>Uncertainty is
friend and foe
comfort and pain
a lousy lover
in a lonely city.
Draw close to the warm bosom
and sink into shallow sleep
unhappy where you are,
unwilling to move forward.

>THERE IS NO MAN WHO IS NOT MY BROTHER
THERE IS NO WOMAN WHO IS NOT MY SISTER
THERE IS NO MAN WHO IS NOT MY BROTHER
THERE IS NO WOMAN WHO IS NOT MY SISTER
THERE IS NO MAN WHO IS NOT MY BROTHER
THERE IS NO WOMAN WHO IS NOT MY SISTER
THERE IS NO MAN WHO IS NOT MY BROTHER
THERE IS NO WOMAN WHO IS NOT MY SISTER
THERE IS NO MAN WHO IS NOT MY BROTHER
THERE IS NO WOMAN WHO IS NOT MY SISTER

Let me dissolve here and float
as a mist
down by the river
(thereby stripped of every possession but love)
and encompass all my Family;
quieting crying children,
softening the hearts of quarreling lovers,
jamming guns and
calming the angry blood
of a million cornered youths–
Shhh!
Listen…

>Looking for Truth?
Travel with a few words in your pocket
and when they begin to melt
and their meanings all mingle and run together,
you know you’re near.
Close your eyes
and look for a door.

>Yes, it’s 2006
and almost seven!
And I’ve no beef with science,
no sir.
It’s just that it’s irrelevent(!)
I’m not looking out into the heavens
or down through a microscope.
And even string theory holds but a loose curiousity for me.
It’s within me I search, below the sense and the synapses…
I CAN’T BURROW FAST ENOUGH!
Before existing fills it all in.
(Breathe.)
I can’t reach far enough
to pinch the flame.

>Do you feel whole and certain?
All I want to do is lay down
and dissolve into the sheets,
soak through them, drop below the mattress,
settle into the carpet and work my way
past cinderblocks and then
back, finally, to the earth.
And sleep there forever,
free, free, and finally, free.

>Nothing here matters!
But here’s where I am.
And I can’t dance, yet, forever with angels.
So may I sink silent & selfless beside you in bed
a quarter past three in the yellow-black morning.

>O, dear brothers!
O, sweet sisters!
The Search doesn’t end at the Lord
but only at the bank of a cold stream
deep in a misty wood,
far from home, far from neighbors,
far from lovers and far from habit.
Where you drop to your knees
(if you’re willing)
and pull yourself up by the roots,
casting the sprouts of ego into the water.
Yeah, He’s waiting somewhere
downstream of there.
Downstream of self.

>Like a lap you have when you sit
and lose when you stand
or a fist formed from folded fingers
that evaporates when they straighten…

And maybe I wrap myself tight, tight, so tight
in semantics
to guard from the uncertain cold
But who cares!
Every word I’ve ever said
is a dancing shadow
cast by a sputtering flame.
The Truth sits there
in plain view!
But I’m blind, blind, blind

Yeah, life is just a lap
just a lap a lap a lap
someday, God be praised
I’ll stand up.