mystical poetry thread

[Geof Nanto]

I Want it All     (Thich Nhat Hanh)

 

If you ask how much do I want,

 I'll tell you that I want it all.

 This morning, you and I

 and all men

 are flowing into the marvellous stream

 of oneness.

 

Small pieces of imagination as we are,

 we have come a long way to find ourselves

 and for ourselves, in the dark, the illusion of emancipation.

 

This morning, my brother is back from his long adventure.

 He kneels before the altar,

 his eyes full of tears.

 His soul is longing for a shore to set anchor at

 (a yearning I once had).

 Let him kneel there and weep.

 Let him cry his heart out.

 Let him have his refuge there for a thousand years,

 enough to dry all his tears.

 

One night, I will come

 and set fire to his shelter, the small cottage on the hill.

 My fire will destroy everything

 and remove his only life raft after a shipwreck.

 

In the utmost anguish of his soul,

 the shell will break.

 The light of the burning hut will witness

 his glorious deliverance.

 I will wait for him

 beside the burning cottage.

 Tears will run down my cheeks.

 I will be there to contemplate his new being.

 And as I hold his hands in mine

 and ask him how much he wants,

 he will smile and say that he wants it all –

 just as I did.       

[liminal_luke]

Not sure it counts as "mystical poetry" but I wanted to share...

 

 

Let me now celebrate all my beautiful failures, all my brilliant stupidities. For example: practicing Taoism like it was an army boot camp rather than a watercourse way. For example: tromping a straight line when the path before me meandered in graceful spirals, those lovely curves with their feminine ineffability so far above my karmic pay grade. For example: thinking I was in control of anything at all.

 

Life is unimaginably immense. I tried to rocket into space on the tricycle of my ego and only succeeded in getting a few feet down the driveway. But, you know, I´ve got to believe that´s OK. Somehow there´s room even for someone like me, too, in this big, big universe. Here I am; Liminal_Luke: human being. For all my fumbling, I belong here. I guess we all do.

Edited August 15, 2015 by liminal_luke

[zerostao]

^^

[Faie]

I saw the manifestation of things as

an interlocking, vast fishcale torso

potential, my future; jutting angular

from my guts, carrying my implied

descendents and influence

all creativity as slight flourishes

of the endless loop of continuation

Sincerity the ultimate goal of art

Aesthetics merely the bait for the attention

I felt how nobody likes feeling used

Yet it is you who do the using

We want it to be for something

Children the most usual excuse

[futuredaze]

I've been writing a lot lately.  Here is something I want to share:

 

 

Window

 

The window to beyond

opens up

unexpectedly,

and yet… at the right moment.

 

For how long did you gaze outward, thru the geometric glass?

Awestruck by the mysterious grace of changing seasons and dancing elements,

Enchanted by its infinite depth of ecological diversity woven to raw wilderness,

Touched by the subtleties of the sacred, the poetry in nature, the music of life.

Seeing this beauty, it fills you with joy and inspiration.

 

Still… as you look across the glass,

There is a longing for more-

A beautiful dream abruptly shattered by the ringing of an alarm clock.

 

Then one day, you wake up

and find the window to beyond is open.

Its breeze will guide you, whisper to you,

Fill you with peace, blow away your fears and doubts.

When you smell the blossoming fragrance,

Your senses will awaken the heart,

Who knows where it might take you?

You will taste the fruit of your gifts

destined to ripen.

Seeds and fruit we must let go of,

so that they may slumber in the frozen dark Winter,

only to awaken with gusto in Spring’s fresh emerald renaissance.

Edited August 22, 2015 by futuredaze

[soaring crane]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it inmy heart)i am never without it(anywherei go you go,my dear;and whatever is doneby only me is your doing,my darling)                              i fearno fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i wantno world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meantand whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

E. E. Cummings

 

 

 

Is there anything more mystical than love? 

[Taomeow]

The yellow crane has long since gone away,
All that here remains is Yellow Crane Tower.
The yellow crane once gone does not return,
White clouds drift slowly for a thousand years.

 

Mao Zedong, 1927

[mostly_empty]

The yellow crane has long since gone away,

All that here remains is Yellow Crane Tower.

The yellow crane once gone does not return,

White clouds drift slowly for a thousand years.

 

Mao Zedong, 1927

 

Is that supposed to be ...uplifting?

 

 

Scintillate, scintillate, globular vivific,Fain how I wonder at your nature specific,Loftily poised in the ether capacious,Highly resembling a gem carbonaceous.

- Jane Taylor (then altered or improved)

Edited October 23, 2015 by mostly_empty

[soaring crane]

Is that supposed to be ...uplifting?

 

The timing was interesting ...

[Taomeow]

Is that supposed to be ...uplifting?

 

I don't know.  Does it uplift you?

 

I found it profoundly tragic on many levels.   

[Taomeow]

The timing was interesting ...

 

How so?

[Silent Answers]

City Meditation

 

Beyond the cheers of children

A demanding infant screams

Music in the square

And basketball dreams

Teasing through the traffic

And the guy that's lost his cool

The Distant birds banter

With crickets out for school

 

Being beautifully aware

Sun kisses clouds goodnight

They blush back a rosey gold

Almost redy, but not quite

I'm waiting for the symbols

My cue to parachute

Punctualy piercing paradise

Final freight train crashes through

 

[soaring crane]

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted" 

 

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

 

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

 

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter
In lonesome place.

 

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror’s least.

 

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O’erlooking a superior spectre
More near.

 

-- by Emily Dickinson

 

Happy Halloween :-)

[mostly_empty]

Not my words, but then I'm hardly heard...

 

 

[futuredaze]

Another one I wrote, from a few months ago:

 

the apricot tree

must let go

in order to grow up,

with seeds spreading

deep, ancient dreams

that sprout in the field

of eternal blossoming

[soaring crane]

Some more lines from Emily Dickinson, read the first "or" as "whether"

 

 

Not knowing when the Dawn will come,

I open every Door,

Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,

Or Billows, like a Shore

 

.

[soaring crane]

Ground, sky and all between

East, west and birds flying

The window frames the distant scene

Reflects my joy back at me

[futuredaze]

One of my favorites:

 

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

 

William Blake

[zerostao]

 

 

[Cookie Monster]

.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Ocean Form

[liminal_luke]

...

Edited December 23, 2015 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~Rumi

[centertime]

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

 

~Rumi

So is this what you do? Do you follow this advice?

[zerostao]

I have fallen in love with American names, The sharp names that never get fat, The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims, The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat, Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat. Seine and Piave are silver spoons, But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn, There are English counties like hunting-tunes Played on the keys of a postboy’s horn, But I will remember where I was born. I will remember Carquinez Straits, Little French Lick and Lundy’s Lane, The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane. I will remember Skunktown Plain. I will fall in love with a Salem tree And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz, I will get me a bottle of Boston sea And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues. I am tired of loving a foreign muse. Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard, Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman’s Oast, It is a magic ghost you guard But I am sick for a newer ghost, Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post. Henry and John were never so And Henry and John were always right? Granted, but when it was time to go And the tea and the laurels had stood all night, Did they never watch for Nantucket Light? I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse. I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea. You may bury my body in Sussex grass, You may bury my tongue at Champmedy. I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

stephen vincent benet

[thelerner]

Look at the one long enough

You see infinity.

Look at infinity long enough

You see emptiness.

 

byme

Edited December 29, 2015 by thelerner