The lost love returns once again
To plow the fields of credence
Moon's divinity  sinks
In sun-baked desert of emotion,
Unearthing buds of rebirth
In the jaws of reason.
What lunacy boils
In the ruse of treason
As the rhythm rigs
The corporeal bliss.

Good deeds and bad deeds
Whatever they brought
To the hostelry of Fate
Another page turned
In the book of Life
Another leaf tumbled to ground
Off the tree of Time
How often
In the midst of graceful shadows
I have been tempted to trail
The vagaries of a moonlit mind
How often
Amid sobering sorrow
I have been led to shed my wings
The road is unknowable
And not knowing takes me home
May your days be springtime
And your spring eternal.

I can play
With your temporal stay
Swing to and fro your antenna
Tug at the strings of your viscera
Stretch'em to left, to right
To the middle of infernal night
You can't fully get to know me
Can't control the flow of my steam
I can make you or break you
That depends on your approach
Suppress me and I tie your feet
Ignore me, I trick your heat
Hate me and I tamper with your creed
When it comes to my existence
There is but one way
You can carry the day
Come to terms with your shortcomings
Swallow your sins
And embrace the things
That you dislike the most.

Everyone knows or should know
About the First Space
The natural or physical world we live in
Second Space is where
We are supposed to go in the afterlife
Whether it be Heaven or Hell
Purgatory or Limbo
However, not everyone believes in that.

Only the ones with hearts of gold
Can make it to that Third Space
A place beyond the reach of any star
A majestic palace in total darkness
Where pure spirits sway
Providing soothing blue light
To compensate absence of day
It is a place where invisible lyrists
Play music nonstop and sing poetry
Reminiscent of Orpheus' flair
A place where disembodied dragons
Spew black fire animating you
With the magic of dark energy
Which would give you a corporeal form
Much finer than what you had on Earth
Except that such new body won't require
Food, water, or whatever
Your previous frame craved for
Your revolutionary system shall include
A mechanism that would operate
Like a power source for nourishment
And other kinds of necessities
That ****** functions require
It be like having a tiny sun within you.

But there are conditions:
You are not permitted to touch
Or get close to the others of your kind
You are not allowed to make noise
Interrupting the flow of things
The first time you violate such rules
You be sent to curious solitary quarters
Having no bottom and no end
Where a minute can feel like an eternity
Your second violation will cost you
The privilege to be there
And you will be sent back to either
The First or a suitable Second Space
The reason you are sent there is because
You were a paragon of kindness
While living on Earth and your reward
Is not to accommodate
Your humanly desires but to assimilate
The mysteries and wonders of Universe.

In a world fraught with injustice, dread
Poverty, cruelty, vanity and insanity
Someone should think of such fantasy
That may or may not inspire
Hope as well as faith in humanity.

Jung wrote that we must confront
Our shadows in order to become whole
Well, what if the shadow itself
Is the cradle of wholeness
And facing it head-on
Would result in its refusal to cooperate
Inner shadow is meant to play
Behind the scenes, anonymous
One should integrate with the shadow
Rather than overstep its safety zone
No renowned psychologist remained sane
After delving into the forbidden zone
After battling the hidden ghost
Psychology is the arch-enemy of poetry
What poetry tries to bring to light
Psychology hinders its flight
Was the world ever in such chaotic mode
Before the frontiers of Psychology
Were crossed over in enthusiastic drive
To integrate with the inner shadow
One needs spiritual awareness
One needs poetry that shapes the sense
One needs the storm of Nature's feel
One needs doses of emotional healing
That flowers, trees, animals, birds bring
The offerings of Psychology is mortal
The presents of Poetry, immortal

Perfection almost
Paralyzed my psyche,
Should have been a monkey
My head of intentions.
There would have been though
Incarcerating beam
And guilt thermometer
If I had static ego.

Praise to Modesto members
Of this radical society
This medicinal space
That tolls the bells of fellowship
And heartens creative release
Tribute to stalwart members
For each a cog
In a global clock
Turning its handles onward
Toward a loving world
Each a cyber tallow
Melting morsels of care
Keeping the wick of hope aflame
Each a feather
Of a mystical bird
Lifting its wings
To pleiades presents.

