Bad News for a Poet

I cannot so much as write an ode to your Beauty,
I am too smitten to speak in verse – this is bad news for a poet.
My devastation in love forbids me every word, spoken or written.
I am absorbed in it, and in absorption no words are possible.
Who then is telling you this? My shadow.
When two Am's meet in the center they form a Not,
when two I's gaze at the Beloved they are You -
two eyes ablaze in Union, lost in your merciful glance,
breathless breathless – the lovemaking is all in that place where
this poor lover knows to bring it, in the seven locks of Yoga,
where each lock of your hair and the lock of Kunda meet
and are one searing Kundalini force rising, bringing this love with it!

A Love For The Ages

When one hears the Ramayana being given, and after all is said and done:  Ravanna is defeated, his stronghold laid waste, his demon hosts thwarted, Sita rescued, Lord Rama has his throne returned to him, everyone's together and things are right with the world again - then comes the part with Hanuman and his relationship to Rama.  It is the most beautiful of relationships - I know, because whenever I contemplate it, all these decades after that one hearing, my heart is stricken and the tears well up.

One can say, "I love God, I love God above all else and I acknowledge God."  This is well and good, especially when one has taken one's own faith into hand and probed it and pursued it in some depth.  That is the beginning of responsibility and an endless exploration.  The one inherent entrapment which derails the journey is in keeping God "out there" and separate.

One can say, "Moreover, I have found God within myself - or my Self - and I acknowledge that 'I am That'; God my Beloved is within me and I am within God."  That implies taking still more responsibility, and tends in the direction of Knowledge, of Jnana.  As the former example is of great value, so is the latter very significant, however far one comes or is guided.  Alone with this, one may run the risk of a narcissism and most unfortunate delusion.

When one - precisely from and in cognizance of these latter two - arrives at the recognition of God-as-Beloved in the absolute and surrounding Formless, in one's own Form, and in the Form standing before one (not that one ever confuses this with loving "people", but residing fast deep and sovereign in one's love for God, and only thus loving God in the "other," however in darkness that one might be, as one holds God in oneself and over and above oneself, knowing that in all matters God is holding oneself in the timeless Heart of Infinity, one's own Infinity)...when one gets this and values and cultivates this, that really is taking responsibility and that is Bhakti, the way of devotion.  It's nature is conscious, its form is love.



So at the end of the Ramayana, after the most remarkable Bhakta, Hanuman the monkey, has defeated the entire demon host with his mace and burned down Ravanna's city with his flaming tail after they'd set it on fire, helped rescue Sita, fulfilled the tasks in Rama's service - now in Ram's court and before all present he is asked by Lord Rama, who is the embodiment of Divinity for that Age in Hindu Scripture:  "Dear Hanuman, so what are you actually?  Man or ape?"

(Hanuman was known as "the Breath of Ram," and as "Son of the Wind" - this lends significance to what follows.)

Hanuman replies:  "When I don't know who I am, I'm Your servant.  When I know who I am, I'm You."  And they embrace - this is a very important story, which only the heart or a child can understand.  When Rama hails and praises him before all the others there, and offers him anything he wants, he responds:  "Lord save me, save me from the pit of ego!"

A lovely song addressing devotion to Ram, from a group near Boulder back in the '70s, has these lines concerning Hanuman and Ram's brother Laksman - reflecting their respective relationships to Lord Rama:

"Sri Rama is my Lord and His Name is my protection;
His righteousness my strength, and His grace is my redemption.
For the soul of Hanuman is Ram ..."  etc.

and 

"Sri Rama is my Self and my Lord and my companion;
His thought is my command, and His glance is my direction.
For the soul of Laksmana is Ram ..."  etc.

One is oneself in the attitude of Hanuman, or of Laksman, it's not a song about some archaic lore, it's about you - period.  It's about the perfect Relationship.

In my thoughts, I hold my two little granddaughters on my lap at bedtime, and I tell them the story of Ram and of Hanuman, of their feats and their noble destiny.  And then I sing them this little number which also comes from the Boulder of the '70s:

Ram asked Hanuman, "My servant, what do you think of Me?"
Ram asked Hanuman, "My servant, what do you think of Me?"
"When I serve You, You are my Master; when I worshp You are my God;
but You and I are One, Rama, You and I are One;
You and I are One, Rama, You and I are One.
You and I are One, Rama, You and I are One.
You and I are One, Rama, You and I are One."

