Feeling To Infinity

Thoughtlessly, I run right off the cliff of myself. Now
I am falling, sensing that there’s no place to land,

but then I go rushing right past myself, exuberant
in the mere feeling of falling — I am happy, free!

My arms are stretched wide open, and suddenly
it feels as if I can fly. I am flying! Flying!

There is a time when we don’t care any longer who or
what we are. For most, it’s when we are in deep sleep.

I am deeply asleep, but also awake and flying, flying
past myself in my exuberance, flying deep into myself

in my meditation, flying beyond myself in my pure vision,
flying swiftly towards you like a bird, like a comet, like light.

I pass high over myself, just as you look up. Right then,
you see yourself moving like a bird, like a comet, like light.

It is one of those times when you no longer care
who or what you are. You raise your hands to wave.

You may be deeply asleep, but for this one moment,
that doesn’t mean anything. Look, high in the air,

you are flying, you are happy, you are free!

It’s an auditory raft, afloat in a world that never really
makes sense: the relentless buying/ selling, the lies,
the motive to control, the off-hand cruelty, the way
everyone shrugs, “Hey that’s just the way it is . . .”

Just so, I push the sound down deeper in my ears.
It circulates through my whole system, now it fills up
my body, my body is the world, the world is a realm,
the echo there is my own thought, but it is not mine,
it belongs to no one, no one is at the far other end
of this sound, thinking. Just listen: the silence.

There may still be places in this realm that transmissions
from the cell phone towers cannot yet reach. Isn’t there
a kind of eccentric pleasure that gradually dawns
with the realization that you cannot be triangulated?

In my mind, in this realm of mind, we are all gathered
in a silent circle, staring into a fine bonfire. Nobody
is taking notes, nobody’s ring tone sounds, no, there
will be nothing to report, at least not by the yawning
dogs mixed in between the silent standing humans.

The light from the fire is quietly blazing in their eyes.
We all dream of going into that light — it is naturally kind,
it is a portal to the other place. I will say here that it is
love in the very way love is when it can’t be triangulated.

Ah, it is a big ripe love, like the sound of the fragrant fruit
falling in an empty orchard. We listen through the raised
ears of the various smiling dogs. The bigger this love
gets, the wider are their canine smiles — they are no
longer the dogs we took them to be, not anymore.

This love gets beyond words, gets beyond sirens,
beyond high-pitched whistles, it gets closer to something
we once heard but maybe forgot. We want to remember
it again, that sound. When our love gets big enough,
I am certain that, without a doubt, we can.

for a man or a woman, dressed all in white
like a white god bringing the white milk,
as white as the innocent lamb in spring,

wrapped up in the soft embrace of a tulip’s
pale sheets, asleep, not wanting anything
more, not a color, not a soothing sound,

not a meaning or any kind of tell-tale sign,
not a new age of gleaming white wonders,
but only to exhale, at last to slumber.

Oh White Tara, infinitely patient in the midst of this
infinitely colorful craziness, you smiled and kissed
these beggar’s lips with tender subtle syllables

of white, of true love without condition, until
all that remains is to sleep the milky white sleep
of the lamb of god, to pour out finally into white.

Now the men of harsh means rummage through
what’s left of old Tackeytown, their white hands
smeared and soiled with the remnants of the search,

their very atomic structure echoing the ruined light
of a collapsed star system — Oh Divine White Lady,
please never cease in your strange blessing work!

Kindly grant us the sleep of white lambs, tulip-borne,
grace-fed, yawning, wanting nothing more, of this
we pray, tomorrow and today, Ah Hum!

to the ecstatic raising of the flag of infinity,
who’ll fly through the air to meet you there,
regardless of any case of mistaken identity,
or the imaginings of any non-existent entity.

My aim is your serenity, with rhyming words
or not I’ll spill the beans, whatever that means;
I will tell it true, as much as any fool could do,
I will enunciate, but after wine I may alliterate!

I’ll be your fallen angel tumbling down from above,
or else your chosen chauffer for the limousine of love;
I’ll be a concierge for the direction of your projections,
or the fantasist behind your interpretations on perception.

In the morning I’ll speak of new morning things, at noon
I’ll hum noon tunes, but at night I will write on pages
of sky, my words overflowing with suns and moons.

Now if you subscribe to these strange verbal rides
(and it seems from my mail that some actually do),
I’ll gather my last remaining wits about me,
and finally finish this message for you.

unaware of the Great One leaning over us, tenderly
stroking our cheek, cooling our heated head, gently
kissing our heart, touching the place between our eyes.

Wine can be a portal. Wasn’t it that luscious wine of love
that ushered you into the holy heaven you never knew
could be like this, this joy that breaks the shell?

Isn’t it amazing — that all of this is just for you? This
whole world is populated by engaging dream characters
who appear to merely remind you of yourself, your love,

but all you ever want to do is just roll over and go back
to sleep — how rude is that? Haven’t you already been
tranced out long enough by mere virtue of your birth?

Soon you’re standing over yourself, mutely tossing moist
gravel onto your own sarcophagus, the very one you chose
to bear your bones, your smooth bare bones — you liked

the way it was displayed, you said “I’ll take it!” and now it
takes you down into the warm earth, the waiting soil you
once emerged from, fully formed, ready to work your magic,

ready to become the very one you hoped would be that
one who walks on water, feeds them loaves and fishes,
bagels and lox, matzo ball soup, cream cheesecake.

Ah, but the language has cooled, stripped of any romance,
and the next generation coming through these portals now
won’t recall those older days, when we all walked on water.

How’s that for an opening line?

Perhaps some readers will say we are lost
in each other. That would probably be
true, if there really were an “other”.

If there was truly anybody that could be lost,
we’d be lost. Without a doubt, we’d be goners.
Still, we would be easy enough to find.

Just look. It’s that simple. There is only one
looking, only one finding itself as That
which can never be lost nor found.

Looking is looking, finding’s finding. If I needed
to look for you, then I’d already be lost, and yet
you found me somehow, nevertheless . . .

“When my soul was in the Lost & Found
You came along to claim it…”

Sweetheart, I know that you are always
with me, yet tonight you are also
somewhere else.

While you’ve been gone, I’ve been busy
re-arranging the great perfection, just
to pass the time without you.

You wonder what I am like when you are
not here? It seems I have certain eccentricities,
beyond the ken of life’s Spell Check.

Well, what the heck – I may as well come clean:
I dream. I dream of a me, I dream of a you, I
dream of the loving things that you and I do.

You’ve asked me to write while you’re
away, so my Darling, here’s a clue:

“My world is empty without you . . .”

Love Jesus? That’s you! Hate Satan? That’s
you too! Every face a mirror, every mirror
a piece of mind, reflecting light to itself.

The further away from yourself you travel,
the closer to yourself you come. Since you
cannot be reached by either thought or deed,
clever strategy, scheme, or any effort, great
or small, you must already be yourself,
the one and only indescribable you.

We’re not just along for the ride with a hey,
ho, come wind or rain, fresh from Alabama
with a banjo on our knee. No, we are the ride,
come cloud or shine, so we might as well enjoy
it or not — it’s your fine choice to yay or nay.

They say that only God enjoys free will, so let thy
will be done, please use it well, and have some
fun along the way, O multi-faced Divine One!