There’s the thing I shouldn’t do
and yet, and now I have
the rest of the day to
make up for, not
undo, that can’t be done
but next time,
think more calmly,
breathe, say here’s a new
morning, morning,
morning,
(though why would that
work, it isn’t even
hidden, hear it in there,
more, more,
more?)
❓
Resolution by Lia Purpura
repeat over and over…
God goes out for whiskey Friday night,
Staggers back Monday morning
Empty-handed, no explanation.
After three nights of not sleeping,
Three nights of listening for
His footsteps, His mules sliding
Deftly under my bed, I stand
At the stove, giving him my back,
Wearing the same tight, tacky dress, same slip,
Same seamed stockings I’d put on before He left.
He leans on the kitchen table, waiting
For me to make him His coffee.
I watch the water boil,
Refuse to turn around,
Wonder how to leave Him.
Woman, He slurs, when have I ever done
What you wanted me to do?
❓❓❓❓
Reason by Robin Coste Lewis
Get off my back, God.
Take your claws out of my shoulder.
I’d like to throw you off
like I would brush off some particularly repellent insect!
Sometimes I get the feeling that if I could turn round
quick enough
I would see you
grinning at me,
full of glee, plotting, scheming, devious, challenging
The hell with all this stuff about fire and storm
and still, quiet waters.
I’ve got your number.
I’ve unmasked you.
I’d like to throw you off
like I would brush off some
particularly repellent insect.
You’re a daemon!
Unfortunately, you seem to have this great attachment
to me.
Actually, being honest, I know in my heart
I’d miss you if you weren’t there,
leering at me, reminding me of death and dread and destiny,
winding me up and puncturing
my pretensions.
I know, with a sinking feeling in my gut
that all the best of me
– the fire and storm,
and even, now and then, still waters,
are born out of the death-defying struggle
that we wage,
my dearest daemon.
💪🏻
Wresting With God by Kathy Galloway
I didn’t ask for this,
did I?
in fact, I believe I tried to block it,
avoid it at all costs.
But here I am feeling
outta sorts,
facing my bittersweet days.
Wondering where the hell
this is gonna take me?
What is my purpose here?
here,
where I lived my experiment for 5 years?
here,
what was taken
now returns,
and I am not sure what to do with it…
light it up
or
burn it down?
all I know is this is the place
I have been called to
at this moment
for only God knows what,
and He’s not talking,
hasn’t shown his face in weeks.
I must rely on this silly sliver of a promise,
that it is meant for my good
– somehow,
someway.
Any-hoo,
Trust is a ruthless business,
an extreme proposition to live.
I am not leaning to my own understanding,
or natural desires,
even a bitty-bit,
or I definitely wouldn’t be right here
– right now
or anytime in the future.
Yet here I am,
standing on this holiest of my profane grounds,
way out in the back forty
of thecomfort zone,
knowing beyond knowing,
I’m in the only place
I’m supposed to be
right now.
This is where the magic happens.
🌎
Amy Lloyd (AL)
God wants to encounter you with His love, so you can become a light everywhere you go, your life will shout to the world, ‘I’ve seen Him, I’ve felt Him. I’ve heard His voice. He is alive. He is here with us. In us. For us.’
we are human
man inside a woman
woman inside a man
a tao child
landscape of gardens
thin slice of the pie
samadhi inoculated
.
lint on gods sleeve
dust to dust
immortal vagabonds
luminous beings
red coat in a burning forest
a sky of palms
.
on a wide plank
on a great altar
on a cosmic tabernacle of christ and buddhas
like rain like fire or a bell from afar
.
we are human
fireflies in the desert nite air
or a ring of bone zendo
the inner satsang of life
gods torch
ablaze
.
in true contemplation
in righteous indignation
we enter the temple of infinity/]\
dust to dust
some diamond rough
a confluence
ablaze asunder a bright fire a torch of flames
in the satsang of life
in the womb of time
reigning a voice in a sea trees and storms
we are human
god fireflies like moths to light
.
.
