CPoetry

suffering is real, and is not true. love is real, and is the truest. ::: when viewed as a resource rather than as a reward, money succumbs to its pride and fills an empty glass with water from its own glass. ::: under the deceptive hands of the Magician, i dropped to my knees and found a new vision; an old compass with an honest arrow was pointing in the direction i was supposed to take all along; a year's worth of isolation has taught me well that in crawling out from the burning building, there are no riches; all that remains is my life and the flash image of my life without those lives whom i hold dear--- in it.      life is begging for us to know      our greatest treasure---      our greatest wealth---      lies within human relationships      and our shared experiences.      truly, the greatest of all,      is how we attend to the richness      of those relationships.

fear or fear not, the heart has more than one pair of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs. of legs... ::: so what did Jesus say to you grandma? "oh, sweetheart, he didn't really  say  anything to me. this is just how i believe He came to me all those years ago." oh. then how did He come to you? "well, i've been shy all my life, and i was even shy about my faith. you see, some people love loudly, but i love Him softly." you're not that shy grandma. "hah. no, not around you honey. but i believe Jesus came to me the way He did because He knew i was shy." how? "instead of Him saying, Let Me teach you, Jesus decided to ask me, What would you like to learn?" ::: God is the h

come, i invite you to look at this flower and think of Jesus. in this respect, Mother Nature is God; She uses Her resources--- the rain, the sun, the soil, the seed, to plant and grow this flower. when the flower is at its most beautiful, it is cut from the lower part of its stem at which point it then begins to die. at the eyes of the beholder, one feels joy, happiness, peace, friendship, compassion, sorrow, love---all the more, until the last of the flower's petals falls into the Paradise from which it came. ::: the arm of reflective red and white tap mechanically drops in front of the car. ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding. red lights pulse in formation. my hands slam on the rubber steering wheel. old, rusty, graffiti-slewn cars tread in a syncopated motion on the tracks--- bending metal under their chained feet. as they travel a slow drum into oblivion, i am overcome with gratitude; I made you stop, so all of this may pass.

happiness is a butterfly. oh but joy, joy is the life of a butterfly. ::: all the world said, I am your oyster! on its palate, where is it i begin to form? ::: never never never  stop investigating; at the resolve of one mystery, love keeps us curious still. ::: the crunching of gravel under our shoes is out-of-sync. the cicadas buzz like small tornado sirens. i keep exchanging my looks between your eyes and mouth and the ground. tall, wild grass has grown between the tire tracks. you walking on one, me on the other. i talk and then you talk. you talk and then i talk. wind starts to sing with the cicadas in the trees. i rub my hand along the outside of my forearm, hugging my body inward. you look up at the sky. we keep talking. exchanging between a face and the ground. a second conversation takes place; rain begins to talk with the waxy surface of the leaves and ground cover on the path. &q

Love is the greatest force in this living life. Compassion, the greatest solution. ~ as is the wind Its reflection due face, God made Love a Moving Place. against rival Suffering in The Race, God made Compassion embrace. to take across The Line two equals, to even out The Chase. ::: if each of us carried a blacklight, we would see the fingerprints of the words we wish to say, those we regret to have said, and the ones of which we will never speak. turn off the lights; our true stories may only be spoken by moonlight. ::: there was a place in the forest called Impossible Lake. its name was given by native tribes, and later local fishermen, who said there was an abundance of fish, but they were nearly impossible to catch. on a morning when vapor was dancing across the water, two men decided to fish on Impossible Lake. one man was saddened, so the other brought him fishing to cheer him up. the cheerful

i sit on this table, now, glossy--- with a snake of store lights curving around my handle. i have been burned in the kiln and survived--- protected by ceramic gratitude; not only have i survived you, i am capable of holding another heated brew--- capable of withstanding the fire and being kissed by other lips.      resting in the new hands'      contentment. ::: a young asian boy breaks off a piece of cookie and offers it to his mother. she jokes to him. she declines his favor. this boy has given his mother something else: rippling creases at the sides of her eyes. ::: a smile denoting the emotion of happiness is considered one of the universal facial expressions;      for around the world,      sand is simply sand.      and all of us,      we are a colony of ants.      nothing more than that,      we are here,      doing what we can      to build our ant hill; go anywhere and a smile g

