and history and choices When we narrow it down and say the truth is specific We lose sight of our richness and discount other voices This leads to acts that can be described as horrific And well, that’s just terrific. It is empowering when you finally realize The truth is that our truths are true just for us When we know that, we see with our real eyes And the joy of living becomes a much fuller chorus.
The Hang Nail in the Law of Attraction
“Positive thoughts attract positive things and negative thoughts attract negative things” feels like a grand oversimplification. “I have a hang nail” could be a thought. “I am not good enough” is another thought, but with an added dimension of judgement. “I worry that you’ll get sick” is yet another thought, but this time a new dimension, fear, replaces judgement. The statement about positive thoughts and negative thoughts assumes one thing that I believe to be false, that thoughts are positive or negative at all. Thoughts, like all things, are neutral. They just are. The tricky part, the magnetic part, the part that activates the law of attraction is how we feel about the thoughts, what we make them mean, if we believe them to be the truth, or can detach from them as simply word sentences that don’t need to impact our being. “I have a hang nail” might not make us feel any certain way, but we end up clipping the nail. And it’s over. “I am not good enough” can ruin a moment, or a lifetime; or not, depending on whether we believe it, doubt it, or repeat it to ourselves. “I worry that you’ll get sick” can cause us to constrict with a feverish feeling of being out of control, or it can open our awareness to the fact that worry is impotent and thus heal us. So for me, the idea that positive or negative thoughts attract similar things misses the key ingredient in the equation: our cooperation with those thoughts. Granted, often our cooperation is automatic, as with anyone who goes through life totally unaware, unconscious, or uninterrupted. But life has a way of interrupting us when we settle into autopilot for too long. How do we react when we get interrupted? Do we get offended and tell life to shush and wait it’s turn to speak? Or do we recognize the loving kindness and inherent wisdom in life for speaking up and trying to show us how to be more conscious? I don’t know about you, but sometimes I listen to that still small voice, and other times I tell it to wait its turn, shut the fuck up, and let me think. I just want to think about my thoughts without interruption from my thinker, geez. But alas, thinking might not be all that we thought it was after all. Come to think of it, we probably have no idea.
Anti-social Media
We live our lives in public now It is different than before When we’d smile at an unexpected guest Come knocking at our door Our lives have become a tabloid piece Twitter, tweet and post your soul, an issue of Inquisitor With that burning spotlight pressing down We now fear that surprise visitor We post our private lives Snap, it is a trap Text me to sex me We’ve stopped talking, reduced to stalking No romance No time to dance We post our lives for useless fame What a steep price it took Nothing will ever be the same The like, the gram, the waste of facebook.
Tired of Outrage & Sick to Death of Fear
Is anyone else tired of outrage and sick to death of fear? I know I am. But we do live in a very unsettling time, don’t we? This time on earth is a time of great transition, where governments are crumbling, air is dirty, politics are dirty, and our minds have become so dirty. This is not an accident, but the unfolding of a very sinister and very well-thought out design. The bought-and-paid-for mainstream media continues its campaign to bang the drums of fear. Fear the muslims; fear the terrorists; fear the gays. Democrats should fear Trump; but republicans, you should fear Hillary. All of us should fear going out in the streets at night. Black folks should fear cops; cops must fear the public; and well, hey, us…the public, we are suppose to fear just about everything. Then, when we get sick to death of fear it begins to give way to the next logical step in our species emotional undoing…outrage. Do you think that every broadcast network has the same ten basic stories and pieces of information by accident? This earth is gigantic and America is gigantic, beyond what we can even wrap our minds around gigantic; and yet country wide we have almost all networks and all news outlets reporting the same basic fear-laced stories. That’s not news, those are called talking points. And they have been carefully arranged and designed to make you afraid, and then outraged. And we have fallen for it hook, line and sinker. I’m so tired of people being outraged by everything—or anything. It may seem reasonable in some cases, like when people are getting shot in our streets or decimated in foreign lands or whenever Trump opens his fat mouth. And it may seem totally irrational in other cases, like when the delivery guy forgets your side of garlic toast or someone interrupts you in a casual conversation. But in either case outrage is counter productive. The consciousness that devastates our planet, wages war, picks on the weak, bullies the different, and lies to the willing, is the same one that becomes fearful and outraged at all of those things. The world doesn’t need us being afraid and outraged anymore. There is a season for all things, but the season for impotent anger and debilitating fear has passed. It’s time to turn turn turn the page. Humanity has no more use for our outrage and fear. Outrage is just borne out of our pity mixed with helplessness; so we rage and flail, and determine in our minds that by making some rant on social media we did our part to get the word out and spread our view point. But we didn’t, and we haven’t. And that’s okay. Because honestly, the last