And Jesus Spat

(Jn. 9: 1-7)

Who has no self but in God, carries no thought
but the Divine impression unbroken, unprocessed;
comes or goes as the wind, you can't say whence or whither:
Friends, let that one spit!

You who have been blind since birth,
if one comes whose very breath is Healing,
and mingles that spit with the earth of the ground,
rubbing that over your eyes: Friends, let it be done!

The waters of that mouth are prasad indeed,
as is the Word issuing forth therefrom;
let that Stranger come, welcome those hands
which might rest thereon where the pain is!

This one knows where, better than you,
and sees whole and gives whole, rendering whole.
The embrace of one lost in God carries no price tag,
all your wealth could never acquire it -




an attitude of gratitude however is like a magnet,
that is the best of coin here, and innocent trust.
Be like that tenth leper, not the nine,
be like that Samaritan who shouldn't have known better, but did:

give thanks where it is due, return to that hermit in the woods
or the mechanic in his shop – wherever that one hangs out, go!
and render thanks for that spit or that hand or that embrace.
Prasad is best received, like the Eucharist, with humble thanks.

Those Eyelashes

So delicate are a woman's feelings,
as when I consider just those eyelashes,
so tenderly should the lover regard the heart of her -
yet when but one of those eyelashes enters my heart,
robbing me of speech, churning me to butter,
then I know what a power is in that very woman!
Verily, she is in all her beauty -
and all the wisdom of that:  the grace of God.

Milk and Honey

Our Lovemaking is like the mixing of honey with milk,
bodies of satin, whispers of silk:
I fall trembling into your receiving embrace,
my head in your lap, then you sit on my face -
my arms receive you, and tremors in your loins equal those in mine,
we are like sovereign lions rolling in the grasses of the Serengetti...
the rhythm of our fucking is constant and steady.
There is nothing forced, artificial, redundant, or missing -
but listening, feeling, gazing, in that depth of our kissing.

They Are From Me

Those tears on your cheek you needn't wipe -
they are from me, for I just wept
while pressing my lips there in a prolongued kiss,
my brow resting against your temple.

And I, longing to return to you and enter your Temple,

now enfolded in your arms, my face burrowing
into your neck, nestling there, as you stroke my hair -
I kiss and kiss that neck, leaving more tears
of joy for loving you and gratitude for making love with you.

That This Beauty Shall Prevail

In the humble expression of this poor servant,

let this be known:

Better to fall on the battlefield

than choke on my steak in the War Room.

For it is my intention, in this my lifetime,

here-now and in reality, as in eternity,

that Sufism shall defeat Islam, prevail over and replace it entirely

with knowledge of God, with love of God.

That the Sovereignty of Love shall prevail over

and replace Muslim bigotry, racism, misogyny, hypocrisy.

That the prayers of the Great Ones and faith of the Heart

shall prevail over and replace Muslim arrogance, ignorance,

aggression, and its most primitive brutality.

That music and dance, creative literature, reason,

beauty in all its variations, shall prevail over and replace

the Muslim's native bent toward pronouncing death-fatwas,

toward pathologically underdeveloped, grossly self-conscious

phobias against any nonconformity, as against all freedom

of self-expression, against any notion of critical self-reflection,

of maturity in relation to the rest of the world:

over this shall prevail the nectar of Rumi, the fragrance of Hafiz;

the madness of Kabir and of Rabi'a shall prevail over and replace

a Muslim mentality which shuns pork but evidently not cannibalism.

That the creative openness of Sufism which embraces all faiths

and all paths toward God shall prevail over and replace this Islam

of domination, delusions of supremacy, of bludgeoning with Shari'a

every Muslim who is "other" and every culture which is not of itself.

Verily, the song and movement of Dervishes,

the Movement and the Message of Sufism through the Ages

cannot be annihilated, it is here in spite of historic repression,

and shall prevail over an Islam which never could appreciate

Sufis, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists - and murders them

century for century.

O Beloved Lord and Cherisher of the worlds:

let these words not prove empty, no -

let this love be active, this harmony penetrate through hearts:

that this beauty shall prevail.

Let it so Be as I, Sheikh Samuel Inayat-Chisti, have said,

who shall raise the banner of Love on that battlefield

in whichever form that comes,

and shall not fall, after so many lifetimes of this, but shall prevail.

Insha'llah.

