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samasati Oct 2013
big sweaters, ghibli, acrylic paint, cafes, knit blankets and unplanned afternoon naps on the couch, gardens, bananas, vanilla almond milk, soft yarn to crochet into ****** scarves, candles after midnight, the big trees with bulky roots, patio furniture, pianos in random buildings, the internet, manatees, the boundless colours of nail polish, peanut butter & honey, rubber boots, pens that write well, fresh new notebooks, skylights, american netflix, mothers that understand, tête à têtes, one glass of sweet white wine, awkward eye contact that turns into comfortable kissing, airplanes, fresh air, baseball caps, the female collective, the really good dark chocolate, flowers, pumpkin spice lattes and ***** chai lattes, candid laughter, yoga, oceans, high waisted shorts, striped t-shirts, docile cats, playful pups, french presses, integrity, sunscreen, meerkats, penguins, chameleons, autumn leaves, fall fashion, ruby woo mac lipstick, osho, dynamic meditation, compassion, siblings, scrambled eggs, smart phones, garageband, metronomes, hot glue guns, quinoa, ferry boats, soft hands, bicycles, real people, fat snowflakes in ample, graceful *******, backpacks that don't hurt your shoulders, hair conditioner, multi-vitamins, soft sand under bare feet, people that own up to lies, clarity, samsara, satori, samasati, visions, echinacea, lavender oil and frankincense, ambrosia apples and ripe avocados, authenticity, Morgan Freeman's voice, good kissers, *******, iced tea on a hot day, curtains, the smell of beeswax, art galleries, hand massages and foot massages, reiki, plums, mild thunderstorms, soccer *****, good surprises, when birds don't **** on your head.
I wrote this with my momma one fine morning!
there is always so much more to add.
Connor Jul 2016
And it's difficult to remember something as the very name of Eisenhower
Or flowerbaskets
And tired movies made of silicone and
Aftersex
Or sixteen candles echoing out of an imaginary suite with cigarettes at every table
And green lawns
Barbershop conversation
The reflection of the sun in special trees
Or my best friend Jesus Christ
Or the smell of the theater that one day with the cynics who just got back from a tennis match and barbwire still laced delicately around their thoughts and
Nihilism
And automotives
And priestess Jane or Henry's gloomy doppelganger who reads alternative magazines and loves the aesthetics behind broken glass
And fine tuned musical instruments

It's difficult to remember
Lonesome Fridays smoking on a park bench trying to finish the puzzle
Or synagogues you've never been in
Or insurance
Or newspaper articles detailing the misadventures of Mr. City
(Of course of course! Take your shoes off at the door and make yourself at home)
We're tossing all our sewage into the ocean
that's far from clean as it
LOOKS anymore these days
That's anything
And everything except for the glowing mountains seen faded and wintry behind Apartments and the
"Glorious Mexican House of Spices"
Never been in there either

It's difficult to remember
Times of Mr Twin Sister
Or Joan Jett in the hallway
In a highschool who's psychology classrooms have become a time capsule in the ground/
Or the gentle skinny ******
Wearing Broadway makeup and
Kafka tattooed on his shoulder
I like his hat
He looks at me suspiciously
Or the guy who is yelling his order at the counter when it's quiet here anyways
Or the mariner who has a hobby of the saxophone
Or 1970s *******
Or the sheepskin bikeseat fad that's yet to come but I'm predicting it now!
Or two dollars and twentyseven cents at the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's America
"I've given you all and now I'm nothing"