thing the world needs is more of us outraged and attached to our view points. All we’ve done when we announce our fear or outrage on our various social networks, or incessantly to our friends, is spread it around, and add to it. It’s time for us, for humanity to get a hold of ourselves. Not the government, not some other group or some other ethnicity…but you, and me. Don’t use this moment to get outraged and say “yeah, so and so needs to get a hold of themselves, Brian is right.” No, that misses the whole point. Ghandi said to be the change you want to see in the world, so I’m saying I need to get a hold of myself. And if that resonates, perhaps you do too. Albert Einstein once said you cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must solve it with the opposite consciousness. In the face of mass shootings and global catastrophes humanity is better served by our compassion. When a mass shooting occurs or Trump opens his mouth, or a nuclear power plant springs a leak, instead of getting outraged, fill up with love. Make that choice in that moment. Your outrage and fear are only the result of a practiced pattern of behavior anyway. So try something else and keep practicing at it. Take a breath, feel the blessings that are still around you, and then use your power to be that blessing to your fellow humans in need. If you dare, well up with compassion even for the shooter, even for Trump himself, even for the idiot who caused the power plant to leak. This is something you don’t hear every day, because screw him, he killed innocent people; or he’s racist; or he should have been more careful. Well yeah, that’s all true; but compassion counts the most when someone has done something horrible that we don’t understand, it is strongest when we don’t want to give it. I can’t think of any form of consciousness or action more opposite than that. I know, that sounds easier said than done. It is. I’m not saying it’s easy to have compassion. I’m saying it’s easy to get outraged. Let’s try a little harder and do something a little differently. Our fellow humans needs us to be smart about this. When it gets difficult, have compassion on yourself, and remember it would be easy to get outraged and get over it. But get vulnerable and go through it instead. We are in this thing together, creating a civilized society, whether we like it or not. So if you practice love today then you’ve changed the world already.
Inner Voices
Nobody noticed when my identity got lost After all it’s not their problem, for they don’t bear the cost Plus if you look over you’ll see me sitting in that chair But if you look a little closer you’ll see I’m not even there I chased the dreams of others and chased a penny for myself Carried out my marching orders like a good and proper elf I should have noticed sooner; I wish I’d spoken up but all these should’s and wishes will never fill my cup I clear away the pebbles and unearth my buried center My destiny is calling out “let all ye who hear me enter” When I begin to honor my deepest passions will I find a deeper joy of being, leaving suffering behind? If I risk it all, on this hail mary of a dream Oh Universe can you guarantee me that I won’t lose my steam Can you reassure me that I’m going to be just fine Be honest, because I’ll know if you’re just feeding me a line Quietly I listen for some kind of mystical reply something unmistakeable on which I can rely but there are no guarantees in life, just moments and choices Those who find their happiness heed their inner voices
The War of Art
I want my art to be inspiring So I sit frozen, yet perspiring There is a pressure to express to burst, to splash, to dance in paint an urge, a burning I suppress so the urge is growing ever faint I want my art to be transcendent But I freeze alone, and codependent There is an ember searing hot cracking, burning, catching fire that never dies beneath the rot of all the dreams I’ve let expire I want my art to be an upward force And a bunch of fame and money, of course My soul is alight with a bright white heat But the mental dragon turns it all to steam So I binge-watch crap and over eat And pinch myself for my silly dream I want my art to be expression But I find myself stuck in depression I have to stop this round and round So I force myself to sit and write The flood gates open and I start to drown But I can learn to swim, I’ll be alright. A creative force bursts through my fingers At last, now here’s hoping this surge lingers Making art is like controlling fire It burns, it’s smoky, with it’s own mind If you’re lucky to live, you’ll never retire From this calling you’ve been assigned
LGBTQuit It
I am not defined by the color of my skin I am not defined by the job I perform So no single letter could ever do the job Of bringing my sexuality into form I’m am bigger than who I like to fuck I am a lion, roaring with pride I’m burning for dick, I like to suck it This is a fact I will no longer hide But don’t try to box me with one single letter I am not the sum of some bull shit acronym I am atoms and love and I’ll do you one better I like other men, and boy do I like ‘em slim.
Budget
I crunch the numbers, I add them up But will the sum of them fill my cup? I cut down here, I roll it back shaving and saving, clickety clack go the calculator keys, as I add and subtract But I need magic, not math, that’s the tragic fact. I do my best through thick and thin But the IRS seems to always win It’s scary, trying to make this budget Sometimes I just want to say ‘oh fudge it’
Airplane & Simple
I can write a dirty limerick I can write a little rhyme My Fly-fi isn’t working So this is how I’ll pass the time. I’m flying through the sky In a giant metal tube Longing for my landing So I can hit a big fat doob Finally feeling grounded After soaring through the air I’ll be sleeping off this jet-lag So only wake me if you dare