To whom or what should I pray
The weight of not praying
Is weighing down on me
My parents prayed regularly
God bless their souls
Throughout my entire life
I prayed only a couple of times
Both times to some shining stars
That aligned my heart toward prayer
Through the magic of their twinkle
I once heard someone say
Prayer is best when unanswered
There must be a force behind prayer
Because it exists in every culture
How did it get there remains a mystery
Although some people go wild in prayers
I believe an isolated prayer
Here and there is a healthy thing
Especially, when it is inspired
By someone or something
As in my case by the stars
Needless to say that mine were answered
So why don't I pray more
Well, maybe because I'm not inspired
Or even if I am, I feel shy even guilty
To ask for things when others
Having a hard time fulfilling basic needs
Such as hunger and a roof over head.

I'm not a seasoned poet
As standards go
I have neither the will nor wit
To assemble words that exhale
Sensuous truths of beauty
I have been tossed in poetry's net
To serve and protect its fate
I'm not sharp enough
To detect Moon's climb
For I'm not Archibald MacLeish
I'm no master metaphorician
To equate yellow fog to a cat
For I'm not T.S. Eliot
I'm just here to release the waves
That load my pen to barrage
Their organic ammunition
I cannot delve into the dark show
As smooth as Edgar Allen Poe
I'm not one to sing of love, of wine
For I'm no Rumi nor Khayyam
I can't settle music's dust
For I'm not Robert Frost
I can only write what I'm taught
By the shadow rulers of Art
If Yeats is awake
And Shakespeare watching
If Whitman, Dickinson, Keats
And the rest of the sublime ones
Happen to be espying
They would regard me
As an underling
And that would be a win
For I shall never reach
Their poetic spin.

To survive simply means to prolong life
And for what?
God's plan or the Devil's program.

I survived many plights
Many traps I escaped from
Though I didn't know why
Was I supposed to be doing God's work?
Or was it the Devil's device
That kept me alive?
I might have been acting on instinct
Or doing the bidding of some
Unseen force interested in my survival.

I can honestly say
That I'm liable for misfortunes
Arising out of my continuity...
Why couldn't I just be laid to rest
And avoid all displeasing circumstances?
Well, such is the way of the world
One is totally unaware
Of creation's objectives
Though some may argue that the purpose
Is the flow of all living things
If so, then how do they justify
The extinction of certain species
And what about a useful tradition,
Belief or culture no longer extant
They did not possess life but
Certainly gave rise to a way of living
Others may say the intention
Is to live a long life
To reach a ripe old age
Which effects expansive experience
All the same, old age presents
Many complications
Not worth putting up with
Besides, so many young ones
Experience the butcher's knife
Through no fault of their own.

It is a given that some are born
Luckier than others
And the ratio favors the unlucky ones
Some of whom fall short of surviving
Despite their earnest efforts.

Oh, the agitation of survival.

I can straight out say that I'm a survivor
That I have passed the test of evil
And to what end:
Desertion of beauty
Exclusion of excellence
And the application of chicanery.

Resonance of words
Sway to-and-fro
In the dead of night
The deep sea welcomes
Swimming oar
Splash metaphores
Fertilizing the white leaf
With bird droppings
The right is a wrong
And left, stone flower
Heaven lives next door
Her eyes a wilderness
Hell is downright here
Blazing a roar
In stillness of poet's pond
Moon reflects
The passion of Truth and Lie
As Morning star waits
To outshine the darkling grace.

Celestial blessings are abundant
Competing with worldly curse
Which shall be the victor
In tours of Human Race
That entirely depends my friends
On the number of dreams
Sailing the rough waters
Or floating on halcyon seas.

The little bird alights
Near the windowsill
Saturated with
Communing eyes and gestures.
Though she would rather
Lay it all on the line
At best she gets away
With a modicum of her tidings
Knowing the moment's impulse
Shall sepulchre her understanding.
But the magic has been done
And esoteric wheels in gear
To rear the revelation ride.

