the day carves itself into reality
my heart feels the knife of it

An old friend pops up to say Hi
searching searching searching

dream searching
night
look seek run

always traffic in my dreams
always seeking
someone
someplace
something

wanting
the
wanting

all wanting all searching

pantomime
dramatic invention
mind that seeks
and is not

wanting as drama
quest
so
scientific
solid
real

(oh really
not really)

dance of moments and thoughts
desire
karma and the moment
the dreams unfold
reveal
momentary mind

minding itself
myself
self indeed

where are boundaries
where is the thing
that dreams
sees dreams
remembers dreams

I can’t touch it now
twilit
dawning moment
dreamtime/realtime

(I have my doubts)
wonder/wander

is this a dream we ask
I ask
(do you ask)
(who is asking)

the dream sticks today
the dream’s heart beats
a flavor a notion

message unbounded
no subtext no intention

let the dreams unfold then
I will take each as gift
dance
motion
unseeable during dreary
day

clamp of sunlight on the mind
withering necessity

we require night
instincts
memories
hearts
unleashed
dark necessity

dreams know us
call us
we don’t know the language
and yet
we know
heart mind intention

sometimes in the night
the cat curls with me
wrapped against me like a baby
a lover
finally relaxes
into cat dreams
I feel its body move
dream motion
what dreams take a cat’s mind?
is the cat as puzzled as I am
in the waking
in the return
to so-called reality

I cannot impound dreams
fence them in by notions
of nothing-more-than-a-brain
braining
making nonsense
no nonsense
here

mystery
unrolls
into the heart

when I dream when I am dreamt
into that reality
how is that different
how is that something
how is that nothing

my hand touches a dream heart
knows a motion of connection
calls out into borderless
moment moment moment

darkness
fertile
full
goddess of dreams

don’t interpret
don’t interrupt

the heart will know
won’t it?

the heart will know

Out to sea a storm spins
here the storm makes clouds
here storm makes waves that are not
water
but motion still
and air flows into wind
blows all thoughts away

dream shreds in light
sun ruins motion
calls it reality
I don’t want to go
into the land of light and sun
I want the dream-starred darkness
mystery
endless endlessness
roots of all connections

my heart spins in dreamland
all the day
emotion conjured by night
holds sway in my heart
calls everything to it
makes a reality in reality
where nothing was
untilthismomentnow

milky white sky
clouds
storms spinning brewing stirring

heart that I call mine
physical heart
measured by you
(if you wish)
heart keeps beating
beating feels exactly like
dreams
love
fear
memories and dreams

this spins me out
web of knowing
web of unknowing
music
(the notes are hidden)
but I hear it still
resonance
over and over and over

spin out the day then
spin out the night
let the music be a dream
let the dream keep singing
let each thought take care
take care of each thought
as it falls arises

music played
through us
dream moments
dream bodies
dream minds

the day carves itself into reality
my heart feels the knife of it
and will not relent
no dreams no no no

trafficking in dreams was originally published in Spontaneous Combustion on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

the day carves itself into reality
my heart feels the knife of it

Dreams and dreaming
dream visitors
visions and visitations
An old friend pops up to say Hi
searching searching searching

dream searching
night
look seek run

always in traffic in my dreams
always seeking
someone
someplace
something

wanting
the
wanting

all wanting all searching

pantomime
dramatic invention
by the mind that seeks
and is not

wanting as drama
as quest
so
scientific
solid
real

(oh really
not really)

dance of moments and thoughts
desire
karma and the moment
the dreams unfold
reveal
the momentary mind

minding itself
myself
self indeed

where are boundaries
where is the thing
that dreams
that sees the dreams
that remembers the dreams

I can’t touch it now
twilit
dawning moment
dreamtime/realtime

(I have my doubts)
wonder/wander

is this a dream we ask
I ask
(do you ask)
(who is asking)

the dream sticks today
the dream’s heart beats
a flavor a notion

the message unbounded
no subtext no intention

let the dreams unfold then
I will take each as gift
dance
motion
unseeable during the dreary
day

the clamp of sunlight on the mind
the withering necessity
of this this this

we need the night
instincts
memories
hearts
unleashed
in dark dreaming necessity

dreams know us
call us
we don’t know the language
and yet
we know
heart mind intention

sometimes in the night
the cat curls with me
wrapped against me like a baby
a lover
finally relaxes
into cat dreams
I can feel its body move
dream motion
what dreams take a cat’s mind?
is the cat as puzzled as I am
in the waking
in the return
to what we all call reality

