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C H I P . . . The mother Acutely aware of the pain Of childbirth Soon forgets. The child-- But dimly aware at the time Remembers all his life The shock of being born.
PAIN . . . Nature forwards her instructions Through your errors And your pain. Welcome these signals And heed well their message For in their interpretation And implementation Lies your particular road To freedom and joy.
SEPARATION . . . Time-- A swift and misty trail With few pauses And no stopovers. How false our sense Of travelling with people On this strange pathway Which lies nowhere. Here is a daughter Who sees her mother And speaks with her Yet retains a sense of separation-- Of vast and unbridgeable separation. A generation later This daughter Now a mother Suddenly understands-- She is now Where her mother stood. And the voice Which failed to span the years With meaning Now sounds across the gulf-- A faint and poignant echo Rich in significance Bright with insight.
NOT NOW . . . The world is full of fearful people Trying to run away from themselves Their thoughts roaming lazily Through the changeless gardens Of the past Not in search of data To serve the present But in an ineffectual attempt To escape the insistent claims Of this moment. Others hopefully project The patterns of their desire On the blank screen of the future Not in the creative sense Which serves the present By sensitizing the instrument To opportunities-- But in a destructive manner Which removes the keen edge of desire Leaving behind a dull hunger With insufficient power To motivate present action.
S T A T I C . . . Unconsciousness bears a freight of woe Composed of pain and nonsense Idle words and thoughtless phrases Imprinted on a mind Made sensitive by fear And uncritical by pain. Throughout life These forgotten fragments of error Protected from inquiry by concentric shells Of resistant ignorance Become increasingly encysted. Like indigestible pellets of poison They fester Producing tiny trickles of menace Which cloud the senses And clog the channels Of life's process. These little fragments of fright Live like idiot parasites Among the control circuits of each man's mind Feeding into the intelligible message Of his behavior A chattering static Of nonsense and irrationality.
LABYRINTH . . . The central mystery of sex Lies at the heart of a labyrinth Of contact and caress Having neither direct Nor unique Approaches. The time consumed in tracing this maze Invites the slow interlacing of spirit-- The quiet merging of minds Under the spell of a single goal-- The quivering readiness of bodies In which each tiny nerve-end Strains outward for closer contact With the loved one. In this moment Man's longing to close the gap Which separates him from That other Is fulfilled for a fleeting instant. The chill of aloneness disappears-- The universe contracts To encompass Two bodies so cunningly intertwined Two minds so singly intent Two spirits so blissfully merged As to constitute one fabric And a single design.
PORTAL . . . Sex is like the basting thread Which holds the fabric of two lives In juxtaposition While the finer stitching Of shared happiness Makes them one. Between innocents Uncontaminated by clumsy Or unintended teaching The simultaneous orgasm Comes as the terminal discovery In an ecstatic exploration Among the bypaths Of intimate play- Play which comes naturally Only as the culmination Of a growing togetherness In which the tensions of strangeness Yield gradually to a tender familiarity.
MIRROR . . . Love of another Without love of self Is not love But longing and loneliness. And this longing Being negative Produces a negative reflection-- The needy are not needed. Love of self Brings health and beauty And a fullness of living Out of which It becomes feasible to give. And giving Being positive Is irresistible. But note carefully That the reflection of your gifts-- Though compounded in quantity-- Is true to its origins in quality. So that it happens When you give What you no longer want You may well get back That which you no longer need. But if you give That which you treasure most Your heart can never be empty.
STAND ASIDE . . . Love is not to be apportioned By any man-made pattern. Nothing you can do Will make you love The man who hates himself. And if In guilt and self-reproach You ply him with lesser gifts He simply has more to carry On his road Toward self-discovery. Best stand aside And in one operation Believe yourself of guilt And him of obligation. For the end is not in doubt-- To each one In some place and at some time Truth and knowledge and self Stand revealed In full glory. And you can find the way For no one but yourself.
TORTURE . . . How quickly people sense The dying of that glow. How easily they turn away. Even old friends Feel the chill of loss And avoid me. Tell me Darling Do you hurt too? Are we In some incredible stupidity Inflicting unnecessary torture On each other? Or has some cosmic cycle turned Some distant error fruited Some juggernaut of compensation Claimed its measured pain? Or is it simply That we are yet too fragile To long support So bright a flame?
CONSENT . . . It would be well If we could regard death As our animal cousins do In fear of its immediacy In casual disregard Of its lurking presence In the flux of probability. Let the date and manner Of our appointments in Samara Lie unconcernedly in the laps of the gods. Let a reasonable prudence Cull out the higher risks And clothe us in the bright protection Of full awareness But let no dwelling on these odds Overstretch the strings Of that harp On which the hand of life Plucks out the counterpoint Of our joys and sorrows.
G O D S . . . The agnostic's reiterated affirmation Of ignorance May make learning difficult. The atheist's rigid denial of any God Leaves him a godless world In which to live A world which will faithfully reflect to him Whatever godless properties His imagination creates. The fundamentalist's bearded fairy-god Never-here, always there Gives rise to fairy-tale consequences Of dubious utility. The God of the institutionalized church Must be a limited God Whose boundaries are defined By the area of agreement Among the church's controlling members. And those minor Gods Who represent the sectarian fragments Of mother church Serve more often as the subjects Of acrimonious debate Than as givers of life And the guides to salvation.
G O D . . . From one viewpoint God is described As the creator. Yet, paradoxically It is equally true That God is the creation Of each man. So-- Each man being singular It must follow That each man's God Is unique. The collective God-- The idea of which can only arise From the similarities abstracted From specific, individual Gods-- Must therefore be indefinitely limited By comparison. The power and the glory of God-- If perceived at all-- Must come to each individual In the character and the keeping Of his own awareness.
T E S T A M E N T . . . A time is coming When an integration Of things now known Will point clearly And directly To man's salvation. Some of you will see The end of hate Will feel the lifting Of irrational fear. The long sleep of mankind Nears its end. The last nightmare Is unwinding its Tangled web of horror. One by one The sons of man Will waken And laughing Go to work Together.
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Also, on this website, see Primal Poetry by SueJo and Primal Poetry by Vicki Engelhardt and Jane Lewis