It's difficult to remember
The Oriental
Sacramento flies
Midnight Moon
Quarter to four
"The Immortalization Commission"
Remodelled hotels downtown
Where mandalas on the floor became a
Tiger lily luminous
And the kimono is yesterday's painting/
Dearest Darling
When I was feeling down!
A staircase in reverse (??)
The sound a kiss makes
It's difficult to remember
Colleen's earrings
Or Washington State
Or air conditioners in Bali
The Indian ocean's daybreak hymn
To Seminyak
Or whatever happened to Steve from the Airplane out of Taiwan
On 3 days awake
Hello Kitty nursing stations
****** (Kubrick's version)
Cardboard taking up half my bedroom
It's difficult to remember until I jot it down and then its a sudden forever
Sunshine Superman in a cafe spontaneous
drawings with someone I just met who has some ******* attitude/
Who hops fences and has feral ideas
People! En Masse! Te Amo!
You're all in wolven liberty
And vague postulators
And holy prostitutes for the dollar
Sad eyed intellectuals
With undergarments made of breakfast cereal/
Seaferry poetry is different from
Trestle in August poetry
Or henna handshakes
Or the Napoleonic era
Sweet Cherry Pie
The tulip's tongue
Garabajal
Cloudy first day of July
Was hotter yesterday
But not too hot

It's difficult to remember
Antiquity
The pale horse Studebaker outside the clinic
With a glossy red trim and **** I wish that was my ride
Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable
Nearsightedness
Angels and their ability to shower with a a snap of their fingers
Distant harp music
Better him than me
Bananas almost ripe
Green aquatic
Reclusive junkies
Palomo's appliances
Questions for the next time
How much I like what you like and how I like that you like what I like
Ahh that's not my bus
I'm trying to get to the city!
That one quote Socrates is known for about knowing nothing as true wisdom
Supermarkets being built on top of liquor stores burned down a while back
Monopolies
Tragedies
"No Love Lost"
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
Your guess is as good as mine
Never tried to eat Asian food in Asia
It was all pasta and good cider that tasted like pineapple
Rain hitting the window and I'm
Drowsy again
God Save The Trees!
Curly hair looks good on boys
Torn up blinds
Queer as a three dollar bill
If Bill costs 3 dollars I'm sure he's caught something better safe than sorry
Sage advice
I'm the very model of a modern major general
Golden yen and international currency
Incense in the bedroom and how good it smells
There's my bus! Applying for a better job than the one I got now
But that's how it always is right?
Chasing satisfaction
1007 apt
Porch ornaments
Unique names
Unique style le style
The extra charge on foreign ATMs
Cordoroy polo shirts
Flooding in New York!
When someone's face screams *******
"Slippery when wet"
Dine N Dash
Grass gone yellow
Confidence in dyed hair and capes as long as wedding gowns
But less expensive
Doors that always seem to be locked and I'm wondering 20 year later what's behind them?
Albino animals
White thoughts as clouds or
Abstractions
Weathers nicer in Florida but who cares
Festivities this early in the day
Automatopeia
Do sad orphanages still exist?
Just like the movies
Midnight in mirrors
That sick puppet at the shoe shop used
To know how to really hammer it down
And now he's weak and forgotten
Never heard the words of a true prophet only Oceania
Or the private temple near Apollo Bay
Like Japanese gardens behind that gate
Will I ever see it
Make a proud example outta ya misbehavior
Form without function
Exhausted spiritualism
*** Kettle Black
negative photographs of dark rooms
And there's laughing coming from SOMEWHERE
Essays on kleptomania
Had a bad dream I became a cliche
Surrounded by other freaks and there was a lovely ***** I fell in love with her
We married in Oregon by the sea her name was rosy
***** rosy
Check your mailbox for nails
And what you don't wanna hear/
If you were a vegetable you'd be organic!
Empire
Satirical bubble gum
Satori
Linda Lovelace and her special party trick
That's someone's fantasy
Diamond in the rough
Mister guy with two black eyes frequents the adult playhouse
Hes fully stocked on fishnet leggings
He's too proud to put them on himself but
Has nobody else around
Boo hoo
Swigs back the whiskey and trips down the stairs getting a third black eye in the process
Marion came by with her dog the other day
Wanted her box of clothes back but he loved to sniff them to remember her
But she wouldn't have it

"Honey I'm going to call the police!"

"Ah they don't give a **** they have bigger things to worry about"

"Yeah you got that right shrimp **** enjoy my unwashed *******"

And she never came back again
He started losing the vertebrae in his spine 1 by 1 and you know where this is going
I won't say he was a poor man because he had it all coming to him the *******
But he coulda had a better start if you ask me.

