we comfort our souls with lies
and we
burn our homes to be free.

we dab perfume on our dead bodies
and we
stitch smiles on faces to be happy.

we turn up the music (too loud)
to be deaf upon the cries of our names
wedged between curses
and scorching regrets.

we try to dance along with the songs
of ghosts -
whose skeletons have been
long forgotten in our antique closets.

we drain bottle after bottle,
light a cigarette after another,
**** ourselves so we don't die -
a surrender to loneliness is worse, after all.

and so...

we say goodbye without considering
that we are worthy enough to stay,
we apologize for the words
we actually meant to say.

we crawl back to our hollowed grounds -
yet we love with the strength of that
who has never been loved.

we travel barefoot on unknown,
desolate roads
in the hopes to find where we belong.

we do the mistakes we've done before,
not because we are stupid,
but god, because we've learned.

love is not made of giving and taking in equal parts
it is not a favor for a favor
i owe you nothing

love is not a compromise reached after long deliberation
it is not hurting on Monday
and healing on Tuesday

love is not touching because you will leave if i do not
it is not feigning naivety
when you see me cry

love is not the untimely squandering of innocence
it is not the suffocating grip of guilt
it is not your unwelcome touch

love is not
love is not
love is not

you
     promised
           me

but

don’t worry,
i’m okay.
i just have to
be sad
sometimes.
to draw myself
back into my head
and make sure
everything’s working correctly.

Vanished are the veils of light and shade,

Lifted the vapors of sorrow,

Sailed away the dawn of fleeting joy,

Gone the mirage of the senses.

Love, hate, health, disease, life and death

Departed, these false shadows on the screen
    of duality.

Waves of laughter, scyllas of sarcasm, whirlpools
    of melancholy,

Melting in the vast sea of bliss.

Bestilled is the storm of maya

By the magic wand of intuition deep.

The universe, a forgotten dream, lurks
   subconsciously,

Ready to invade my newly wakened memory divine.

I exist without the cosmic shadow,

But it could not live bereft of me;

As the sea exists without the waves,

But they breathe not without the sea.

Dreams, wakings, states of deep turiya sleep,

Present, past, future, no more for me,

But the ever-present, all-flowing, I, I everywhere.

Consciously enjoyable,

Beyond the imagination of all expectancy,

Is this, my samadhi state.

Planets, stars, stardust, earth,

Volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms,

Creation’s moulding furnace,

Glaciers of silent X-rays,

Burning floods of electrons,

Thoughts of all men, past, present, future,

Every blade of grass, myself and all,

Each particle of creation’s dust,

Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust,

I swallowed up – transmuted them

Into one vast ocean of blood of my own one Being!

Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by unceasing meditation,

Which blinded my tearful eyes,

Burst into eternal flames of bliss,

And consumed my tears, my peace, my frame,
  my all.

Thou art I, I am Thou,

Knowing, Knower, Known, as One!

One tranquilled, unbroken thrill of eternal, living, ever-new peace!



Not an unconscious state
Or mental chloroform without wilful return,

Samadhi but extends my realm of consciousness

Beyond the limits of my mortal frame

To the boundaries of eternity,

Where I, the Cosmic Sea,

Watch the little ego floating in Me.

Not a sparrow, nor a grain of sand, falls

    without my sight

All space floats like an iceberg in my mental sea.

I am the Colossal Container of all things made!

By deeper, longer, continuous, thirsty,
  guru – given meditation,

This celestial samadhi is attained.

All the mobile murmurs of atoms are heard;

The dark earth, mountains, seas are molten liquid!

This flowing sea changes into vapors of nebulae!

Aum blows o’er the vapors; they open their veils,

Revealing a sea of shining electrons,

Till, at the last sound of the cosmic drum,

Grosser light vanishes into eternal rays

Of all-pervading Cosmic Joy.

From Joy we come,

For Joy we live,

In the sacred Joy we melt.

I, the ocean of mind, drink all creation’s waves.

The four veils of solid, liquid, vapor, light,

Lift aright.

Myself, in everything,

Enters the Great Myself.

Gone forever,

The fitful, flickering shadows of a mortal memory.

Spotless is my mental sky,

Below, ahead, and high above.

Eternity and I, one united ray.

I, a tiny bubble of laughter,

Have become the Sea of Mirth Itself.

The tightness and the nilness round that space
when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect
its make and number and, as one bends his face

towards your window, you catch sight of more
on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent
down cradled guns that hold you under cover

and everything is pure interrogation
until a rifle motions and you move
with guarded unconcerned acceleration—

a little emptier, a little spent
as always by that quiver in the self,
subjugated, yes, and obedient.

So you drive on to the frontier of writing
where it happens again. The guns on tripods;
the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating

data about you, waiting for the squawk
of clearance; the marksman training down
out of the sun upon you like a hawk.

And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed,
as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall
on the black current of a tarmac road

past armor-plated vehicles, out between
the posted soldiers flowing and receding
like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other’s face;
Happy were those which dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;
A fearful hope was all the world contained;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them: some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;—a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage: they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other’s aspects—saw, and shrieked, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe!