#49BELIEFS

BELIEFS

The last and most insidious addiction 

Is to this idea that something 

Is wrong with me. 

As long as I believe this is so,

I am compelled to fix myself,

My life becomes a desperate search for sanity

As soon as I surrender

This false idea, this utter lie-

I am free; 

Free to soar amongst the eagles,

Free to frolic with the dolphins,

Free to splash colors onto canvases,

Free to sing in strange places 

(Like grocery stores),

Dance to the mailbox,

And laugh,

Laugh at all this irony,

Laugh at just how mad we all are.

We are slaves to the most constraining beliefs;

Why not choose 

To imprison ourselves

With beliefs

That set us free?

IRONIC

#48

IRONIC

Lost in our heads

bruised and exhausted by relentless thinking

we create our own 

dis-ease

by

the deeply ingrained belief

that 

something must be done

about this compulsive drive 

to do

Something-

...and Happy Festivas for the Rest of Us

                                                                               #47
          

xmas morning. 

holds no connection to spirit for me but my connection to spirit has been lacking lately as it is.  although i know that the force of love is pulling me towards its source always, in the midst of my fear and resistance, i can feel despairing and alone. 

what keeps me from giving up?

the love,

 the undying love i have for myself keeps me in the ring. 

ironic that it is my self love that refuses to settle for an outcome

anything other than the experience of self love and complete acceptance.

the appearance of loves absence is illusionary. 

but the belief in it’s absence 

creates an experience of sadness

and loneliness for me-

for this i can always take note and apologize, 

make amends to myself for

forgetting to be compassionate with myself. 

i am the first person on my list 

that i must love completely 

if i am to love you. 

when i judge and am unhappy 

with myself 

for any reason, 

when i measure and reject my current presence

i reject all the world and 

each and every person in it. 

as within so without

at all times. 

i am an imperfect man

with a good heart

and a sincere desire to become

a love spot, 

a safe place to be for my self and others

in an unsafe and often frightening world. 

what makes me safe is my understanding 

that the force that shapes

circumstances in this world

has as its highest intention

the goal of growing me,

of growing us

to the realization that we are-each of us

 simply a shard of God itself, 

simply a crystal of light from all that is light, 

just a chip off the old block of Love

that creates everything in the universe

that is

the universe itself. 

amen. 

THE LORD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS

#46

or

GOD ONLY KNOWS AND WE SURE AS HELL DON’T!

...we all contrive stories to explain why things happen and are the way they are.  but we don't really ever know, we are not gods or omnipotent. we are human and limited in our understanding. we can strive to maintain faith in a loving universe that provides for us, and what appears to us as good, bad or ugly conforms according to divine plan, chaos theory, or whatever you want to call the force(s) you believe in.

what if, we really are immortal and after our deaths, regardless of whether we think of them as untimely or tragic..we come back?  we live in god’s world and not one of our own making. the game goes on and on and on, life after life after life. 

This idea doesn’t at all sound strange compared to the many systems of belief that we indoctrinate ourselves with. Born a sinner having to repent and be perfectly good (whatever that looks like)  so we don’t go to EVERLASTING hell after we die. Why the fk  would an after life last eternally when the one we know is so short? 

Who developed these beliefs; especially the ones with a cruel and punitive god. thank you for writing a horror movie for me to live in disciples of Christ or scribes or ghostwriter altogether.  What nonsense. Harder still to understand is how we can go on believing even slightly that there is hell and damnation if we don’t behave exactly as some dogma written by some imperfect human proclaims. 

We are kept in our place by fear. This is the way societies control the people. And the more frightened the people become the greater their own need for control, for rules, for ideas of right and wrong. The result is that we live our lives founded in fear instead of love. Judgment instead of acceptance. 

But if we are immortal then what is there to fear? Death is just a new beginning ya? Isn’t this idea as valid as any other? Perhaps even more so since energy is neither created nor destroyed but only transformed time and time and time again. 

I dunno.  What would it be to go through life feeling completely safe in the wisdom of insecurity, never knowing what will unfold next? If not for our fear, isn’t this the adventure we would all like our lives to be? 

