LOVE

Fulfillment

Fulfillment

Fulfillment is being held in the arms of that which has loved you since before you were born,

and the celebration of every breath in each moment of living …

Fulfillment is the banishment of all doubt and all fear by the force of an undefeatable love,which has always been and will always remain …

Fulfillment is eyes filled with clarity and a heart resting gently in an ocean of peace, which is home….Fulfillment is the light and melody of the song of truth which is eternally sung in the depths of the soul …
Fulfillment is the purest of healing waters, which has forever been rinsing the dust from the spirit, to clothe it in its own garments of beauty …

Fulfillment is the remembrance of that which has already been written.

Always was and forever will be.

The One For Whom It All Makes Sense

I have written a thousand poems for you
that have never left my room.
They fill the pages of notebooks stacked high on a shelf
no one can reach.
Orphans they are, beggars afraid they are not noble enough for the King,
would never make it past the guards.
I make a vain attempt to dress them up,
disguise their ridiculous origins, but still they smell bad.

There are times, late at night, however, when they think I’m asleep,
I can almost hear them talking to each other,
conjuring new ways to make it to your court.
Oh, the arguments they have! The barroom brawls!
Some of them actually think a shower and a shave is all they need.
Others insist on practicing, all night long, the perfect way of greeting you.
There is much to be said for these backroom bards,
these arm wrestling vagrants from another world.

Indeed, if I was dead,
my ambitious biographer, after paying his due respects
and asking permission of my dear, sweet wife,
would borrow them just long enough to search for pearls
and find the perfect turn of phrase, the verse,
the sudden storm of brilliance even my harshest critics would have to praise.
He’d think of clever titles for the tome, describing, in his carefully written way,
the “man who left his muse too soon”
or some such thing that might make you wonder
why I never gave these poems to you –
the one for whom it all makes sense even when it doesn’t.

One Voice

I live in Woodstock, NY. After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, my wife, Evelyne, organized a daylong gathering in our town – “ONE VOICE” – of all religious groups and spiritual paths. Everyone was in attendance: the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Rastas, Sufis, Atheists, Agnostics, the devotees of Gurumayi, and everyone else who felt the need to join together and acknowledge our common humanity.

What follows is the invocation I was asked to write and perform at this gathering. I hope you enjoy it. (Read it aloud for maximum value).

Today I speak with One Voice, here in this town known around the world for peace – a place now metaphor for the highest aspirations of the human race – Woodstock.

What I have to say existed long before speech, long before teachers and those who thought they needed to be taught. I speak of the time before time, before “us” and “them” before otherness, separation, and the need to make amends. Pure presence there was back then, isness. First light. What the wise ones among us call by many names according to their faith, but it has no name, this “impulse to be,” this pulsation of life – what poets feel before they pick up their pens, why dancers, quivering in their own skin, look around the room for space in which to move.

Radiant Being of Light

Radiant being of light,
vortex of love,
alchemist supreme,
magnifier of prayer,
mirror of the soul,
tribal fire,
the one I dream about
and the one who wakes me from the dream,
why the dervish spins
and the earth.

Teacher, teaching, and the taught,
first breath,
last breath,
what lovers look for in each other
but rarely find,
center around which everything revolves,
endless night of love
and the aching of a moon-howling heart
that does not want
the morning to come.

stopped on a dime

there is some endless and lost sun
shining in ecstasy, shining forever
there through your eyes
i have noticed this fragrant abode,
this mountain of still magic
this place standing taller than time

through one who has come undone
standing still, my swing has stopped
motionless screaming in delight
of things known thru all ages
of things felt thru all time
of you who i know now
and will always love

i am stopped on a dime
i am suspended in a place
of living time

Give Everything You Have

Give everything you have,
and after you have given,
give what’s left.
After you give what’s left,
give what remains.
After giving that,
give the feeling of having given.
After giving the feeling
of having given,
give what you get
for having given.
Then give again,
never stopping, always giving.
And should it come to pass that you forget,
forgive yourself immediately.
Then begin again,
giving everything you have,
and after you have given,
give what’s left.