It's difficult to remember
And even more difficult to forget
After the fact

Seagull opera
Giganticism
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Losing one's pencil when the best idea of your life drops down from heaven and into your sorry head
Signs graffitied to have funnier meanings
Cruelty
Impassive
The Loyal Lioness
And Bangladesh has too many kitchens
And not enough dishes
When I was young I used to say Island as "is-land"  
Which is true it is land
But the Europeans probably stole it from somebody else anyways/
I left my future behind
And objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Im no illusionist
I'm terrified of the cracken
Father feels the same way about
Hotels
Why bother/
This has been going on and on for a while are you tired yet
Is your patience being tested
Mine isn't because this wasn't an all-at-once kind of rambling
It's extremely important to laugh at least
Once a day
Otherwise you'll find yourself a politician
In no time at all
Rockefeller
(         ) Quaint home to die in
I think
Trains create great music
Float on
Sink into yourself
Roses in a crooked alley
That's people
Busy busy busy busy
Let's describe a situationist
I'm not a fan of bright colors on clothes
Your best shade is blue
Bricklayers transcription of Don Quixote to a skyscraper
Rocket thyme
& Garden
Erratic children's
Insomnia
The doorbell repeatedly
Vancouver riots/ I saw that live on the news!
Pictionary with the surrealists
N Dada TV set MC Escher
Antenna
You're in the Twilight Zone now
Dear Ramona
I'm trying to make it up to you
With a brightness only seen when you're ready to see it so please for the love of God don't blame me when it's not appearing
The tapestry hidden
Keep your blankets clean
And avoid hospitals unless you're fine with fishbowls & the halogen
The water gestapo
Storage lockers full of unacted plays and
Antique microwaves
Emitting the nostalgia of the cold war era
And what a waste of time that was /
Walter Wanderleys presence in Autumn universities
The opening of Vivre sa Vie
Salvador Dali's pluvial taxi
Lightbulb epiphanies
Aquariums and their protestors
Zebras in the shade
Two wrongs dont make a right
Elizabethan theater
Saloon shootouts in a fever dream
I lost and bled out all over the rustic wooden floor
A maiden reached out for me and El Paso did play I woke up and pretended nothing happened/
Funerals for bad People who did bad things
My first memory of a cat beneath the mattress
Hello Dolly!
Auditory learning
Psychotherapy
Lillian the landlady lost her ladle and labeled little Lyle as a lair
The Black panther movement
Reading symposium some years ago and
Making note that Phaedo was still my favorite dialogue/
Zen Buddhism
Xoxo xoxo
The day Gypsies were replaced with
Surface ****** appetite
And not the real thing
Newspaper clippings
Hypnotism when all other options are out
Mystical visions of sidewalks
And the love of your life stepping through a door you've never seen
Maybe Yes No I Don't Know
Creature comforts
Che Guevara's problem is that his beard made him too easy to recognize
(Also that little hat!)
Chinese cough medicine didn't work
For long I still wheeze sometimes
Domestic violence thru the wall
Ceiling fan probably doesn't even work!
Dimpled laughter
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
In skytrains to Commercial
Bermuda in her mind
And courtesy in her voice
I'm no Arthur Rimbaud
But you already knew that
Alcazar of Seville
Filling up the shipbottle
Here's your paradise
Now relinquish it as it is
False!
Hare Krishna
Nowhere Fast
El Diablo and the
Portofino loaf left rotting on the countertop
Latin children speak of the sacred viper
You'll hear of it after this but we'll never see what the ******* meant
Heads alternating round the social current
Of my lively city
There's a dog soaking up the rain
And songs are made in honor of
Recent catastrophes
Trials are dealt
Cards cast to the gutter
New York quiets down for the news of another war
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours
Skeleton key
Ballad of the last wailing zoo
THE ATRIUM
Complexity in simplicity
That's how Brainard got me!
Elderly overcoats
Hiding purest LSD
Is a fan of Hawaiian T shirts
And a communist
What if I was a Freemason
Or owned a tanning salon
Faint crimson
What did Marv look like again?
"You're surrounded by people who love you"
Coffee when one needs it
GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY
Tattoos on the wandering man
Oriental chimes and the people who own them
Bus stop regulars
Vines overtaking power lines
The hypnogogic state
Strawberry light softening
The mind
Sister Ray LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
doitdoitdoitdoit
Passing the graffiti n Pluto neon
Halal wide awake another Saturday
Where's the Karaoke
Flashing by here
Those who find comfort in a bridal scavenger hunt
Or expensive beer
And here comes the hooded clown
Clamoring about his favorite
Loudspeaker
Telling me my time is soon and the noise
Drowns out the drowsy bliss
After hour spirits the perfect time for
Writing and trying to read distant Chinese
Indecision on the tip of the tongue
"NOW WHO IS THAT KNOCKING
ON THE CHAMBER DOOR?
COULD IT BE THE POLICE?"

