Hallway to Nowhere

Tag: pouncepunk art challenge

  • Mise En Scene (Poem For Feb 27-PouncePunk22)

    Consider your landscape and your place therein:

    How do you move within this tableau?

    A masterful stride that crushes underfoot, unheeding and careless?

    A mindful walk that considers terrain, thoughtful and considerate?

    Are you owner of all or simply another piece of this whole?

    The answers we give delineate and determine our surroundings.

    Interior and exterior, these are intertwined and essentially the same.

    Trample unseeing the grass and insects; build without ceasing regardless of cost.

    This befouls your very air and your indifferent heart. Death comes in many forms.

    Remember other denizens have equal claim; think upon the welfare of earth, sea, and sky.

    Understand this enables all to breathe with comfort in concert.

    Easy? No. Your replies, my replies, our replies shape the common ground.

    Think. Be aware. Transform your mind.

  • For Ukraine (Poem For Feb 25-PouncePunk22)

    Let us gather chrysanthemums

    For mourning in these perilous times.

    Weave them into crowns of sorrow

    For grief at lives taken in brutal war.

    Scatter their petals on the wind

    For sympathy with those who remain.

    These are but the slightest gestures,

    Tiny funereal floral tributes.

    Do more where we can.

  • Kintsugi Dreams (Poem For Feb 24-PouncePunk22)

    I walk on debris,

    The detritus of expectations.

    I gather fragments to make kintsugi dreams,

    Toss them in the air, and watch them come crashing down.

    They add to the rubble underfoot.

    Thus it has always been. Thus it continues.

    I laugh with delight.

  • Integument (Poem For Feb 23-PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    This fragile skin encloses us all.

    A tender veil of different hues shelters each from harm.

    Pierce it, and the results come regardless of appearance.

    A common membrane ensures our well-being.

    And yet. This also defines us.

    We do not see another living being that is just like us.

    We focus on the myriad manifestations of this mortal wrap.

    You are this because. I am that because. We are not alike.

    Judgement and separation. We have built our world hence.

    Can we learn to undo this? To realize our selfsameness?

    Remake the swords of disconnection into ploughshares of compassion.

    Remove the veil of ignorance that prevents clear sight.

    Everyone and all things shine with the same pure light.

    Teach your children well.

  • 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?

  • Body (Poem For Feb 20-PouncePunk22)

    I once disdained my corporeal being,

    Viewing it as just an unfortunate shell.

    The important me, the real me, was solely my mind.

    As I’ve gotten older and perhaps a bit wiser,

    I’ve come to appreciate this tangible form.

    No mere vehicle to house my essential nature,

    But a vital and requisite necessity for identity and action.

    The body gives rise to the mind; the mind informs the body.

    I no longer despise what it offers, including sensations of pain.

    Instead I embrace all I experience, for this constitutes who I am.

    And with gratitude, I offer thanks.

  • Written On My Hand (Poem For Feb 19-Pouncepunk22)

    Written On My Hand (Poem For Feb 19-Pouncepunk22)

    Written on my hand

    Find the stories of my life.

    Passages from infant to child to adult to elder.

    With multicolored inks, myriad scripts, and various languages.

    Changes detailed in wondrous words

    Unseen unless you care to look.

    I carry these always.

    Occasionally they find their way into plain view.

    Bleeding onto poems and tales.

    Even flavoring cups of tea.

    (Kindness tastes of honey.)

  • Messenger (Poem For Feb 18-PouncePunk22)

    Dark aspect and terrifying mien.

    Wings of skin and bone with barbed points.

    Grey-scaled limbs with daggered claws.

    Fiery eyes with glaring stare.

    Chilling voice with harrowing words.

    Speaking thus:

    “You are responsible for your own enlightenment.

    You are also responsible for all other beings.

    Hear these words and open yourself.”

    Are you sure you want to meet an angel?

  • Stillness & Movement (Poem-PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    How to find a still mind?

    Try being aware of movement,

    The ever-flowing change that is always occurring.

    Take the body, for example.

    Even in the midst of the deepest meditation or dreamless state,

    There are infinite shifts taking place.

    Cells replace themselves; breath moves in and out; the heart beats; and so on.

    Similar processes happen across the physical world,

    From the most minute particles all the way to vaster aspects of slow relentless geologic change.

    Accepting this impermanence with equanimity

    And relinquishing the notion that this will stop in any way

    Provides a space to relax and rest with a sense of ease.

    This will also evolve but observe with detachment.

    Nothing (and everything) lasts forever. This need not cause suffering.

    Find the path to peace and joy.

  • A Horror Story (Poem-PouncePunk Art Challenge)

    This is a true story. It actually happened to me.

    I was much younger at the time, which is neither here nor there.

    Bedbugs invaded my residence. How? I never knew.

    This is still a mystery, as my home adjoined no other abode.

    I suspect I unwittingly imported them via mail but don’t know.

    While I had the house treated, I went to a cheap motel.

    I awakened the next morning with familiar bites.

    The room (and the entire motel) was similarly infested.

    Wherever you go, there you are. Changing places doesn’t always change circumstances.

    A valuable lesson, indeed.