Tag Archives: poem

So…

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beyond comprehension

This radical

life

is so

simple that

it’s beyond a

comprehension

anchored in work-a-day

To be jobless is radical beyond

comprehension. We say in Perma-

culture that everything farms or works

And isn’t that precisely so such that how

can we use ‘work’ and ‘job’ synonymously

We are blind within What Is by filters of

our own making –own our making

our own making

How many

layers

deep?

What kind

of forest floor

is under your feet?

Will you lay yourself down

On that floor as a radical act

Of awakening to What Is

However prickly of a

bed that is seem-

ingly bereft of

the very

nutrients

(we are that)

that each of us

so thrive on: space

grace listening subtleties

Of being  Being of What Is

Did you ever notice that things

simply grow on their own and thrive?

So what’s this business we conjure up

each and every other moment of

the day today that is simply

the magnificence of life

unfolding as we are?

Comprehend.

You dig?

Let it

Be

Life

Itself

Beyond.

 

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Thank you Shareable. This poem is partly inspired by this interview on jobless living:
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[This poem is #2 in a series dedicated to revisiting poems that were written by me as part of my participation in a collaborative and experimental poetry blog: IMUNURI.blogspot.com. So… was written and first published 3 July 2013.]

Aperture

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[This poem is #1 in a series dedicated to revisiting poems that were written by me as part of my participation in a collaborative and experimental poetry blog: IMUNURI.blogspot.com. Aperture was written and first published 31 December 2014.]

 

These that are things and not things both
They pepper the landscape
The landscape that is so and not so both
I walk amongst them
The I that is not an I after all, yet somehow is

It’s not that I wonder about this apparent conundrum
As in feeling troubled or some kind of loss
Rather it is there or with it that I belong
Nothing of this casts me aside
All things that I am and am not Rest here

Whose favor would I garner
To look upon this any differently
Seeing is a communion after all
That each and every one of us
Has within the very fabric of being

Ultimately there is no such thing as compromise
And yet how often is there a sensation
Of All of This somehow tangled
Around my ankles that I possess
The I that has no counterpart

As we see through this aperture
Closure is a function of clarity
Focus celebrating the visual spectrum
Saturating this field in the unseen
An exposé of brilliance and crystallization

Astrolabe… contemplating Rumi

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Rumi Hawk Ocean sky copy

Book launch this week ~ 15 March 2016

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I have special news this week to share with you all. Please join in my excitement as I announce that two works of my poetry, a visual poem and a collaborative poem, are included in One Way to Ask, an unusually delightful and innovative book of poetry and art by poet Daniel Ari and his 67 artist collaborators. (Norfolk Press, San Francisco 2016)

One Way To Ask book cover

The innovation in this book is many things, but a prominent and specific one is a new form of poetry created by Daniel called the queron. What is queron, you might ask?

“Queron is a form that emerged from my poetry practice to match the way my creativity dances, curiously and deliberately, with my experience. Querons have seventeen lines grouped into three quintets and a final couplet. The rhyme scheme is ababa bcbca cdcdb dd. I prefer subtle rhyme.” ~ an excerpt on queron from the book

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My collaborative poem (with Daniel Ari) is called “What Experiences” and the “artwork” that accompanies this penned collaboration is a visual poem in its own (w)right: “Where is the line drawn?” Daniel included these works as the end piece, as we delved into a unique level of collaboration, for this book, inspired by our years of writing together on a group blog of Daniel’s called IMUNURI. (I have posted/published many innovative poems on that blog, some of which I have linked to here on Contemplative Fire.)

Kudos, Daniel Ari!

And congrats to all the artists/illustrators included in this unique book of #poetry!

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See a preview of the book or purchase a copy of this cool book for yourself, both on the Norfolk Press website.

Check out One Way to Ask on Facebook to see posts about the launch.

Check out Daniel Ari’s blog: Fights With Poems.

Or if you’d like a special author signed copy, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Daniel.

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“Reading Daniel Ari‘s poems, juxtaposed with artwork by an impressive roster of talented graphisticators, is like entering a cultural Whirlpool washer. Set to the final spin cycle. Everything comes out clean at the end, but your underwear and your socks may have switched identities.”  -Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead

 

Keeping Still

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You, you hold a mirror

watch the slight presence

–breath on the surface

Movement occurs again

and again within stillness

 

I, I see the dance

the dancing partners

I, I – you, you – we, we

leaning in, giving way

leaning in, holding

 

Movement, motion is

–no disturbance

while All arises

stillness dancing

of surface and within
image

Mountain, mountain reflects

Instead of twisting

and spinning in circles

trying to grasp

your self, keep still*

 

*quote from Hilary Barrett ~ I’Ching Hexagram 52, Stilling

THE LETTERS

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There are letters I must write

letters like this one

to the pattern of

the inner reaches

 

Shift is a multitude

spectral lines, layers be-

coming distinct, distinguished

with and by capacity

 

I write the letters

that must be sent

that must first be

written by this soul

 

If you receive a letter

don’t take offense

rather rise to the occasion

find the match within

 

Something old can be

burned away in the heat

of what comes forward

what lays dormant within

 

And can now be revealed

as fully revealed as you

are willing to rise to it

–the occasion of Heat

 

Or leave it

leave it if you must

leave it if you are

too afraid to know

 

We can look together

we can fully reveal

what has been here

all along –inviolate

 

What holds you back

what has such power

over you that when

it is clear, you are not?