I cannot impound dreams
fence them in by notions
of nothing-more-than-a-brain
braining
making nonsense
no nonsense
here

mystery
unrolls
into the heart

when I dream when I am dreamt
into that reality
how is that different
how is that something
how is that nothing

my hand touches a dream heart
knows a motion of connection
calls out into borderless
moment moment moment

darkness
fertile
and full
goddess of dreams

don’t interpret
don’t interrupt

the heart will know
won’t it?

the heart will know

Out to sea a storm spins
here the storm makes clouds
here the storm makes waves that are not
water
but motion still
and the air flows into wind
and blows all thoughts away

dream shreds in the light
sun ruins the motion
calls it reality
I don’t want to go
into the land of light and sun
no I want the dreamy starred darkness
mystery
endless endlessness
roots of all connections

my heart spins in dream land
all the day
an emotion conjured by night
holds sway in my heart
calls everything to it
makes a reality in reality
where nothing was
untilthismomentnow

milky white sky
clouds
storms spinning brewing stirring

heart that I call mine
physical heart
measured by you
(if you wish)
heart keeps beating
beating feels exactly like
dreams
love
fear
memories and dreams

this spins me out
web of knowing
web of unknowing
music
(the notes are hidden)
but I hear it still
resonance
over and over and over

spin out the day then
spin out the night
let the music be a dream
let the dream keep singing
let each thought take care
and take care of each thought
as it arises falls

music played by us
through us
dream moments
dream bodies
dream minds

the day carves itself into reality
my heart feels the knife of it
and will not relent
no dreams no no no

trafficking in dreams was originally published in Spontaneous Combustion on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

infinity certainly seems to start here

Clear morning sky with a line of mist
taller than the houses
a mist rising from the river
(which I cannot see)
the river slightly warmer than the air
fall rushing in
the cool nights now
the change that we call season
equinox
astronomy
the science of the movement of the planets
and this point of view

my first thought this morning
hot cup of coffee
the merest blush of light in the east
this:
I think I am the center of the universe

well, you think this too, don’t you
how could it be otherwise
infinity certainly seems to start here
where else would you center it
and then what?
can I call the whole universe to help
me
support
me
enrich and ennoble
me?

reality plays with us
creating this point of view
that we take to be this and thus
and
ourselves

and then we center
the illusion caused by eyes and thoughts
and time

I don’t know what any of this means today

Venus so bright these mornings
brighter than anything else
before sunrise
before beginning

this moment
the body breathing
(I’m breathing)
the thoughts that think themselves
into this reality

In a few hours I won’t question any of it
there will be emails
this to be done
that
but at this moment now
the sun barely below the eastern horizon
the mist from the river
and only my body and my thoughts
only?

Ha
the whole universe must exist for this
and yet
the whole universe doesn’t exist just for this
or so I keep trying to convince myself
all the while knowing there is no self to convince

I am not the intention of the universe
but here I am
You are not either
but there you are
or here we are
and then I start looking for the separation
the distinction

you
me
the river
the mist

no boundaries no borders
no this or that
no

what breathes into me
breathes me
is me
isn’t me
the me that isn’t
and the me that is

all this wrangling
musing
ruminating

puzzling
as if I can think
past this
a puzzle to be solved
and then I can move on

do I sometimes envy
those you think they have it all
figured out
Oh yes i do

Certainty
like a drug
calling and calling to me
one more piece of evidence
and then I will know

elusive
yes?
a handful of air
the second to last breath
the thought before this one

nothing holds still long enough
to know it

and still I think I’m the center!

the joke of it all
the sadness

I do not think my cat questions
or the squirrels in the back yard
or the mist rising from the river

I don’t question
breath
for instance
or digestion
or my heart’s beat
no questions at all
just the motion of what is

but I feel my ‘existence’
 — the ultimate question
I want an answer to why
and there isn’t

all the ‘no’ ‘no’ ‘no’

no

I am not the center
and yet

breath feels like my body
dissolving
and reanimating
every cell thinks it is breathing
the sensation of breath
like a bellows of attention
intention
alive and yet
what is this?

once I kept a rock with me for months
a heavy stone from the rapid river
nearby
in my pocket
on the table when I ate
or next to me in bed

one afternoon
I napped
the rock a heavy known presence on my chest
and all my dreams were rock dreams
the dreams of the rock
crystal shaped
color-shifting
bright and green
as if the rock were still
in the stream under the summer trees

I put it back after that dream
back into the river
gently
to allow the dream to go on

If you held me close right now
could you be still enough
to dream my dreams with me?
could
I dream your dreams with you?

the mist is rising from the river
Venus has faded from view
but Venus is still there
shining
when I breathe I feel it in my toes

dreams come and go
ebb and flow

tides and intentions
what do you intend?
how did it come to be your
desire?