a compass has its limits. (eight limits to be exact.) to those who explore without a compass, they have no limits and seek only one direction: Onward. ~ to you, braveheart, wander well. ::: cropped, bleached bangs. lime green nail polish. Sharpie X's on both hands. and a pastel orange shirt that says in white capital letters: CHOOSE LOVE. (why must love be a choice? if it is the Thing has exists infinitely and constantly, can we bow our foreheads in that river just once? once-and-for-all?) ::: just as the clothes on my back, i will wear You until i am worn. ragged and ripped and tattered in love. ::: if fear is your god, you are practicing a bad religion--- following the fidelity of an infidel; for reasons in or out of your control, someone or something convinces you the only answer to true joy and happiness is to remain within that which you already know and falsely believe. :::

"Grandfather, which wolf wins?" "The one you feed," decreed the Cherokee to his boy. i asked myself then, of the two wolves, who is it that hungers more?       the bad wolf will always       be more hungry.      the good wolf,      out of his goodness,      allows the bad wolf      to feed more if given the chance.      the good wolf hopes,      at the ledge of death from starvation,      the bad wolf will see his suffering      and offer some of his food.      in the exchange of sharing      and compassion,      the bad wolf will then realize      he was never bad;      he, too, was always good. ::: a paper receipt is a forgettable object to the adult. as recently observed, it has become a white, crumpled flag of joy to the infant. ::: to the person who smiles at the witnessed embrace of strangers, Congratulations! you have just recognized your humanity. ::: if there is a day

all else is absence. there is only all of you and all of your wisdom. it is one of the sweetest songs---your leaves through the wind; the song of the reed flute that makes its audience abstain from hearing "noise". this song, if sung, would be an insult. ::: one will never experience heartbreak if one disqualifies one's ego and accepts the bravery or  weakness of the other---at the discovery the one you love will go, again, in search of a love more suited to his or her liking; the promise of marriage does not permit one to encapsulate the freedom of his or her partner; love must always remain free. ::: the adult squishes the spider. the three-year-old child squats down and looks at the spider. who is more curious? of the two, who is closer to joy? ::: the grip of Your hand on the steering wheel tells me You fear being driven off the road. i unlatch one hand from the Arch of Contr

the spirit of a living life is unable to submit under a black veil; the spirit moves, and it moves through all at its face. God, is the Bird whom can never be veiled. but, we are the shadow of the Bird. despite the stronghold which desires to veil a life in black, the shadow has already moved; God has already moved the life. the Bird and the shadow of the Bird connect ceaselessly. ::: at the moment our egos decease, we will, at once, become children. the ocean will turn on its head, and we will, in the laps of angels touch, each with a single fingertip, the waves of unity. ::: "uh! the shade feels good... sweetheart want any water?" no! "honey you wanna sit down?" no, i'm following the light! da duh da, da de... boop...boop...ba boop. "[laughs] we've been in the sun all day--- why don't you rest for a little bit hon." i don't want to. i'm following the sun stones!

the more repeatedly we export our self-worth, the more repeatedly we import our loneliness. ::: we take interest in virtual platforms of which instantaneously satisfy our personal-biological-material desires, foster our seeded insecurities, expand our impish curiosities, disseminate calculated opinions, incapacitate emotional intelligence, deliver second-hand local and global news, decrease inner self-contentment, abandon the present moment, diminish meaningful conversation, permit skin-level social selectivity, enable consumerist tendencies, re-imagine unappealing realities with more idealized realities, and galvanize human connection with humanized connection.      lest the human conscience      becomes more agile and clever      than the finger-click of a key,      there is a fear the mountain      we built will be insurmountable;      economic, political, and "social"      society will manifest its ultimate efficien

