Man in the Maze

Here's a reworked way old poem to celebrate over [allegedly] 10,000 page views of poems that have appeared on this here Rabbit's Gone Missing over the past years. (Which is cool but scary because we *know* lots of those views are courtesy of our spammer frenz around the world. *wink*) 

Apologies for posting so rarely for so long. Cheers to all, especially all who actually read...and even more to whomever actually finds something to enjoy, whether written by me or by those wonderfully alive mystics in South/West Asia whose words we English-speakers have only attempted to translate into our own world of language. Next up: Rabi'a (Al-Basra). Look her up!

John Singer Sargent :sketches

[a word from the muse]

Fate is not the architect. Fate is for 
weak gods and bad storytellers. Which 

is why you’re so enraged with this 
inaction, this gliding track, this resigned

fall from the skyscraper

Which has no builder, no path, no root 
language of travel. So who’s your enemy 

now? You’ve been set up, maybe; 

you’re both double agents, you and 

fate, more in love with what can 
never be when what is still forms

Collage that we are here for.

The mystery we keep unfolding
and folding into birds of prey that,

at rest, fit over one another into a rebuilt
umbilical cord that keeps saying we're

always home. While always lost.


Which is why what we will make is still
mystery to me. From which I am drawn,

made, drawn


From so many smoldering ash-stricken
remains of what was once forest, hill, home

mansion deer bone burial mound past lives
in all the ephemera that gave and hid life and

death and life and—


So it’s a heavy load, sleeping while this 
castle’s built out of thin air, the lion 

drinking dry the lake lap 
by patient lap because 

your spoon was inadequate

As all the nights you’ve fought back 
against the tide and the sand, your back 

to my hot frozen form always there 

shadowing silhouette but never quite 

touching

What is so much bigger than you. You 

have no idea, you've no ideas,               you have 


More than a conspiracy, more than plans 
to take over the world; the idea is about you 

walking from here to there, getting into 
your car, choosing not to kiss, getting out 

to kiss; 
thinking, 

not speaking. 

Speaking and thinking

It will become beauty again

Your junkyard heap and flow of perfect 
juxtaposition of every surface you believe in, 

I love it all

Like those green turns of the circuit

board pulled from a jagged slum dump—all 

its silver circles and minute black holes, its 
curves and symmetry, its convergence and 

imbalance—soon 

to be made new and become 

even beauty 
again.  

Exacting.  A 

galaxy unto itself

And the circle maze hidden in the 
blanket, the basket, the locked box

that's mystery yet line-carved into a single 
woven point, its lines moving with you, 

seamless, 

no real detour 


needed. Yet it will take your whole 
life to travel, whole, beyond the linear

fall of dominos, walls only now 
we escape. Only now


We create.

What would the past say?

Cliff Grego : Study in Pizzicato .

It would say that it
does not mock you.

The past is always sober
in its gaze. The past would

say that you have lived, that you
never knew how many trees were

planted in your honor. It would say that
your backbreaking work was thwarted only 

as in a Noh play, as in a surface war; air between
the motions of force set against you, your fight what

built your muscles into grace that became dance that became
a sword that cut precisely. That could winnow the grain in a single

motion, that could slice a mountain from top to hollow and send its
halves rolling into the sea. It would say that even now you are unaware

of how you appear to the unseen world, how the arc of your life is pages,
pages longer than any schedule you had mapped out, any diary of your failure.

It would tell you things you know nothing about; it would bring up the precious
scrolls in jars you left in caves and ran from. The past would say it knows you

better than you begin to imagine you know it. It would trace those lines on
your body with a blinding needle till you saw pictures emerge that would

throttle your regret without mercy. It would call you out—crescendo
of beats rising with the tension—and you’d have nothing left to

say so that you’d finally hear the single string plucked that
would give the answer for you. It would tell you what

was stored in caverns as you squandered your
poverty, thinking it gold you threw away. It

would say, raising its voice, that it does
not know what you’re talking about

when you say waste. It would say
it cannot feel sorry for you, you

who rides the wind without
knowing your own wings.

Work in the invisible

Something from Rumi's (1207-1273) Masnavi, Book III, lines 3077-3109 and one other segment, in somewhat loose translation as always. 
For everyone who fights for hope.

Two Face : David Sanford

The prophets

have wondered to themselves,
"How long

should we keep pounding 
this cold iron?
How long

do we have to whisper 
into an empty cage?"

So don't be timid.
Load the ship and set out.
No one knows for certain

whether the vessel will sink
or reach the harbor.

Just don't 
be one of those merchants

who won't risk the ocean!
This is much more important

than losing or making money!

This is your connection to God.
You must set fire to have light.

Think of the fear and the hope

you have about your livelihood.
They make you go to work

diligently each day.

Now consider what

the prophets have done.

Abraham wore fire

for an anklet.
Moses spoke to the sea.
David molded iron.
Solomon rode the wind.

Work in the invisible world
at least as hard

as you do in the visible.

Be companions 

with the prophets
invisibly,

so that no one knows.

You can't imagine 

what profit will come!

When one of those generous ones

invites you into his fire,

go quickly!

Don't say,

"But will it burn me?
Will it hurt?"

Rise!

Move around the center

as pilgrims wind the Kaaba.

Being still

is how one clay clod

sticks to another in sleep,

while movement wakes us up

and unlocks

new blessings.

Breathe on this sleeping fire

Dean's Blue Hole .

When you walk out the door,

all the spirits of the invisible world

gather around you like a great cloak

that flows back to your beginning.

You walk away

but they do not.

They love you because

you were a knit-together marvel from the first;

they heard of your miraculous frame

growing around you in your mother

and sent gifts to feed you

as you became yourself.

You leave the book of your days behind

yet its words rise up in your absence

and tell the story you can't see anymore.

They call forth phantom thoughts

to lay themselves down on the page

and wait for you to want them again.

You abandon desire

yet desire lives

in this host that surrounds you

and fights for you

even as you slumber in your tent.

You thought you let it go at the edge of that cliff,

yet it swam the river below

and tracked you day and night

and even now,

lays merciful traps in your path.

It shadows your escape boat across the sea,

lulling storms to sleep and singing them awake

so you might see the wind and the waves

and know how alive you are

and how always close to death.

You abandon the reflection of 
your own reflection, yet 
still you are seen.

Still you are known

by every last creature who's crossed your path,

every invisible path of lightwaves

that have touched your shifting face

day after mist-burned day;

by every symbol or portent

you forgot upon waking.

Creation speaks for you

even when you think you 
have nothing to say.

And all heaven plunges its oars

into the water

that carries you home,

to the place from which you exiled yourself

but that never gave up

waiting for your return.

So when you finally hit the wall

you can't walk through,

go back to the tracks left behind you.

Let the wet soil embrace 
your backwards steps,

let your body be drawn.

Go back to your

hidden country.

If you face south,

head north.

If you ran east,

let the west wind pull you back

with cords of lovingkindness.

Go back to the dark

heart of this mountain,

where you once searched

for gold and riddles and hidden springs.

Go back to the cave

where your heart still lives

and take it back.

Stand back and see

this cave as it is,

this vast cave in the heart of God.

Say the true names of things again,

knowing what is—

not idea or form or creed or mantra—

just the name that is—

and breathe again.

You named these things;

these things named you.

You have always been seen.

You have always been known.

You think you are looking for me, but I am looking for you

My brother builds a fire. The stars greet its sparks as equals, 

light years apart, saying we will stay up all night watching, 

watching as you sleep somewhere, enfolded unaware in the 

blanket we wrapped around you with our minds as if in ceremony. 

We will travel before dawn comes to this desert. Tracking you.

||

Wind shuffles your tracks as a chaotic sand painting; your distant scent, 

mingled with the sweat of a thousand others who know nothing of your 

direction. The wind says you are lost and no one knows. So now—we 

track what you search for, the shifting shape of desire and its flight. 

