Sunday, June 28, 2009

Who's Awake, Too High Up

I have the answer to everything. Contrary to Douglas Adams, it is not forty-two or whatever he said. But the trouble is, it is too perfectly general for any particular application. I could tell you what it is, but I am out of time.

Who's Awake?

I will cast my light
Hoping to cure the long dark.
I wonder who's awake?

Not who you'd think, I'm guessing,
Not the likes of them and us.

You said, "The master
Is harder to recognize
Than that ya' know, pal?"

January 20, 2009 2:26 PM

**********************************

So when you wake up it isn't all peaches and cream, at least not just anytime. It is really good if you're prepared for it.

Too High Up

My head just came up
Out of this mist, peeking out
As if I was brave.

All puffed up with my damn self,
I thought I might belong here.

But there's snow around
And I'm sure not dressed for it,
My toes are freezing.

January 21, 2009 9:16 AM

16 comments:

  1. I don't think it matters if anyone else is around or awake, The Master is really within, we decide our own fate and thank goodness we do have a light within. "Who's Awake" to my mind is more like "Am I Awake", ya know?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your poems are timeless...There are days I love an alone feeling...at least briefly
    Linda

    ReplyDelete
  3. Michelle, I bet you do snort! And hoot. Maybe even holler sometimes. Me too.

    Techno, that is like a Buddhist saying only Theravada, or Hinayana. Both Mahayana Buddhism in the east and Christianity in the west have made a big deal out of attending to others. There is a lifelong valid path attending to one's own awakening. There is another making some version of the Bodhisattva vow.

    Linda, when my last girlfriend decided we would be better friends than lovers, I thought I would have a difficult time as a solitary. In my time of transition I put a prayer discipline in my life to survive it, and was surprised to find that I not only survived, I thrived. Now I am so happy living alone that I have stopped chasing women :) Well, at least I no longer feel at risk for something because no one else is in the house.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The first one reminds me of being online late at night and just aching for someone to talk to out in the world...

    ...which totally happens way more than it should. Oy. :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. Both of these, but especially "Too High Up" sounds as if it were written during your heart "episode".

    I remember once you said you hate intellectual poetry, but your poetry makes me both think and feel. Every time.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I wonder if casting their light in hopes of curing the long dark is what all poet's are trying to do, consciously or not. Or if they're just resort to rhyming because they're unable to sleep and there's no one out there to kill time with. Glad to have found your site.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi there :)
    What do you mean by
    forty-two?
    It's one of my lucky numbers, so i'm just wondering.
    your poems are beautiful.
    mmm i like no 2. I actually read the last 4 today.
    This morning i heard a Gordon Lightfoot song
    one line said something like;
    when i think i am winning,
    i'm loosing again. Yes?
    anyway these poems kind of say that
    right. That we never quite know anything.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The man said he'd give you life, not happiness, life.

    These are crisp!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Karen, I rarely understand with any certainty what truly motivates my poems. I do have a darker side and also a cynical streak. Beyond that coyote humor, or I could say jailhouse or front line humor. Or drunk humor. Underlying all that, serious psychedelics as a young man. Who the hell knows what lurks in such a brain?

    Mairi, exactly. Though I must confess there is a talent for it.

    Jozien, Douglas Adams in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy said the answer is forty two, or something like that, the answer to everything.

    Lucy, I know. In some sense there is a deep meaning. I am not sure happiness is always possible, but I am fairly sure I can find a way to keep my dignity.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'll own hooting and hollering...snorting however, is not ladylike :)

    x

    ReplyDelete
  11. But sweetie you snorted here! See above, first comment.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Damn it....foiled again...okay, okay, so I snort online....:)

    x

    ReplyDelete
  13. {{{Michelle}}}

    You can snort at my house.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Awake happens on so many different levels, I'm thinking. I thought I was awake and then I awoke. Now I wonder where I am. And what tomorrow might bring. It is a good wonder.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Erin, yes. I keep realizing that awakening was still sleeping compared to my last awakening and this is going to repeat unpredictably. I am taught to stay as alert as I can for the next opportunity.

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


Get Your Own Visitor Map!