Volume 2 of Collected Poems

Crazy

Aug 13, 2001

If you have asked yourself the question

“why am I so crazy”?

the answer is simple.

You are crazy with grief.

Deep down inside,

you are like one attending a funeral,

tearing your clothes,

bewailing your loss.

“But what have I lost, to be so crazy?”

you ask.

Something infinitely precious,

something you love so ferociously

that even to remember it consciously

would set you to rending your hair,

again and again.

There is a rage that attends this grief

a rage at yourself, because,

down in this same forgotten chamber of memory,

you know that you were offered this precious thing

beyond value, and you lost it,

from a moment’s inattention,

or cast it aside for something more glamorous,

or ignored it because it did not make

pretty jingling music

the way a child’s toy does.

The world is a child’s toy

compared to the majesty of that

which we have put away,

and now, unconsciously,

we grieve, and wonder

why we are so crazy.

 Feb 1, 2004

 The Ground

Life is too much to feel.

Life is too much to heal.

I search, I experiment,

I move from idea to idea

practice to practice,

prayer to prayer,

hoping that all the ills

my body, my spirit, my disorders of love,

will go away and be replaced

with something more satisfying

than this daily multiplicity of

clashing forces.  I get older.

I get better, worse, change,

stay the same,

life seems too much

to express

in any way that is adequate.

Pay attention to what is happening!

That’s what the personal guru,

the voice in my head

says, over and over.

Don’t try so hard to change,

don’t aspire to master that which

is ungovernable,

the nature of your humanity.

I am frustrated, incomplete,

I can’t keep up with the demands

of what seems to be impossible.

Be honest!  says the voice in my head.

No one is being really honest!

Everyone’s got some way out,

some device to escape the hard ground

the sleepless night.

You’ve got yours.

Keep it;  it serves.  Get some sleep.

Women

December 31, 2001

There are many kinds of women.

There are pretty women,

the kind men want to possess,

and there are nurturing women,

the kind men want

in their houses to have their babies.

There are pretty nurturing women,

and those are the best of all,

but sooner or later age will take the pretty

while the nurturing goes on and on.

When men watch each other,

they see a man with a pretty woman

and they feel envy.

They don’t like the man who possesses

the pretty woman,

they won’t be his friend,

but they will wash his car

or cash his check.

A pretty woman prevents friendship

between men.

When men see another man

with a nurturing woman,

they may not understand why he

is with that woman.

Be she young or old

the beauty is inside, timeless,

and men are poorly attuned to their own needs,

to their own timelessness.

But a man with a nurturing woman,

a pretty, nurturing woman, a homely nurturing

woman, a young nurturing woman,

an old nurturing woman,

can be friends with other men.

They won’t quite know why

they are comforted in this man’s presence.

He is not a competitor, he does not need you to wash his car

or cash his check. 

He has learned the truth

about women.

 

 

is to be di