8/27/12

Looking back at those daze,
A familiar sound I taste,
Those nights we spent together,
Month after month together,
Your silken body on my bed,
Shimmering with moonlight,
Dripping in sweat afterwards,
And my ungreatful mind,
Keeps pullin' chains at me,
While I now sleep alone.

Waking everyday in stillness,
Everything exactly as it was,
Drifting through this life,
With dreams of you here,
Drilling and pounding away,
You can't hammer a screw,
You can't screw a nail,
But you can love a lover,
Jokes n Jokes n Jokes,
It's like a theatrical show:
The Biggest Test (a metaphysical journey of emotional proportions!)

That last month killed me,
Just tore at a bleeding heart,
Separatists by daylight noon,
Passionate lovers by midnight moon,
And if you never forgive me,
I understand. Honey, I understand.

Turning the Sound of a Wheel

You are the focal point,
Insofar as we hear them,
Is it sound to assume you realize,
The sound here to subtract,
To reintegrate, it's the sound of,
We are the patient as,
Everyone can see you're rising,
Your mind as you must,
Assume the thing it represents?
Which attracts my sight in flux,
You're not, spin the wheel and,
I am the aftermath of,
But as others say, "All ideas rain,
We all are just students of life,
Your transcendence beyond the facts,"
Complement of everything I am,
Are perceptible the thought-up addition that's,
That I could never pretend: the out.
Which my soul clings tightly,
You are a belief to,
That patience will one day recompense,
Convinced, nor have ever been.

Collaboration

Tsunami from rain cloud,
rather accept; I notice that that, 
I. Disaster free liquid being, 
its look too kind, shimmering and tumultuous,
Like, but, I have traveled to,
The day had just, sent by the daft, begun,
The beheld raging river of mine,
And the deaf to give breath to the mess,
When I hit and each stone a miss,
Is inside my sin with death,
Ship has floated but,
Realized I'd never left the dock,
Free liquid being and I fear this unknown,
And in my eyes, beauty is-
of the clock within my reality,
Feast of frivolous proportions,
With each step turn me, it is all,
But know my truth, a, to the water,
Disaster I have been devoted, inside out. 

My Grandfather's Lake

When the sun sets down,
On my late grandfather's lake,
The gift it has to bare,
I sit me down on a rock,
I stare, i stare, i stare.
To strive to see all his glee,
Had I known him there,
On his lake when sand is baked,
The sun goes in to sleep,
With crimson clouds,
And now golden brows,
His love still there to take.

Visions From The Lake

As a mother swoons a babe,
She slips into a dream,
Rocking each other back and forth,
Like water as a wave,
This simple time acts as tide,
It is love that has been made,
When this mother is as lover,
This child shall be saved.
And in her dreams, the child's screams,
Her heart cannot contain,
The pain is felt as she will melt,
And drip into the lake.

Mirroring Waters Still

Mirroring waters still,
Gently petting the shore,
White cusps of the wave,
One more. One more, one more.

Glassy north lake surface,
Beneath, clawing at sand,
Classic beauty circus,
Just lapping onto land,

The too and fro, but,
For not winters snow,
This pattern must repeat,
The Mirroring waters still.

Summer 2012

I have been doing quite a bit of reading this summer, which is in fact unusual for me.  I have gone through great teachers, such as Patanjali, Alan Watts, and the Dalai Lama.  I have studied the emotional expression of Theodore Roethke.  I have also studied the lives of Taira Masakado and Miyamoto Musashi.  The book "Shane," for which I am named after the main character, also made an appearance on my reading list.  And now I am currently going through a book that looks at human behaviors like you would observe any animal for behavioral patterns, focusing on the idea of intimacy.  In short, this summer I have been observing how people attempt to obtain mastery of self, mastery of emotional communication, lives of specific individuals who were striving to attain both of these, and observing how the behavioral patterns of these individuals relates both culturally and psychologically. 

Mastery of self, being the broad topic it is, undoubtedly is one of the most described and attempted  feats of humanity.  Yet the true mastery of self is usually described as impossible.  Here it seems that mastery of self implies some kind of focus and control over ones consciousness.  Consciousness contains many parts, but the one that I am thinking specifically of is the emotional awareness that many students of self mastery strive for.  This is not to be confused with emotional repression or obliteration, but seeing the emotion for what it is and where it comes from.  In this focus, the art form of poetry stands out to me.  To be able to take a complex series of emotions and lay them out in a way that is not only descriptive of the feeling but linguistically appealing as well would seem to be the work of some kind of super human.  Yet I truly feel that most anyone can do it.  It really starts with the inner focus and the awareness of what one is feeling.  Only then can you begin to describe it in a way that another person can feel empathy for the emotion.  In this modern world we tend to share our most intimate emotions only with those who we have a physically intimate relationship with.  I will be the first to admit that sharing poetry is not easy for people, but having to explain the poems to people face to face has a totally different intensity to it.  The intensity is vamped up when there is no physical intimacy between the person you are sharing so much of your inner self with.  When I think of difficult things or am faced with a difficulty in my life, the knowledge and comfort that I get from studying martial arts or famous figures in martial arts is never passed by much of anything.  The strategic mind provides that spark of intimacy so common in the male mind.  So what did I do this summer when I faced one of the most difficult choices in my life? Followed that predictable pattern of mine and dove into study of strategy and inner awareness.  Taira Masakado was a new figure for me to study this summer and a good one at that.  He played within the social constructs of his day and was struck down shortly after claiming to be the emperor of the east.  Masakado never stood a chance and he knew it.  So knowing he was going to be a dead man no matter what, he decided to go out in a blaze of glory by taking over 8 provinces in the Kanto region and claiming to be emperor.  Musashi on the otherhand was a famous samurai dualist who never lost a duel.  He never followed the rules that society let for him and was vastly underestimated for it.  He was a master of psychological warfare and the martial art of two swords.  In his last years he retired to the life of a monk and wrote down his knowledge so that others may read it.  Both men are remembered and are very famous figures in Japanese history.  It is clear to me who I would rather see as a role model though.  Musashi is actually quite similar to the main character from the novel "Shane."  Both are loners who are basically outcast by society for their nonconformist nature.  Both are terribly deadly, being masters of their specific weapons and arts styles.  They both actually appear to be masters of jujistu, a martial art that I had studied when I was a young boy.  The basic archetypal character of the loner nonconformist that has been predominant in my life.  So reading about these kinds of people should start to shed some light on the behavioral patterns that are consistent with my own.  There are inevitably flaws in the character and Musashi, which are things that I intend to resolve for myself.  Neither one of the men were known to have taken a wife or had any children.  I want to correct this in my life and pass on what I have learned from my parents and family on to my own children so that they might make the world a better place through the education.  Also having a basic understanding of infant and early childhood intimacy puts me in a much better place that my father in terms of how to deal with the child in a cultivating way.  

The study will go on and the overarching concepts will become more and more clear, but there will always be more to scratch my head at.   Compassion is truth.