A TAO INTERPRETATION

 

 

Return to the uncarved block, infancy.

My words are easy to understand

It acts without a name, flowing like

Water, following your own nature

Deep, deep, deep to the gateway

Of subtle illumination.  Don’t cling to

Your body’s woes, crippled becomes

Whole.  Egoless ego cultivates end-

Less energy to rise fall and stand

Beyond dark wonder.

 

Nature’s way moves on through dark

Vision, what was will be and what will

Be was, opposites attract.  Gold can’t

Be guarded, fulfill within, wars famine

A great victory is a funeral, the bright road

Seems dark inwreathed smiles, clay is

The word clay is the flesh.

 

Empty words go back to nothing, magnificent

The scenery remains still, drop drops like a stone.

Good words leave no trace in the intangible

Essence, know when to stop, hold your ground.

Empty vessels and blunt weapons fade away.

A violent man does not die a natural death.

Held loss harms nothing, stand by your word

No more sorrow, no self. 

WABI SABI

Imperfection is the language of art

                                        Robert Lowell

 

Brokedown a chip of 

life's glaze, my mother is there 

in the spirit of  tree.

 

Red hue of streetlight 

infiltrates and warms my lonely

Inner glow.

HYBRID OF HUMANITY

 

‘it’s not hard to be civil’

Patty Keogh (my Mum)

 

My breakfast used to go down

Like plastic toast and rubber eggs.

Until Sarah the carer bought me

A poacher, now they go down

Silky smooth. Now the caregivers

Can care without getting egg

on their face.

 

It’s what we all want in the end

Just a little tender touch, 

a hybrid of humanity.

 

The simplicity of life is set

in the embryo, the yolk of ex-

Is-tense.  Life is not hard-boiled

even If it is shell-shocked.

POETIC HUMANITY

 

This isn’t just poetry this is poetic humanity. 

I was watching a lecture by Gabor Mate 

a Hungarian biologist on authenticity.

As I was watching I realized that

Colin Dardis and Lagan press online

Had created my poems of hope.

 

For ten years I was so dark my pomes

Were pulling me under armed with

John Keats magic hand of chance.

I knew the only way out was in, there

Was no hatred in my heart that's why

I survived this stroke. Someone once

Said that a writer lives two or three

Times. So, I dived right in with Pessoa

And Lowell: I am nothing without love,

Imperfection is the art of language.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke’s mantra: the main

Reson is I’m alive. That’s the main reason.

My authenticity was broken. For ten years 

I didn't know what I know now, Aphantasia.

SAMSARA’S VICIOUS WHEEL-

 

Chair, I’m reading repeating

the buddha again.

The stillness of the trees brings

Out the good in me.  The sky is

grey, blue, white it contrasts

the grey, green fence.

 

The branches sway a little.

I’m writing this with my paralyzed

hand like a claw it clings on like

a talon to the branches, my hand

is getting tired I misspelled branches.