I read not to reach the end
But to keep beside me a well-worn friend
To offer as I walk along
Different views than I had thought
To picture in the world around me:
Notes from dusty minds.

Feel without reason.
Without being
By any definition.

Sadness like weather.

Don’t hide;
The clouds wouldn’t.

The air is heavier today;
It doesn’t need explaining.

Raindrops fall
When it is rainy season.

Don’t wonder why.
Another “why?” would follow.

Observe
This season

As part of what you are.

Feel because feeling
Is your only hint

To a presence
That lends nothing.

“the Rockies may tumble
Gibraltar may crumble”...

All our ideas will fade.

You are feeling these senses
In a vast silent pretense—

A mistake of tumbling matter.

Where energy passes
As soon through the stars

As through the passions below,

And all looks on
At all opposed
As it passes from this world.

 Progress is not linear; it proceeds only until it falls away again.

I once thought I had gained so much experience with endings, with accepting the temporary nature of any part of life: a place, a practice, a person. And, for a time it was true. I could bear the last expression with peace for trusting the next encounter, though different, would also be meaningful. Now, I seem fragile. I remember those old partings calmly, but i can hardly bare current disappointments. However trivial, if I catch sight of something that connects to my actual care, then lose it before reaching out to it, I will be devastated. I need a night of complete seclusion to mourn with myself. With a damaged heart, I feel the need to avoid that instance and all that follows from it, not willing to break down again to wade toward some solution or other similar alternative. Just let me be, and keep that thing which wounded me far from my unmoored thoughts. It is not a place of courage I look out from, these days. I most often regret bringing anything I care about to surface, instead of living in the patterns of others.

But if the line of progress is a wave, it should at some time turn to rise again.

Methods may be gray,
but motivations are fairly clear—
compassion or greed,
it all stems from here.

How you will act
may depend on detail and fact
Complex and divisive, easy to hide,
But the reason why is easy to spy:

Compassion or greed,
self or surrender,
Be honest and the truth
will rise like a cinder.

How the fire started, or the physics of the burn,
These objective elements are irrelevant
To the shades of light cast on faces of concern.

If the flames of conflict rise
What shall we hold on to?
There’s no structure
Incorruptibly true

The only hope we have
Is to draw each other near,
Hand fast in hand
Turn to face our fears

And if we fall
We may well bruise,
But no reason to believe
We’ll not rise through

The uncertainty that pins us,
The history we don’t know,
We’ll trust each other’s hearts
And learn, wide-eyed as we go,

To put out the fires
That began so long before
And reach across
To those others have ignored.

It’s not a game
one hopes to win,
We all will lose
There in the end.

A sad known truth
You might consider:
We can’t protect
The ones we love;

Choose this path
And it will claim your heart,
For those who volunteer
Are sure to part.

It won’t be light,
It won’t be easy,
But you may find something
As your eyes meet

Those of others who
have made the choice
To live for those
Without their own voice.

Some absolutely
Elemental sense
That life can be more
than self reference.

Stand upon your own will,
Join the line of rough claspt hands
Only if you know you can
Give up safety for solidarity’s demands.

And know that even
When night falls,
You are not truly left alone:
The voices of rebel tradition call

To fill your breast
With one more gasp
Of living empathy
That warmed the souls of many
before you, and before me.

Like the shore meets the sea
So at night my thoughts to thee

I love watching the seasons here,
The sycamores in fall,
The sakura in spring,
The colors that mark the passing of everything.

When I first came to wander here,
I stole a leaf for my own
As big as my hands in green and brown
And patterned all in home.

I pinned it to my door
For one long lonely year
And drew upon my wall
The sunset I had left.

Before I found my way back under
Those boughs of paisley gold,
I’d sail half a world away
And work and wait and grow.

By several hundred days and nights,
Flowers bloomed and missed,
But in full season’s time I would
Return to meet alone.

And these fine days we spent together,
In warmth, or rain, or snow,
Breathing in our 1%
As the sun’s rays dusky glowed...