The Thought Of My Heart

There in the thought of my heart

I am with you, loving you and making love with you.

I am painting your lips with my tongue as would a slender brush,

my lips stroke and carress yours, bringing out a tender blush,

our tongues give themselves fiercely softly to one another in heady flush -

all finely intense and concentrated -

there in the thought of my heart.

This has no pause but is now and eternal, promised and delivered both,

here in my heart is every freedom open to you,

roam where you like be as you like!

There is nowhere to go and there are no limits.

Holding this kiss, holding, holding you me in this kiss and this
embrace of mouths,

we needn't speak of all else we're proceeding to do

with these two bodies and hearts,

there in the thought of my heart - we've long since given it word

and it is in the spheres.

Lovers do not go away.  They make the Beloved taste so real
it makes atoms reel

in every detail of Form in this world and quite some others as well.

You are my Beloved, in the thought of my heart you are my Beloved.

What Would Swami Say?...

Were you ever in love?
Can you imagine a beloved, your beloved,
can you relate to that?

Madly in love with this beloved,
you sing and you sing and you breathe
and you sing some more, on every tone
you're in the presence of this beloved,
and your beloved is with you, never leaving you.
This beloved is unborn and undying,
imparting health and wholeness, lots of
nonsentimental evelasting love.

Whatever the circumstances -- you might get placed
in solitary confinement for being politically incorrect,
and make that your temple.
If you were gagged and bound you'd hum
the beloved's song; if they drugged you
or put you under, your beloved would sing to you.

Were I to make a list of all the variations of my song
to this beloved, I'm afraid it would be long.
And long is the slow melody
of the great Shiva homage, offering refuge,
imparting expansion of crown and heart and matter,
and much earth as well in a highly etheric manner --
making the entire space palpably sacred.

That is how I'd received it first over forty years ago,
hardly anyone sings it like that now.
Yet it's still all there, and I'm still in love.
This is my religion, sealed in faith.

The I of the Beholder

Love is and naught else, for God is Love.

The I which loves and desires to express

is divine indeed, however human.

If after passing from this individuated form

I long for Union there will be none so long as I am.

Should I meet Jesus' embrace how shall I and Christ be?

Should I merge into ha-Shem how shall That be echad if I am?

Paradise is grand, Heaven is indescribable, Union alone is Union – no I.

Rumi is not cavorting with any 72 virgins, he is gone, there is only One.

I, being in love, always want to behold the beloved,

and when this being-in-love ripens to perfection, being-in will fall

of its own as leaves nourishing the earth, and becoming love itself

the beholder will be no more and this I is naught but love itself.

The practice of humility is there to find a path toward effacement.

In its effacement in the Beloved does the I of the beholder attain its purpose,

and all the religion and all the sadhana and all the yoga and all the bhajan

are only there for this I to lose itself in waking up and arriving home.

Facing Any Mob: I Am A Social-Democrat

If you are being beaten or lynched by a mob,

whether literally or figurative-ideologically,

I will not hesitate to come to your aid,

to place myself between you and that mob,

to defend your life and your right to life.

I will not support your victimhood,

I will stand shoulder to shoulder with you

and face off the mob which outnumbers you.

Come what may.

I'd do this without hesitation,

because my Beloved would have it so;

I am a social-democrat not by dogma

but by conviction, out of instinct and principle.

I have no Party and recognize none.

My soul rests in my Beloved's hands.

If you are gay and facing that mob, or if you are hetero;

if you are of any religious persuasion – any – or of none,

and facing that mob; if you are a woman or a man,

if you are of any ethnicity or nationality facing the extinction

through the mob, of your very identity;

if you are simply of your own opinion and facing that mob:

I will stand by you, and my eyes will be clear,

my nerves resting in the purpose of my Beloved,

we will rise to the occasion without fear.

And if YOU ARE the mob, whether you are

gay or hetero, Muslim or Evangelical, Haredi or atheist,

male or female, from the fascists of the Right or of the Left,

pork-hater or racist or Establishment-sheeple-rep;

and if you intend to beat or pillory or lynch anyone on my watch –

whether literally or figurative-ideologically –

then hear this:

I will stand against you with that one,

shoulder to shoulder, come what may,

I will mount the barricades and I will confront you.