I'm completely off the topic
And into Apartment lobby photosets
Low battery phone calls
Confessions
Nauseated reverb
Trying to see the attachment people got with bingo halls
And moving companies
Ah no luck again
Eve is at it with her showtunes
Halfway methodology
Triage
Paisley headbands left
Distraught on the quivering
Heater
Dwindling sunsets
We're truly disciples of the moon spirit which grants us more energy
(This is according to a drunk I met one night)
Or ***** old men
When the horizon is engulfed with
A winking cinder
Suitcase at the door
Last time
First time
Magician never reveals his fetishes
(They all have to do with bags under your eyes)
Employment office dramas of my friend the one who blinded a social worker
And the one who blamed Islam
And the one whos philosophy entirely consisted of Spooky Action at a
                                            DISTANCE
Parisian riots
Queer youth
Didn't make the team! Jester
'cross the hall who's beard suggests
Ishmeal n car battery n expired vegetables n rain which crosses the line n
***** cranberry n
Poorly fitted suits n
Harsh pigment n incense shops n
Bocca     secret towns
With churches more beautiful than any you'd find in your own city
n the cultural market
Xylophone ear to ear
Soul cleansing starting at only
$89 (with a 6 month guarantee)
Sophie's birthday and her picnic at Victory Park
The nearby bums trying to sell tea mugs and
Loose wires beside gated convenience stores
I'm an Island away attempting a poem
And never bought a scratch n win
Or heard the same song more than seven times in a row or been in a column
Or escaped the washhouse
Invested in a birdcage for next year
Been to a palm reading
Visited Oasis
Smoked salmon
Told anyone else about Montana
Screamed the things I'd like to scream
** Word of the day
Or kissed a lunatic or swallowed the corpse of yesterday
I keep her on my neck until
I'm too anxious to let go
Counting streetlights
Jeans worn in and faded to be sent off to
A lonely caffeine addict
Christmas Eve I'll be reading a postcard from San Francisco
Asking the same questions
My imagination is made of a different material than last week
Now it's the same color as your hair
HEY that's a good pickup line to use in the heart of the Canadian Embassy
Drinking discarded music resembling a sweater you may have said YES to if it wasn't so unsure of itself
And now Mr. Acker Bilk ascends thru the window of an August home
Like a lazy hornet
I'm still lost without identification
Or a nice belt
As happens when one uses a quality item too casually
How did uphill suddenly seem so downhill?
I'll claim a waterfall
For SALE that inevitable Indonesia
Greyhound O another greyhound O another greyhound
I'm fretting too much about not enough
Delayed the Airport and the yellow question

????

II

What if I knew how to read the curb?
Or translate drunken droll
What if I was never tired again and could
REALLY do anything I set my mind to?
What if I was the first cigarette that cured cancer instead of caused it?
What if I could end superstition
And walk underneath any ladder I wanted?
What if I could make it with a young Audrey Hepburn!?
What if I stopped pretending to be a microphone and got on with "it"
What if the grocery store closed later
And I opened earlier?
What if parking lots werent so sad
All the time?
What if gravity simply had enough of exotic birds and specifics?
What if we stopped trying to recreate what is truly lost?
What if foreign children embraced
Wasting time instead of
Midnight starry bicycles
And the antics of a monk
Disguised as a romantic?

