: Lord Buddha: Master of Inner Peace and Harmony

On black and white TV(pre-color)-he  of orange robes

takes a can of kerosine/douses himself in the street

in a Lotus position,allows himself to burn 

on the streets of Vietnam.

Banned and censored (even on our Internet)-

we hear reports from Tibet 

of Buddhists burning themselves

"self-immolation"(Chinese invasion)

Would Buddha embrace voluntary suffering so?

Would he burn with righteous self-inflicted flames?

Would he have dedicated his life to such freedoms?

or is peace a dying ember?

Meditate upon the politics of personal change

What must be done to re-verse invasions?

the teen brain

Adaptation is both physiological and emotional-

adolescence exposes us to more risk/rewards than normal

We are @risk from opinions of our peer group

we are more exposed to the possibilities of random rewards

Our very brain buzzes with neural hormones(oxytocin)

and fatty myelin tissue.We are growing /changing

and patterns of our behavior seem unpredictable.

Never before has so much ridden upon new skills-

learning to drive,experimenting with cigarettes,alcohol,drugs-

becoming socialized via parties and academic challenges.

We are in process,and the process has parameters

both predictable and un-

Some will go wild for a time,feral and testing

Others will plough straight fields ,seeking success

Change is the nature of such adaptive associations

reinforced by peers,parents,and authority figures

We are learning to become social creatures-to bridge

from childhood to adulthood-and this transition period

exposes us to maximum stress,test,risk and reward.

Predicting what adolescents will do is as limited and limiting

as trusting reptilian politicians...

 

transformation

so he goes to this monastery in New Mexico-

he had been before-but superficially

like those tourists who only go to Las Vegas

Now he is in deep-he sleeps for days 

finds this 12 string acoustic Gibson

plays it as a meditation.Here they make honey,

sell art,franchise water and beer recipes

live off the residuals-he admires this -

"there's not a stupid bone in their bodies"

Yet he returns to us in Austin

to play again @open mikes and in concerts.

Yet now he is transformed-he found folk

who are not part of the GET/GIMME ratpack

He found a part of himself he left in the desert

while he was driving fast through

It was getting slower and deeper and in tune

He is a 12 string acoustic guitar

He plays well...

BOSTON DOUBT(The Eliot way)

i have a friend who went to Hell-

left his wife,his job,car,cocaine as well

left all his physical possessions in the hands of those

who judged him weak and loathed him

From Trough of Despond to Black Despair

through The Dark Night Of The Soul

he sweated his past out,and wrote a most beauteous song

Its melody was release/its meaning lyric

He could not have written it had he not suffered as he did

Now is he new wed,with music as a mistress

He sings and opens mikes for anyone interested

He shares his life and what he has with anyone who listens

He is no Ezra Pound nor T S Eliot

He is living,calm,content,serene,productive

Must one suffer for the right to love?

Or is doubt the critical enabler/our Doubting Thomas distance

that makes romance-even out of broken bones in wilderness?

write about what you do not know

trapped by Jesuits in a canonical paedophilia

curious and curiouser/extricating from role models

opera,personality ballet,memoirs

to better illuminate the tortured texts of times past

Dante here.Milton,too.Homer and Tennyson strew

epics domestic with journeys fantastic/until

the clash of sex and violence becomes midnight crossroads

and each personal saga reflects multiple mirrors

each with a depth far beneath skin surfaces

Soap Operas live here.Sentimentalists.Ophra Winfrey.

Teardrops on National Televangelicalism.Revelations!

The book of your own skin is read by many eyes

You name and number them as chapters(but they lie)

What folk want are tales personal.Hot gossip headlines

What we are and what we sell betray the poems that we tell..

ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE MISSING!

Last seen on Brooklyn Bridge

being addressed by Michael Moore

Some have turned up in occupations

in American cities,outside Town Halls

Serving the dispossessed,homeless

displaced and jobless.More are documenting

via people's media the rise of people power-

as in Tunisia,Libya,Egypt-so,too,America

must listen to its missing people.

