Gravity

Consider for a moment—
just a breath or two—
breaking your silence in order
to place your ear
near the center of my chest
and finding the way
to speak to my loneliness.

She is desperate and anxiously waiting
for word of your return
or death—
whichever comes first
is equally appealing.

In the meantime, the taste of rusting iron
on my tongue will not wash away
with the salty rain
and these metal shards have lodged
this coppery banquet,
like fillings in my slowly decaying mouth,
until my head aches
and flashes with silver explosions
until I can no longer stand
the idea of your brilliance
or brown and golden eyes.

Consider forgiving me
for loving you unconditionally.
I know that burden
must be heavy with the responsibility of joy.
Few I have met can balance such a heavenly light
in the small container of the body
without spilling the ego—blood-red
and staining everything it touches.

You are awake in my mind each night
as I hand you the many stones
making up this love affair.
Smooth and round. . .Flat and long.
Pocked with so much heat and longing to weigh us down.
Here I have confidence you have pre-meditated patience
to find the steady place--fulcrum for these outstretched souls
to find the way gravity makes us stronger together.

Epilogue

Siddhartha,
now that I am smoke on the wind
and ashes in the silent burial grounds,

now that I have left you
in the vacant heat
of your solitary cot,

I have forgotten
why it was I longed
for my human form
except for that need to join
with your flesh and your spirit again.

My sweet love,
you are love,
again and again
my hungry lover.
One hundred thousand lifetimes
may not have been enough for us
to extract the essence of this lotus.

Even as you contemplated
my cooling lips
and wrapped my quickly dissolving flesh—
tenderly draped my feet and hands,
tenderly witnessed and blessed
by our son’s tears.
Swaddled in the death garments
and cradled on the rough pyre—
these are the symbols
frightening life with such untruths
and loneliness.

Just as on the last night I made love to you,
I watch you devour my bones and aged humanity—
poisoned by a simple snake.
I see you reach out toward my heart place
just to feel how alive you are, left behind.

The river is your lover now, Siddhartha,
and our son will fly
on the winds of his own Karma.


Farewell Siddhartha
until I find you
breathing quietly and chanting
your beautiful words
in the shade
of the eternal
and golden garden.

Robbed by Buddha

Sometimes Siddhartha’s words
are filled with the jingling laughter
of many golden bracelettes on the wrists
of a clapping woman.

Sometimes his words are chanting prayers
that flow off Siddhartha’s tongue
and get caught in my hair
and in the folds and creases
of my garments.

What do I know of prayer, Siddhartha?
My body has been the temple,
the shrine of adoration
many men have come to
for enlightenment and temporary relief
from all suffering.

And you bring me words
that will not cease chanting joy
to my ripe heart
and to the place within me
of all knowing.

I am confused by this open sky
and light above my head
that magnifies your face
like the Holy Ones.

Oh Siddhartha?
What spell,
what incantations
do you weave around me?

I am captured.
I am goddess
of all things wonderful
rolling off the waterfall
of your beautiful lips.

Do not ask me for my purse.
I have already given it to you.

Woman Alone

The world does not know me
as the one who stands alone—
a woman naked in front of the mirror
solitarily examining the outline of the places
so many have traveled
to find companionship or adventure—
a place of respite
from the drudgery
of the world.

Always I am at the side
or entwined in the grasping embrace
of a man—
the focus of a longing
never fully satisfied.
A hunger for nothing
but more.

In this body
I have been witness
to the payment and gifts
given over for pleasure.
Shining and golden,
I have seen what people
give of themselves
in the search of happiness—
always moving forward
toward the true path.

The world has seen me as accomplice
or crafty conspirator—
the bandit to blame
for misfortune—
the guilt attributed
like a crown of thorns
to be placed on my weary head.

My red blood runs freely
from those punctures
like any other woman
who has been that close
to the danger of truth,
but I walk near the wounded
with no shame,
my back straight and regal
my head held high.

I walk alone
on my own way.
The only way.
For I know
it is into my own eyes
I must glance with loving
at the end of sleep.

I must sit quiet
and content
at the sound
of my own strong heart
beating absolutely alone—
the drum
that guides me home.

Dreaming of a Caged Bird’s Death

In a thousand years
after the karma of our sins
has washed deep into the roots
of the Banyen tree,
has been taken up to the highest branches
to blossom unashamed,
opening fully to the warmth of the sun—

it is here
we will listen
to the sweet song
of the bird who warned you
of death and the lessons of Samsara.