We go by night, scenting still, a map of the unseen world in our minds.

|||

How futile is it to cling to the face of this rock once you’ve fallen? 

After all, poetic death is priceless. Or would it be death? What if you 

could fall like a leaf, or an outstretched wing, down into the world below? 

Then, it would be creation, it would be birth. You would separate the roots 

of the atmosphere into night and day so that conception and thanksgiving 

would happen again and again, seed become light, the tree of the world 

above, reminding you of itself. This is why you let go. Or rather, jump.

||||

Follow the river when you find it, don't let it stray from your path! 
Listen to our thoughts; not those that close in to unravel your way, your 
power, beauty. Don’t die of slow thirst, don’t let them tear you apart 
when they find you. Stay alive! Keep running till you catch this scent!

|||||

We built this fire waiting for you.

We marked the trail with pollen bright as middle daylight.

We wait for you behind this wall of water, drums in hand,

playing songs of secret homecoming.

Now is the time

Hafez (1326–1390) always has something to say worth hearing in any language or century.

Now is the time to know

that all you do

is sacred.

Now,

why not consider

a lasting truce 

with yourself and God.

Now is the time 
to understand
that all your ideas of right and wrong
were just child's training wheels
to be laid aside 

When you can 
finally live

with veracity

and love.

Hafez is a divine envoy

whom the Beloved has
written

a holy message 
upon—

My dear, 
please tell me,

why 
do you still throw sticks
at your heart 
and God?

What is it within 
that sweet voice inside

that incites 
you to fear?

Now is the time 

for the world to know

that every thought 
and action 

is sacred.

This is the time 
for you
to deeply comprehend 

this sheer impossibility

that there is anything

but Grace.

Now 
is the season to know

that everything 
you do 
is 
sacred.

Orenda

Great Tree of Peace, Adirondacks

Beauty, these days,

has become elusive.

You look at the picture of

aspens printing yellow hands

on dark snow-capped pines

and think nothing but the headlines—

the thoughts, the thoughts,

the thoughts without power.

The shapes no longer move you;

the stories are leverage

to define your image to the crowd.

No wonder your dreaming is 
as distant, as erratic as your pulse.

What would your ancestors say?

They were tired, too, back when

they had but one choice at a time

hanging there smooth before them.

Perhaps their lives depended on

seeing every shift of the wind,

but even so, only some
sat at the foot of ancient council trees

and saw

the other world.

So it's likely that they,

even now, 
are carrying you with compassion

to that hidden spring between the cliffs

they too got lost on,

letting down your broken body

into the healing water 
that moves like a song.

You must let beauty come back to you.

Seep into your wounds and

into your marrow again;

be the word that makes you clean,

that lifts you into its current

so that you're always traveling together,

keeping watch while the other sleeps.

Oh how it still loves you,

even as you lay there half-dead,

undreaming,

having gorged yourself on all

that promises and numbs.

It never stops its search party,

never hesitates to scale the walls of the fort,

break down the great dark door

and spirit you out of your opulent dungeon.

It lives for the moment

you feel its love again,

when you open the gifts

it's saved up for you

all these wandering years.

In a Tree House

I'm sorry it's been a while; eventually I'll start posting again. In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you a few old, old poems by other people.

This one by the great Hafez (1315–1390) has meant a lot to me ever since I came across it a few months ago. 

Enjoy along with this lovely song by the lovely Azam Ali (just click and it'll play in another window): Noor (The Light in My Eyes).

Bristlecone Pine : Project 80

Light
will someday split you open
even if your life is now a cage.

For a divine seed, 

the crown of destiny,
is hidden and sown 

on an ancient fertile plain
you hold the title to.

Love will surely bust you wide open
into an unfettered blooming new galaxy

even if your mind is now

a spoiled mule.

