Corey MeslerChin-Chin on Golgotha Jesus on the cross turned to his new friend, Gestas, and confided, "I'm no masochist, you know." The thief squinted into the sun and nodded toward the rabble. "Tell it to someone who cares," he said. Jesus smiled that secret smile he had and the thief spit on the ground. The crowd booed. "I love you," Jesus said to the thief and Gestas began wishing he had Barabbas to talk to. Now there was a guy who understood a good retribution. Later, as the sun was setting, the thief softened a little and turned toward the carpenter from Nazareth. "Wanna hear something funny?" he asked in a whiskery voice. Not really, Jesus thought, not just now, but he smiled his encouragement anyway. He was a damn good listener, Jesus was. The Giant's Dance "Why are there so many doors?" a small boy visiting Stonehenge Out on the UFO runway a crowd had gathered. The henge stood like a gibbet, sky-hung. We were so small next to the grandeur of the ages, the quest, carved here in stone, to get outside ourselves. And who, sticky with humanness, would not follow the stone's line upward to the heavens? The lintels themselves as blue. The crowd grew restless because crowds do. They want portals, thresholds. They want us to matter. They want us to last as long as an enigma, as long as delight. So it Is Told There once was a man who went by my name and he was tall and handsome and the young girls with their tans loved him so well. This was in a kingdom that no longer exists, yet tales of it reach here like dreamclouds. I believe in their magnetism, in the hoar frost of their bright chatter. Yoga Instruction In down dog I will not drop my noggin. This is a metaphor. See: "trapped in my own head." In yoga there are many metaphors, not the least of which is the path to perfection, the path that has no end. I'm on this path, friend. This morning doing down dog I release my neck. It dangles like a participle. I drop my head. This time, at least, this time, my heart is in it. Siddhartha's Poem Under the Bo-tree the Buddha-to-be sought something beyond opposites, beyond thought. Talking about it, even here, in the holy tabernacle of verse, is missing it. Instead, turn away. In the giving up, between the giving up and the engagé this page will go blank--- Creation "The whole world is as disheveled as Torn-up hemp threads." Ryokan On the seventh day God stood back and said, "Well, it's not perfect but it's a start. Let's leave the rest up to them." A few millennia later I make these marks on this field of white, to appease the terror, to blind the darkness. Later, someone, you perhaps, stumbles here, cursing the ill-kempt structure, the poorly placed adverb. In Warrior Pose In warrior pose I gaze out over my extended arm. I may be seeing only the light switch on our faded wallpaper. Or I may, friend, on mornings of fire, be seeing into the face of possibility. Which is close to God, which is only vouchsafed to us, poor indrawn humans, on mornings of fire. Practicing Re-engagement So my walled-off heart needs work. That this comes as a revelation is perhaps the disturbing part. I sit and contemplate stillness, contemplate being aware of myself as if my consciousness were a separate entity. Difficult exercises. My four- year old daughter hands me a teddy bear the size of my palm. Is this distraction or part of the exercise? Noon Haiku Pre-Squall The sun is out, who has such power to make it unlit at mid-day? Mystical Parenting after David Spangler Today if I can view the washing of these diapers as a mystical act an act which connects me to the planet I may well be saved. If not then I will still have shitless diapers and another chance later. |