 

Try this… remove

whatever garments

you have tended to

favor instead of me

 

Clinging close to what?

What a rare moment

to make your way with

aplomb and be Queen

 

This letter is your way

to release, release from

and release to all that

ever called to your soul

 

And if a letter does not

arrive –fiercely call it out

Endeavor to make haste

that haste will bear you true

 

 

27 December 2015

San Cristobal, NM

No Causal Purport

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There is no

meaning to grasp

there is just this

this arising here and now,

perhaps of all time

 

In a world where one thing

has more often

than not

meant one thing

while saying another

 

The naked courage

to lay plainly

before all

that has preyed upon

one’s own being

 

May seem as folly

may ironically convey

haphazardness

or be taken wrongly

as blatant arrogance

 

I have been infected

and affected more deeply

than I know (blind, blind)

And it is that scourge

that I lay bare to

 

The way has confusion

The way can mystify

These ways that I am

called and called again

–quietly, yet ever insistently

 

There are brambles thicket

forest darkness forest floor

–thorns, barbs pull

at my cloth, at my ardor

taste of perspiration

 

If the body could profess

its innocence

its determination

it would look like this

unveiling plainly all pretense

 

Putting pretense aside

putting pretense aside

putting pretense aside

come forward

come forward

 

What have you

what are you now?

Who would you be

stripped clean –of comforts

loose-fitting honesties

 

What greater ally could there be

than one who calls out the

antidote to the demands

of the frenzied auctioneer,

“Step it up, step it up!”

 

Are not you done –tired of

that dance and even of

dancing partners –subjects

of what they do not

even know themselves

 

No more, no more!

If I knew the way,

I would be there already

Perhaps I am more there

than even I know

 

Is it an insistent bygone

clinging still as a trace

of hoped for companionship

that the last longing

brandishes even now

 

Please see plainly

–along with me please

See me plainly seeing

what is, seeing you

Seeing through

 

 

27 December 2015

San Cristobal, NM

enteric

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I gather my life

each morning

as I wake

and sometimes

this collection

seems ill fit —

a strange fruit

 

curious that these

of odd origins

–would still

be with me

 

what is it

that compels

the gathering up

the sorting through

as if there was

an actual collection

of things

 

for don’t we

arise fresh & new

each day?

can we not

but do that?

 

what accrues

at our feet,

around ankles

recollections

 

what strange

chance that is

as if things

are tethered

tight to me

that I have no

real choice

about –somehow

 

even trying on

this form

these quick sentences

one sentence

too a sentence

 

enteric gossip

things left behind

undigested

left unresolved

festering

only in the way

that things

kept shut in

will do

Coyote Blue

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We walk our usual traces

along the back fields, now quiet

 

Once we had conversations

of a bovine-canine nature

 

Blue amongst the blue

sky and young ruminants

 

But today  there you stood

catching my eye and my breath

 

And this conversation was all

there needed to be    In pause

 

–I stood with you in kind

What order of listening is this?

wpid-wp-1447101059056.jpg

 

 

 

When you chose to take leave,

I found you had left something

 

With me  –a grace that not only

touched but held my own Wild

 

While Blue reminds me of the life

shared within walls I call Home

 

You today –show me we walk together

what once were walls, dissolve into vastness

 

Veiling/Un-veiling

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What will it take

this journey that is already fulfilled –complete –honored

what will it take to begin this journey

as if there is no end

 

And what will it take

to live within each step

as if the placing of these feet

on hard or soft or bogged or bright ground

 

somehow will right me –restore me –save me

from what I am and am not

as if there is a confusion there

carried through these eons of loss and gravitation

 

There is None No-one who says

what can be done or not done

There is no one marking the way

not as yet as I can see

 

And yet there is an encounter

something real and palpable

and perhaps mistaken for real

–the light can cast in myriad of ways

 

In the mists veiling my own Silence

words curl around the nooks

of my bones and flesh –lighting down

making a landing, offering solace

 

These words here now –parched –dry

picked up as breadcrumbs

but it is simply unknown who or what

left them here –was it me? –was it You?

 

This quandary calls out the insight

the timeless continuity of All That Is

what comes before when there is no beginning

and in no end –what conclusions might arise?

 

Taking it off –taking it on

covering and uncovering

placing and wait as grace returns

Emanating Silence –this brilliance like no other