I cannot find the beginning
I won’t know the end
Is that a kind of infinity?
endlessness
vast and impossible

my mind tries to hold on
again again again
it will not be held

is the vastness the same as mind

like that rock
I have green dreams
the world is spinning me out
moment moment moment

what do you intend?
what do I intend?
what does it mean to think we can have
intention?

what comes next
what thought
what dream
what motion

we fear the bullet the bomb the fire
we are the bullet the bomb the fire

we are we are we are

nothing at all
(context not content
or so I’m told)

and yet
mist rises from the unseen river
the local star illuminates the sky
a sky apparently blue
but only apparently
to these evolved eyes
that peep out into the endless

a dreamer dreamt by dreams
dreams dreaming themselves
water mist clouds and blue sky

may all beings be free from
suffering
and the root of suffering

where is the suffering in all of this?
Where is it not?

I am the center of the universe was originally published in Spontaneous Combustion on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I wake up every morning imagining some place/time
where I make the poetry, read the books
a place not either here or now
it aches my heart
but what needs to be done is its own kind of coercion
forced on me (us) yes, by a wretched broken system
a slavery to capitalism that I can almost barely see
but here I am
I cannot even make the choice to be poor (as in lacking things) because the system demands something else

the system demands something else even after having taken so much
the patriarchy (and Freud, lets be honest) stole away innocence and sanity, and my own life
the capitalist patriarchy stole away everything the beloved and I had accumulated, and now punishes me for being poor!

It all adds up when you look at it correctly and yet here I am punishing myself for not being a ‘successful’ poet
as if as if
so
this I claim
my status as this Marxist witch
as a poet who makes words when she can, (whether published or not)
my status as a celibate monk, who practices as she can
and sometimes that practice is laundry
or dishes, or the job I do because we must find a way to survive

We need, I need, to forgive myself, for not measuring up to the impossible
and also
maybe sometimes, allow myself to grieve,

my heart is the heart of a poet
but this slavery to capitalism steals so much

to live feels like an act of defiance sometimes
to not be completely insane
and I will justify to my death the need for magick
for liturgy
for the spirit that calls to me and knows
in the heart of all things
that this apparent reality
is not it at all

go ahead you demons of greed and hate
you will eat yourselves
but the heart of healing and love will not be touched
oh no
you can accumulate and hoard
take and take and take
but I will not give up my heart and the reality
that flows here
sometimes flowing in tears
and through my broken heart
there is a way to be human
that is not greedy or hateful
let me walk that path always
let me be in the way of love
always

love does not exploit
or hoard
or break or kill

love nurtures and cares
and gives and shares
and will not be denied

your bombs will not win in the end
your high and mighty treasure will not save you
your carceral state
your racist eyeballs
none of that will save you
and I will continue
to call the spirits
of truth
to every moment
I will speak
and love and care
as I can as I will

and my heart will be free
oh yes
free of your gaze and your expectations
free of your requirements and institutions

you cannot have my heart
the soul of the universe beats beyond your comprehension

you think you know things
that you control things
that you own things

the world is bigger than your small thoughts
the river that we flow in
is made of stars
and there will be no damming this flood
of love and time and motion

change is

let me say that again

change is

you cannot lock down my reality

you do not own my eyeballs or my heart
and not my mind
because my mind is unbounded
free in the universe
and not for sale

you will sink
into history
into hell
not even a footnote
not even an example
nothing will remain
and your line will die out
no matter how you try
to hoard time to your side

the world is beyond
and by world I mean everything
that is was and will be
there is no
past or future
and most definitely no present
you are locked in madness
and we will not be denied

I am one with
you are one with, even if you do not know it,
your karma will also not be denied

sow to the wind
and what do you reap?

reaping the whirlwind
what will you sow?

the sunlight here
is not the sunlight everywhere
it is the light of the moment
and the moment
where is it?

your hoarded life
will end
(my apparent life will end)
but there is no end
and I suspect
no beginning

in the distant future
even you may become a buddha
but for what I know as here and now
I defy you
i will not be lured by your traps anymore
I will not give you anything except by force
and I will strive always to see what you steal from me