#45

Happy Birthday Dear Jesus

well it’s xmas time sweet jesus

what an advertisement you are

seems like every mothers daughter 

is out driving in her car

and the streets are strewn with holly

and the stores all hired their jolly

santa claus plainclothesman

to help them push the stuff

and all in your name jesus

we buy in vain sweet jesus

i wonder if it pleases you 

to see this going on

it’s your spirit that they’ve used again

i think you been abused again

from one cross to another lord

when will it ever end

cause it’s xmas time again sweet lord

i wonder if you’re getting bored

or do you sit dejectedly

revising plagues revengefully

to visit unexpectedly

upon our lowly sins

o the irony is great my prince 

like shakespeare you’ve been better since

you died and left a lifetimes work

for us to misconstrue

your’e birthday is our birthday lord

your tree in every home

because you lived is why we give

but when you died, you died alone..

#44 The One & Only

The One & Only

i don’t know what to do God. I truly do not know what to do. It is so quiet this grey morning in the world, in your world... i would like to become this quiet. Perhaps that is your wish and your gift for me. To quiet me. I don’t have to get up and go to a job I don’t enjoy. I don’t have to wake up next to a person I don’t like. I don’t have to get anyone off to school. I have nothing I have to do yet I feel compelled to do something. Compelled to know what to do.  What is this? Human doing and not human being. 

What would it be like to just be? To let thoughts dissolve. To pay them no attention. Let’s see.......

( an hour later)

I am still agonizing over what to do

to escape the existential discomfort I am feeling;

under it all

lies a deep familiar grief,

a sadness,

the grief of loneliness..

they say this is when we need the hand of god

on the back of our neck

to comfort and console us.

they say god is here and willing but i must ask

for him to come

and bath me in his healing light,

pour love through this useless vessel

until it is filled with meaning,

until an abundance of love overflows me 

and once again

i have something to give to others in need,

they say, 

you cannot give away what you do not have..

Surrender Dorothy

okay i give, i give!

we all remember having to give up, right?

“Do you give?” 

you cannot wrestle free from the painful hold 

someone bigger has applied to you.

“Yes,yes I give” 

 then suddenly relief-

but relief poisoned by a sense of shame

at your surrendering. 

i should have won or at least withstood the pain! 

i should have been able to break free!

 I should have chosen death over giving up,

giving in,

I should have chosen honor..

But don’t they say, 

your arms are too short to box with god? 

why the shame?

what is there to be ashamed of?

that you are not a man? 

and if you are you are a broken, weak and worthless man? 

who gave you these ideas of yourself? 

who judged you without mercy ceaselessly?

whom could you never please or satisfy?

invent yourself a god who loves you when you are down 

and can’t get up of your own accord,

invent a forgiving god who loves you

vulnerable and imperfect,

sit here right here and continue to write because

you are really praying in the only way,

in the best way you know how. 

the pen is your rabbi,

the paper your scroll,

this is the sacred work 

you were meant to do,

the reason you are here,

everybody prays in different ways

and when we pray 

 the differences we create 

to separate ourselves 

from one another disappear

leaving only the essence 

of who we really are,

we are One, 

the one and only

*

i want to blame the world for my discontent

but i know that isn’t the problem,

I’m sitting here 

tapping my pencil on the inside of my head

trying to shake loose or pry open

an answer to this ongoing 

existential question:

what am i supposed to be doing 

in a world of 

right and wrong?

a world

where everything is evaluated, 

judged good or bad,

 right or wrong,

this worrying tool

i carry on top of me

that weighs me down

chops off my happiness

with a hatchet.

whose hatchet is this? 

is this my dead mother’s hatchet? 

that opens up the wound my shame grows in? 

is this my father’s hatchet

that chops my dreams in half before they have half a chance?

is this my older brother’s hatchet

that hangs over my head and threatens to kill me

if i tell on him?

is this my first love’s hatchet

chopping at my manhood and my genitals?

whose hatchet is this? 

and why

although every one is long gone 

am I still surrounded by this threat?

Mother and father and brother and lover

long gone

and still i wake up fearing for my life. 

whose hatchets are these? 

they are mine-

why do i keep them?

when will i stop this? 

how can i learn to love myself 

reliably

when i am drowning in self hatred?

is this what prayer is for? 

is God here waiting 

for me to humble myself (again)

and admit

that i do not know how to love my self

and that I am ready to learn?

is there a man or woman in this world

who i can call

that will say the loving things to me

i cannot say to myself?

is there a man or woman in this world

who i can call

that will  listen to me

say loving things to myself?

i am no deserted island

i am a man abandoned

by himself,

unprotected, unloved,

unsafe..

i am that boat on the horizon

that never sees me on this island,

neglected, ignored, and abused,

i perpetuate the past

again and again

i feel despair,

an inability to reinvent myself

i feel so far from God,

so far from safe..

i know what i need

when this mourning for the dead and dying ends,

when this premature funeral 

for my hope is over

and a belief in escaping this grave returns

in times like this 

there is only one hand to grasp,

 and reaching up in prayer

i hold the hand of God once more

and feel the lift of trust and faith

carry me out of darkness

and back into the one and only

 sky.

