Hallway to Nowhere

Category: poetry

  • Abstractus (Poem For Feb 22-PouncePunk22)

    What do we take from our daily experience?

    The constant barrage of information, be it correct or not,

    Loudly demands we pay attention.

    Rather than fostering any noetic pause for processing,

    This noise by design fuels ongoing addiction

    To strong emotion, usually of a negative character.

    We need regulation to combat this, both societal and individual.

    Let us learn to become responsible, not merely responsive.

    We are both curators and creators of our inner world.

    This cannot be separated from the outer.

    How then shall we choose to live?

  • Glitch (Poem-Feb 13 PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    Start. Stutter. Stop. Start again. Stutter. Another stop.

    This is how we live, with bardos all around.

    We try to build bridges between all the gaps,

    Seeing them as problematic malfunctions.

    What if we relate them as opportunities instead,

    Learning to explore them and what they offer?

    We might trade considerable anxiety for a more spacious mind,

    Relaxing our many intermittent frustrations into playful curiosity.

    Breathe. Now begin.

  • Drink Me (Poem-Feb 12 PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    I sat in deep meditation and then.

    I fell through a rabbit hole.

    When I opened my eyes, I saw a bottle labeled “DRINK ME.”

    I noted the beautiful label and examined it.

    It smelled of cherry-tart, custard, and hot buttered toast.

    I was tempted by this intriguing offer but hesitated.

    A fierce rabbit appeared with a ticking watch and a mala.

    I heard the deep tone of a singing bowl and awakened.

    I see through the delusions of Mara.

    Poisons often come in pleasant forms.

  • Power & Light (Poem- Feb 9 PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    How do you survive when the power goes out?

    Thus: During the frigid night, I piled up every blanket I owned on the bed

    While Miss P and I shared our warmth underneath.

    The next morning my taxi driver knocked on my door unannounced

    To buy us both breakfast in a restaurant that somehow had restored function.

    When we returned home, I found someone had shoveled snow from my door.

    Finally the electricity was restored. But I had learned that light

    Does not depend on wires or current. It shines continuously and all around.

    Power is not a utility; power is community. Thank you all for opening my eyes.

  • Punk At 61 (Poem-PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    Newer Docs now and grayer hair.

    The attitude and a flash of swagger still there.

    You don’t like my clothing? Or perhaps what I write?

    I really don’t care…and I’m being polite.

    Now my marching is done on largely virtual streets

    Where connections are formed with astounding speed.

    (We relied on the mail once to distribute zines, music, and merely to FIND one another.

    The underground owes homage to the U.S. Postal Service.)

    But we continue and intermingle with those who followed,

    Still able to sing and draw and write.

    Make it loud; make it subversive; make people think.

    Question authority and question yourself.

    Be who you are without fear, rocking on to the rhythms of change!

  • Give Me Shelter (Poem-Feb 5 PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    Where do I find my home?

    If external and anchored to a particular place, persons, or circumstance,

    I always live in a temporary abode, a shifting unstable shelter.

    Eventually I will be homeless, as will we all.

    If internal and built with sturdy foundations shored by constant reinforcement,

    I have a much different type of dwelling, a flexible steady residence.

    If you place your happiness in that which can be taken from you,

    You will lose your happiness.

    Love where you are; love those around you; love what you love, in any way.

    I do so and find comfort in all of these.

    They will change and even pass away,

    So I cherish them for their fleeting presence.

    My hearthstone is placed in another realm,

    Connected to all around, until it crumbles also,

    Impermanent as I am.

  • The Game (Poem-Feb 4 PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    Here is the game:

    I give you a rock, large and heavy.

    You get to carry it up this mountain.

    I’ll meet you at the top ridge,

    Take your rock, and hurl it back down the mountain.

    We’ll repeat this process over and over and over.

    Are you tired yet?

  • What Is Simple? (Poem-Feb 3 PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    Life used to be so simple.

    Really? Or does blinkered memory make it so?

    Just being alive, no matter your situation, entails mess.

    Complications always arise,

    And our control is often more limited than we imagine.

    If we learn to handle the uncertain ground that is existence,

    Then we can find meaning and connection.

    We can let go of fear and instead face change

    With openness, resoluteness, and acceptance.

    What if we turn the fight into a dance?

    Hear songs of kindness, joy, and community rather than tunes of cruelty, misery, and division?

    The hard road of suffering is our common path, but how we travel it depends on us.

    Pay attention. The choice is mine and yours and ours.

    It can begin with a single breath.

  • Emotion (Poem-Feb 2 PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    You are neither my definition nor my master.

    I have learned to consider you thus:

    Shades of color passing through transparent glass,

    Washes to be examined with curiosity and intent.

    I see you vividly in your depth and complexity

    And experience whatever you bring to the moment.

    But always I remember that you are temporary

    And leave no lasting impression.

    I can choose not to embrace delusion and attachment.

  • Emotion (Poem-Feb 2 PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    She looked at me with cold blue eyes,

    Empty of feeling like glittering ice.

    She lifted her hand and drew down her sleeve.

    With her other, she pointed and said:

    You want to cut here and thus for this to work.

    Next time make sure you get it right.

    Still showing no emotion,

    She left me lying in the strange bed

    With all the wreckage I had wrought.

    I also displayed no emotion.

    But grief bled from my bandaged arms.