Zen

———————-Deeper——————

I’m holding my breath
Because you gotta dive deep
Real deep
To find the ethereal things
Where the mermaids and Gods sleep
Deep and deeper
Dark and darker
Beyond the light
Only pure blackness
Down there, where there’s only
Muted sounds
Only the sound of your own heart beating
Thundering between your temples 
Fear is in the hands of your demons
And guarding angels
Hold my hand
Show me your face
Show me everything
Do you wanna come with me
Swimming beyond the deep
Past, where there’s no going back
Beyond where it’s no longer safe
I swear
I can’t breathe
Open your mouth
Give me your breath
Give me life  

Out Of Place

Moments pass, owned by no one. But I watched you through a  draining hourglass. Forgive my troubled thoughts, as I attempt to reach you, but words are only shadows with no substance, truth is there hiding in the blinding flash of dissolving passion. Life is a vapor and love is our only wayback home. And she makes everything okay when everything is all wrong——like me, she’s always out of place.

And that December Sierra wind blows hard leaving coarse lines across my beard stubbled face. I’ve met a lot of people in this life, but I’ve found few with the soul, the grace and life energy that’s possessed in her. She gives the room electricity when she enters into it. She looks at life with focus, clarity and has compassion for those in their times of trouble. She’s aways handy with a joke and a listening ear. She’ll be my harlequin and I her Captain.

She cares about the right things, family, friends, laughter, good conversations, music, savory food, moments of shared companionship. I feel like telling her everything, and we’d connect the dots. Everything is so ironic, everything is stupid, except not for you. You know the punch line, you understand how the story ends. You know me, and that’s not an easy assignment. 

Before Someone Shot Lennon (You can’t make new old friends)

I Grew up
In simpler times
In a small town
Back when the world was still kind

Didn’t have much money
Road trips in rusty cars
Played the hell out of 3 chords
On our beat up old guitars

Thought we were cool
We were gonna change the world
We sang “All ya need is love”
Back before someone shot Lennon

Listened to vinyl records
Music set us free
People over thirty
We couldn’t trust or believe

I’m going back
To all those good times
Kodachrome memories
With all my old friends

No matter where we go
No matter where we’ve been
One thing for certain
You can’t make, “New old friends”

Smashed my cell phone
Threw a brick at my Big Screen
Lets sit down in the backyard
Where we once shared all our dreams

Lets look at old photo albums
When our hair was long
And we wore yesterday smiles
Life’s a vapor, Here then gone

Campouts and keggers
Cut offs and ball caps
bonfires down at the river
Cold beers and cheap grass

Exaggerated our victories
Minimizing our loses
Where did the time go
Summers once lasted forever

I’m going back
So many good times
Kodachrome memories
You’re a lifelong friend of mine

No matter where we go
No matter where we’ve been
One thing for certain
We can’t make, “New old friends”

Throwing Stones 

I never really told ya how I felt
And still I don’t know why
It hurts to know you’re out there sleeping
under these same sad Denver skies

Though it’s only a dream, I held you in
walking in a world ya never knew
And thats why its so cold to wake up alone
within a dream, lost inside of you

Should of done that
Should of said this
keeping the truth a secret
stones I can’t throw, or forget, 

and now I know 
it only hurts forever

I never gave you my words 
or sang you, your song 
instead I let them burn 
like ash from a fire that’s gone 

now its so quite in this room of blue
blinds drawn to the things we lose 
that died a long time ago
within a dream, lost inside of you

Should of done that
Should of said this
keeping the truth a secret
stones I can’t throw, or forget

and now I know 
it only hurts forever

Love Dump

Soundtrack Coyotes by Jason Muraz

I always wanted to be in love.  But maybe I am one of those who can’t be loved.  I try to hard to be funny, to be passionate—-to be lovable.  But maybe I always choose the wrong person to love or maybe they picked me by mistake.  Everyone needs love, to feel special to another in a world that leaves us all too often feeling ordinary and small.  I think I’ve spent to much time alone, I scare myself with all these crazy love thoughts.  Maybe I’m crazy and that’s why love alludes me—-I scare sane people off?

Maybe I expect too much of love. Maybe all that crap in poems, songs and stories is just fantasy.  I need someone to share my fantasies.  Maybe love is pretending, as in pretending to be what another wants and desires? I guess that’s fair enough.  Okay then–how about a yard love sale.  A half off on all the miscellaneous dreams, wishes,  promises and prayers that nobody else wants anymore——or even cares to barter for.  

Okay then, I’ll share half my fantasies with you if you share half of yours with me.   And all the undesirable junk no one wants we can take to the love dump and set it afire watch it burn to ash.  

The Last Second Chance

So be brave 
Everyone is going thru something
No one really cares or understands why
We all have our own living hell
Everyone is barely hanging on
Tired, lonely and the depressed
It’s just the way this life is
That’s just the way it goes

So be strong
Everyone is going thru something
The ragged homeless guy panhandling for pocket change
The trembling drug addict, dope sick
The innocence locked-up inside us all
The suicidal beauty queen 
That’s just the way this life is
That’s just the way it goes


So be alive
Everyone is going through something
There’s howling wolves at the door
There’s night terrors in our dreams
There’s horrors in the waking hours
It’s all red lights and sirens 
The noose dangles then tightens
It’s just the way this life is
That’s just the way it goes


So be happy
Everyone is going through something
Regardless of it all
Stare the devil down
Throw rocks at the squawking ravens
Toss your shoes over the power-lines
Watch your bridges burn as they light your way 
It’s just the way this life is
That’s just the way it goes

So be bold
Everyone is going through something
Your deliverance is paid for with your intentions
There’s a sacredness discovered in your last second chance
Nobility awaits the headstrong
You either give up, or get up again
There’s everlasting glory for those who refuse to give in
We find out what were made of in the 15th round
It’s just the way this life is
That’s just the way it goes




















In The Depths

When I was a kid, I’d hop on my Stingray bike and ride it down to the city pool. I grew up in the Sacramento Valley where the summer temperatures could climb into the triple digits. 105, 108, Sometimes as high as 116. There would be a droning hum throughout  the suburbs of air conditioners struggling to keep the stucco track houses cool. The streets are vacant. No one dares walk barefoot on the scorching pavement. Occasionally I would hear a distant weed eater or lawn mower. Much of the yard work was done by Mexicans. All the Republicans wanted the Mexicans to be deported just as soon as they finished grooming their immaculate lawns. 

