
this is not spoken word. these are words, spoken. ~ this is not slam, this is the door. this is the window. this is the glaze. this is the breeze brought across your skin. this is the wind on the water and the breath on the surface. this is the ripple. ~ this is the breath of the earth brought to the sky. this is the surface where the landscape is seen. this is the landscape where we all wander. this is the place where we all are lost and this is the only place where we will ever find each other. ~ this is living a vibrant adage. this is living on a verdant ledge. this is living on that vibrating edge. ~ this is not my body. this is my voice. this is vibration brought into being. this is my mind pushing a column of air, somewhere. this is sound shaped into meaning. this is me breathing, in you. this is muscle and cavity, moving. this is diaphragm, lung, larynx, tongue, lips and jaw. these are my words in your mouth. this is my world in the mouth of your mind. ~ this is not performance, this is incantation. ~ this is where body touches mind. this is where meaning is born and this is where meaning dies. this is not finding meaning in a story. this is making a story mean something. this is not seeking meaning. this is living meaning and this is making all these things mean something. this is not seeking, this is making. this is mind making myth. this is myth-making mind. this is making myth mind. this is myth making mind and this is making me (into) a myth. ~ this is not ritual, this is invocation. ~ this is not some thing, this is something lived. this is some but not all. this is the sum. this is the current. this is the slow movement of mind and this movement is not mine. this is the company of misery. this is the beat of the beaten. this is the brand of the new. this is the spent cartridge, the smell of sulphur and a cloud of rust in a sepia sky. this is blood sucked straight from the sand. this is the tatters of the temple’s torn curtain. ~ this is pure speculation. this is mind ore. this is the whore of the mind doing its helical mambo. this is me fucking me. this is what it means. this is what “it” means. and this is all there is. this is all there is. this is all there is. ~~~~~ (I began this piece sometime in 2015 and have tinkered with it on and off ever since. As happens often with me, I get tired of looking at things or I don't know what else to do with them and so I abandon them here....
“Poems are never finished – just abandoned”
—Paul Valery)
I can see where you’ve been for the last week or so; this – not what I am about to say, neither the words of your piece which I have just read – is the Buddha raising up a single flower to the assembled crowd and only Maudgalyayana getting it; welcome back to writing, Johnny: like ‘this’ I’m not sure you were ever away but just taking an in-breath
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Gosh. I feel I’ve been disingenuous. The back-story here is that I actually started this piece about 5 years ago. At the time, most of it came in a rush. I’ve been tinkering with it ever since. But then I did just pick it back up again recently after not looking at it for a while. And it has rather been playing in the background like a kind of a mantra, or maybe more like an aural mudra, if such a thing can be imagined. It feels more gestural to me, though in a way it is an expression of a kind of spiritual connection that I feel I have been moving towards for a while (and getting closer to in the last few weeks). Words and I are still not the bosom-buddies that we once were, but I am trying to change that. I think this is part of my process. I hang on to little kernels of things I think are “me best stuff” because “they’re not ready” and then I get tired of looking at them, I don’t know what else to do with them and I force myself to post them and…..a funny thing happens….I start writing more to fill the empty folder of “ready” poems. It’s a cycle with me, I think.
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Excellent, whether it stays this way or is subjected to further tinkering. So often in Buddhism, or at least in Zen Buddhism, you hear about “Just This.” That is the “this” in my mind as I read the words, and it works. I particularly like from “this is the spent cartridge” through “the temple’s torn curtain.” And the stanza (?) that begins “this is the breath of the sky” is a little like what I was trying to communicate in my current post, but I barely went there. I don’t know if I wish I had gone there because I couldn’t write as profoundly as you have here, but at least, I wish I had gotten that idea across better. But there’s time, isn’t there? And if there isn’t, well, we’ve done something… and this is all there is. 🙂
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I had not intended or even thought of the Buddhist/Zen connection until I decided to put an image with the words, the the reclining Bodhisattva just seemed to be the one…..
I thank you, though I feel that you give me more credit than is due. I am flattered by your words and no matter how I feel about your words or mine….
…this is indeed all there is….
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And if you’re grateful for anything I’ve contributed here, it probably isn’t half of what I’ve gained here, in pleasure and inspiration.
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You are so very kind, Lynn. I thank you.
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And yes! Your words and images have been and continue to be a real source of solace for me. Your sweet soul shines through them and I am so grateful to know you.
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smiling now, thanks, Johnny.
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