The Thing

Make a new relationship
With the Thing
That hurts you most.

You have three choices:
Destroy it,
Get away from it,
Or endure it as cheerfully as circumstances allow.

If the Thing can neither be removed nor escaped,
It must be managed:
Give it boundaries
In space and time—
Know where your safe spaces are.
Don’t let the Thing go everywhere that you go.

If the Thing cannot be confined in space and time,
Set boundaries within your mind—
Mental oases from which the Thing cannot drink.
Though your life is hard now,
Life is always good for somebody somewhere,
And that is a blessing for everybody everywhere.

But don’t blame yourself for the Thing:
You never wanted the Thing,
Why should you be blamed for it?

The Thing burrows deep within your mind,
Beavering its three-dimensional labyrinth.
The meal it seeks is your essence,
Your dignity—
This, you can never let it feed on.
Stay one step ahead:
Create a new dimension in your thought,
One its claws cannot penetrate.

Make a new relationship
With the Thing that hurts you most:
Be its Master.

Maturity

She tries to live her life beyond reproof
And never act from turpitude or spite,
But angry rains still pound upon her roof
And voices still accuse her in the night.
She offers up her reasons, not contrition,
As if her good intentions could purport
To strike out self-judged failure and omission,
But still she feels she’s fallen somehow short
When, buttressing her conscience's complaints,
The triumphs and ripe fruits that might have been,
Fill out a better life her mind’s eye paints
In colors bright as day upon its screen.
She turns though, lets them fade into a haze,
And treasures her full belly and warm days.

I Am the Rain

I am the rain;
I am everywhere
And all I do is fall;
I fall on your hair,
I roll down your cheeks,
I get into your eyes
And mingle with your tears;
You feel my icy fingers against your sides.

There is no escape;
You cannot turn away from me,
But you can turn toward me,
And when you do turn toward me,
And accept me,
The miracle occurs. . .

I become water,
Pure, refreshing water.
I enter your blood,
I replenish your heart,
I nourish you,
I sustain you.

I am water.
I am everywhere,
And all I do is lift you up.
You are feather-light;
You are sailing;
And, wherever you sail,
The rain that falls down on you
Is the water that lifts you up.
I hold you; you are safe.

But, remember that the Tao is impartial,
So you must never fight me:
Those who do are drowned,
Swallowed up by their own power.
And do not take me for granted,
For I would become solid ice:
I would crack you.
I do not know my own strength.
Don’t make me be hard
When it is my nature to be soft,
Accommodating.

I am the rain;
I am the ice;
But let me be water;
Let me be everywhere always water.
Do not perish on that cold, rain-swept sea.

The Laughter of Children

The pot of joy bubbles over,
Unconsciously:
Children laughter.
Nothing surpasses it.

Delight is always within our reach.
We know that,
But not deeply enough,
Not to the bone.
Otherwise, we would fight our way back there.

The pressure that we create for ourselves
Keeps us miserable—
The very thing we don’t want.
What incompetence!

To step back seems easy,
Like waking from a nightmare,
But these grown-up habits,
Clouds that feed on their own blackness,
Leave us smothered,
Impotent,
Unable to reach what is well within our grasp;
Only very bad habits indeed can do that
Because without joy what do we have?
What is this force that fixes our backs to the wall?
An illusion of thought,
Which only thought’s unraveling can extinguish.

Slow down the merry-go-round, bring it to a halt,
Then step backwards, into childhood, into sanity.
We can awaken ourselves from dreams,
Why not from thoughts?

More of My Limericks

If you’re lacking a little good cheer,
Go and tickle a bull in the rear,
For I’m sure that the rumor
That they’ve no sense of humor
Is a product of ignorant fear.


Aloof types are never the sweetest.
It’s clear that avoiding them’s meetest,
So give them the snub,
And apply for my club:
We’re exclusively anti-elitist.


A native of Chalamazug
Once fell overboard from a tug.
He cried, “Ding-dong boller
Doo jango zong zoller,”
Which means, “Glug-glug glug glug-glug glug.”


Speaking anthropocentrically, I
Would prefer that we not search the sky
For quick-witted ETs,
Who’d subdue us with ease,
Till we know what they like in their pie.


See the Moon in the sky as it waxes;
Feel the warm tranquil wind that relaxes;
Turn and give me your smile
On our Paradise Isle;
Say you love your avoider of taxes.


The CAPTCHA's the name for the box
That you have to fill in to outfox
Those machines that send spam
That is linked to some scam
That would swindle you down to your socks.

Ode to Time

Oh Time,
It is not that you are an enemy
But that we have rejected you,
Refused to work within your confines
Of growth and decay,
Life and death—
Parameters that even you cannot alter.
We have been wedded to you,
But we have not been sensible;
We have insisted that you change,
You, who cannot change.
We ourselves should have changed,
As we secretly know we could have done,
Since there is no divorcing you:
It is you who divorce us all in the end,
Leaving for your future consorts
Unimaginable marvels
To be relished in our absence,
The absence even of our memory.
Perhaps they will accept you as you are.
Otherwise, that wondrous future
Will be just like today:
Love and loss,
Fear and loathing,
Happy face, sad face.

Our naked ancestors hunted shells along the seashore
In the cold drizzle,
Longing for the warmth of evening fire,
Where they huddled together,
Before slipping into sublime sleep,
Just like we do,
But with less drama,
For they were more at peace with you,
Oh Time.

Come, let us begin again!
No, we are too old now.
Find somebody new,
Oh Time.

I Said Goodbye to God

I said goodbye to God one day
Because I couldn’t see
Why one who seemed so full of words
Would never talk with me.
“Well, He knows where I am,” I mused,
“And if there comes a day
He’ll condescend to seek me out,
I can’t be far away.”

I said goodbye to God because
I’d finally concluded
That those who claimed to teach His ways
Were guileful or deluded:
What use is praying to a God
Who hides behind a curtain?
And how do you grow close to one
Whose feelings are uncertain?

I said goodbye to God without
Resentment in my heart;
I hadn’t any notion of
How long we’d be apart.
It seemed that there was just too much
About Him left to know;
I said goodbye to God and yet
I thought someday He’d show.

I said goodbye to God and now
My words I shall not mince:
I said goodbye to God and, no,
I haven’t heard back since.
I stroll along my merry road
And seldomly look back:
I said goodbye to God and that’s
One less load on my back.