A life-giving radiance will come;

bounty from the Friend will come––

O look again within yourself,
for I know you were once the elegant host
to all the marvels in creation.

Up from a sacred cleft of your body

a bow rises each night
and shoots your soul into God.

Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One
from the lunar vantage point of love––

He is conducting the affairs
of the whole universe

While throwing wild parties
in a tree house

on a limb in your heart.

Hózhó náhásdlíí

 A Christmas Eve poem for all who walk in darkness.

John Hwang : Skid Row

Beauty before you, in darkness;

In darkness, beauty behind you.

Beauty above you, in darkness;

In darkness, beauty around you.

In the back of your mind

you know it

and yet as you run against this dark current

you can’t even breathe.

In the back of your mind

there is a way that winds forward,

toward open road, still waters, nights of kind rest—

the kind others speak of as a common starling on a wire,

little knowing a rare bird has come to bless them again with presence.

You could go crazy

imagining the darkness embrace you 
with such love instead of betrayal, 
because now it slices you open,

stabs you again and again,

rejects you for the millionth time.

You could go crazy

remembering light, remembering a time

when light on the water touched you,

made you feel something;

when light in the valley

broke open your heart and nourished it.

Instead the cruel yoke 
bends you toward asphalt,

down to kiss the dirt and pay it homage.

Instead the iron rod

beats you into a cell half the size of your

burst hopes shriveled dreams

so that you long to evaporate.

Instead your shoulders

fold inward as you carry endless piles of coal

that fuel nothing that feeds you.

Instead your luminous face—

if only you still could see it—

is cloaked by an executioner

who kills without giving its name.

This is why I send the light toward you

to meet you in the valley at the center of the ocean floor.

It rushes like a fury of lava even now,

though you don’t see it,

though your senses are shrouded in exacting poison.

Fur-tongued, muscles seized, plugged, cloud-blinded—

even in paralysis you reach,

second by millimeter by aeon by mile.

This is why I send the light toward you

as you reach, whether you know it or not. 

It climbs the winter cliffs as the city sleeps in misery,

its gentle hands moving over each frozen cell

and calling them back to life.

It weaves this way around

every battered reed, every shivering seed

saying 
all is not lost;

everything is never lost;

anything that is lost can be made whole,

can be called into being out of what was not.

And so this is how I come for you.

This is how you walk in beauty.

In darkness beauty walks;

Beauty walks in darkness.

It has become beauty again.
It has become beauty again.

Handheld

Everything is shared.

The lump in the throat

The bruise on your crushed face

The echo in your belly

The lines of prophecy on your hands

Everything is shared.

The simmering question that drove you into this alley

The doubt that you will ever be known

The childhood knowledge that you could run on air, through treetops

Tender things your father never said

Everything is shared.

Days sinking into white hot sand

Steel-spined walls keeping you locked in step

Your endless loss of blood and breath

Each undisclosed transfusion that brings you back from the edge

Everything is shared.

Afternoon, midnight, fracture-just-before-dawn fears that paralyze

Nameless desire that sinks you to the bottom of a well that draws fire from deep below

The framework of sorrow that breaks your bones one by one, daring you to want anything again

Other dangerous abstractions like hope

Everything is shared.

The fibers of your food, your absent shelter

Strange rain that keeps you alive long after you’ve quit caring

Light that shows you a picture of your secret heart spread across magazine pages

The static, the spaces, invisible frequencies surrounding your odd voice with compassion

Everything is shared.

Words that break open a cell, a rock, a tinderbox full of flint and fire

Keys to the codes that can’t be cracked in a single language

Microscopic movements collaborating in a long play of intricate foreshadowing

The building blocks of an apocalypse, of resurrection that would astound you

Everything is shared.

Your heart of ashes and feathers; part coal, part glint of wondrous stone

Your heart a planet; moving waters, hovering spirit, unrelenting green

Your heart the quark and the atom; your heart dark matter

Your heart breaking atmosphere; your heart a traveler

Everything is shared.

Everything is shared.