This caged bird has so many secrets
chained to her small soul.
This prison of slender golden bars
is no place to hide
from the exchanges of flesh
and whispers of bold desire
that have played on the stage
of my bedcovers.

Though she may have averted her eyes
at the moment of penetration,
the stabbing sound of pleasure
and suffering could not be ignored
by this creature of wings
whose only purpose
was to flutter prettily
with song.

What is this fear you bring to my loving arms now, Siddhartha,
like a child waking from a dream of demons and finding surprise
at the death of a nightingale?

Did you not know this was her fate--
to please you into a sleeping bliss
so that you might awake fully
from this drunken numbness—
to feel more empty
and alive than anyone
you have ever known?

Let me cup the softness
of the gift of her body
in my hands, Siddhartha,
I will place her empty shell
on the rising and the falling
of the breath in your chest,
where the bird must burn
and escape as white as smoke—
her ashes evidence of hope
we all can be transformed
into holy light
in this dream of discovery.

Let me open the door of the cage
and witness your flight
into fragrant flowers.
I will not fail to listen
for your beautiful voice
chanting in peace.

Traveling to the End of the Path

It was easy to stop by the side of the road
and the end of one day on our long journey,
to succumb to the whining boy-child,
tired and hungry,
to hand him a sweet banana
from my bundle,
crouch near him—my hand softly assured
on his dusty foot,
and allow my eyes to close,
my own exhausted self
given the succor of stillness
near this river.

The sting of the viper
should not have been
a surprise in this vulnerable pose,
my defenses down,
awake yet unaware.

This life has, if nothing else, proven
over and over again
why I needed to protect myself.
Men, my collection of vipers here on Earth,
have been welcomed into my bed as an art.

I have controlled this danger
like a skilled snake charmer
in the marketplace
holding my heart,
the spirit part of me—
well away from the body
at arms length
just outside striking distance,
the distraction my dancing flesh
there so that I might rise above the basket
and trap the poison inside.

Now as the venom races through my blood so painfully
into my limbs and consuming my organs,
blackening my wounded skin,
I know I am at the birthing canal of death.

What miracle is it then
that brings you to me, Siddhartha,
my lovely viper,
as if in a dream
before this life leaves me.
You wrap your kindness around my hand,
coil into that warm place inside me,
that stone core heated by the sun
the center of my safe inner world.

I must tell you,
before I can no longer speak,
that I came here looking for peace
draped in the cloak of a stranger’s story.

I have found it, not there with the wise Gotama,
but in the changing shadows of your eyes, Siddhartha,
in the truth of your enlightened gaze.

It is here I am released,
just as I was all those years in your arms
and powerful loving gaze.
Even now I unprepared for such grace,
where I will again be removed
from all samsara.

If you will kiss my cooling lips
one last time, Siddhartha,
I will leave you
with my peace.

That is the way
I should like to travel
to the end of this path.

Last Night

Last night
after the music stopped,
after the candles burned
to stubs in their holders
and the oil was gone
from the lamps,
after the curtains were drawn
against the pending morning light,
after I washed my skin clean of sweat
and my yani fresh of sticky semen,

after you left me alone in the dark
to slumber after our sweetest rituals,
I wanted you again Siddhartha.
I wanted you like the first day
you shared your kisses,
like the first bread
I placed on your tongue.

I wanted you to admire
the curves of this body
and touch the wetness
of my hair,
finger the beads
that hung boldly
from my ears
and between my breasts.

Without you
I touched the tender smoothness
of my own nipples
and let my fingers find the sacred
slippery river banks of desire
hidden deep—
a treasure reserved
only for you now.

So great was my longing
to see your face,
inhale your warm breath,
to feel your hands on my hips
guiding yourself deep inside me—
around me like light

I could not be satisfied.

My own gifts of pleasure
drifted silent
on the breezes
of the darkest hours
where Star’s wisdom
hushed to the lost child in me
inconsolable into no sound at all.

The dawn doves came to mock me—
the exhausted Empress of nothing.

I stand prisoner in my own chamber
my arms held above my head
naked and facing the wall
begging the master
to open the door
and set me free.

Come back to me Siddhartha.
Fill my soul with your oldest wine.