I am not large, but I am determined.

I am a social-democrat by conviction,

by instinct and principle, I cannot be intimidated.

My soul rests in the hands of my Beloved.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIHV8Xp4N4g

You Missed All This

The local finches and doves and swallows
sang and warbeled and chirped for you,
dragonflies buzzed and a June breeze
whispered your inner name – but
you missed all this riding your bike past it all,
your headphones neatly hugging your ears,
playing nature music ...
The whole Earth is covered with your shoe leather
because you won't meet Her, and
you're missing all this!

Your MP-3 played bhajan or dhikr or hymns or reggae
through those earplugs of yours,
while the Beloved announced Herself
in the subtlest of tone unobserved –
and being hooked on technology, I'm afraid
you missed all this.

You've attended concerts and kirtans,
but having not taken home with you
the Sound going on all the time within you
and making it your own – Friend:
you missed all this.

Friend! be like Hassan that old one of Nablus,
who heard Ya Hu in the rustling grasses,
reading a dervish in every reed;
or, be like that young Chisti fella for whom
a Boulder foothill actually leapt once in praise
and the Flatirons there faced sunrise, showing
the call to prayer - or for whom, sitting
on that most commercially-zero island Kéa,
each lapping Greek wavelet before him
rose shouting out yes, yes yes, yes, yes, yes …

Try not to miss all this!

Walking The Walk

(feeling Sheikh Hassan of Nablus)

Friends, I'll tell you –
there are days and there are moments
when I don't know who I am.
When on the intake and the outake
of one breath after another,
I hear distant cymbals and a drum –
and the vast space within me,
mad and sovereign, intones a heady chorus
of God is Alive, He is Everywhere Now.

Friends, let me confess –
there are days and there are moments
without a nickle in my pocket.
When one leg walks and the other leg walks,
and the left says allah-hayy, da'im-hu,
and the other leg likewise,
with a stride and a knowledge
of the truth and the reality of this,
with this mad love toward you and you and you
sharpening my glance:
and this heart – this heart abreast
with every heart which comes to mind,
beats with a power half my age.
There is fear toward no one, nor cold in winter,
only sovereign, only sovereign love and joy,
moving and beating with every step, peace
with every thought, with every breath -
there is no religion in it, only faith.

Friends, coursing through my arms and
into my hands and my fingertips
is this dhikr, this hadhrat, this focused adoration!
Neither do I own it nor am I entranced,
it is as natural as holding this cat purring
or driving to my patients or getting the groceries.
It's the balm addressed in my dream in the open field
that night nearly four decades hence, the balm
for suffering humankind.

It holds the atoms together and blesses,
it commands and it radiates the desire
for your well-being and anyone else's.
Friends!  Walking the Walk of the Beloved,
you pick up only the Beloved's scent.

Light Comes

If you pierce and penetrate and plumb the spheres of Being,

Light will come from the heavens.

If you pierce and penetrate and plumb the depths of Being,

Light will come forth from this very earth.

You can be in one spot and stay there,

rarely leaving town, go to work with empty pockets,

come home, put bread on the table,

and still do this.

Pierce and penetrate and plumb right where you are.

Tone for tone, syllable for syllable, Names of the Beloved, go:

Light will come.

In every Woman is Goddess.

I need the women, I need the men as well –

but I need to reach women.

In every woman is Goddess – even if buried

in each is this goddess – not a diva,

not a demanding dominatrix, not a calculating castrating bitch,

nor a “good girl“ nor “fantasy babe“ – none of these:

but a goddess, an indescribably real phenomenon,

dwelling in a normal form – and whom I reverently acknowledge

within mySelf –

and sometimes, on some level more often than not:

they get it.

If not, the failing lies with me.

But oh, when it does catch: Light comes.

Devotion

Don't come to prayers clothed with piety,
leave your plans and your banality!
Do you want to bore the Beloved to death
with all your pre-digested litany?

Don't pranam out of bland formality,
save the salaams and all your solemnity –
if your heart is not aching for love in depth,
then dance, dance till you drop this charade of "I"...!

Come naked, come with open hands,
come only with your desire, only that, and
all your most awake attention – give breath
to your words, infuse the silence with expression!

Just don't fall asleep during japa or zikr – don't zombie out!
I know what I'm talking about, I've done it a thousand times.

On Silence and Two Sonnets

Holding my speech I'll let the Silence be my speaking,
holding my tongue, my pen aloft, I'll let the Silence compose;
surrendering to patient Silence what we've been seeking,
I'll cherish every thought of you which e'er arose.
And there not stopping, nor for one moment freaking –
but hold you e'er fast 'in me, while this Love grows.

 
I.
Will Tina have me be kind?
Then I’ll be that and more for her sake, as she’d have it;
Considerate and gentle, for indeed she
‘s God, in form of my desir’d Beloved.

There West, in San Anselmo in Silence
Dress’d, tho’ wearing nought but jewels of light;
There she frolics and lives, waits in patience
For the hour, for the day, that very night

When our faces meet, lips part to press,
Seal the advent of Love’s consummation;
Bodies yielding to ev’ry touch, caress,
Giving o’er to this Communication.

And should these lines my Darling so please, sure
Shall’t go better when I serve her pleasure.

II.
In your Body deep am I, you in mine,
Ev’ry breath I draw is of your fragrance;
Muttering your name, Dear, within God’s Name –
Radiating before my eyes you dance.

Lover non-separate from Beloved,
Tho’ t geographic, circumstantial seem;
Two breaths as one shall keep one sacred bed,
And this, Love’s light – from our like faces beam.

Autumn’s wind tells me of your warm embrace,
December’s winter draws me toward your lap;
There to rest and bury my yearning face,
And upon your breasts too, this burning chap!

For if Spring’s a sign of our Fullfilment,
Summer’s star-cast heaven’s our Firmament.

Meanwhile

Speaking His Name – I speak yours.
Addressing Him in Song – I address you singing.
Losing myself in the vision of my Lord and Cherisher,
in the vision of the Self, of the Beloved – I am lost in you.
Now as I devote myself to this Friday evening's praise and melody:
should I but part my lips, my breath is fixed on our kiss,
my tongue is married to yours, and only honey may clothe
the words which issue from my mouth
whether sacred or common, to anyone or whomever;
the sweet red wine I drink – is your saliva,
the bread I partake of – is our Fucking.
My body sways with you, it can hardly keep still!  Emotion overtakes me,
I want to weep for yearning after you – then I'm good, I'll be alright.
The sense of separation passes; the determined, indeed pre-determined,
Union is cherished, assured, vouchsafed.
Like water through an aquaduct, blood through my vessels,
you are consciously inseparable from me, feeding me, keeping me alive
for that day when our bodies will join all dimensions in one
never-ending Act of our Lovemaking.   Meanwhile 
I perform this Shabbos-Kiddush, meanwhile
I perform this Puja, meanwhile
I sing. 

Krishna's Boon

ODE TO LAKSHMI (REDDY) RADHE - 26 Jan 93

I have seen Maha-Lakshmi
in the soft brown form of a young woman.
Her dark generous eyes hold a wild glowing beauty,
sparkling with moist effervescence,
catching the glint of her dangling earrings
and diamond-studded gold chain which graces her neck.
Straight and even and white the teeth which line
the coyly benevolent, gracious smile;
Her lovely face is the picture of India's womanhood.
Long and elegant her fingers, slight and nimble her body.

I encountered her for a brief hour.
Could this be that Lakshmi of ecstatic wealth to whom I've sung,
holder of the keys to fulfillment in all the three worlds,
the lotus-bearing spouse of Rudra
(Lord Shiva's own spontaneously liberating persona)?

And from this dear woman there pierced my heart
yet one other heady image, that of
my Lord Krishna's eternally beloved Radha.
As we spoke, her richly Indian accent striking my ears
(so long unused to receiving its timbre)
as I bent to hear her soft tones,
I recognized indeed the Gopi Radha --
and that radiant energy of the Gopinath,
that sweet laughter of Gopal,
that dance of Govinda's flute, Narayana's joy,
responded from my heart.
The world calls this petite and charming woman, Lakshmi (Reddy),
knowing nothing of the name.
I call her by Radhe, knowing both intimately.

How fitting, to meet her at the end of my Army service!
For it was Lord Krishna whose words to Arjuna at Kurukshetra
prompted me to enlist, now seven years hence.
Seven richly blessed years, since which day
I have in-joyed Krishna's boon -
and whose Ras Lila still charges and delights
my atmosphere - when it pleases him.
When last I'd departed Ft. Dix at the close of a seven-week cycle,
I'd found on a bookshelf the life-story of his famous
Bhakti servant in America.
Now leaving Ft. Dix at the close of a seven year cycle,
I have met Krishna's beloved.
That joy and delight are ever with me,
and no earthly power can ever steal it.

