Back To The Child

Would I be jailed for touching children now?
Oh no, you say, it has to do with how.

Would I be faulted holding children high?
A child can be demanding, infantile.

Is that the way things are in Abba's realm?
Except you be as one of these, stay out!

Can we say all we see is in decline?
That children have no spark left in their eyes?
That parents have no time to care or love?
Why would I say the kingdom is for these?
Except you be a child, you can't belong!

Come voyage with me back to when I spoke.
Your children have lost much of what I saw.
I speak of spectrums when it comes to all.
We have our nasty moments, vengeful days.
A child will grasp and hate and fear and scream.
A child will melt with love and visions fair.

I peel the onion of reality.
And when I do the center is the womb.
Here sperm meets egg and miracle ensues.
Some chances from the billions come to life.
Two persons have together made someone.
Or twins or triplets, I'm not literal.

This mating is a spectrum in itself.
For anger can conceive as well as love.
Neglect is just as prevalent as care.
Resentment rises in some childrens' eyes.
The damage of the first days will survive.

So shall I say it now as I said then?
Let children come to me, do not prevent!
For Abba's realm is made of such as these.
And as a little child you need to be.

Stop! I will say exactly what I mean.
If I place children first, ahead of wars --
If I place children first, instead of cars --
If I place children first, instead of wealth --
If I place children first in Abba's view --
Why would I? You must answer me. Come. Do!

It is because this is the mountain top.
And everything descends from every birth.
Until this world is weighed beyond all hope
And failure reigns in every land and home.

Children, widows, sex slaves. criminals --
They all are one in Abba's loving eyes.
The shards and shattered pieces of our world.
Sing Kyries for deaths that we inflict.

What values do you place atop all else?
Guts! Competition! Winning! Love the Flag!
Stop once again and picture me back then.
A milling crowd who take me for a freak
Or for some magical celebrity.
Some frail disciples shooing kids away.
And I, in livid anger, say, No way!
Bring them to me! To Abba, they come first!
Before the likes of you. Make way! Make way!

+

The ruined children I see are adults.
And loving them is harder than a child.
This is the inner meaning of my words.
Each one of us contains a little child.
Recover her. Recover him. Seize life.
Except you find the cringing child inside
And give that child the deepest warmth you have,
You'll flinch at life and commit still more crimes,
Because of what you lost once as a child.

+

See the child who drinks himself to death.
See the child whose nose is flush with drugs.
See the child who commits suicide.
Hatred lavished on the one who was.

+

I say that in an instant all can change.
The wounded child can yet be taken close.
Enveloped in the light of Abba's love.
For Abba lives within each mother's child.

The broken children from our mountaintop
Build broken cities modeled on their pain.
There is a sad and hard continuum
From child's resentment to completion's stage.

Will father turn to Abba or pace on?
Will mother turn away from her cell phone?
Will children feel affirmed or more neglect?

+

Change values, world! That was my message then.
Change values, world! That is my message now.
The simplest things. The most egregious sins.

On Weather

We lose our weather and then it returns.
We do not see the stars in smoggy towns.
We do not feel the heat when air is cooled.
We live depending on what isn't seen.

Turn off our power; we live helplessly.
Deprive us of our fuel and we can't move.

The weather, when not friend, seems enemy.
We do not know the ends that we devise.

Each year we claim to know the universe.
Each year things are revised, past theories shelved.
Our institutes and researches proceed,
Our faltering capacities stay frail.

Abba does not control the weather's course.
Abba is life within, without, beyond.

The weather is one of our tests of life.
How we respond will tell us who we are.
And this has always been the basic truth.

The weather is one of our tests of life.
Which offers more protection, homes or caves?
The universe is given as a school.
And I keep saying, Ask! You shall receive!

When Abba is rejected, failure rules.
We call our failures acts of god and grieve.

The catalog of reasons is quite clear:
We do not use our minds as Noah did.
We do not act together mindfully.
We act to make up for passivity.
And then go back to lassitude and sleep.

To have Abba at hand is mindfulness.
To have Abba always is working through.
To have Abba in touch is not to stray.
But our performance shows how much we lose.

The universe we see is like a fan.
It can be closed or opened with one hand.
The one we call Abba, our closest friend,
Has aspects that we cannot comprehend.

But we know more as we attend to life.
And those who know the most feel Abba's touch.

We cannot prove existence beyond proof.
But we can know Abba with one small breath.
And if we see our lives as Abba's school,
We can face life. And challenge. Even death.

What's worse? A sudden storm or human hate?
Say neither. Accept both. But not as fate.
Life is the force of learning. Life's a school.
And weather is a lesson to be learned.

On Bliss

The state of heaven is a state of bliss.
For us the place of heaven is within.
And bliss is being one with Abba now.

The prayer I once gave you begins with bliss.
Abba and heaven spoken in one breath.
Heaven and earth together unopposed.
We are the earth. Within us Abba lives.

Bliss is a state of calmness in the storm.
Bliss is a state of freedom mid the rage.
Bliss is the life connection we all need.
Bliss isn't wacky, prideful posturing.