The only refuge for a kid like me was the city pool. Girls were screaming, boys had their water fights, kids would be doing flips and cannon balls off the high-board. All the commotion was unnerving to me. I’d dive in and swim to the deepest part of the pool and stay there for as long as I could hold my breath. Down there in the coolness, there was a tranquil silence, everything moved in slow motion. I’d sit at the bottom crossed legged Yoga style, looking like a red chlorine eyed Buddha. There’s a quietness there, a peaceful silence, like the deafening solitude found in the void of deep space, and there was a weightlessness like that felt while in the womb. With every birth the universe becomes renewed—-existence abhors a vacuum.

I’d burst through to the surface leaving my protective womb——body and soul colliding with the universe, I’m reborn into the madness—-Suddenly, inundated by the fracas of life with all its dissonance and chaos.  As I’d sink to the bottom, I’d become acutely aware of the sound of my heart beating in my ears.

I exist!

The Weather

I’d once thought I could tell her everything, anything—– and she’d be interested in me, she’d look me straight in the eye, She knew me, finding our common connection, a peak beneath the flesh

I don’t know to much about love, but I believe it does have something to do with being interested in the other person—-and that’s something that’s hard to fake

She use to make my coffee in the morning, and remind me to wear my jacket when it was cold out, and I suppose that’s a version of love, caring for someone is in the little things, something we don’t realize until we get old—– getting old is non negotiable—-kindness is a spiritual thing

At the kitchen table we struggle to feign interest In what the other has to say, we give up and settle on commenting about the days weather, enjoying the simplicity of sitting with someone, knowing the rhythm of their footsteps as they make their way down the hall, mesmerized by the sound of a familiar voice, it felt as if these days would stretch on forever—–nothing is forever, so cherish the moment, she once said

mourning and morning sound the same but are completely different things, they’re called Homophones

How can something once so fresh devolve into foggy memories, it’s like the morning fog as it fades away, late afternoons clouds wrap themselves around us. The sound of a distant fog horn breaks my heart

You can’t change the weather, yet people still want to know what it’s going to be

Pent Up Dream

There’s a few things I’ll never get over

Like those thousands of tomorrows that never came

The waiting, the wishing, searching and hoping for signs that I’m on the right track, am I getting somewhere, anywhere, or am I going in circles like a skipping record—-or am I moving full-steam-ahead towards an inevitable cliff?

There’s a belongingness in learning that we are all in a shared aloneness, and I once foolishly thought you knew me, I was wrong, my words were intended to be poetry, warm damp words whispered from my lips into your ear, tickling and sending shivers down your back, you said you always fell for the weird ones, poets, madmen, musicians, but I think I scared you away with my intensity, I so badly wanted to touch you, I accidentally called ya baby, suddenly your smile became a question mark, it left you bamboozled, you said you thought I put a hex on you

You came searching for pieces of yourself, lurking in the shadows between your light and my darkness—You too, felt the sadness in this world, and for a time, the sadness held us together, there was just you and I—and then all the rest of this nihilistic world against us

How many of our lost yesterdays gave birth to stillborn todays

And, how many todays do any of us have? who are you fated to spend your tomorrows with?

It’s a sin to squander once in a lifetime moments, but I did so, with you

Will this ache in my chest ever subside?

From some mystic place you conjured up your black magic

One part love and a hundred parts regret

I don’t believe in the concept of time

There’s only a greased and slippery “now”

I don’t try to hold on to things anymore, Because the Buddhist were right. The attachment to people and things is the root of all suffering, but I never could let go of you, I’ve choose to suffer

I mess things up, I say one thing and do the other

I’m a wandering contradiction, avoiding the lines on broken sidewalk cracks, tripping over forgotten promises, facing my inexcusable lies, living with all those pent up dreams of what might have been

I’m a victim of this relentless, aimless love

Soul Purpose

The only people for me are the ones walking in circles, silently struggling while getting nowhere. The ones who are not self assured, or at peace with themselves. These are the ones who are estranged from their soul purpose. It’s only through suffering that we find out what we’re made of. I wish it wasn’t true, but it takes troubled times to grasp the meaning behind this place in which I now have chosen to call home. I am the product of the choices I’ve intentionally or unintentionally made. Time silently rolls by, inherently taking no passengers.

I feel at home with the lost ones who are misunderstood, the ones fired from jobs, behind on their rent, fighting addictions, crippled by heartaches, tripping over broken dreams, the ones holding on by their last shreds of hope. These are the ones who’ve made bad decisions, foolish choices, and considered by most to be a lost causes. Sitting on a broken-down couch, empty bottles, empty dreams, full ashtrays, the sound of cars rolling by my sun streaked window. 

And there’s nothing as unsettling as knowing you are a lost cause. Make no mistake, we must all fight for whatever we want to get out of this life. Who’s to say who’s the winner.  When in the end I’m only shadow boxing. 

“Never cut what you can untie.” Robert Frost.