#43: Fear of Shame

Attachment to outcomes has kept me from doing many things I wanted to do over the years. Fear of bad outcomes and failing has paralyzed me. The outcome behind the outcome of my performance is “your judgment” of my performance. That’s the one I worry about. Why?

Because I learned that what others think of me defines my worth or at least the measure of my performance. Even if you separate those two, if I don’t it’s a scary event for me. So, it has been my strategy to avoid even trying because I’m afraid that if/when I fail others will see and judge me and I will feel humiliation which is something I am terrified to feel. So it’s been all about avoiding the experience of shame. 

Up until today, I thought I needed to do it perfectly or not at all so I took no chances regarding things that were really important to me. I chose to do less intimidating things and often didn’t try too hard. If I didn’t care or try than I could avoid any possibility of experiencing disappointment in myself, i.e; failure. 

    But today I re realized that what you think about me and/ or my performance is of no significance-unless I give it significance. OMG! I have a choice!

Yes, I’ve read that and heard it and said it a hundred times but i didn’t feel it in my gut until today. 

It may sound simple to you but for me it was a lightening bolt to me. Instead of shrinking away ashamed when my “outcome” is not what I hoped it would be (what you hoped it would be) I can get back up as they say, like Edison and Colonel Sanders and try again. And again and again. The thinking that will help me to do this and change the way I operate is this,” I can measure my success by my courage, persistence, and my willingness to take the chance and confront the unknown (outcome).Today I can see that just taking action is my success.

#42

    EVEN THE SUN..

even the sun

takes a day off from time to time.

the wind pulls out an old gray blanket, 

spreads it across the wide sky,

the sun calls in sick, 

then smiling, reads a bit

and takes a nap..

let clouds own this day

cooling our ambitions, 

if needed,

let rain convince us

to stay indoors,

drinking tea, playing hooky,

playing cards 

with another refugee from sweat and toil

or even all by ourselves.

#41

..ICING ON THE CAKE

The soul works through the night

Posing possibilities to consciousness,

A dream readies the dreamer

For challenges to come,

Early morning stillness

Reveals the status of the man

To himself,

We are all awaiting the great arrival

Where the pieces of all journeys

Come together

Into one grand understanding,

We are hoping to breathe easy

Before our final ah ha!

Meanwhile, with all this heady poetry

Feigning depth and thoughtfulness

I have once again forgotten to thank God

For my life and all the attendant blessings,

My lust drives my thinking

And I wake up wanting more;

More of this or that

Or better,

And faster and then

Just a little more.

Not knowing how to slow and stop and 

start residing in this moment

gratefully, blissfully

I stumble sideways,

Urgently out of balance

tripping, crashing into and through

most events

Like some comic buffoon

Prat falling for laughs,

yet no one’s laughing,

especially myself;

The performance ends,

there is no where to go and nothing more to grab onto,

,

All that I need I have right here,

Air to breathe is the first gift,

Everything after that,

Icing on the cake.

#40 DREAM ON

  DREAM ON

you awaken one morning
and every important thing you didn’t do in your life,
every broken promise to yourself and to others
stands before you, a neglected “to do” list
regret has been writing for years now.

suddenly
the bell has rung
and all those things undone
are due today
at noon.
the unfinished painting,
the “someday” novel,
the adventures to foreign lands,
the song you wrote
and never played
for the woman you chose not to love,
so many dreams unseized
arise now like ghosts,
and rocking back and forth
in a dreamlike stupor
you ponder the details
of the life you didn’t lead
and  wonder: who made
the very first rocking chair?
and when, and where?

and you're still rocking back and forth
inside yourself,
haunted by the ghosts
of deeds undone,
hoping that this morning's rising sun
will lift you up and carry you high
into the blue sky of your desires,
without you having to lift a finger.

dream on..

WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!

“OCCUPY” THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE

We have been conned into believing that our power lay in our ability to vote for the candidate of our choice. The candidates across the board tell us whatever they know we want to hear. They “sell” us on the belief that they will in fact represent our the peoples’ agenda, what we want and need for our country and from our country. 

