Adults Only

Lace or leather clad,
bare skin glistens;
I devoured each dazzling deception,
though I never could be filled
by any promised pleasure.

The anodyne for loneliness,
an end to isolation;
I escaped into this fantasy,
fearing to seek the place
where I could grow
in the heart of another.

True lovers bring beauty and passion
and power enough
to transform the routine raptures
into shimmering bridges
that briefly join each solitary soul.

Where they can reach to God,
and she to them,
through the arms of each other.

Do You Want to be Healed?

Please.
Do not heal me.
I am afraid to loose my death-grip
on the shadows that secure me
to the only world I've ever known;
to wait
in the undifferentiated darkness
for the curtain to rise
on a new act -
a new scene;
a life freed
from the pain of the past and powered by the realization
of eternity.

I am afraid to look with too much longing
on the kingdom
afraid that it will vanish
in the instant
that I reach out my hand.

And yet I cannot help but whisper
this longing in my heart.

But please -
please do not heal me.
Only stop the pain.
I do not know
if I can bear the touch
of your love's sweet birthing flame.

The Old Musician

Chin the violin,
lift the bow --
spin the stories
you keep safe within them
for everyone in earshot.
Mark with pleasure
each brighter eye and
lighter spirit,
more reward to you
than any coin
cast in your direction.

Why do we seem to have
only two dimensions around you --
you, who have so many more?
We must be waiting
for each air to bless us
with some greater depth
from your own.

I wish you were my father --
if you could only have drawn
forth the music in me,
sent me out into the world
on your song.
And in the dark, knowing calm
of your easy eyes,
I might have danced
instead of faltered,
poured out like sunshine
in joyful refrain.

Winter

If only there had been no visions;
if I had never seen
the world transformed into heaven
by the pursuit of our own holy passions--
perhaps I would not feel so deeply
the bitter bite of cold.
I would know no better place,
and so be content with some illusion.

The unsloughed rime of rage
has frozen my flight
across winter's domain.
Ice-shrouded fingers
supplicate snow and sky
to permit me passage
beyond the boundaries of the lie.
But though it beckons from so near,
I cannot hear
the promises of spring.

I am dying of the hunger
for what I hold
in my hands.

I am afraid that the momentum
of the cycle of seasons
was just not enough, this time,
to get me through,
and I will remain
forever frozen-

in winter.

In Passing

I wonder what happens after we die.  Are we reincarnated into some other life, do we live on in spirit in some afterworld or do we simply feed the worms?  I am comforted by the thought of some afterlife and find the prospect of ultimate nothingness very discomforting.  What if we don't meet with our departed loved ones when we die, if we do not continue, if we will not be waiting there for the loved ones who come after us, what then?

I have been very afraid lately that there is nothing afterwards.  I hope I'm wrong.

But there is really only one way to find out, isn't there?

Awakening

I watched the 80s TV show Beauty and the Beast last night and cried and cried.  I feel so empty, yet I am full of emotion.  It seems paradoxical, but maybe I am on the edge of an emotional breakthrough.

I calmed myself by thinking about putting new, lighter gauge strings on my guitar.  I have only played maybe for an hour in the last two years.  I wasn't spectacular on guitar, but I was good enough and proud of the long-gone callouses on my fingers.   Maybe playing again would help with the emotional outbursts.  Maybe it'd just be fun again to play.

War for Dummies

This is a testament to the late Art Buchwald.  It's a particularly apt comment on making war.  War for Dummies

Spiritual Path

I have been in hiding, mostly from myself.  I've been in a nursing home named Woodbine for over two years with a foot gone numb from diabetic neuropathy and swollen so much it might as well be made out of lead.  I can only walk short distances with a walker and I need a wheelchair that's uncomfortable for farther trips.  They treat me well here, but I have no friends to hang out with.  I like most of the workers here though.  My nights consist of watching movies and TV show episodes on Netflix and my days are filled with frequently interrupted sleep.  No activities offered by Woodbine do anything for me.  Bingo?  No thank you.  

Lately I've felt disconnected from my spiritual path, whatever that is.  I feel as though I'm wasting my life, my potential and my ability to do the right thing.  I feel as though God is disappointed with me as much as I am with him.  I want to do something commensurate with my abilities.  My only problem is I don't know what that is.  Some of my Quaker friends tried to get me to coordinate a meditation group.  I could easily find the day and time, but I got stumped when I had to come up with a location.  I don't know how to book all the rooms here, and I'm too shy to ask so far.  I don't even know if they want me to do it still.  Others want me to write.  I reply that I don't have anything to write about.

I pray about it, but in keeping with my flat spiritual life I get nothing.  I'm afraid anything I could do would be too much for me.  Maybe you can help me come up with something I can do.

I'd give anything to not feel so lost and lonely.