Adam DeFranco (C) 2016 AD
The best advice ever, beautifully written, by Fred LaMotte:
‘Smart’ people believe in their thoughts, especially the thought of ‘me.’ How can a thought discriminate between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ideas? Only the silence beyond ideas, who watches without thought, can discriminate.
Don’t be so smart. Be a little stupid. Watch thoughts come and go without grasping them. Even the thought of ‘me.’ Rest beyond mind as self-radiant emptiness.
You are not an idea, ceaselessly arguing with other ideas. You are sparkling omnipresent free space, where all ideas arise and dissolve without conflict.
The way to peace is awakening the Witness.
Oh Infinite Intelligence, I ask not for more blessings,
but more wisdom with which to make better use of
the greatest of all blessings with which I was endowed
at birth – the right to embrace and direct to ends of my
own choice the powers of my mind.
———-
Napoleon Hill’s Greatest Speeches. Sound Wisdom. Pennsylvania. 2016. Pgs. 161-162
When you are loved, you can do anything in creation.
When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Love is not a fluffy thing, it’s got edges and teeth. Love refuses to play small or sell out.
– Julia Butterfly Hill
In the tower the bell
is alone, like a man
in his room,
thinking and thinking.
The bell is made of iron.
It takes the weight
of a man
to make the bell move.
Far below, the bell feels
hands on a rope.
It considers this.
It turns its head.
Miles away,
a man in his room
hears the clear sound,
and lifts his head to listen.
🔔
The Bell by Richard Jones
You are a bell
that rings
in another world.
You are a flower
that blooms
only when you are asleep.
Your soul is a bird that flies away
and in your grief you cannot see
how God delights in its return.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
The Lover said to the Beloved,
“I am in love with You.”
The Beloved replied with laughter
and twinkling eyes,
“You have no choice!”
Who comprehends this conversation?
I love because I have free will.
But when I surrender completely,
the will is annihilated in love,
and this is perfect freedom.
I know this because I became
a fool.
🎉
Alfred K. LaMotte
I am the land upon which Winters snow falls,
Unnoticed and trodden, numb, unaffected,
Pain laid unsheathed as the spring starts to thaw,
This heart’s ever hopeful to wear a new skin.
I am the land upon which Autumn leaves become rotten,
Which once had life, now ended, now dead,
But nourishment lives with all that’s forgotten,
This heart’s always faithful to beat once again.
I am the land upon which the Summer sun scorches,
Whose once swollen rivers run dry and to dust,
Existence in stasis, be still with the forces,
This heart wills the moment to beat its own drum.
I am the land through which spring will awaken,
The beginning of life full of beauty and newness,
Quicken the pressure all barriers forsaken,
This quickening heart has forever to live.
❤️
Constancy by Paula Doran
Facebook/Women’s Spiritual Poetry
As I approach,
it comes to me quickly –
all four seasons are flowing,
visible residents
of this mornings beach.
Here are bands of snow
from this spell
we call Winter.
Here, layers of leaf-surf to shuffle through the memories,
we called Fall.
Which, seems to me,
was just yesterday?
The sands dna carries the Summer sun,
still warm,
within its restless, shifting soul.
It whispers promises of returning warmth and sunshine as I stand, here and now, in cold, driving rain,
working through markers of time,
arriving at my favorite season,
Spring!
Grief, death and hope are front and center,
as Vinnie’s beautiful, driftwood cross
still stands as a memorial to his mother’s recent passing,
as well as, the hope of springs sure arrival!
Easter carries the sharp winds of death,
alive with the eternal mystery of resurrection.
I realize there are many symbols of spring,
on this mixed media stretch of grainy life.
The all-weather gulls floating, trusting,
eternally free.
The rhythm of the waves forever dancing with,
continually kissing,
the shore.
Then there’s me,
aware and alive,
with possibilities
of love,
music,
even that slippery word,
happiness,
surrounding my steps!
It doesn’t matter
that I don’t know what that looks like…yet.
Knowing I am worthy of all this is enough.
Hopes awaken,
rising strong on mended wings,
trusting the healing path taken,
the work continues.
Allowing the
shy, twinkling lights
to glow and illuminate
the most fearful, secret corners
of the darkest rooms
of my heart.