I declare, i do not give it freely
not at all
and I declare, you have thieved away
the hard work of my life
I am not embarrassed any longer by
this poverty you have inflicted on me

take your measurements and expectations
and try eat them
they will not feed you

(you bloated rotting carcass of greed)

no I will not join you in this dance of death

Sometimes This Poverty Is All I’ve Got was originally published in Spontaneous Combustion on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The way the minds spins
and
spins

I’m spinning now, today
round and round and round

so.much.wanting.
so much
I’m trying to hold everything
together
and of course I cannot
no
one
can

this is my life and moment
all these particulars
heartbreak yes
but something else
something uneasy
and broken
or breaking

outside
as the night whispers in
the neighbor trims his hedge
(obsessively)
the tv in the other room

darkness pressing in
around
taking the day with it
the anxiety
the cemetery walk
the walking to talk
and trying to find the way
always trying to find the way

this:
all my guilt because I am not rich
(this is the terror of social media)
I am being sold this all the time
a better me
a more successful me
a hard-working plushly well-off
and happy me

as if as if as if

no
there is no path for me in this
race to be
a rich person
a wealthy person

someone who hires people
as opposed to being
hired
(bought, regulated, boxed, and bored)

I want all the way out
really
I can’t of course
none of us can
because here we are

but oh the conflict all the time
I love/hate poverty
I love/hate money worries
I love/hate the always not knowing
how to cope
cope

I want to cope
I want to be at ease

but I don’t know if money does that
ease does that
maybe not money

I try to tell myself I have
enough
I am
enough

but it is always coming up
short
isn’t it
very very short

I want a magic change
a wealth bomb
a genie who gives and gives
magic money and hope
and ease

how I crave it
and yet
I don’t seem to be built for the
pursuit
how could i be

and so what then how
do I
where do I

(I can tell you this, widows suffer,
widows often lose, and never recover)
(and I have lost, and I can tell you
stories, but trust me, there are some traumas
that swallow up hope)

and then
and then

I get caught don’t I
trying to fix this problem
and I don’t know if it is a problem
honestly
dreaming of a lake house
a vacation
of generosity
and generational wealth

none of that

instead
me trying to imagine I might
or imagine I could
and what it would look like
and then like this afternoon
I crawl into bed
hoping the warmth and sleep
will bring an ease

why are any of us poor?
we think it is a failing
like drugs or gambling
or whatthefuckever
but how do you do it
how do you find a step up
and who says up is the necessary way

and yet of course
I need to eat
and to eat I need money
and for money I need a job
and if I have a job
I have sold these hours of my life
for food
and a bed
and I will not have those hours back ever

no choice
not a choice not a way not a life

and yet
I smile at the scraps
and hope for a vision
that will carry me into some bright
future
it will not cannot
never has
never will

wallowing in the poverty then
in the lack the loss
the inevitable
descent into
the prickly and unstoppable force
of not-quite-enough

there was a time
once
when it seemed to be

ah nevermind
never mind
the losses mount in this life
and I want to rescue every one
and I cannot
and I want to make a thing happen
and I cannot
and my heart just gives up
resigns
retreats

poverty
I cannot climb out of this on my own
I want a universe where I can
where we all can
where there is enough

(and yes yes, I know by many measures I am rich
and so many in this world hurt and are hurt and are hurting
and I have so much compared to so many, and yet…)

all the wanting
what would it look like to not want
even in the midst of need
to be with the need
the moment of lack
and not reject it
or myself

to take my life as it is
and feel a kind of acceptance beyond
acceptance
a kind of yes
to what is
what would that be like

I don’t know
but here I am and here is a
yes
to what is
and what will be
and a yes to who I am
that too
I cannot become
another
cannot make myself other than this

have I failed at this life
that is the question
I have nothing to pass on
pass down
no comfort or ease as a legacy

nothing like that at all
just this life as it is
this life right now
almost almost almost

almost

I would give you everything if I could
(how can I be separate from anything in this connected world)

Ok then
I give you everything
here is your inheritance
this world
all the worlds beyond this world
this very moment
and all the other moments
and all this bounty

I wish we all loved each other enough
and wisely
we do not
I do not
life will stomp you sometimes
and I cannot make that be
otherwise

yes then
what else can I say this moment
I cannot make it otherwise
so I might as well be with it

we think there is so much that we can do
I have my doubts
I think life is living in and through us
and we are
in the sense of being some sort of awareness
along for the ride

I ride it out then
and try to keep my greed low
and my expectations set to the scale of the
cosmos

I give you that then
the sky full of stars
the sunset
and every smile
every tear

24 April 2023 was originally published in Spontaneous Combustion on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.