Lakshmi Radhe! May God go with you all ways,
and may His light ever shine within your heart
even as you shine within mine.

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.

Dawn

(Ft. Huachuca AZ, Spring 1988)

The little crimson blossom as it shoots forth
from the tip of a leafy branch
and full-lipped roses unchaffed by the sun,
cooing in the sparkling air,
and the chorus of finch and swallow
as they herald in the dawn outside my window;

and truly the singing mountain ridge which speaks
and speaks to them and to me ceaselessly    ceaselessly,
whose robust arches and gorges, embracing lakes
branch out to draw me to their embrace.

All of this testifies that we are loved where we stand.

As I see, and as I hear,
so also do I love in return, ceaselessly.
And everywhere I turn    my beloved turns to me.

A Different Kind of Lover

(Boulder, 1974)

Becoming Govinda's flute
hollow receptive
of the breath
of God
that Divine expression
may ever flow like the blue river
by which sixteen thousand
Gopi maidens made love
with their hearts' desire . . .
To become a different kind of lover
sowing wild oats of a different nature,
the seeds of inner awakening:
that the world may become pregnant
with the Divine intoxication;
until which moment
the well-being of the beloved
is the lover's only task.

What Is The Steel Drum Telling Us

(Untitled, somewhere in the '80s -
could be addressed to a man, to a woman, or to one's own child:)


For you, beloved,
this heart is like a steel drum;
strong and quiet, empty of noise - yet
so structured in molecule
as to hold within its frame, second by second,
the potential ring of creation.

The Player of steel drums
holds the soft-headed hammers -
if anyone were to mention your name,
conjure gently your image -
if my thought even whispered ... just
the merest tap of the hammer in the wind:

The sound of it would reverberate
in the bowl-shaped drum, responding
like a hologram, and a reverse-hologram:
all the sound would connect on every dimension
in the encompassed area, at the bowl's center -
and further,
it would connect at the centers
of dimensions unseen, in every other direction.

This is what being in love is like.

Lover Addresses Beloved

Many are my sins, I stand empty and unprepared before my Lord.

Few if any are my redeeming virtues, on whose scale shall I measure?

Yet with the breadth of my heart and the focused passion of my soul,

for you, my beloved, I would cover you and stand by you,

argue on your behalf spanning a thousand lifetimes of sins,

with a prayer, a word, an action, unto my last breath, 

hold your hand preciously in my hand

and walk with you into perfect union, praising God.

For Mevlana (I)

(March 1977, Boulder)

 

The lover knows why he is born:
When pierced for blood
   milk flows from the heart of the lover,
   nourishing even the one who adminsters the wound;
      that one is blessed by the lover,
      who now holds the dagger
         firmly rooted in his heart,
         withdrawing it and replanting it

            again and again,

        as a constant reminder.
The lover carries no fear
   for he carries his manhood in his heart.
       Therefore he is tender like a petal,
           while protected like the pomegranite.
He is veiled and allows himself to be unveiled
   when in the presence of the beloved.
       The lover may be shattered


           over and over again,


       but his pieces will always fall scattered
   to the soil to regenerate as an army of lovers!
Only the lover knows the meaning of constancy.

                 Love has made a fanatic of me;
                 and to the Source of all this
                 I gladly offer my head
                 again and again.
                 Pain rends the veil
                 which hid the cup of ecstasy.


                 Friend, cover yourself
                 with the mantle of secrecy
                 and go naked into the night.
                 There you will find a brilliance
                 which no eye can perceive.

Without the cup of sobriety,
how shall I contain this ecstasy?


It runs over the edge anyway,
and spills on the one whose lips
parted to taste.

                 Beloved Mother, teach me
                 the secret of the spring rain,
                 how it nourishes the earth
                 and makes all life fertile with its weeping.

My heart is with the Brotherhood,
the lovers whose eyes are brilliant with desire
   to serve the One who made them feel this.


   Their feet never leave the ground
   until the Turn is complete.
Their pride is in the One who causes this Turning,
their dignity is testimony of their surrender.