There are those that worship God
And those who worship the Sun
And those who worship nothing at all
But I suppose on the last bus
We're all the same exhausted
Voice who can't wait for next pay day
What is an empty bank?
Or authenticity
What is there to prove anymore?
I hope I don't die tonight and regret
Being impulsive for once
You're a smart shadow
And a dull character
Pushing the last of the daisies
Get the lamp to turn on again
Give the pavement something to look forward to with your walk
Be consistent in being inconsistent
If there's a word there's a ***** and a poem for it!
We all oughta worship
Nothing at all except
Clarity
Compassion with ones neighbor who either forgot the pay the electricity bill or couldn't afford to
We're a swimmin
Written between late June to July 13th.
Rob Rutledge Jun 2014
One more chalice of amber
Encrusted with hopes and dreams.
One more sip from the cup of life
To ground what we believe.

One more breath of neon vapor
That lifts us from our knees,
Frees the wrists of shackles
And clears the way to see.

Repeat,

Ad nauseam,

Until the truth is found.
In the depths of depravity
Satori abounds.
A glimpse of nirvana
And all that was lost is found.

For now,

But as the amber nectar turns bitter
The smoke is powdered on our lungs.
The vapor has all gone while
We hiss our words in tongues.
But in the morning when all is said and done
You awake to true satori,
The road to understanding has only just begun.
Josh Bass Oct 2014
I was sitting on a park bench
Two days ago
After putting in some overtime
When a pair of kids walked by
"Life is so dope"
Said one to the other
It was said with sincerity
Not a hint of irony
It was beautiful
I was hit with a moment of
Satori

Life is so dope.
Laurent Apr 2015
The way she came in,
She glanced at you,
She drank her black tea,
She smiles at you,
To change your Satori,
As a new awakening.
Sensitive people should be treasured. They love deeply and think deeply about life. They are loyal, honest, and true. The simple things sometimes mean the most to them. They don't need to change or harden. Their purity makes them who they are.
Terry Kennedy Apr 2015
Satori is a word that originates from Japan. It literally translates as 'awakening' and is used to describe a moment of 'sudden enlightenment'.
To attempt to understand this as an experience, try this:

Imagine your mind as being a glass prism situated behind your eyes.. It breaks up reality in a similar way to how a glass prism refracts light.

What goes in is pure and whole, but what comes out is broken and fractured. When the mind is active, what is received by the eyes is broken up into tiny little manageable pieces of information. Then for convenience, it will discard anything that it considers to be irrelevant, or 'not fitting' [what you already believe to be true].. Then your body will react according to that particular interpretation of reality. That's not to say the mind is bad or wrong, only that the mind does not see Truth, but only what it allows to be true..

When the mind falls silent the prism is removed, and you become just like a mirror. Light goes in through the eyes and your being will directly reflect what is being received.

See if you can catch the next time your mind goes silent. Be aware of the stillness it brings. Notice that the mind will want to judge it or describe it. If thoughts come, acknowledge them and let them be on their way. Just watch them. Treat them in a manner similar to watching clouds float through the sky. Stay with this feeling and remember it well.

For in that moment, all will be revealed.
This is not a typical poem, but it has been written poetically for good reason. Although the link may not be clear to some, my poem 'Quiet Child' was written with this in mind. I'd like to know if anyone can see the link :)
Pandaboy May 2019
It
was not the reality,
I was unwilling to trace back.
Ignoring the last scene
forgetting where I have been
afraid of fear, surviving in the dark.
Though all it took was a moment of serene.
After all darkness just needs a little spark.
The Poem goes by the name “ The Satori “ , which in Japanese refers to sudden growth or awakening by insight . The poem starts with feelings of pessimism followed by a subtle trigger .. Thanks to Thomas gray for inspiring me to use the word "serene" .
B Woods Dec 2009
Whats this world coming to
Paranoia all around
Creeping up but slipping down
The melodrama hurts me
Is this the way it should be
I question our existence
Illusory immaterial junk
Inching through the samsara
Satori says I'm not really here
Senseless matter sitting idly
In a tiny corner of dharma
Overwhelmed unimaginably by
It all.
Timmy Shanti Jun 2012
I bet she’s beautiful,
Though I can’t see her, -
Sakura in the moonlight.