Chattering of china
Twittering of utensils
The scoop of melting grease
Manifesting the release
The smoke of sizzling meat
Saturating the nostril
And the waitress
Half slavish
Flirts here and prattles there
To dodge the malice of moment
In the ring of endless hustle
Where refills are free
And rewinds obliged.

Days are passing faster
Than I can recall yesterdays
The unobservable speed
Taking its toll upon my youth
Leaving me half-hearted
In pursuit of relations.
Is this the way of the world
That strips you of all your verve
For a debt that must be paid
To compensate the privilege
That creation offers?
So what does it all mean
Here today and gone tomorrow
After a lifetime of reflections
I have yet to understand
The true meaning of my own life
Let alone life as a whole
Are we just moving in circles
For the pleasure of unseen forces
Or is there an invisible rhythm
Pulling us like magnet
Into unmistakable finality.
Either way is an insult
To our creative capacity
To our potential as intelligent beings
Then again humans are cursed
With dichotomy of perception
And perhaps this is the reason
For our misguided attempts
To invent utopias and distopias.
Just like water though not as swift
Energy must level itself
Far too few come close
To balanced frontiers
Far too fewer
Experience the coalescence
Of Heaven and Earth
While the rest struggle
In a pool of fabricated policies.

What is a feeling
And where does it come from
Is it a vibration
From the earth of your being
Or a joyous image
Of leaking tears
Is it a ping
In cerebral engine
Or a sting off psychic mirror
Is it a continuum of living signs
Or a spectrum of ancestral mines
Whatever it is
Two things are sure
Once it is owned or disowned
It never leaves you alone.

Whenever I fell in love
With a receptive woman
She went away
Leaving me grieving
The death of chance
Till another woman came along
Making me hopeful for a while
And then she was no more
I kept up with the pull and push
Of this story till it was too late
To keep up with the intention
And I learned that falling in love
Was but a charming illusion
But a mirage of oasis
And the most beautiful lie.

Where I come from
Is still a mystery to me
By "I" I mean my essence of course
And not the flesh
For flesh comes from another flesh
Going back all the way
To the Neanderthal human and beyond.

It is difficult for me to pinpoint
The origin of my whereabouts
I have only notions here and there
Which are only self-satisfying
And do not observe logic
Or scientific principles
However, logic and science
Are not quite mature as yet.

When I give free rein
To the drift of my thoughts
Letting them be carried here and there
In the sky of identity
I could come up
With a host of possibilities
Each more visionary than the other:
I could be the offspring
Of the Man on the Moon
I may be a bundle of dazzling photons
From Sirius for others think
I have a brilliant mind
My fire may have originated
From the bowels of a mountain
Due to my spiritual strength
And rebellious nature
I could be Nietzsche's Overman
Transmitting Zarathustra's ideals
I see myself as egg of freedom at times
Hatched by Archaeopteryx
I may be Mother Nature's anti- hero
Come to set things aright
I might as well be Pax's posterity
Setting back the circus of Life
My core may have come
Solely from Mother Earth
Or come from an alien nation
Beyond the Milky Way
My nature may have erupted like lava
Out of a falling meteor
Sometimes I get the notion
That I have come from a magical sphere
Promoting the *******
Of some sorcerer's scheme
I might be all of the above
A votary of Universe's infinite philosophy.

Colors of origin cannot be painted
In black and white
Despite Night's image
And diligence of Daylight.

It is the dumb hour of night
Bereft of all maneuvers
Shadows have come and gone
Spending their agendas
The canvas bland as space
Drapes mute and motionless
As hidden truths
Not a stroke felt
Not a single word flickers
Off intersecting ink
There must be a gale
Deep into the mind
Winnowing
Chaffs of memory.

Years don't make wisdom
They just make old age
Generations have passed
Through the turned pages
Yet I'm no wiser
Than credulous kid of past
Who charged everything to heart
Whiling away the hours
No, the years don't make wisdom
They decelerate celerity of youth
Compromising clarity of Love
Years are but bricks building walls
Between factual and imagined calls
Between relations of understanding.