zenjohn

This Grand Opus
has no measure;
a snapshot,
a still frame,
like something film students
write papers about
to earn their Bs.

Mine's been
a meager endeavor,
though not
for lack of trying;

hubris' wreckage,
all that sobbing,
quickly fills the rainbuckets
in anyone's life,

as we each
confess our 3 AM sins.

Putting away
the knife and rum
was easy;
those lacerations,
quickly inflicted,
heal in time's
wicked sweet forgiving clarity.

It's the broken hearted wounds,
like festering bones
of brittle diabetics,
that prove
a bit
more

tenacious,

as the cameras pan
from close to long
and scene to scene,
of leavings,
loss,
and loneliness.

We do
the things we do;
we eat and drink and love
with motives pure
as baby's breath.

All of us.

And were it so
intentions paved
the streets with gold and diamond,

Vahalla's halls
and dragon's gates
would overflow
with souls.

But sad truth is
it's in the doing
what comes real
and matters,

and none be angels,
none be devils,
instead just beings

wanting love
seeking Buddha
chasing dreams
and holding fast.

you'll come
one day
to hate
your me
the self
you think
is all
you are

for needs
and fragility
and arrogance

for fear
so dark sometimes
it blots
the Sun

and for
the pain
she breeds
to feed on joy's
innumerable labors

you'll  raise the stakes
when this gets done
on life
on life
itself

and  flail away
to no avail
against that
skin
whose blood
you think
is your's

what then
that day
what then?

Gave back
the sobriety
I worked so hard to acquire
and took for granted,

like a well worn friend
you cease to call
because he's always around
anyway.

Didn't kill myself though
merely because the fear there
barely just barely
outweighed
the stinging nettles
life itself
became.

This was new blood,
the drunkenness and death,

dripping from the walls and floor,
springing from wounds
new and old,

oozing through the dark recesses
of long forgotten pain,
long hidden injury,
long ignored truth.

It flooded my heart and belly,
welled up in my chest,
puked out my mouth,
and sought to drown me
in the vile bile
and psychic terror

only those who've been there,
know the meaning of.

And then
six weeks later,
like a convalescing
warrior
back from some winter campaign,

I limped
into the world
that tried to kill me,

supposedly ready
to yet again
try and slay
the demons and beasts
of what was left
from when
ego's arrogance
fled the littered fields and forests
deep in crimson snow.

and one day
I finally found the strength
to ask

why it was
what had happened
was so terrifying

why it was
the pain itself
overwhelmed me

why it was
I wanted so bad
just to die
that only
getting drunk
saved my life
just barely
even then

there was an answer
not an answer

a voice
not a voice

a whisper
not a whisper

a sense
not sensible

from deep within

a loved me
knew me
was me
answer

that spoke
brave truth
to the little boy
the dead boyfriend
the empty ex husband
the drunken drugged out
running scared Zen Buddhist
poet

weeping shaking sobbing down inside

of courage
grace and hope
of sad exiled
compromise
of heat for light
and comfort for love

of holding
caring
nurtured
being

who knew
how everything
hard
immeasurably
horrifyingly
hard

was just
alright

____________


and for the first time
in a very long time
an old sense of peace
and grace
and love
I'd tasted
years and years and years
before

emerged
again
to smell
the winter
air

as I walked
out onto the icelake
stood there in the Sun

and saw

There's these little
barely seeums
all over the kitchen
feasting on just
the least little bit
of ketchup on the plate in the sink
a bit of bun
maybe coffee grounds.

This Summer's ants
don't mind though.

They march in a line,
across the counter
up the windowsill
and somehow
eventually
down the downspout
and into the grass.

Outside
the air is green.

I hold
the world
tight to belly
like kittens
by a child

who otherwise
claw and squirm
away away away

I let away
the breath touch smell
filling  space
brimmed overflowed
spilt
with whatever's
new new new

I remember
I always remember
and set again
to work
this moment's work
the work
of life life life

True love
doesn't just end.

