Beyond the world of discovery that music has been for me, there was always the bigger world, the universe of questions about what we’re a part of, how it works, and how to best fit into the larger whole.

My love of words, a fascination with scientific, philosophical, and spiritual inquiry, and a quiet determination to learn how to be a better human (and a happier man) have led me on a path of shaping my experience, breath by breath, into poems.

Here are some of them.

Threnody for Donald

August 24, 2017

There are tortured souls
who, in their dream of weakness,
only torture themselves;
but there are tortured souls
who, in their dream of strength,
torture us all.

And so, as we watch a fellow human
sinking slowly into the depths
of his own depravity,
how do we name what we see?

If we watched it on Netflix, or HBO,
we would call it entertainment;
on CNN, or in the NY Times,
we call it news.

How have we come,
with so little empathy
and so little understanding,
to accept these as equivalent,
as if our worst imaginings
(delightful as they might be
in the realm of fantasy)
were acceptable as reality,
to be witnessed without complaint,
as if this were only another form
of entertainment?

Comfort

August 22, 2017

Every time I feel this urge
to grasp at something,
and I look at what
my empty hands
are trying to hold,
all I see
is emptiness.

Every sense
of “not enough,
not okay,
it must be fixed,
it can’t remain like this”,
is just a thought,
a distraction
from what is.

To let that thought go,
to relax into this moment,
is to embrace whatever
is uncomfortable within us,
and give it comfort.

The Waters We Swim In

August 21, 2017

(A reflection on mindfulness and social media)

The most powerful question I have ever heard
is “Where are you directing your energy?”

Every word, or thought, or image
that we add to our informational soup
becomes part of this sea of ideas
that we all swim and breathe in.

And just as our oceans
become befouled
with our waste,
so does our virtual sea
grow murky and toxic
with a million tokens
of emotional violence
tossed carelessly into its depths.

And just as the Earth, our Mother,
has graced us
with this beautiful and nurturing home,
so have we been gifted,
through own brilliance,
with this digital ocean,
in which we are privileged
to share a universe
of feelings and ideas.

So, as we drift
in our little boats of identity,
there is a chance for each of us,
as we toss our minds’ progeny
into the depths around us,
to pause, and wonder,
“If this were the only thing
that comprised this sea,
would these be the kind of waters
I would choose for myself
and those I love
to swim in?”

Difference: To Those Who Hate

August 16, 2017

You don’t have to like
those who seem different from you,
but you would be happier
if you did.

Your anger is only a shield
that covers your fear,
the urge to be rid of
all who seem to threaten
your sense of identity.

But it is YOU
who built this wall around you,
brick by brick,
borrowing ignorance and prejudice
from those around you,
until you see yourself only
as this wall that separates you
from the rest of humanity.

What if you refrained
from pushing away
all that you don’t understand?

And what if you refrained
from allowing your inner fears
to drive your outer behavior?

What if you began to relax your grip
on how you have shaped yourself,
and, bit by bit, shifted your focus
from how they are different from you,
to how you have made yourself
different from them?

Turtles All The Way Down

August 9, 2017

Everything in this universe
(and perhaps beyond)
is interdependent.

There is no “thing”
that has its own existence,
apart from all others.

And there is nothing
which is not impermanent,
that can exist outside of
a constant state of change.

All that we see are the forms
that matter, energy, and thought
give rise to, in the flow of time.

Each thing we perceive
is the sum of smaller parts,
each made of smaller parts still,
going all the way down.

Each form we know
was born from an earlier form,
itself born from one earlier still,
going all the way down.

If we look for a first cause,
it is as if our Earth
were carried on the back
of a giant turtle,
itself on the back
of another giant turtle,
and so on, and so on,
all the way down.

Without these turtles,
do we have a place to stand on,
or do we need one,
as we look out,
as the eyes of the universe,
from nowhere,
into everything?

Dear Mr. President

August 5, 2017

You can fool some of the people
all of the time,
and you can fool all of the people
some of the time,
but the more you fool yourself,
the more you, yourself,
become the fool.

The world is always new

August 4, 2017

The world is always new,
regardless of how we see it.

Facing the familiar,
we tend to see
what we have already seen,
like a blur of fading photos,
the differences between them
unseen, inconsequential.

What we miss
is the flow of time,
the ceaseless changes
that animate everything,
the constant shifting
of all around us
and inside us.

Why do we long
for these static, frozen images,
while life, in it’s full glory,
dances so dynamically
around us?

What We Are

August 2, 2017

There is no such thing
as an asshole,
unless we are all assholes.

We are what we are labelled,
by ourselves and by others,
or we are pure spirit,
hidden beneath our labels.

In the world of ego,
we are separated
by our struggles to be right,
combatting all those others
who, by their very differences,
seem always to be wrong.

But in the world of spirit,
right and wrong
are only fever visions;
our separation,
just a bad dream.

Beyond these delusions,
we are the same,
in our suffering and our joy,
or we are nothing at all
but smoke,
dissipating with the wind.

Completeness

July 31, 2017

Love can be
like cool, clear water,
when it isn’t muddied
by need.

Relax your hold
on what you want to keep,
and revel in the flow,
as objects of love
come and go,
and what remains
is love itself.

All the love
we find outside ourselves
is only a mirror
of the love we are made of.

When we look back,
and see our own reflection,
then there is an end
to our search for completeness.

Us and Them

July 23, 2017

We may all
be assholes,
and yet we are all
luminous beings!

In the land of ego,
we are always struggling
to be right,
combatting
all those Others
who are always wrong.

In the land of Spirit,
there is no right and wrong,
there is no separation.

We are the same,
in our suffering
and our joy,
or we are nothing
but smoke,
dissipating
in the wind of time.