From Athens To Piraeus

Vassilis Giakoumis, the islander who had instructed Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates on the set for "Zorba the Greek" was now teaching me in Boulder, '77 or '78, The Dance. The Zorba Dance, The theme dance to the movie – the heart-attack dance as he taught it and as I learned it and as I still dance it 35 years notwithstanding. Why should I not believe him, that he was on the set, he was as fun as it gets, and dubbed me his Zorba. He wore black and carried The Cap. It is a matter of film-or-just-Quinn buff knowledge, that The Anthony could not get The Dance, so they composed a Tsirtaki step simple enough for him, and you don't see him actually dance what Vassilis taught me, which was certainly not just Hollywood: it is uncomplicated but creative, not stilted, and it requires stamina and duration, it puts your pumper to work and you'd better not be on medication. Ouzo always helps, but it does my stomach no favor and I end up depositing the substance later where that goes.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. In 1976 at the tender age of 21 and gradually leaving behind the "beardless youth" I had been, I embarked on my one and only trip abroad, some seven summer weeks in Israel to attend the Sufi "Jerusalem Camp" with work camp optionally inlcuded to set up. My student flight pkg. included first a long day's stopover in Athens, and on the return flight a week's stopover in the same. I thought, wow. Greece. Parthenon. Acropolis. Never On Sunday. Melina Mercouri. Oh yeah, and Zeus & Co. of course, my beloved Mythology.

My brother and I had loved the soundtrack as small kids, from "Never On Sunday," and at least one of us was devastated fro life by Melina Mercouri - we'd play bouzouki on heavy old wooden tennis rackets, we'd sneak into the Park Theater exit to try to catch the last ten minutes of this age-restricted film. 

I will stick here to the twin episodes of Athens and Piraeus. The latter was Melina's turf in the cinema; the former was Melina's in the form of Margarite. I was still in my "Woody Allen" years, no one at that time would have thought of Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino, much less DeNiro. I was a schlemiel and a schmegeggie, if you will, and this happening was inevitable, as inevitable as it was surreal and as surreal as it was, in all details: real.

Inevitable it felt, so much so that in retrospect soon after, I was compelled to remark that each scenario played out like a written-then-forgotten film script, with on the spot marginal-notes and direction in brackets, as to what would exactly occcur next – and the surreality of it was, that a kooky eerie breath of some sense of this was present, hovering in my consciousness at each step of those two odd visits to my longed-for Grecian, Greek, land-o'-bleached-houses, this-sure-ain't-Kansas experience-abroad. Well, for a start I did get to experience: a broad. Dumb joke, WWII generation. Let it go.

I land at Hellenikon and my student pkg. has me riding a luxury bus into town, which would have dropped me off at Syntagma Square where any damned fool could orient himslef with all the other travelling students and youth – but noooo, I having 18 hrs. to find something to occupy myself with which wouldn't make me miss my flight out, impatiently seek to step off the bus at a randomly chosen Athenian corner. I hear, I actually hear my thoughts tell me, in a running instruction, as I was very concentrated on the purpose of my trip and I had to behave myself, watch my cash, remember that I am a student of a Sufi Murshid, and other 21-yr. old rubbish which may as well have come from Mom. Who wasn't there. Thank God. In fact, the only one who would have a problem with anything that was about to occur or my handling of it – was in my head and nowhere else. Later I could laugh about it.

And I hear this running instruction telling me, "Now you want to see the Parthenon, which is visible from here at the top of that hill over there, so stay out of trouble, don't get sidetracked, and don't go with the first nice stranger who speaks good English." Frankly, if I could have stood opposite myself and brushed off specks and straighted my bow tie and combed my fingers through my hair I'd have done that. So I step gingerly off and into that world with a caution which held no weight aganst my naiveté and youthful curiosity, a non-stop nose for adventure.
 

And stand face to face with a friendly Greek guy who speaks good English. Made to order, sent form central casting. And I'm the rube. Offers me a beer around the corner, I'm not taking at 10 am, - so fine, he changes that to coke, I tell him he's on, thinking I'm being invited, as in: native hospitality I actually wouldn't be shelling out for. Naive, I was naive. We turn the corner and go into his dive, his bar. As I sit at the bar with my coke, of course She saunters up. She takes the stool next to mine and aks me if I'd buy. She is the very picture of Melina Mercouri, or so I perceive, only in brunette – fabulous hair. Annnd, like Melina's Ilya, she would gladly go with me to a back room for which I'd pay and we'd make hay.

