Poetry

“Why I Am Here”

/ Brian / 1 Comment

I am here to better understand why I am here
I am here to come nearer to what cannot be understood
I am here to suffer through three or nine unclear years
I am here to recover the silent knowledge for good

I am here to hear why I am here
I am here to be steered by the voiceless and lost
I am here to wait until a voice becomes clear
I am here to dance ’til the spirit stands aloft

I am coming to say less
Coming to mean more
I’m leaving to remember
What it is I’m living for

I came to marry memory and hope
I left to seek the unexplained
I returned to listen for the unheard note
When I leave,
I’ll lose
All I’ve strived to gain

I am here to better understand how I got here
I am here to stand still, listen to the creek flow by
I am here to let go of an illusion I’ve held dear
I am here to hold on to a truth that is not mine

I am here to see clearly what else is here
I am here to return, to remain, and to move on
I am here to look for home, like a dispossessed seer
I am here to turn towards an ever new dawn

I am coming to say less
Coming to mean more
I’m leaving to remember
What it is I’m living for

I came to listen for silence,
I left to speak softly with rain,
I returned to marry stillness and chaos,
When I leave,
I’ll have lost
All I strived to gain

I am here to better understand why I am here
I am here to give shelter, here to bring storm
I am here to feel the sun as the clouds disappear
I am here as the snow melts, as it loses its form

“Where to Go”

/ Brian / Leave a comment

Not all passion can be seen
Not all love should be known
I can’t tell you what it means
When no one knows where to go

All I want is to want no more
All I can take is distance and lack
No one remembers where they’ve been anymore
No one makes it forward
No one goes back

Take it all far away from me
As I seek on the road what I can’t see at home
Take yourself far away from me
I’d be gone myself if I had anywhere to go

Not all people find their meaning
Not all bodies find the soul
When you tried to heal what needed bleeding
I knew I had to leave
But I had nowhere to go

All you want, you say, is to be who you are
We all want to give what none of us own
We all wish to be what none of us are
Where would you be if you had somewhere to go?

Bring it all back to me now
I’ve been at this too long
I need to relax
If you’d bring yourself back somehow
I could be myself
I could drop the act

Not all movement can be seen
Not all knowledge should be known
No one knows what any of it means
How could anyone know just where to go?

All you want is the whole world
All you can take is nearness and excess
You told me you were sure where I should go
All I had to know were the people to impress

Take yourself far away from me
All you tell me is all you’ve been told
Take it all far away from me
While I take my leave
As if I had somewhere to go

“Emptiness”

/ Brian / 1 Comment

Does nothing satisfy?
I begin the day already frustrated.
My first thought?
Whatever I do today will only leave me empty.
My second?
Nothing I do can give me what I need.
My third?
It is because I need that I stay frustrated.
Finally I ask myself:
What do I need?

I need to do something to relieve this emptiness.
If I do nothing, will this emptiness leave me?

No, whether I do something or nothing,
The emptiness remains.
It remains whether it is hidden or apparent.
Nothing relieves it.
Everything I do either hides it better or makes it clearer,
But nothing takes it away.

I cannot be relieved of it simply by leaving it behind.
What is there to leave behind?
It can’t be left behind because
It’s not even here.
It’s an absence,
One that I feel
More than I feel anyone else’s presence.
It’s a not-here
That makes me feel not-here
And everyone else seem not-there.

Would I need to be someone else to not feel it?
Is who I am formed from what I lack?

If I were not me,
Would I feel less not-here?
If I were not here,
Would I feel more like me?

If I am not even here,
What can my purpose be?
I can do nothing unless I am here,
But nothing I do can take away who I am,
And who I am is not separate from what is not-here.

Who I am is more than what is here,
But what I say means less than what I hear.
I speak of what is not-here,
But I listen for what is here.
I feel an absence,
But I listen for a presence.
What is present here is more than who I am,
It means more than what I feel,
But what can it mean if I can’t hear it?

What do I need?
I need to hear what is here;
I am frustrated when I feel only what is not.
Is there anything here
That can relieve me
Of what is not?
Is there anything not-here
That can help me
Perceive what is?