I smile and silently shout, Yes!
Yay!
I promise to love and be loved!
Can you hear me, wherever you are?
Will your heart shout out as well?
I can’t stop smiling.
Courage,
that fearless lion,
who will lead us all home
right where we belong.
🦁
AL
.
i dreamed my body the size of colorado
mountains ranges and free open spaces
thirsty arroyos and slippery canyon walls
my lungs the wild breezes over the plains
reincarnation nothing more than fresh flowers this spring
and death the blaze of falling leaves
.
yes i will live here a thousand years
barefoot and hungry
wild and free
roaming a wild country in my buffalo self
in a pathless land
.
somethings will not change and remain fact always
we are ashes of stellar death
particles of infinity
flowers on the range
.
.
.
.
.
wild plains by Adam DeFranco (C) 2016
We are waves of One.
Our purer self has no name.
Even our hollow places are full of light.
Don’t take a breath, receive it.
Know everything before you have a thought.
Be what ripens on a jagged branch,
still hard and bitter.
As soon as you are soft and sweet
a doe will nuzzle you, and you will fall.
Her little fawn will crush you on its tongue.
Exist as purple food
so that the least furry creature might
leap and play on a Sunday morning.
Be the burgundy pulp of a glistening heart.
Now fall even deeper into green meditation.
Agree to become the radiance
in the atoms of a plum.
🍈
Alfred K. LaMotte
I was dead, and I became alive; I was tears, and I became laughter. Overcome by the power of love, I turned into that eternal power.
~ Rumi
When the world does not conform
to the story in my head
I get a feeling that
“something’s not right.”
Why is the story in my head
not down-loading properly?
Why do I sense that the world
needs to be fixed
and I must repair what is “wrong”
by imposing my story
onto the mystery
of the ineluctable?
Yet the world is not a problem.
The problem is
there’s a story in my head
but it’s not quite the same
as your story, is it?
And so there is conflict,
there is suffering,
even if our stories are about
salvation, about justice
and equality, the perfect
marriage, the cleanest
environment, or gaining
enlightenment…
Happiness cannot arise
if we slather the world in the thin
veneer of our narration.
Happiness is the dance
of atoms ordered by
the dynamics of chaos
in the heart of the now
when we let both story
and teller disperse
like a fine mist,
when we let things clarify
all by themselves
the way silt filters and falls
through a mountain brook
in liquid transparency.
Now rest in the miracle
that has always
already happened.
Just shut up and see.
A rain cloud vanishes.
There are crystal drops on
blades of grass, each containing
the sun.
💫
SOMETHING’S NOT QUITE RIGHT by Alfred LaMotte
Let us go forward quietly, forever making for the light…
Vincent Van Gogh
these anniversaries
the marking of dates
building Ebenezer memorials
from the stones of help
bringing me to this place
tasting again
the bitter herbs
the roasted lamb
the flat bread
the milk and honey flowing over everything
the fresh dates and figs
of now
sitting with this
bitter-sweet
sweet-bitter
this life
this love
this past
this practice
this present
this grateful
that gratitude
that changing
this constant
this birth
this death
this resurrection
always this love
ah this love
just.
this.
love.
always the path of thanks
always the gifts presenting
along the diamond road
this is my tradition
my version of holiday
each one
my best of days
my worst of days
feeling it wrapping around my senses
these memories clouds
wrapping around me
enveloped from behind me
me always facing forward
always facing toward the rising moment just ahead
the path before me the most important
always remembering,
along with that other Southern Belle…
tomorrow is another day…
the best is always yet to be!
🗓
AL 7/23/16 gratitude/tradition
Life
truly
is beauty
beauty
salted
by rare moments
of exquisite suffering.
Life
truly
is suffering
suffering
peppered
by rare moments
of exquisite beauty.