. . well, how well does congress work these days?  Collaboration between the two parties is gone, compromise is gone and the Republicans have abandoned civility.  Our politicians are owned and controlled by the money brokers known as “lobbyists- big money, the .09%. These are  400 American billionaires that control legislature and regulations across the board which affect banking, trade,the markets, drugs, health care, etc. The government does not represent the voice of the majority, it represents the agenda of profiteering for the few. 

, 

It’s a load of crap and even well intended politicians who do get elected find their hands tied by the machinery that is fixed solidly in place and run by the good old boys, those supported by the big money.  Ceo’s are selected for powerful positions within the presidents cabinet.  Supreme Court judges are hand selected.

The government is corrupt. It is no longer a Democracy in practice. Voting is meaningless. Campaigns are funded and designed like commercials and marketing works very well on those of us who don’t take the time to separate emotional sound bytes, unsupported statements, claims and downright boldfaced lying from facts. How many of our representatives are financing romantic affairs with our tax dollars while they should be in their office earning their salary? 

The mainstream media is controlled by a few billionaires and the news isn’t news at all. It’s a commercial meant to encourage us to fight with each other: right against left, liberal against conservative, wealthy against middle class keeping us too busy blaming one another for us to notice who is really the culprit of a global economic meltdown. 

The system has to be reformed and returned to what in theory is fair and just and effective. Democracy and Capitalism are excellent systems in theory and they work well when special interest groups and individuals are not in control over them. 

The internet is a transparent vehicle. It express the voices of everyday people, everyday. It gives us hope for a truthful and fair future for all of us, our children, and the world itself. Information abounds. It’s time to start reading more. Do your own research. Don’t believe a single article or speech. Read and read some more. Without an educated public Democracy will make bad choices. I don’t mean school, I mean current affairs in our modern societies.

This isn’t about Republicans or Democrats or liberals and conservatives, but 

the 99% of us who have our government usurped from us by the power of corporate money and the corruption of our political system. Some of the corruption has even been legalized BY the corruption empowering the government. The brokers, businessmen, and movers and shakers of corporate power who have purchased and now control the media in this country and who, in collusion with many politicians who have written legislation to further empower their 1%; that’s what this is all about. 

Remember  the American Revolution and what motivated it. The cry at that Tea Party was, “No taxation without representation!”  How happy are you with the way your money is handled and what it’s being allocated for? 

The Occupy movement is simply about informing people that the current state of affairs affecting us all is due to corruption; bribery, deregulating essential constraints on banking and Wall Street. Corruption is a soft word for “crime”. When the average citizen commits a crime he goes to prison. When a political official is caught in a criminal activity, he may lose his job or his support in the next election.  Crimes that result in making and losing of billions of dollars and the transfer of that money from millions of pockets into the few. We need one another to occupy “ truth” and “fairness”...”Justice for “All”. 

We have an opportunity to grow the truth in the streets of America. It’s happening all over the world. Get caught up in the excitement of the possibility of recreating a healthy,prosperous nation that works for 100% of the people. Make your voice be heard. Don’t think someone else will do this work for you. If the movement doesn’t grow it atrophies. One way or the other. Phoenix has already dropped numbers quickly. Don’t be apart from this but become a part of this. We must become an “us” if we are going to win the day. This is our chance and the time is now! 

From 90 in 90

#38

the way this addict prays

is often incidentally..

he sits down and starts to write

and on a good day

(and a good pray)

he quickly tires of the bullshit he’s spewing

and cuts to the heart 

of what is the matter.

or maybe it isn’t tiring of the bullshit;

maybe it is the exhaustion from resisting

the pull of Light,

the calling of Love,

the persistent Patience of

that Embrace from God.

No longer apart but

 a part of God,

I become a part of everything,

anything that happens anywhere

happens to me,

and 

 all that I do not understand

is the hardest part,

yet the Source and Foundation

for my Faith.

amen

             

#39

..and when I have surrendered 

each and every addiction

to seductions outside myself

I come to see the final killing habit

is my addiction to dark thinking.

Surrendering that habit

i am married to the Light.

#37

I HATE DOGS

I hate dogs. I know that’s a dangerous statement. A lot of people will probably stop reading this post right here and now. Those people usually like their dogs better than their children. They grieve for weeks when the pet passes ((pets don’t “die”). They cry huge fat wailing tears and sound as if they have incurable stomach aches. 