Friend, come, rejoice!
I know, you miss her -
Sakura in the daylight.

Reflections I see
When looking in her eyes, -
Everlasting spring.

Old master once said:
“Satori doesn’t draw lines ‘tween seasons”.
So what are you waiting for?
Thomas Oak Aug 2015
I open my mouth to sing
but have forgotten the words.
Snow on their heads
the mountains too have forgotten.
At least the butterflies remember how to dance.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
The other day in a bar
a young man threw down,
called me out, and Said,

"How do you
become a poet,
oldtimer?"

I sat my bourbon down,
looked him dead in the eye,
thought I might fling
an impossible koan
to take him out,
but instead I answered.

"Listen close and I'll tell you true.
It's all in the Muse, kid.
Not a muse; The Muse.
The only Muse for you.
And you'd better start looking now
because it can take your whole life."

I finished my drink.

"Next time," I said," ask me why
the bridge flows, but the water
is motionless."

He sat stunned,
philosophically
out-gunned.

I sat my empty glass down
and slowly walked away.

Another notch on the handle
of my Karma pistol.

No matter how good you are,
they just keep coming.

  ~mce
Zen Gunfight?
Liam C Calhoun Aug 2015
I’d never noticed the
Freckles
On your
Shoulders.
But then again,
You’d never noticed
The scars.

Specifically
The ones
On my chest,
And if you had,
I’d never
Heard
Anything about them,
Or, “it.”

It had been awhile since we’d
Last crossed paths,
Encounters always
Ending in
Collision,
Connection
And corrosion come the first
Morning after; but welcomed.

You looked good though,
And that’s how it’d always
Started,
But beautiful nonetheless  –
A world-weathered skin
In the form of a twilight tan,
The vulnerable smile
With a small curl displaying

Aggressive sexuality,
And a dress, your cloth,
A critical juncture,
Of both cinema and satori,
A’flutter in the wind.
“Gift-wraps,” aside,
I’d always return to the
Form and curve of “You.”

Simply you
The half I could see
Leaving the other
Somehow elusive side of
You
To my imagination and
Memory
Of prior gallantry.

Unspoken words
Pave paths between the
Tables we now occupy.
So to,
Acts of predation await,
Perched and ready for
Gardens,
Accepted, the resulted chaos.

I wonder,
“What’s she thinking?”
As I capture a wink
And steal the sunlight
Bouncing of her
Shoulder’s freckles.
It’s an intoxication
At its finest.

Accordingly,
I sip my
Beer
And in echoes mumble,
“I want you, want you,
Want you.”
Luckily,
You wanted me too.
Somewhere on a mountain, summer of '99.
Prabhu Iyer Feb 21
I endure -
                this is
the way of the unblessed
                in a land of storms;
A moment expands -
        scared river on the hills
                 then back
tumbling
sandwalking
                 in a land of worms;
Holding hope
                 by the beat of heart,
closures
        ever birthing
                 in a land of proms;
And then a candle
burns through -
fragrant at night;
        The blessed
                  have their heavens;
The unblessed,
                  satori;
a miraculous light in a quotidian life
Coyote Oct 2010
In the
chasm
between
two thoughts
lies the garden
of bliss.
Easily found
but not easily
entered...
~
March 2025
HP Poet: Mike Adam
Age: 66
Country: UK


Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Mike. Please tell us about your background?

Mike Adam: "Slum east London, dysfunctional violent childhood, playing on bombsites. School, dungeons and kidnappings, sad little boy. Love of dogs and plants and rocks. School: Beckett Shopenhauer, work, college, work university, 1st love lost, travel Asia beaches and mountains, monasteries, monks, Bhodidharma. Work, work, work, Lady J (published collection), retirement, happy at last."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Mike Adam: "Began writing 10 years old, HP about ten years."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Mike Adam: "Poems gestate and arrive unbidden, laid like turtle eggs, a little hole, sand flicked and forgotten."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Mike Adam: "From 1,000 posts perhaps start with the latest few. I call them "mercifully short," easy to read but, given time, you may unpack a great deal."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Mike Adam:
"Ryokan:
Why ask who has Satori, who has not?
What need have I for that dust, fame and gain

Montale:
Life that seemed vast
Is briefer than your handkerchief"



Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Mike Adam: "Amidst the first suicidal mass extinction in history I am grateful to read new poetry and garner hope from young poets still expressing themselves in beautiful combinations of words so thank you all for that...