Now again the seasons turn,
We cannot hope to stay
Where once the light of purpose
Has faded clear away.

Though it offers little comfort
And we cannot see the port,
We set our eyes to sea
And prepare to take our leave.

I dearly love the seasons here,
I will remember them from afar
And call to girls beneath fallen petals
who never dreamed they would part.

A modern-day Emily:
Recluse,
Eternal stranger.

Walk many streets
But
Recognized nowhere.

Preference for shadow,
Freedom
To dis-exist;

What’s not
Seen
Is rarely missed.

But the
Overlooked
Have sharpest claws

To grasp the
Secrets
Thought insignificant by all.

I’ve heard it said that people
always do what they most want.

It may seem hard to figure,
but consider the grand end-point:

Whatever is most cared about will motivate the rest,
and even an act that seems unpleasant will have its root in this.

So how then when one chooses strife,
declares their own opposition,

claiming trust would never work
and conflict was long predicted?

It means, at heart, that discord was itself the object
and the self-sympathy of being denied the long-desired project.

Don’t puzzle after why you are blamed by one you tried to save
when the nature of his character is building glory from invented pain.

He who basks in passion over his own victimhood
will create the grounds for trauma to sustain frail self-belief

lest whispers of that ceaseless fear creep through the blank old stare
and the mind that rings begin to sound of the responsibility echoing there.

Just leave.

Where are we now?
Take a look out the window
And tell me what you see.

Are there rivers and streams,
Hills and houses
Built by people with dreams?

Do you want to try
Finding that place
After our feet have touched the ground?

Do you think if we walked
For 2,000 days
We’d understand what we’d found?

This confusion of people
All pushing and thinking
And trying to find something true;

If we spoke to them all
Do you think we’d learn
Or just become more blue?

Oh, where are we now,
Where have we come to,
I wish you could tell me that.

Is it anyplace better than
The one that we left
Or haven’t we been here before?

I could swear I’ve heard
These words in days past,
For power and progress and proof,

Discard compassion
and elect reason only,
It will lead to prosperity’s truth.

But for all these years,
Humanity’s fears,
We’ve never managed the simplest:

To put aside focus
on excellence and pride
And choose to live contented,

To create our work
Not for prizes that rust
But for the value of creation intrinsic.

To recognize
the light in our eyes
is not in truth the brightest,

And even if it really were,
It would be nothing
Without someone to sight it.

We’re stronger by far
if we join hands
Than the most brilliant who would divide us.

Where are we now?
Are we moving at all?
Are we always caught between sides?

Between those who want speed
And those who want fairness
And those who ignore out of pride.

Is it possible
To make them care—
To tug their hearts into motion?

Or is the theme
Of equality’s dream
Another stone in the ocean?

We’ll gaze back at it
Through history’s waters
Now and then as all other ideas

And wonder how
such thoughts began and
how they journeyed on.

Unless, of course,
you choose to stand
And change the scales by one.

The weight of history
Is odd in that way,
Sometimes a grain of sand

Is lost amidst
a breathing desert
And never tumbles free.

But, other times,
One grain displaced
Can tip the whole company,

Or fall into
such a place
That it rubs great engines raw,

Creating heat
With one small presence
That breaks convention’s law.

Note well,
It’s not by exception
This grain achieves its cause,

Just by placing
One valuable common
Into action instead of pause.

Where are we now?
Have we gotten any closer
To finding where we stand?

Give the window a scrub
With the edge of your hand
And see if it comes clear,

See if you can spot
A path for us
In all the ages down there.

If not, I guess
We’ll have to keep
Relying on our feet,

Placing one
before the other
Without much certainty.

Opening our eyes
To each new day
To try to recorrect

The thoughts
We thought yesterday,
Which now we redirect,

Holding tight
to what seems true
And seeking better values,

The way to live,
The way to feel,
A reason to give respect to others,

And simply how
To endure a day,
before we rest forever.