I hold my spot, I stick to my guns, I maintain composure, I am the picture of suave, I remain cool though worldly. I am nearly breaking into a sweat, I am barely controlling my tremble, I am possibly stammering idiocies. I am out of my element. But an element I so longed to meet, to know, to master. It would come. But not that day, not that day.

I have the uncanny feeling of a pre-written script giving instruction to what is to be acted out seconds before it happens, and this follows me, scene for scene, throughout my entire stay in Greece where I'm on my own, that day and the entire week later on. And this uncanniness occurs to me consciously only later when reflecting on it all afterward. "This is where he meets...Her...."

She is playing with my knee, an old device – it's working, she has me. But I politely turn her down while letting her order her first of two drinks on my tab (I still have my one coke), I'm not thinking so much of the learned-"wrongness" of going back there into some room with her or of possibly contracting something painful to have treated, so much as a more realistic, albeit highly improbable, caution on my part which saw me lying unconscious on the floor with a bruiser on my head and all my cash and related valuables gone, in short, really screwed. And that kind of screwed I could do without. So I'm thinking, as I muster all my suave to charm her and to resist her wiles, as I light her cigarette of course. Right.

I ask her her name. Of course. She tells me in that wonderful Melina-Greek-English, "My name is Margarete...like the flower." Oh, shit, it's getting poetic, she has my knee at her fingertip, she does not buy my suave, and knows I know it. Who writes her material?! But it gets better. I tell her, my hand on the bar trying to keep from idly drumming, I tell her how flattered I would be to go back there with her and to recieve the charms of her beauty, and such, but "I intend to go up to the Parthenon there just now, with the time I've got – and would love it if you'd come with me, accompany me on a walk to the...um...the Parthe...non...there." If this had played in Berlin it would be like telling her I want to see the Brandenburg Gate with her, if this had played in Philly it would be like saying I want to walk with you to the Smithsonian since we won't be conducting much else of business. D-uhhh. Now, what she does then: I am not making any of this up, my life really is this good.

Shaking her lovely wild main of dark-Melina hair, she tells me – not imperiously but with an easy sovereignty which earns her THE Melina-Award for that or any other year of my life – she tells me, without missing a beat, hair flying back revealing her eyes, her face: "I AM the Parthenon."

Good Lord, who writes her material?! I want to be her love slave. She's good, she's more than good – if she's half that good back in that room, I... no, still no deal, even with that. But as at that very moment I recall in her statement the story of the devout Muslim in some earlier century who would later become a name among Sufi greats, how he had made his way on foot to the Ka'aba to perform Hajj, and en route comes across an old dervish sitting beside the road, who asking him where he's going tells him instead to make his seven circumambulations around himself, the dervish, and his duty will have been fulfilled, he could then return home; the youth, recognizing the power and wisdom in this old dervish, does as he is instructed, attains an advanced state of realization, goes home and becomes a Sufi – sooo, as at that moment I have to glimpse the similarities here, I nod and tell my Margarete, looking her up and down with respect for her style in slam-dunking a goofy kid from Boulder, and looking into her eyes, "I – believe – that." But I still don't budge, she gives up on me, goes off to a distant table, I wind up being out 10 drachma, and find myself standing outside again with my tail between my legs and pissed off at myself. Not so much on account of Her, but the 10 drachma. I was still learning.

Other incidents wind up irritating me, not germain to the story, other than that my walk up to the Parthenon after all turns out to be a disappointment, as at that hour of day all the magic is gone and there remains in its place a pack of mostly German middle-aged tourists in shorts standing around gawking. Not my scene. I take a long, long walk.

Now, fast-forwarding six weeks, the Camp and all it's wonderful impressions are just behind me, I hole up for the night in the Muslim quarter of the Old City, in a grungy hostel, a total stranger, alone – everything is just right, I've settled quite well with the floaty sense one gets of being abroad. I want to be alone, alone is good, I need to digest, to reflect, to absorb. I chat with a wall-eyed Arab kid named Rafi', either he or another traveller tell me that if I have a week in Greece and want to be alone, really alone, then Kéa's the place for me, a lone island getaway for mainlanders, with absolutely nothing to offer but it leaves you alone. Right on the money.

So hovering in the air over Greece again, I pray to my Beloved Melina-Woman-Greece, "Honey we got off on the wrong foot, let's make up and do this right, I'll be spending the week in your embrace, so receive me right this time and let it be good." I actually whisper this through the window over the wing, like a prayer.