🌹
https://www.claudiuskeepsakes.com/collections/frontpage/products/duality-of-life-mug
there’s this summer song
of cool wind on my skin,
playing sweet percussion through the tall, lush marsh grass
gentle water
invisible birds singing in surround sound
my heart resonates with the language we have spoken
the songs we have sung
the rich vibrations of our connection
over the past few days
the new sun warms my back
my shadow sits large
writing poems
this silence my gratitude
this morning my pleasure
this day my gift
this moment my life
thank you for reaching out
for breaking through the darkness
for holding my hand
💞
AL
The worst isn’t the last thing about the world. It’s the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It’s the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring. Can you believe it? The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven. Yes. You are healed. All is well.
– Frederick Buechner
The Final Beast
Then I walked
straight forward
out of the gate,
through the wood,
along the river,
toward the mountain
and I thought of the future
I could make in the world
if I walked toward it
like this,
with my face toward the hills
and my eyes full of light
and the earth sure
and solid beneath me,
walking
with a fierce anticipation,
and a faithful expectation,
with the sun and the rain
and the wind on my skin
and that old sense…
of many paths
breaking from one path.
So learning to walk
in morning light
like this again,
we’ll take our first
light step
toward mortality,
walking
out of the garden,
through the woods,
along the river,
toward the mountain,
its simple,
that’s what we’ll do,
practicing as we go
and
we’ll be glimpsed,
traveling westward,
no longer familiar,
a following wave,
greeted, as we were at our birth,
as probable
and slightly
dangerous strangers,
someone
coming into view,
someone about
to find out.
Some wild
and improbable risk
about to break
on the world again.
..
David Whyte
Adapted from LEARNING TO WALK
From RIVER FLOW:
New and Selected Poems
I am heavy
Stepping with sand bag feet
Slow
Hello life
In this dark day
I look for beauty
It’s always there
I wonder if I would have jumped or gone back to die
If I had really known how hard it would be
On and on
Do I really believe it will ever get better?
No answer comes
I move away from the question
I made my choice
I go curl up
In the Legacy Garden
On the round plaque with Wendell Berry’s words of understanding
I part the out thrusting branches
And come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
There is singing around me.
Though I am dark
There is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
There is flight around me.
– Wendell Berry
Underneath the gondola’s painted ever-green leaves –
I wish there was a raven
Who cares if people see me?
🌑
AL – 12/3/12
I fell down,
Broken
Down beneath the curtain of a world that wasn’t mine
I fell down,
Hurting
Down under the pressure of a life I couldn’t find
Watching
Others
There were times that I felt nothing but the pain of being me
Watching
Wondering
Why and how and when would I be able to be free
I tried
Hiding
Nothing kept the darkness from surrounding me with grief
I tried
Crying
But nothing kept the demons that were haunting me
The fear
The aching
The desperation etched upon my heart in every beat
The scars
Appearing
Like a chain around my soul, stealing all I used to be
I sought comfort
I sought courage
I sought loving in the hands of those that only caused me pain
I sought refuge
I sought freedom
I sought counsel in the places that left me filled with guilt and shame
I fell down,
Broken
Down beneath the curtain of a world that wasn’t mine
I fell down,
Hurting
Down under the pressure of a life I couldn’t find
Then it came
The flicker
Of hope and understanding that I could be alive again
Then it came
A glimmer
The ember of the flame inside my heart began to shine
Watching
Others
I looked inside their minds and saw that I was not the only one
Watching
Wondering
How I could share the message that all of us are one
I tried
Learning
Taking all the knowledge that the world gave unto me
I tried
Doing
And realized the healing came from giving all I had to give
The love
Replaced fear
My heart beats now for others and keeps me going on and on
The scars
On show now
Proving that with courage our soul can set us free
I give comfort
I give courage
I give loving to the ones of those that are only feeling pain
I give refuge
I give freedom
I give counsel to those needing me with kindness, without blame
I fell down
Humble
Down to show my gratitude for living life this way
I fell down
Thankful
Vowing to show others life is better every day
💔🔥❤️
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A remembering
December 3, 2012
a lifetime from then to now
Hello Life
echoing in the chambers
of empty shattered walls
of broken will
and weary traveling
worn and scarred
soldier of God
warrior of the light
no longer even able
to pretend to carry the cross
just laying on it
too tired to fight
with arms willingly outstretched
scorched and branded
by Your glory
carried into the ocean
of Your love
within the arc
of silence
knowing I am
undone
by ruthless grace
my life is Yours
and now I wait
for You
to part the waters
like only You can do
I burned to ash
completely consumed
now I rise
the flame
alive
🔥
AL
Beneath the shouting,
quieter and more steady,
listen for my voice.
