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Intro

Hey folks. Welcome! I’m a novice poet who created this site just to have a place with permanent links to my writing that I could share. I don’t claim this stuff is any good. I’m learning, and sharing the fruits of my learning, is all. Hope you find something here that you like.

You can browse via the categories or tags to the left. (If you appreciate being made a bit uncomfortable, try the tag askew.) Or, here are a few suggestions:

About people, values, and choices:

About relationships and community:

About childhood, learning, and growing up:

About climbing the mountain:

About glimpsing the summit:

About animals:

About wierd sh*t:

Enjoy…or something.

Peace,
Mike

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green 

while the wild green is here she seizes the ground
 she scrambles up in the air like she owns the sky
  as if the very atmosphere were her possession
as if she'll never stop embracing this wormy soil
 squeezing mother earth in a sweaty verdant hug
  that's just tight enough to say i love you dear one
   never so rough or careless as to cause any harm
and yet the green is thirsty for her mother's tears
 for the fall and flow of nourishment as she grows
as she runs madly over the hills giggling with joy
 as if all this life and warm sunlight will last forever
as if autumn were a tall tale made up by a trickster
 and winter a scary story told to frighten little sprouts
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Jesus, Receiver

I don’t call you servants –
I call you friends.

Yes, I needed you.
Yes, I need you.

When I came down from the mountain,
exhausted from saying
all the inexhaustible things,
I needed you – I needed my friends.

When I returned from my solitude
by the sea, and in the barren places,
where I abided in interior community,
I ached for the company of friends.

When I completed my fasting,
I craved more than bread and wine.
I hungered for your laughter and embrace,
my dear ones – my friends.

When I was challenged by those
who didn’t understand my words –
or who understood them all too well –
your presence gave me confidence, friends.

When they took me and lashed me,
and blood and tears fell from my flesh,
even though you weren’t there,
I drew strength from the love of my friends.

And now as I hang here stretched and dying,
as my breath grows ever more ragged,
I weep with those few beloveds who stayed,
and I grieve that I must leave you, my friends

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Show Me the Truth

A Christian,
a Muslim,
a Buddhist,
and an atheist scientist
walked into a coffee shop.

(The Christian and the scientist
were in favor of the pub,
but the other two were not.)

The four of them huddled
around a low table,
clutching mostly hot drinks
(the Muslim had cold brew)
and discussed

faith and surrender
mindfulness and investigation.
And this was their conclusion:

The faith of the Christian,
the surrender of the Muslim,
the mindfulness of the Buddhist,
the investigation of the scientist:

at their best, these are all
the same movement –
to welcome reality as it is,
with all its gentle miracles,
all its cruelest blades.

“Show me the truth!”
cries the whole-hearted soul,
“for I trust that only in truth
can I be free.”

Yet at their worst,
each of these paths trusts only
in the cold certainty of established belief,
closing the door to true understanding.

Let us make a pact
to always examine ourselves
and one another
to ensure that we are avoiding
that snare.

Then the four of them stood up,
embraced,
walked outside,
and looked up, smiling,
into a clear blue sky.

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tragedy

she said to me “my dear, i do”
and i didn’t know she loved me

she gave up dreams – ambitions too
and i didn’t know she loved me

she shared my life for months and years
and i didn’t know she loved me

she left and walked away in tears
and at last, i knew she loved me

for surely something dear’s been lost
when losing bears heartbreaking cost

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Second Arrow (two versions)

The arrow whistled through the air
and in my flesh it landed.
I felt a flood of burning pain,
my breast forever branded.

While tears of anguish filled my eyes,
I saw a second shaft,
and as I watched it flying near,
I stepped into its path.

“You nincompoop!” the Buddha cried,
“Your poor deluded brain!
Why heap optional suffering
on mandatory pain?!”

“O gentle Master,” I replied,
“That wound disturbed my soul.
In choosing this, the second dart,
at least I have control.”

~~~

Master Buddha told a story
of a man shot with an arrow.
It was painful, harming, terrible,
as such wounds always are.

Then there flew a second arrow,
and this man, he saw it coming.
Yet he chose not to avoid it;
no, he stepped into its path.

“How unwise!” cried one disciple
gazing upward at the Buddha.
“Tell me, Master, why did this man
choose to multiply his pain?”

“It’s his nature,” said the Buddha,
“as it is for us when we add
to the weight of pain the burden
of reality denied.

“When we’re wounded, and we won’t
accept the fact that it is so,
and we wish that it were otherwise,
so we doubly suffer.”

“Ah, I see,” said the disciple,
“and what’s more, I understand
just why a soul in pain might choose
to let this second arrow pierce.”

Then the Buddha was astonished!
(Not a usual occurrence.)
“Pray, explain,” he asked the monk,
“Why do we act so foolishly?”

“I believe, O honored teacher,
we behave like this because
‘first arrows’ plunge us into chaos.
Choosing pain restores control.

“In a world that often wounds us
it may seem our only chance
at freedom is the sovereignty
to step into that arrow’s path.

“But to give up wishing it weren’t so
is hard to contemplate. It feels like
losing hope that circumstance
might yet be otherwise.”

“Nonetheless,” the Buddha said,
“we must give up this hopeless
hoping for a ‘better past’
if we wish, in the present, to be free.”

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Scorpion

There’s a tale of a frog
who was sunning herself
on a river’s soft bank
in the woods.

She was humbly approached
by a scorpion lad.
“Lady frog!” hailed the one
with the sting.

“I’ve got business, my dear,
on the opposite shore.
Could you possibly
give me a lift?”

So the affable frog
(who was kind to a fault)
said, “Hop on, little friend,
let’s be off!”

The arachnid complied,
and the innocent frog
set off swimming toward
the far bank.

As they reached the midpoint
up went scorpion’s sting,
and then down again,
into the froggy.

“Why, oh why did you sting?”
wept and wailed the poor frog
“Now we’ll both surely die!
Why’d you do it?”

“There was no way that I
could inhibit myself!”
said the scorpion boy.
“It’s my nature!”

Now, this story is told
metaphorically
to advise on the essence
of humans.

And yet, rare is the man
who is scorpion-born.
Rather, men must be taught
to betray.