To wear bliss on our sleeves is tacky praise.
So keep bliss to yourself. Abba won't mind.

Bliss overcomes enigmas and regrets.
Bliss powers the surmounting of all pain.
Bliss opens vistas through all time and space.

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Bliss is the center from which life creates.

Bliss is transcendence anchored deep within.
Bliss is the breath of Abba breathed with grace.
Bliss is an intimate embrace of life.

Bliss is the root of deepest happiness.
To be bliss-full is also to be free.
Bliss is the state of being consciously.

+

How can so many things be claimed for bliss?
When downcast is as common as downfall?

Nothing at all is claimed save saving grace.
This is a simple testimonial.
And yet I know it is a gift for all.

I spoke one time of sheer beatitude.
Of blessings given to all those who hear
The inner promptings of the one within.

Sit light to everything, love Abba's way.
Sit fair to everything, give fair its day.
Endure, transcend, accept, change as you may.
Bliss-full beatitude is Abba's way.

Vision and Enigma 2

Some argue that the past contains the now.
Or that the now must hold all of the past.
Which would explain my presence, I suppose.
But this would be less than what truly is.

Whatever can take place has not occurred.
For if it had, there'd be no need to be.
If all was said and done, life would be done.
Remarkable, this strange philosophy!

You know: The story of two roads that meet.
One goes one way for an eternity.
The other goes the other -- the same thing.
They meet. They call the juncture This Moment.

But if eternity's already past
Or if eternity is still to come,
Must not all things have already been done?
Must not this moment be done, or to come?

Our answer must come from our point of view.
And I can only give you mine: It is:
Time is not circular, does not repeat.
Eternity is not chronology.
Eternity is time on heaven's terms.
It intersects the world's time all the time.
It is whenever Abba's will is done.
Eternity is heaven's time on earth.

May I say this in yet another way?
Time is a spectrum in itself, a field.
Its colors flash according to the time!
One moment you create and lose all sense.
Another you are waiting and time drags.

Time has its qualities and quirks galore.
What we can measure is but fuzzy math.
Would you not trade all sleep for one sweet kiss?
Would you not give a year for one sweet hour?

What we repeat is striving for lost times,
Lost moments when truth flashed across our skies.
We all are containers of all kinds of time.
Each moment can transform all past moments.
Each moment can create times yet to be.

Wherefore we call time's truth a miracle.
Or vision, moment, or bright clarity.

Why would I still be here if time were stopped?
What is eternity but pregnant time?
The medium of knowing time is you.
Abba within you is your link to truth.
The truth of time is being unfolding.
The truth of time is vision realized.
Unfolding, realized -- at the same time.

The truth of time is letting stasis be.
The truth of time is is our eternity.

Vision and Enigma

Some say there is an eternal return.
Recurrence of all past events always.
Philosophy replaces ancient creed.
The being of all being parsed anew.

The very truth of life is life itself.
For it contains all miracles and views.
Reliving it is not one of its truths.

Abba is every life's eternal truth.
Abba is being, to the edge of naught.
Abba is truth experienced within.
Abba is life as far as we can know.

Abba's concern is for what we create.
Why do balk in fear of doom and death?
Why do we set the greatest gift aside?
We already die when this is done.

There is a heaven, heaven is a place,
Where Abba's will is done and we are free.

This heaven's here when it is here. Always.
How it continues is not ours to know.
But we already know it cannot die.

+

When we are dust is Abba there as well?
How can we know? Why should we know? We don't.

I think of Paul bemoaning his demise,
If he from dust and ashes might not rise.
I think of sad religion built upon
Sad doctrines wishful thinking once devised.

What's wishful about corpses wandering?
And heavens made to look like judgment halls?
And fairy myths of tinsel deities?
These wishful doctrines are a sad reprise
Of priestly striving for ascendancy.

The real enigma: How the truth slipped through!
The only true thing is Abba in you.
The truthful vision: All Abba can do!
If only you let Abba work in you.

On Wandering

Some wander, some stay put, I move at will.
Sometimes to places anchored in the past.
Sometimes to seek out places to be known.

A wanderer might be a stranger too.
I wander but each place I am is home.

A wanderer may never move at all.
Our minds can wander farther than our feet.
To read the lives of those whose lives are o'er
Is to set feet upon another shore.
Sometimes the parallels are very clear,
And other times we're drawn to stretch our sight.

We see the ebb and fall of lives long past
Their loves, their ills, short lives, long lives, now still.
We wander through these vaults of memory
Amazed at times at what our eyes can see.
Long-forgotten words are heard once more.
Names once lost in the mist rise up again.

+

Today to wander is the artist's way,
For art is now perception in itself.
The layers of our making are so deep
Reflecting creations beyond all count,
Our coalescent magic can be seen,
And real is now the art that we once sought.

The world is lines, lined up at our museums.
And wanderers who see what time has made.
One day museum lines will cease to be,
As we perceive the world that we create.

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Then wandering will be the way for all.
A loosening, a freedom on the road.
Stand still. Or move. It makes no difference.

New ways to wander rise like poppies fair.
Today's confusion is tomorrow's sight.

Lost continents will be the wanderer's goal.
Rise up anew, for wanderers bring health.

