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.
October 9, 2016
Living
is allowing
life.
Trying
to survive
is not living.
The greatest joy
comes
with the least
struggle.
October 9, 2016
Our bodies sail through life
like leaves in a stream.
They float with it
because they are
not separate from it.
They are part of the stream,
but in a different form.
And who rides along,
seeing this flow,
often afraid
that we cannot control it?
What stream of thoughts
do we also ride on,
likewise powerless
to control them?
We are the pilots,
spirits riding energy,
but mostly we watch,
and, in moments
of epiphany,
we may nudge ourselves
into a different flow.
October 9, 2016
In this sea of uncertainty,
we are only guaranteed
this moment.
To savor it,
with gratitude,
is to be fully alive.
October 9, 2016
Most ignorance
stems from the lack
of opportunity
or inspiration
to learn.
But surely,
it is the truly stupid
who cherish
their own ignorance,
protecting it,
as if it were
their own identity.
October 9, 2016
I am not my history,
I am the witness.
I am not the beauty I see,
I am the witness.
I am not what I create,
I am the witness.
I am all of these things,
and none of them.
I am the witness.
I am not my dreams,
and I am not my fears,
I am the witness.
October 9, 2016
Do not expect others
to heal your wounds;
they are just as wounded
as you are.
Better to show yourself
for who you are,
wounds and all,
and accept what comfort
there is
in simply sharing.
October 9, 2016
To delight in fantasy
is to give shape
to our imagination,
manifested in the world.
To savor reality
is to let the richness of the world
take shape in our minds,
infusing us.
To confuse the two
is to wander lost,
blind to the gifts
of each realm,
forever groping
for a world that isn’t.
October 9, 2016
Cynicism
is just the mind’s defense,
a mechanism
to protect ourselves
from each other;
imagining differences
between us,
afraid to acknowledge
how we are the same.
It is the voice that says:
“I will not let THAT asshole know
that I am, perhaps,
an asshole, too!”.
But, in moments of grace,
there is another voice,
stripped of conceit,
that says:
“Yes, you are human,
as I am, too”.
October 9, 2016
Well fed,
well rested,
and reasonably safe,
an animal is content.
But we,
with infinite imagination,
can find a million things to want,
a million things to fear.
What drives us,
in our fevered minds,
to conjure a world
so lacking,
and so fraught,
when we could be resting
in the serenity
of enough?
October 9, 2016
The seed of any emotion
is simply energy.
It takes root
in the soil
of memory,
and grows
with the water
of attention.
If it is not nurtured
with continued attention,
it will simply wither,
and pass away,
like a cloud,
like all things
in nature.
To observe all this
in the moment of arising,
is to see these clouds
for what they are,
chimeras
in a clear
and limitless
sky.