Who am I?
I don't know"



Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much Mike, we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! It is our pleasure to include you in this Spotlight series!”

Mike Adam: "With gratitude, Mike."




Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Mike a little bit better. We certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #26 in April!

~
Terry Jordan Dec 2016
All I Need is this moment
I will not walk on by
Thirsty by a mountain stream
Without the tears to cry

Denial and delusion
Have not worked out so well
Existing in confusion
Creating my own hell

Love teaches me to really see
What is beneath the surface
Known by the heart but not the eye
Revealing my life’s purpose

In a flash Material World
Gives way, but what is this
A signpost points the way to
A sense of eternal bliss

I am glimpsing sweet moments
In the awakened state
The Holy Instant, satori
Where oneness replaces hate.
Spending time meditating every morning, quieting my monkey mind and listening to God sometimes...
Coyote Oct 2010
Moon on the horizon.
Soft breeze rattles the
brambles out by the
old barn.
The cat enters, looks
about and begins to
speak.

“Fears take flight after years
of drinking the tears away
while the days responsibilities
are laughable in the light of
satori's brilliant realization.
Silly, silly man, thinking reality
something to achieve, a destination
to discover, a journey to undertake.
Listen and I will tell you what little
I have learned burning away my
short time on this horizon of
understanding.
All that is transitory is a metaphor
for the eternal and all that is eternal
is a metaphor for the self.
The self is the collective consciousness
we all share and what we share is our
experience of being.
Being is nothing but an illusion created
in the mind of God while God is simply
a metaphor for eternity in the mind of
man.
Now pour me some kibble for I know
many things, but do not possess opposable
thumbs”.

I woke with a start, cursing the spinning
room and swearing never to mix Jameson
and Absolute again.
The cat finished her kibble and crapped
in the litter box.
Bobby Copeland Oct 2022
no need for conversation here
chet baker on the stereo
reminds me of the words we share
when time has no place else to go
immobile as a broken clock
still on the wall a bird inside
long separated from the flock
not knowing where to find a ride.
the need to flip the record soon
Inspires me to lay down my pen
move through the crescent-lighted moon
and drop the needle once again
then listen to the falling man
bend summer into one last stand.
TS Garrett Feb 2017
I caught the kiss of the weekend