This time I get myself to Syntagma Square, this time I know what the fuck I'm doing, this time I read the info and figure out where the hell Kéa is and how I get there: Piraeus by trolly, from there with a boat – six glorious hours on the Med, standing at the prow, loving it, loving it.

Now there is one thing which equals being absolutely alone, to make a journey precious to remember: and that is, to find oneself – all the better for the sheer unexpected spontaneity of it and still better when one does the inviting oneself and takes charge for one's own part, not under anyone else's pressure – to find oneself in exactly the right company of one or more persons, fellow travellers – not tourists but wanderers, wayfarers of the world, children of the earth.

So on that tram I wind up discovering Uwe, a 19 yr. old hippie form Frankfurt-am-Main, who having nothing better planned, gladly joins me en route to Piraeus and my glorious island retreat. Again that voice – "This is where he meets Uwe, whom he likes and should suddenly invite to come along, and who accepts..."

We check in for the night at a youth hostel on our wharf of departure in Piraeus. As the corpulent Greek woman shows us to our quarters, there's that grainy b/w afternoon dimness which causes me to have to focus before I see what the cues-editor is whispering and which I only much later recognize as having been there as well: "Here is where they meet the two Italians..." For sleeping on their bunks and arousing in me an initial resistence to so much as meeting any others, are the Figaro (or Barbieri) Francesco (40) and his companion Alvaro (ca. 21), fresh out of India and en route eventually home. As I take right to them the moment we all gaze at one another, they agree to join us and Francesco and I swap caps while on Kéa – where we sleep on the trashed out beach at the foot of the very not-so-clean Med. But one thing is sure, this island offers nothing, I will be alone and reflecting with my three beautiful new friends. I am Dorothy and our road is yellow, and brick. And this certainly ain't Kansas.

My Italians meditate at the sunrise, perform the - for that time obligatory - prayer-to-the-sun hatha yoga set, and I meditate and reflect and beachcomb with Uwe...

Sitting alone in the one local café there is, one morning over Nescafé – nothing Greek here – with a cheap radio in the background playing American '60s pop – I mean really nothing Greek here – at least all those little wavelets I see lapping up and down from the terrace where I'm sitting watching the waters – as if I were on acid, which I am not, every wavelet, and there are thousands stretching before me, is telling me with its up and down bobbing: "yes yes yes yes yes...." like it's now James Joyce's Bloom in Ulysses. Why not, at least he was Greek. And it does not fail to catch the islanders' attention, when I buy a pack of 15 giant trash bags and go to cleaning up my beach, leaving just a dent in the effect of all that trashing it has taken from tourists – but leaving more than a dent in the hearts of these good natives of Kéa. Silly American.

After much agonized waiting for my ferry back to catch my flight, delayed due to the full moon's effect on those waves (now probably telling me no, no, no – or wait, wait, wait...) my ship finally comes in and I will be leaving my island, it's inhabitants, and my three dear friends. My last night there we are all made to party with the natives, as special guests. I am invited to consider marrying any one of several daughters of the island, and I learn that if I dance like hell while putting down lots of retsina I will not be drunk. The catch is, I am rarely ever drunk, it is my stomach which rebels – every time. And I board that ferry with a Turkish acquaintance after we've enjoyed a long walk together, he's just a kid like me, and the ferry takes a much shorter route over the choppy Aegean to another shore than I had first left. Here I make some six trips to the toilet, those lovely crouching numbers I so loved getting familiar with. I heave six times, and that last time, with hands on the portal I pause from my hurling to gaze out, eyes teary with my cleansing ordeal, I gaze out onto the August sun rising over the Aegean, and knowing that I will never recapture this moment, whisper aloud, "Ohhh, how beautiful!" as I duck my head again for another round of losing that retsina in a manner which I will be repeating many times in my life with ouzo or with 'arak.
But I will never stop dancing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28EAWlOXrYs&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8VJCQqTL_I&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OrXjjfnhCA&hd=1

SAN FRANCISCO: The Castro

(I came to love that San Fran quite intimately, man to city I mean.