the crown of gratitude is never worn by kings; to the common person who sees every tangible as a gift and every intangible as a miracle, Persia itself is woven into the rug under your feet. ::: oh but it is the thirst of the root that is miraculous. not the water's abundance. ::: the most dangerous force in nature in when we lend              love                     its                        legs... ::: "why aren't you makin' your son enlist!? they need men, didn't you hear! we're getting our asses kicked out there! ...your son's gonna grow up to be a coward." buddy my boy has already been to war... he's been spit at, beaten till he was blue--- even dragged from a car once bout twenty yards or so, before someone stopped the car. "shit...  then put'm in! tell'm he's gonna have to do somethin' otherwise i promise you he's not gonna make it to twenty-six.&qu

the space residing between (is God) any thought, (is God) emotion (is God) or feeling, (is God;) and a prayer the Silver Lining between our reservations (is God) and our faith. ::: tend to the tender. happen to the unhappy. reach to the unreachable. (for they do not know their tenderness, their unhappiness, and their isolation are the most welcome invitations.) ::: once again, you will be able to walk into a room and on your arrival, others will notice your revival. they will ask, how? to which you will look back at the front door and say, "because i chose, with no invitation, to arrive at the house of my fears." ~ in order to revive, one must first arrive . ::: no anchor can be thrown into the ocean without a rope to pull it up; burdened on the bottom of the sea floor from our own weight, a line links us to a source whose power can carry us back to the sur

this morning i was tossing an apple in my hands; i watched the apple roll--- surrendering itself to gravity before being caught by the other hand. pat-pat, pat-pat, pat-pat, right-left, left-right, right-left. if not for the loyalty of my hands, the apple would be on the ground; having met its face with the floor, it would have become covered in dirt and bruised all over its skin. Exactly,  said God. ::: revere the truth, deceive its conspirators, and influence the path between. ::: there are those who have faith the fruit will fall from the tree. there are those who have faith the fruit will fall from the tree and that fruit will be sweet. and then there are those who have faith the fruit will fall from the tree and that fruit will be sweet and out from the sweetness he or she will find a seed and from that seed there will not be a single satisfaction, but a seasonal harvest of bounty for the one and for t

love is an all encompassing sense of safety; discount all other factors, the person at present was enriched by or deprived of it in childhood. the disfigurement of one's worth and orientation of purpose in the world is almost always arm's reach from a disharmony of love for one's self or from others;      at the doorway of reservation,      you will knock      and this person will be standing      behind the door.      at the opening...      at the cessation of fighting...      this person will collapse      into tears. as one who cares, you must let this person fall, and you must also let this person stand. but you have the opportunity--- this person, upon succumbing to all he or she carries or believes, is giving you the opportunity to touch; the promise to grasp your hand on his or her arm and help he or she stand. it may just be the most precious opportunity of all; the chance to show someone what it means to be love

how can it be to feel the fear of the gazelle, and too, the hunger of the lion? kill or be killed, i fear my longing has spent too much time out in the open, while being one step from pouncing out of impatience to end the life of a love disguised as the landscape around me.      if there is a moment to cease,      my longing will graze,      and my hunger will go elsewhere.      i will yet again become a part      of the landscape. ::: with You, my love will never change. ice, water, or vapor, this love will only change its form; dense down on You, fluid upon Your lips, fully encompassing Your dreams. dense upon Your fears, fluid circling Your scars, fully surrounding Your nightmares. dense for our daring, fluid through our mistakes, fully overcoming our challenges. at the center of it all, may it be dense in character, fluid in experience, and vaporous in feeling. our love will only change its form.

act 1 scene 2: from the nightstand you retrieve a Bible and flip back and forth through its pages. i ask, what's your favorite verse? ---barely projecting my question over the cotton-wall of a bleached white pillow. "Isaiah forty-one-thirteen." i ask, why? ---then my mouth hides behind the cotton-wall, to which you give your answer. i ask, what are you currently reading about? ---again, i retreat behind the cotton-wall. you give your answer. (i feel childish. as if a consequence follows my mistake); there is to be no talking inside a place of worship. ::: act 1 scene 3: and in that moment i saw how beautifully vulnerable you were. no part of my body moved. not a hand, not a leg, not a shoulder, nor a single finger. although, my eyes did move; they moved from your eyes to the black ink etched across the tendons on the inside of your wrist: It is well... and