I begin the day already frustrated,
And I admit that I do not know why.
I also cannot say why
The not-here feeling always seems to linger here.

But here is the not-here.
I feel it now as I do most every day.
The not-here will be here whether I let it or not,
But this once I do not deny it or fight it.
I am here and so is the not-here.
I do nothing.
I can’t think of a single thing I could do
To take away what is not even here.

“On Up The Hill”

/ Brian / Leave a comment

To the tune of Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain”

On up the hill
On down to town
This back and forth deal is getting me down
Down in the middle that I can’t stand
I know I got to get going but I
Got no plan

I can’t speak
So I’ll just write
Was that you I saw submerged in the light?
You came around, then you went away
I knew you would get going
You can’t stay

So I’m alone
The way I like to be
Like to sit here and feel the breeze
But if you came around, I’d unlatch the door
I know I gotta get going
That’s for sure

I’ll get in the car soon
I’ll get on the bike
I’ve gotten so I don’t even know what I like
I knew it much better before I met you
“Got to get going,” you told me
I said: “where to?”

I am where I am
You’re where you are
Maybe you’re too close, you could be too far
I’ve always been less than I could be
If I could get going maybe then
I’d be free

“The Night”

/ Brian / 1 Comment

The absence of people,
often a blessing,
seems more like a hardship
on this clear cold night.

There’s no one here
to distract me from my condition,
to alleviate the tension,
to come between me and the silence,
me and the emptiness,
me and the night.

The night and me:
that’s all I see.
The night and
me, trying to put this night into words,
trying to put myself into words:
to mold beauty out of pain,
inspiration out of frustration,
the distinct out of the same.

There’s no one here to come between me and the night,
but yet there is something between us.
There’s no one here to come between me and the night.
No one, that is,
but me.

There’s no one here
in the night
but me.

“Feel the Sound”

/ Brian / 2 Comments

Was I once found?
Am I now lost?
I’ve heard for too long
of what has been lost.
Now I listen
for what can’t be found.

I do respect the thoughtfully worded phrase,
but how much more
do I respect the heartfully felt sound!

How can I feel this sound and be lost?

Listen for a moment.
See
if you can feel
the sound.
You might hear it more clearly
if you put
your ear
to the ground.

Did I once have?
Have I now lost?

What I have lost is precious to me,
more precious than what I have now.
To have is fine while it lasts,
but to have lost is to begin
re-finding,
redefining where your worth is,
realigning with your purpose.

This is how I redefine your words.
When you say you are close to a breakdown,
I hear ‘breakthrough.’
When you tell me you are in the middle of a crisis,
I hear ‘creative tension.’
When you feel hopeless of ever understanding,
I hear ‘recovering the mystery.’

But you do not need me to redefine your words,
or to remind you of your worth,
do you?

No.
But in case you’d like a reminder,
here:
When you look at me intensely and say nothing,
I hear ‘I am here,’
and I feel your distinct sound;
I let go of all I’ve lost,
and I embrace what can’t be found.

“The Whole”

/ Brian / 1 Comment

One thousand feet above town,
too far away to hear the music and dancing of Saturday night,
there is almost complete silence,
save for the swaying of tall trees in the gentle breeze.
 
An unnamed sadness is present amidst the entertainment downtown,
while an unnamable joy is present here
in the silent night,
here where the moon’s light
shines through cobwebs and into cabins.
 
It is a good night to be alive
and to be awake.
 
I close my eyes and feel
both the unnamed sadness
and the silent, unnamable joy.
I feel the restless yearning of the drinkers and dancers downtown
as I watch the calm way the tall trees with immovable trunks sway.
 
Why be one or the other, either calm or restless?
I am restless and I am calm,
I sway like the trees and I dance like the wild,
I move with a vital force and I am immovable.
 
The calm, still being within respects the restless, seeking one,
and the restless one who seeks
respects the still one who accepts.
Neither demands to be sole inhabitant,
neither claims to encapsulate the soul.
Each needs the other in order
to be included in the whole.
 
The restless one yearns for the whole to be expressed
in one passionate movement,
one intuitive line,
while the still one looks on with an invisible glow,
blessed with knowledge beyond expression
and wisdom beyond time.
 