Time is falling fine-grain dust
That gathers underfoot

And must be ever trodden down
Else turn to suffocating soot.

The lungs of those who cease to move
From worldly long exhaustion

Freeze up with gently longing groan
For some hope to warm the frost in,

And those of younger, stronger heart
With old and weathered faces

Who spent their years in diligence
To learn of all life’s races

Gaze back at them in sympathy
Though time steadfastly separates

Those who would love and who would sing
From those who hesitate.

A reaching tree with swaying arms
That gently cradles moonlight,
The curve of each embracing limb
Seems to whisper calm reflection.

The gathering shades
of night’s blind substance
Tremble nearer in velvet hush
To brush against that moonlight
And warm their wandering hearts.

The ground below seems not to care
But softens its dark folds
To comfort she who hides beneath
In wordless sympathy.

The moon above shines over all
And casts out pale connection
That binds these travelers,
lost and fallen,
As time fades, forgotten.

Call me the wind,
Call me the breeze,
Call me the river
That winds through the trees,

For that is how
I’ve lived my life,
Going where time
Seemed to say was right

With no promise made
To foreign tradition
That rose from voices
With which I had no connection,

But trailing after
Ribbons abroad
That seemed tied
To some more perfect thought

And left their tails
Streaming after
As across the wandering
Minds they roamed

Leading the whispering
Listeners home.

A hunger!
For some formless thing...
Some brighter form of passion

An instinct
To be burned, if it would
bring the soul to meaning

An impulse
To move with hands and arms
To grasp impermanent heat

A desire
To be overwhelmed,
Beyond thought—complete.

Bright-eyed sassy creature
On a rampage all alone

Fills the night with monsters
And calls himself at home.

Their coarse fur and rugged growls
Defer him not an inch;

He throws his arm around them
And begins a choral cinch

To bring them on a journey,
A quest of epic scale,

To rescue zookeepers from jazz
And humanity from the pale

Of monochrome maturity,
A re-run with color melted

That traps unwitting minds
As we’re pressed into service

Between the pages of a moldy book
That churns history from the grind.

A ruby or some cheese,
perhaps a stingray too,

These things will surely do the trick
To bring life back to you.

A quest to find them—take my hand!
We’ve got to go today.

A tea towel for a map
Will send us on our way.

Simple but surprising,
That’s the magic bit:

It doesn’t matter if we reach the end
But you’ve got to take the trip!

Trust the honesty of nonsense,
You’ll find there was a door

Back to the easy smiles you knew
in childhood before.

That’s it my friend, you know
we’ve come right up to the end.

But there’s something bright within your heart
That he showed you how to win.

Even if you walk by day
Among those chalk depictions

That we call work and jobs and life,
You’ll keep that ruby hidden.

To bring a shaman back to life
A magic stone is needed,

And it’ll work on you as well:
The tale’s all but completed.

Let yourself take joy in nonsense;
The warmth is worth the escape.

Reality may be dignified
But it’s not a friendly mate.

Dance with lonesome polar bears
But don’t look crawfish in the eye;

Join our campfire of gentle madness,
We’ll sing a wholesome lullaby.

Middle of the night

And the sky is white,

Just as the land below.

The sound is absorbed

By the deep-crushing stuff

As the chill sinks in to your bones.

Round the edges the world

Seems a dark charcoal shade,

A contrast to the pale above.

The places you knew so intimately

Are changed into feelings anew,

But it’s only in fragment, piece, and part

You can notice the lacework of difference.

The chill of the heavens for once has descended,

The stars scattered in blanketing shards.

There’s a soft-seeming curve and rise

To the surface that wraps over all you see,

And to fall in silence beneath it

Is to disappear, lost to resolve and memory.

They say the moonlight is always deceptive,
but is that so or is it only that to the perceptive
by soft alternate persuasion,
the moon reveals more idealistic creation?

The silhouettes cast are no less real
than those rendered by sunlight and captured by day,
it’s just that the pale chooses to linger on different curves
of these parts of life’s play.