Let me clarify;  i don’t hate dogs per se- i just hate being their master and having to care for them. I really do. I feel like i’m too often being interrupted by the needs and wants of the dog. I’m hungry, I deserve a treat, pet me, let me lick any and all your body parts, and most of all, oh please please please....Walk Me!

I wouldn’t even mind the walking so much if we could just start walking and keep walking but nooooooo. He has to stop again and again, sniff about and then piss on top of a previously walked dogs piss. And why does he wait to pick his shit spot until he sees a house with an open front door. He knows I forgot the pick-up bag!

It’s the responsibilities that come with parenting a dog that I resent because it really interferes with my narcissism. And the weird thing is through no wish of my own i have cared for 5 different dogs in my life, though I cared not too terribly much. 

Besides the fact that they are expensive to keep alive, especially if they get ill or lose a leg or require rattlesnake bite antidote, they require too much attention and actual work. It’s the walking I don’t really care for.  I’m not a walker. I used to enjoy running when I still had knees but i rarely walked anywhere. i like my bike. 

My current doggie, little Nugget settles for nothing less than one walk per day. If he doesn’t get it he informs you of his displeasure by pissing, puking and shitting in several different places, preferring carpeted areas if he can get to one. This is one of the ways in which he controls and trains me. That is why i have to laugh when a dog owner refers to himself as the dog’s Master. 

My kids worked on me for a couple years; I kept saying, “We’ll get a dog when I”M ready to have one”, knowing full well that after the dog honeymoon wore off, the boys would be gone and I’d be the dogs dad. He showed up cute enough; 4 years old and a mix between Shitzu and Poodle which makes him a Poozu or a Shitpoo. I go with the latter. 

He looks just like an Ewok out of Star Wars and I tried to have him answer to Yoda but he wasn’t buying. A a matter of fact he doesn’t seem to respond to even his own given name. I think this is because he knows if he starts responding to words at all, he might be responsible for following my instructions. That ain’t never going to happen. I did learn one power word which almost always works to get him to do whatever you want him to do. That word is “treat”. When he hears that word, he begins to spin in a tight circle and will continue to until I throw up so I must give him a treat pretty quickly. He can walk upright as well and when we first got him upon returning home he would jump right up onto your arms, chest high!  Now that he’s 8 he’s not quite as energetic as he used to be and probably is a couple pounds over fighting weight. 

I think he may have been abandoned because of the overloaded reaction he has to sighting anyone coming in the front door after being gone for say...20 minutes. It’s as if he’d been alone without food or water for days and days.  At any rate, he is a small, cute, affectionate little guy; not big on the great outdoors but will fight to reside on your lap every chance he gets. 

Just how well has Nugget trained me? 

I learned early on that he loved to sit in your lap more than anything else including treats. When I’d sit down, before I even came to a complete halt, he was there-20 pounds of hurtling fur and feet directed perfectly into the center of my crotch. This gave rise to the term of endearment I now refer to him by, none other than Crotch Rocket. He was persistent, belligerent and lightening fast, so much so that I learned to cover my crotch with my left hand each time i sat down whether  couch, chair, bed whatever.

I got so good at this protective maneuver that it became an unconscious habit I employ now whether I am with the dog or not. I get looks at times for this behavior. Sitting down in a booth at Dennys for instance can elicit a slight repulsion in the eyes of my attending waitress. Still, she has to pretend that I’m not a self molester and fake smile at me to assure an adequate tip. 

I ask myself sometimes, why the left and not the right hand as my protective shield? After all, I am right handed. Still I have yet to access an answer to that question so I wish I’d stop asking myself questions of this sort.. I remember Lawrence Ferlengetti calling questions of this type “Unfair Arguments with Existence”. I’m trying to quit (asking questions-not protecting my nuts) but have not as of yet, found a 12 step program that deals with those of us addicted hopelessly to wanting to know the reason for every god- damned thing that ever happens or happened on this poor beaten and bewildered planet of ours. 

What I’d really like is to have a cat, just one cat. Cat’s are no bother. They wash and clean themselves. They shit and piss in the same defined area forever. They walk over and gently with grace arrange themselves painlessly onto your lap and then they purr and appear to go to sleep. When you have to get up they don’t mind being lifted and placed elsewhere. They don’t bark or freak out when someone comes to the door and when a bird injures itself after crashing into your spotlessly clean window, they get rid of it for you without being asked. 

Do I like cats? Not really. But if I had to have a living animal as a companion I would choose a cat. They are not purr-fect either but they are more entertaining then a goldfish  swimming in a tight circle dying slowly of fungal infection.