Be still, and listen.
You are doing a difficult thing.
And I am with you.
I have gathered up your life,
your triumphs and failures,
your powers and your weaknesses,
and I hold it all in grace.
You have died,
and your life is hidden in me now.
I bear your grief,
the river of it flows through me,
and I am the spring it comes from.
When you are alone I am the body
that weaves you with everyone.
When you are discouraged
I bind your hope to you.
When you are weary
I am your strength and breath,
the life that carries you.
When the road is rough and long
I go onward,
and bear you in my love and wisdom.
Keep your mind on this.
Forget the little things.
Remember my presence.
Forget whatever you can cling to.
Remember I hold you.
Never mind the demons and discouragements.
You are in me
and it is I who walk through this world
with you hidden deep within me.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
When the light lessens,
Causing colors to lose their courage,
And your eyes fix on the empty distance
That can open on either side
Of the surest line
To make all that is
Familiar and near
Seem suddenly foreign,
When the music of talk
Breaks apart into noise
And you hear your heart louden
While the voices around you
Slow down to leaden echoes
Turning the silence Into something stony and cold,
When the old ghosts come back
To feed on everywhere you felt sure,
Do not strengthen their hunger
By choosing to fear;
Rather, decide to call on your heart
That it may grow clear and free
To welcome home your emptiness
That it may cleanse you
Like the clearest air
You could ever breathe.
Allow your loneliness time
To dissolve the shell of dross
That had closed around you;
Choose in this severe silence
To hear the one true voice
Your rushed life fears;
Cradle yourself like a child
Learning to trust what emerges,
So that gradually
You may come to know
That deep in that black hole
You will find the blue flower
That holds the mystical light
Which will illuminate in you
The glimmer of springtime.
💙
A Blessing for Loneliness by John O’Donohue
Alone and lost
at the edge
of an ocean
of memories,
a heart of the deepest blue
beats
to the slow monotony
of a swaying metronome;
found in the crashing waves
of a dark desolate shore.
The weeping wind,
with its hidden whispers,
murmurs her name;
as nights they walked
hand in hand
flashback into view.
Haunting the torn fabric of his soul.
💔
Shipwrecked heart by AllPoetry member, Halosonthemoon
read the rest here: http://ow.ly/eO4E302oGFH
when I ride the nights ragged hours
when my loneliness rages with ruthless, restless, too warm turning
when heaven is that smudge of light
seen beside the farthest star
when sleep is torn from my hungry grasp
and I am left without an inch of satisfaction
from the feathers beneath my head
when I open my eyes to the same shade of black
I see with them closed
then I feel the disappearance of my desire to conform
my self is borderless at 3 am
my pretensions dissolve into this dark
I surrender to my grief
as well as to my hope
I swim to the other end of the bed
to cooler pastures
I visit the sheep
living among the stuff
down there
I listen as they recited the 23rd Psalm
to reassure my nervous entering
in that strange world
I hear all the sounds from this new dimension
my mind takes on the shape of new perspective
alert to this unusual adventure
I cry a little
laugh a little
think about the glory of love
the world turns on its axis
I breath free
I fly home
💞
AL
I am a sheep
and I like it
because the grass
I lie down in
feels good and the still
waters are restful and right
there if I’m thirsty
and though some valleys
are very chilly there is a long
rod that prods me so I
direct my hooves
the right way
though today
I’m trying hard
to sit at a table
because it’s expected
required really
and my enemies—
it turns out I have enemies—
are watching me eat and
spill my drink
but I don’t worry because
all my enemies do
is watch and I know
I’m safe if I will
just do my best
as I sit on this chair
that wobbles a bit
in the grass
on the side of a hill.
🐏
Here In The Psalm by Sally Fisher
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
🌎
Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte
from Everything is Waiting for You
©2003 Many Rivers Press
photo sources found at pinterest.com
life: acoustic & amplified 