In darkness as in light our perception has limits,
but with the moon your instincts exceed plainer senses.
What you see painted silver must by imagination gain the missing tones,
and therein is revealed the bias of your own.

The world does not lie to you at these moments,
rather it forgives you its own imposition,
and in what you see your own fault is hidden.
But moonlight by this does us no harm—
the fault was already there, so by finding it learn:

what it is you expect can distort your perception,
so take note and balance so as not to fall from your position,
as a heart in this world seeking for truth,
a change in the light is a gift you can use.

Just another singer/songwriter,
you’ve heard them before.
But the thing about strumming your own little tune
is the job of telling the people the truth.

Others might sing and others might strum,
but the sight you have seen as you walked this world
rests on you as a personal sooth.

The stories you see belong to the world,
but without your voice they might go untold.
That’s the job of the singer/songwriter,
just one in a field that reaches far back,
to catch the tears and the smiles
of the ones with whom they interact,

ones who disappear between history’s broad strokes,
except for the moment you saw and you spoke.
For as it was said, by many before,
a song it goes on in the heart and the mind,
far longer than ever a sermon by rote.

I’m waiting for the rays of the morning sun everyday, nowadays.
Can’t seem to sleep before 7, not motivated to rouse before 3,
so I treat my nights like my days and let my rhythm flow free.

I have nights by the river, coffee and stars,
take a book where I go so I’m never too far,
from the thoughts and the voices that guide my reflection
as I spend my time searching for all that we are.
Dear Joe in my ears, I feel tied to no one,
no one to notice should I disappear,
but that my feet may turn in any direction
is my own certain release.

I keep waiting for the morning rays
as my sleepless eyes wander,
and listening to the voices of this world
that have seen more than I can ponder.

Help Wanted: Must speak music and hear thoughts.
Girl without touch seeking someone to believe.
Only those who love love over life need apply—
blind for love a quick trip to the door.
Refuse to look away—see beyond your own reach
for love, and she’ll reach back to you.

Looking out and not in, beyond the day’s round,
to see the hearts of others on the ground
and offer your own pride to comfort them.

If she can’t reach you, she’ll only cry again.
But no use to leave another number;
it’s the only way she knows to live.
Falling for love of those not meant,
too far by age, place, time or bent.
Part-time/temp an unlikely shot;
full-time, all-in the only real plot.

Help Wanted: Girl seeking touch, can’t escape from belief.
She knows what she wants, she knows who she sees.
It only took a moment—though she’d known you for years—
the right turn and there, all your heart revealed,
like a sight of your profile she’d missed before,
a sight of your smile left her heart on the floor.
Sincerity and kindness, fierce love for this world—
she couldn’t go back to not knowing before.

Help Wanted: She needs it, someone to restore
her heart was lost when her faith was won;
she only loves those she cannot implore.

You have to watch out for that first night, when the walls are bare and you sit on the floor with your takeout, feeling a little cold and very far away. You had better bring some relics, to distract your focus until you can add some color to the room and begin to put in some pieces that look like life. A few images propped along walls... something soft to twist your hands in. It almost makes me understand religion. We’ve always needed something to cling to, to prop up our belief when we feel smallest. Belief that we’ll be ok, whatever that means, until we get comfortable enough to forget the question. Don’t ever forget to pack your relics; then the room would feel truly empty.

Hands at work
But soul unmoved—
Hours spun
Without reflex

The same thought
That bore me up from dawn
Holds me still
As life goes on

Thru busy streets
Or silent rooms
My body walks
With soul removed

Watching from
Some farther place
wondering at time
Irrelevant

 Did you ever have a fresh wound, and you put it under the water to clean it, and for a second, the quality of the pain takes your breath away? Really, your breath hitches and you think, god, this is real.

Sometimes, when I think of korea, it’s like that. Not as a physical pain, but in the paralyzed moment, the catch of breath, and I don’t know what to do in that instant with the feeling of missing those places.