They do not have names like Demi Moore or Ashton Kuchter

They do not throw parties like Jay Z or Kanye West

They are sitting,peacefully occupying city centers

until they become visible again-do you remember them?

Those whose homes were repossessed

whose jobs were outsourced,who are unheard in mass media

because they lack the millions to buy advertising space.

They are claiming space now-and the resolution

is high-this means more than image

If you can't dance-occupy!

Shorts

TALK WITH NO CONTENT
You laugh when no joke
You giggle continuously
You only stop for gossip

ALBERT, ARE YOU THERE?
Smoking,beard,gray hair
Coffee in a conversation corner
Stone in a pond/becoming frog

RAZOR PLAITS BAGGED HUMBUGS
All smartpower computers turn to iphones
All laptops transform ipads
That phoned is engaged to future formats
Wedded to wired wilde weird whirls

remembering past lives

i was a paper clipturned in to a paper kite
learned origami/folded myself
became Houdini

i was an Irish potato
ended up in fission chips
(radioactivity is forever)
Wedded to Chernobyl

I was an art movie
independent production
Screened for one
A minority report

I am a Bucolics Anonymous
Mix verse with musical Muse
I am between lives
at this moment...

Inspiration

My example comes from friends-
allies in adventures over years
We know each other so well-smiles through tears!
It is being privy to a secret joke that no one else seems to get-
that life is a secret to be shared
by those who give.The rest watch from a distance
We move mountains,giggle mornings,talk and listen all evening
Every day together another miracle
Every night a diamond.Rich in this
we appreciate and respect each other's achievements
They say we only have two footprints
We walk together -inside each other's spirits..

share what you love most

the woods offline have a different texture
wild when no tracks or roads dissect
their colours compound in greens of shade and autumn
brings out the flying carpet of their leaves/you find
streams between rocks long standing/companions
where both woods and waters meet
They still indulge in conversations
about land ,and occupations temporary
Clouds,too ,join in this political ecology
They have no part in fluoride/chlorine frauds
Filtered via mountains /rising up through springs
Water lives because it knows that it is good
Somewhere before and after us are spaces-
living seed banks,memory trails,songlines
where the DNA of silences and sounds compound
We may recognize them as indigenous sanctuaries
when our world is golden bird and cage
You do not need to seek this wilderness
It lives within you as you see
all dreams have space and time within them
All you need -is your right to dream...

inner Temple

Precious time(they are not making any more of it

Asking you to stay alive-so we can converse more /and yet

each diamond moment dug from coal black backgrounds

Whether moles underground or groundhog daze

we dig towards and with each other 

to make the sparkle last.Death ends us.

We are beginnings every chance we steal

The real trust is in the truth of us-that we

might extend and enjoy every secular devotion

sans belief,power,aims,goals or guidance

Just as we are is enough-the more we grow

the fewer to share each solitary adventure

This is where we are-we survey the landscape 

and listen to our seashell tongues.The taste of waves sings to us

We bring to us fresh songs.Soundscapes scraping ships along shorelines

You are harbor for these surfers.They rest and nest in you

Each night another splashed star sky calls to us

In dreams we rise /delighted ,alighting and delightful

What happens next is....

ON THE LAST NIGHT

we withdrew from public outer temple into private British breakfast

Chris lit a lantern of gratitudes that became a UFO over Dorking

between Heathrow and Gatwick,one could see the flickering candle flight

high above us,taking all misfortune away upon the starry Surrey skies

BIG AIRPORTS have a little room that is available for all religions

Mine is the religion of relaxation,so I stretched out upon the long seats 

and snored my way into dreams

EVERY SEAT FULL-cattle eating chicken

crammed into recycled seats with no margin or safety net

We imagined wings and found ourselves clipped

SUNSHINE HAS COME -to England and to Texas

so much for freedom of choice in elemental governments!