As one sees here, I still carried my clichés but also appreciated much, and I was still developing and coordinating my grasp vis-à-vis the gay world/gay community.here or anywhere else. This graduated later to real work-place friendships and still better contact. But re-reading this and judging myself less, I have to say (to any detractors gay or straight): I was undeniably there, certainly observing, and forming honest reflections on it. Not to forget: this was also the exact period there where I had my AIDS patients in care giving, and that story of holding the one dying in my arms on the bed while havnig read to him from the Tib. Book, as he wished, and now together with his lover, whispering as he wished in his ear, Amitabha, Amitabha........and then I washed his body, much to the very touched, very moved, astonishment of his gay circle there in the livingroom who had seen in me a bit of an intruding hetero – until then. I cannot be gay and never could – had I been I'd long since have lived it out here in Berlin at least, it was never my orientation, not even bi-, not even to experinment...so why would I bother.

 

However, that being said, I have since my teenage years made the effort ot understand and really grasp them as fellow sexually-oriented human beings, as a group with very very definite civil-and-human rights issues, and I have always rejoiced at every breakthrough in our or any society in this direction. Oh, I could go on for hours sharing my relfections, observations, theories concerning gays, gay history and society. But we'll save that for a rainy day.)

CASTRO (San Francisco 1985)

Like an ethnos all of its own this neighborhood

leave them alone this gay ghetto:

here they have their self-defined culture

                          within a culture,

like gypsies are they,

after a fashion – flamboyant unabashed

                                                       and different.

The Mission is where men speak to men in Latin dialects,

                                                 the Castro is where men speak to men

                                       in each other's ear whispering the language of the body,

                                                                          using the tongue generously.

Meeting openly in over-gesticulated celebration

           of their common difference flaunting

       their preference as you might your national heritage.

Like eighth-grade girls I muse minus the plaid skirts and knee socks,

as I watch the display of carefree giddiness in grown men.

Conversations dominated by a sexualectric charge

          a sense I perceive of imminent gratification

      and every day is Friday – is it possible,

I reflect, that emotionally they have remained eighth-graders,

choosing at that crucial age that to relate as a man

to a real woman was untenable?

Man-lover reading this, worshipper of Adonis rather than Aphrodite:

don't be distressed or indignant everyone is learning -

Don't judge the gap between us,

after all you could be my son.

I don't wish you dead I wish you well.

Overlooking the leather the studs the makeup gawdy jewelry affectations,

I'm not abashed to add, even Peter Pan could grow up

 

and still be himself.

SAN FRANCISCO: The Tenderloin

(In '85, I was using this very humble digs on O'Farrell Street, as seedy a nabe as it gets. The hookers, the winos, the junkies, the rifraff. And I cherished it. I was working alright - home health care with about three different services, VNA, Western, this and that – but as broke as you could be and staying at that level. You could really almost say I didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. Yet I remember my landlord very fondly, and his lady-for-life, very dear people. I remember being in my "wife-beater" undershirt and sitting out nights on my fire-escape some 6 flights up, playing on a second-hand 120-bass white accordian to the fighting drunks and strolling prostitutes and general traffic down below – my sole repertoire: everything from "Never On Sunday," from the theme to the other fun melodies giving us the loves of Piraeus. I don't need to speculate on the appreciation of this down on the street but I was having a gas, puffing on my cheap cigar.

 

Now one late night I got a call to have a bundle of laundry left with me ready for someone from the house in Mill Valley to drive by and pick up. No hidden insinuations here, it really was just about some laundry. I was seeing myself as the house idiot, but that didn't matter, I was soon going to be deciding to enter the military, join the Army, see the world. But in the meantime, and on this particular evening, I had taken the only cooking pan I had, and made a nice little soupy stew, with onions and maybe rice, and I don't know what else, but I had precious damned little and was now using up the last of that. I did not even have garlic, on that I had to pass, which I hated to do but sometimes in life you just don't have garlic. And I had something in mind with this, something I was going back and forth about, if and whether I should - because with a certain group of "who-are-the-people-in-your-neighborhood" I still felt skiddishly apart and self-concious, and I wanted to bridge that and embrace them.

Sooo: around 5 a.m., still dark, the car rolls by as arranged and I'm down on the street passing over the armful of laundry - and after mutual greetings from these Dharma-sisters of mine, I'm standing there alone, about to go back up. Then I see her, Black and hooking, standing on the corner, not trying to get me over, just hanging at her corner, so I'd have to approach her. Which I did, saying – just to break the ice and leave her flabbergasted - which it oddly did: "Hey, kiddo,it's rather cold out here! You can't be making any business at this hour on a Sunday morning – everybody's in church!"