Lost love
never goes
away.

Great love
sometimes yields
terrible suffering

and real love
is the moon and stars.

I learned to love again
after getting sober.

I let go a few ghosts,
put away
as much
of the past
as could be seen,

got busy
with life,
and woke up
to the trees and the wind.

A few years later
true love,
the kind that aches and itches,
appeared like a jet
in from the coast
flying blind and hot,

maybe for the first time
ever,

with one who
when she was able
gave me that
which words cannot convey
and I'd never really had before.

It was precious
fragile
tenuous
and though thoroughly imperfect
filled my heart and mind and spirit

with a joy
not before
known.

There's more to that story,
of course.

There always is.

And when things changed
and she pulled away,

I couldn't find how
to let go.

At least not easily,
peacefully,
or with anything
like grace.

     She'll read this poem
     and probably get angry,

     because,
     like me,
     she too
     only did
     the best she could.

     I want
     for her
     to know
     that I know
     that.

And all I can say
in the meantime
is that
when I began
to finally understand
much less love
myself as much as I
tried to understand
and love and nurture her,

there emerged
a problem
with only one
solution.

So after all the begging
and pleading;
giving space
and taking it back,

talking
listening
fighting and crying

it finally came,
the terrifying realization
there just wasn't
anything left to do

but bring back her things
and try and stop the bleeding.

I drank
in remembrance
of simpler days

when playing dress up
was enough
in its own right
to sate the crave
feed the ghost
and blunt life's onslaught;

it kept me going
back when
day after day
what needed facing
wasn't too pretty.

And in the end
it almost killed me.

But let's not
too much
demonize
those times

because when it worked
I became
nirvana

without care or worry
with something to look forward to
with alcoholic joy
in my heart.

So perhaps
returning
to the bar
might best be seen
as homage
to forebears

those whom were me
and didn't
just merely
die off
in the next few years,

who knew
somehow
the stuff
there was
without distraction
might just be enough
to briefly sedate

the that
from which
we needed
to run.

The fog was bright with Sun
shining through
making it glow
burning off the night

slow and untraceable
like how angry hearts melt
when you least expect it

and illuminating
whatever before
was covered up.

I would live in clouds of cotton-like intangibility
high above the surface of the earth
were the opportunity
to arise again.

You may join me
if the desire strikes.

There's plenty of room here,
without walls or floors
to lock us in and down,

and sunshine every day.

We don't come to
these moments
always so gracefully.

The jangle and babble
of idiosyncratic truth
precludes such elegance

more often then not
in direct proportion
to each's
substance,

so that when
the house lights rise
and they come in
to mop up the popcorn and sticky

there's still a self
who sits and blinking
wonders
what the fuck
just happened,

even when there's nothing
particularly tricky
about obvious truth,
sublime grace,

and the whisper
of deep deep me.

_______________

There was a time
not very long ago
where simple joy life cadence
indeed became
the rule of law.

Waking in that dream's faint shadow,
like the burned in image of some Nagasaki victim's
frantic final spark,

the taste and smell
of love's return
breathes through and through
these paper walls and balsa floors,

for everyone
everything
and all there is

in and around
my house
of cards.

__________________

I remember it well.

walking the shore
lying down
in fresh mowed fields
of green grass and frantic bees,

eating and drinking
the moon's embrace

like lovers after arching upward
while their sweat dries
and hands go limp.

_________________

In stillness
that enso
knocks

again and again
to ground
to balance
to sustain

this aching
beating
thriving
heart.

________________

And for that
I am
a very
lucky man.


 

Float

Trust the river

Embrace uncertainty

Abiding in this moment
just as it is
I settle into the stream

I came to wonder if I simply ought to  go
to the hospital,
if maybe the best thing
was  just to medicate
my condition back towards ignorance.

They'd shove the pills down me;
I'd shuffle along,
and eventually
nothing would matter so much anymore.

Then I'd wander out
into the snow
diminished and less alive
heading towards a mere
approximation
of life.