throwing my paper plane

into April’s surreal refuge

philosophizing from a tattered

hammock stitched of rainbow

legs let sway pendent

toes feather touch dusting

lapping as brush strokes

tickling blades of tender Fescue

where unruly plants

begin to heave

haloed vines at the Sun

tongue jutting from pucker

sprouting at lip’s edge

swift nimble fingers cavorting

under cumulonimbus explosions

origami romance slouched

geometric in the backyard

letting the symmetry of the mind

crease the leisure of the day

into colored paper

all of those delicate planes

all of my tiny moods

each an intelligence

spanning the spectrum

fashioned the moth to the flame

then unfurled came the Buzz

The Sprinter, The Stable

a Sea Glider in eight folds

the Hunting Flight of epic distance

then acrobatics of the Royal Wing

psychedelic parchment for The UFO

100% bond paper persisted

for the Eagle Eye and White Dove

enraptured in the moment

my mind came to insight

before the wind up and the pitch

before she can split the winds

I must know the sinews intimately

before she may bathe her

formation in the sky

spread wings and dance the distance

I must delve to atomic intricacies

search further like an arrow

to the soul of her dynamic

watch her parallels unfold

between Earth-measured aspects

and the indispensable

prism of her goddess shape

my hands began to weave

stories in foreign tongues

melodies I’ve never had the voice to sing

knuckles Mamboing sign language

in rhythms the Universe has yet to show

the dusk horizon eclipsed

by stars and a paper wish

blessed trajectory

through the tussled hush

that hugs the wilted pergola

a well-folded fantasy

hung up where the faded pinwheel

spins it’s humming silver

the season’s scents

standing in a prayer circle

amid ice cubes slumping

collapsing in mason jars

ales foaming in pint glasses

hugging the shifting night air

melting and mending with the metaphor

of God and the cacophony of frogs

these days finessed from fingertips

that lock hands with shapes

built by children

hideaways kissed with dreamers lips

folded secret love notes

tucked between privacy fences

there were said prayers

upon those movements

upon my lawn

unfolded suburban satori

hands bent to mudras

giving imagination’s cursive voice

and it went outward that day as such

a breath, a meditation, a spiritual gesture
Sometimes I just want to be sad.
And I want to not care about anything
And I don’t want to feel bad about doing anything
And the only thing that would matter is to make myself feel better.
And feeling anything would be better than feeling like that so it wouldn’t matter what I did, and there would be no regret, no fear, and lots of pain. Beautiful, immediately real pain.
And I would cease to think and I would cease to think about thinking and I would exist as an element, reacting.
Just reacting.
And experiencing the dance.
Because, I want to feel it.
Really feel it. None of this phony derivative *******.
I want Satori.
I want to not think.
I want to not want to do anything but to do it anyway.
I want love in its most disgusting explosions.
And I want people. Beautiful people. Especially pretty girls.
And I want to be good for them even if they think I’m not.
I want to heal people.
And I want to help people who need help but don’t know how to ask.
And I want to hurt people in a way that makes them who they want to be without realizing it, and I won’t realize it either.
I want to accidentally get everything right,
And I already am because nothing can get got wrong if the getter’s got no wrong left in the universe.
And I want plants.
I want Brassicas to spiral towards me because they realize the sun is unattainable and distant and that I am right here all the time with love.
And I want walk through all of the blackberry, and raspberry, and wineberry bushes so they can claw at me and stick me and bleed me. And they can grab me and never let go of me so that I can die there and they can absorb me. And we can realize we were never truly separate in the first place.
And I want Rhododendrons and Laurels to weave themselves into my home because I want to be sheltered by life and love and I want my surroundings to reverberate growth as I reverberate appreciation.
And I want to appreciate everything more.
And I want to feel what the river wants me to do for it.
And I want to hear from the wind where I should stand so that it can enter my skin and lift my soul above my body and I can experience weightlessness.
And I want the sun to explode, just so all life on Earth will flash before its own eyes and we can experience all of it again. Together.
Clarissa Clark Dec 2010
Sunshine breaks through the windows,
warmth and wind beat upon my forehead
and a smile breaks out with sheer joy.

My body soaks
in the peaceful surroundings
as I rest soundlessly upon my bed of clouds.

My heart is tucked under the gentle wing
of bliss,
like an eaglet nurtured
under the comfort of her mother
as the noble pair soar high
above the land.

My still mind
mimics the pauses between the swaying breeze;
The utter silence that illuminates
the peace within.

My body shakes with awakening
as my self experiences satori
for the first time.

As I intently observe
the life force flow in and out,
now is love,
and I finally am.

As I bask in the glowing sun
that peers through the blinds,
I have been blessed with sight,
for now I can see.
J Bjork Mar 18
The tightness in my chest
conveys that I need to disconnect
sit alone,
on a remote landscape,
hoping the sound of rustling leaves
will sync with these shakes
and ease my deathless torment

As some quiet finally sets in,
introspection begins to surface
and it gets me wondering if
these thoughts of mine
intertwine with the pain that I keep
to manifest a life of anger
and delusion
draping me in shades of guilt,
forever climbing up this hill

Closing my eyes paved the way
for understanding unrivaled:
an ineffable cause
to sit with nothingness,
I spilled into a void
and suddenly
stopped drowning in sadness,
finding humor in the unknown
when a feminine hand reached out
with love,
telling me to let go
and she shared with me
everything I wanted to know;

“There is no path to save yourself,
only transcendence:
answers can be begged for
but until you let go of precedence
and learn to listen for each breath
the tightness will never settle
within your chest”
05/18

— The End —