Above town and in town,
there is yearning and there is the yearned for,
there is stillness and there is restlessness,
there is underlying sadness and there is overarching joy.
 
I go out and look up at the sky.
Neither darkness nor light covers the whole stretch of sky.
There is the blackness of night and there is the light
from the moon and stars.
Each needs the other in order
to be included in the whole.
 

“The Gift”

/ Brian / 3 Comments

The snow drops from the sky,
And the earth receives the gift.

I wonder:
Is the gift given by one and received by another?

Who is the giver?
Who is the receiver?

Who is the one that lets go of the gift?
Who is the one that holds onto the gift?

Is the gift separate from the one who holds it?
Or:
Is the gift separate from the one who is held by it?

Unlike rain, snow makes little noise as it drops.
The gift is silent, wrapping up in silence whoever uncovers it.
Yet:
Was the gift ever covered?

The birds chirp the silence into song,
The stream carries the silence into movement,
And the trees are held motionless by the silence,
As from the sky continues to fall
The gift
Which transforms everything that receives it.

Nothing is the same when the gift is being given,
Yet nothing changes after the gift has been received.
When is the gift not being given?
When has the gift not been received?

The snow drops from the sky
And the earth receives the gift.

“You Are as I Am”

/ Brian / 3 Comments

For a long time, I enclosed myself, focused on how I was distinct, unique,
How ‘I’ was ‘I.’
I often wondered:
What is there outside and within myself that links me to this realm?
I felt connected only when I observed others connecting;
In some way, their connection included me.

Beyond that,
I could not ignore that I had something in me,
Something I wanted and needed to express.

All I knew was that I didn’t want to be made into someone I wasn’t.
Better to stay with who I was,
Though who exactly that ‘I’ was I couldn’t say.

Who was that ‘I’?

Maybe that ‘I’ was a wanderer, a vagabond,
In the world but feeling apart from it,
Somehow outside it,
Somewhere amidst the gathering dusk on the road heading out of town.
To others looking like the embodiment of freedom;
In reality, free
Only in aching dreams.

Maybe that ‘I’ was a poet, a wordsmith,
Using the pen like a mystic hammer,
Nailing words deep into unseen foundations,
Undertaking the groundwork of the soul.

Maybe that ‘I’ was a hermit, a Desert Solitaire,
Going out into the wilderness alone to listen to the silent intimations
Of an ancient and sacred world,
Searching in the aloneness for a Fountainhead of companionship,
Seeking in the splendid isolation a connection that could not be lost.

Maybe that ‘I’ was a poor tramp, a prodigal son,
Crying out to the empty night like a prophet of despair,
In sacred confusion, in divine discontent,
Searching for dissolution begot by dissipation,
Craving a fleeting solution to an insoluble situation.
And the thirst: forever intensifying;
The thirst: impossible to quench.

Maybe that ‘I’,
Who had no idea
Who it was,
Was not a single ‘I’ at all.
Maybe it was a multitude of I’s,
Each one striving to be the Number One ‘I,’
The original ‘I’, 
The distinct ‘I’,
The ‘I’ independent of all other I’s,
The one and only ‘I.’

Aye Yai Yai!

Do you understand where I’m coming from?
Do I even understand where ‘I’ am coming from,
And who the ‘I’ is that is coming?
Is the ‘I’ coming? Is it becoming? Is it going?
Going where? Coming from where?

Or has the true ‘I’ been here all along,
Neither coming nor going,
Masked by all these ‘I’s wanting to be it?
These ‘I’s defined by what they seek to be.

What do these ‘I’s seek to be?
What do your ‘I’s seek to be?
What do your eyes see when they really look?
What do your ears hear when they really listen?

Really, listen:
Do you hear Life
Sing itself
To wakefulness?

Really, look:
Do you see the immaterial city
Renew itself
Without ceasing,
Arise
Without sleeping?

Watch it
Begin
Each moment anew.

Do you see?
It does not seek to be.
It is.

It is,
As are you.

It is as you are:
Do you
See?

You are as I am:
Can we
Be?

We are as It is:
Let us
Begin.