That didn't happen.
I drank instead.

It was better
then the third thought.
Just barely,

a sharp shiny razor,
the running.

Uphill wet, cold
and dead dark as hell,

rolled out into the dim light
of Saturday afternoon,

because there's no
staying at home
alone
even another second.

My covers
don't blot
that stain.

In the faint aware
of life and death

lying just so
by the shadow
over your right shoulder

there grows

          in moist
          fertile soil
          left from when
          us children made castles
          in sand piles

          they'd haul in
          for cement making
          towards the end
          of whose-ever
          house
          was getting
          built

the tiniest seed
a whiff
and nothing more

of suffering's demise.

          We built there forts
          and roads
          and great palaces
          for fine kings

          though each morning
          whatever got made
          was gone

          and we'd start in again

          until the sand
          disappeared
          and the driveway
          was done

I know this
hidden place
far too well
having stood
at its barred door
afraid to knock
all too often,

and thus forgot

          how it is
          the job
          wasn't in what we finished
          but in
          the building up
          anew
         
how each death,
if we let it,
only kills
the truth
of just
a single moment

in order
to make room
for the birth
of
the
next.

With
wary
disapproving
eyes
they look
    
upon the thing
that came
    
the life
it bought
 
the hand
they thought
was bluffing,

and wonder when
the reckoning
might amble up
and stick a shiv
through my gut again
    
and thereby prove
how it is
this deal
is mine and mine
alone

changing the impossible  truth
of what it is
that happened

while
me,
I sit
outdoors
downtown
sipping African coffee
in the Sun.

You learn a lot
about wind
on a motorcycle

sometimes it's an impenetrable wall
that seemingly will not be
denied

or turbulent waves
slamming you across the road
and maybe on down into hell

sometimes it's a gentle caress
sending all there is
gliding easy by
in whatever direction
you need to go

and occasionally
just the merest puffing whisper
hinting itself
to the world

at first
wind bought fear
and I'd have to pull over
and wait it out
like you do
under a bridge
in a thunderstorm

but now
it's just one of them things
that mostly
adds up
to nothing more
then whatever else
present moment
gets to cooking

the same
as waking up
to the sky
itself

blending in
and disappearing

though the deeper point
isn't that at all

at all
at all

And now
tulips and green
languid wet nights
new love
no more tears
laughing foolish rockets
temple dogs
and a manic biting cat

Crisp seen lines
that  were just blurred bass riffs
of foreboding and sad denial
before

And finally
just how much
love
is an inside job
that no one else
can touch

much less
hurt.

The filth
ran deep,
down way down
past flesh
hanging loose on

bones
worn brittle
in so many
long worried nights
I can't begin

to count
when they scooped me up
again

the angels
who get me
even the parts
I do not know
where

back a few months ago
if I'd stopped to think at all

I'd have said
I didn't believe there'd be
any more birthdays
for me
when just stark brittle choices

was all the path
there was
I got

scooped again
alright
by angels
devils
thieves
and whores

just like back in
the beginning
when where they said
I must

live under
a bridge
was funny

The letter
came
in the middle of
the stack

of caring and obligatory
offers of compassion
from friends whose job
it is to reach out.

(That's what people
like us do
for those we know who
having fallen to the wayside
must struggle mightily
just to get
back onto
the path
again.)

It's always nice,
and I was grateful
for each who wrote.

When I opened her's,
though,
something in parenthesis
caught my eye

and made me wonder
if perhaps
its words
contained an extra dollop
of meaning.

(Open hearts
spread their grace
along wide avenues and narrow streets,

in touch and laughter
concern
and care.

Angels, too,
do that work
sometimes with the subtlety
of a feather adrift in the calm air
over immense seas.)

The word
buried deep
within those others
left me in thought
that would not sleep,

as my pulse
jumped
each time I
read the passage.

And there
in barren tear soaked soil
drenched in dark cold night

a seed
took root
and did
not
die.