Well, she was somehow quite normal, natural, okay to me, not bombed or aggressive or whatever else may have inhibited me. I invited her up, lightly insisting, to a stew - no tricks on my part and no tricks needed from her trade. Just between us. "You haven't had breakfast yet, right, hon'? I don't have much, but I did just rustle something up for ya and would be obliged for you to taste it, c'mon!"

She did, she followed me all the way up, she told me she hooks to cover groceries, her mother watches her child thinking she has some night job somewhere. So oh shit, she's REAL. I really hit gold here, so she got her stew alright, maybe even a second helping. I got her to remove her heels, got out my water basin and towle and oil, and happily massaged her tired feet. She asked about a wife, I said, yeah, mine will come by soon just to crash after night shift as nurse, butnot to worry, she's not due yet and she's very understanding. So I asked her how she liked the stew, honestly now. And what did she have the gall to tell me: "It's not bad, it's alright, but it's lacking something... ...yeah, I know – it's missing garlic."

Every word of this is true. And yes, I was just bringing her to the door to personally escort her back down to the street, as my wife came home, irritated at finding someone in the flat, and I sent her to bed – or rather, to futon. My guest, thinking she was about to be murdered or at least dissed, I assured with, "Now don't you worry a bit, I'll take care of her - she's just tired, actually she's very understanding.")

TENDERLOIN (San Francisco 1985)

Pacing the curb all those hours for a thirty-dollar trick or two

to feed those twins your mother is watching over, she doesn't know

where the groceries come from – you look hot for me, baby,

for a dirty-thirty you'd let me put an unwashed shaft in you

or a bourbon-soaked tongue between rotting teeth- maybe then

not thirty, but fifty? and I could jerk my contempt off

into your belly and I would never have to know you . . .

Honey dammit come in outa the cold just this once I've got a

hot homey stew I made it just for you take off those heels no hurry

let me rub those ankles with a skill and a salve, ok it's not your routine,

but indulge me this once -

my prayers for your well-being are stirred into this stew it's alI

I want to put into your belly.

The Goddess' Armpit

(to that Goddess in every Woman)

One speaks of her auspicious gaze,
the many facets of her all-embracing,
and in the same moment, penetrating glance.

In every aspect I agree, all parts of her form
are addressed in one hymn or another,
whether carved in marble, in wood or in sandstone,

whether painted, or in paean sung,
or embodied in dance, or costumed staging,
and be it Grecian or Roman or Tantra with bindu:

in all these depictions I hear
of her eyes, her lips, her arms and her thighs,
I see in the art how robust and alive

those breasts can be, and those sweeping hips,
a turn of the neck just so,
the feet with the anklets . . .

and yet . . .
And yet and yet and yet:
what is missing, but that I sometimes

may catch it – no, rather
be caught by it, yes, caught up!
Such that every fibre of my all-too male being

can barely bring my tongue to sing
to that which it longs rather to touch,
to meet most intimately there, and lose itself

in that place where hair
may also grow, and the form and the shape
of this, that Goddess' armpit, unsung, unsung!

It is not unfair, it is alone intended
for me to discover, as I had with such yearning
from earliest of memory beholding her form.

The erotic statement of it cannot be spoken,
there is nothing in the literature giving mention,
it is for me most privately, intimately, erotically winning

her approval so, for me alone to go there and to know it.
It is a world and an opener of worlds, as there are
many gates to her erotic majesty, this is only for the seeing,

bestowing its aroma – ah, yes, laugh you world,
and remain bereft of this particular blessing few of us
can appreciate, and appreciating thus

with finger strokes and tongue and eyes
full of desire and homecoming
there in the cleft of it,

spread for me, inviting, open and sovereign,
sharing, laughing, cooing, surrendering
as with no other door, there

beloved, beloved nectar of scented
perspiration, completely natural,
intoxicating beyond any words, please, no words!

This tongue is not for words here, but for surrendering,
as every male part of me is ordered to this attention
now.

The smile of her mouth is enticing indeed,
but still more so, is
the Goddess' armpit.

INDEPENDENCE

I Am my own worst enemy.
I Am my own dearest friend.
I Am whoever wishes me well, or ill.
I Am whoever praises or blames me.
I Am whoever is also indifferent to me.
I Am whoever would want to kill me, or provoke me.
I Am whoever remembers me, or doesn't.
I Am whoever comes or goes.
I Am whoever shares joy with me.
I Am whoever debates or argues with me, confronts me or takes me to task.
I Am whomever I Am addressing, now.
I Am my only pupil.
I Am never alone, I honor mySelf in each – never alone,
I Am all one.