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The wanderer will find a sacrament
In any sighting, hearing or parade.
The wanderer will not divide the truth,
Romantically conceiving unscaled heights,
Excoriating lows, bowing to highs.

One billion perspectives, one billion truths,
Sitting like bricks upon the passive mind.
It takes some wandering to make them live.

Wherein lies greatness, in your life, in mine?
Once set your anchor there and you are lost.
Wander. Create. Make choices. Keep on going.
Your passing thanks the only clue you need.

Come joy! Come vision! Not some frozen past.
Come peace! Come light! Let all things be made new.

Thus let us learn to see and freely be.
And thus become a world of wandering.

The Stillest Hour

There comes a time when nothing can suffice,
When words are like a glass that breaks and cracks;
When portents seem so real and speech so vain,
That all events seem beyond all control.

Retreat into the stillness, let all go.
Make no decisions, give in to the deep.
Embrace the stillest hour as loving friend.
Close out all thought, all feeling. Now attend.

Simply attend, expecting not a thing.
A maelstrom cannot come into this space.
Whatever is imagined or retained
Can be dismissed: Put out. Done with. All clear.

Descend into the stillness where the power
Does not impinge, but rather creates room.
Yes, room to think of steps that you will take.
First one, then two, then one, then two again.
Nothing too fancy, you're on guidance now.

Your stillest hour is in a ribbon wrapped,
A gift from Abba, please to recall that.

Who is the still, small voice amid the storm?
Whence come the softest words that have such power,
That mountains move at one whispered command,
And centuries of ill turn round at will?

The stillest hour is now, let it enfold
The agonies, the dead ends and the blocks.
Immobile, you are set to move again.
Struck dumb by living, you will live some more.

Let Abba's guidance be your resting place.
You are not dead, just silent and enclosed.
Now rise and feel a rising, subtle power.
And move on, lifted by the stillest hour.

On Redemption

I see the bodies decompose knee deep.
I see the face of those who ravage towns.
All cruelty in but one ugly face.
And all defeat in but a single tear.

I see the past impervious to will.
And history may be the victor's tale.
The victors change, but revenge stays the same.
And humankind still plays this vengeful game.

Is goodness nothing but a sad repair?
Repair? Start over? Celebrate? Have done!
Stop now! What's wrong with all I've said?
It is that palaces remain in power?
It is that wrong has strings attached always?

Complexity breeds this simplicity:
Our edifice of mayhem on the screen,
The better for to get the story out,
Our manufacture of new death machines,
Our power wearing suits and ties and rings,
All these go back to Pilate pacing round,
And languidly decreeing that no sound
Be let to permeate his palace walls.

How does my crucifixion now redeem?
My cross is is where the answer makes its stand.
I am redemption that's beyond revenge.
I give empowerment to all who seek.
I am the testament to Abba's power.

For in each one, from Eden to this day,
Abba had only one persistent thought.

That was and is is to co-create this world,
That heaven's way would on this earth obtain.

The cross surveyed a dismal, failing view,
The crushing of all dreams and hopes and prayers.
Yet in each soul and body Abba stayed.
And if you look within, you see a face.
This face is infinite in patient love.

But do not fail to see the justice there.
For with each year that Abba's way is scorned,
The tragic contradiction's all the more.

Demonic human evil has its day,
And catastrophic failure still persists.
These monumental evils all add up.
But rather than desert, Abba holds sway.

Still all who ask are answered in good kind.
Still all who seek discover their own way.
Still all who knock will find an open door.

The flames revenge creates are not required.
To see the face burns more than any fire.

+

I witness many living suicides.
They walk. They talk. They live in ignorance.

Who is to blame? Themselves, religions, books.
All ways that do not see the gospel whole:
Abba's at hand. Abba's within. That's it.

+

I once explained there is one deadly sin:
Deny the holy spirit. Certain death.
This holy spirit is Abba within.
Extinguish Abba and you cease to live.
Yet this is not the final word at all.
For this light cannot ever be put out.

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Redemption does not depend on revenge.
Our eye for eye is puerile idiocy.
Redemption is the twinkling of your eye
When it perceives the saving truth within.

On Soothsayers

Sometimes there is a time to pray and fast.
Not as display to others, just a time.
Heed to the motion of the moment, heed.
For in your mind there is a fertile field.
And impulse may presage a bursting seed.

These days soothsaying focuses on doom.
The earth will warm. The trees will die. Prepare.
More quakes will come, more deadly waves, more fire.
See, sinful man now sounds his own death knell.
See: What we eat! See: Poisoned waters! See.
Empty your pockets. Bow your heads. Be sad.

Soothsaying knows no ideology.
Right, left, high, low, in, out, predict away.
The grip of doom grows tighter day by day.

Would you prefer an alphabetic code?
Spend your largess and play this fine mind game?
Let your worldview be one that entertains?
Do not these ancient tablets hold the truth?
And if they don't, there will be others soon.

I once stood in a lonely wilderness.
I prayed and fasted forty days in all.
And in the end it was worth every hour.
For truth came rolling down like crystal streams.
Truth broke through crevasses to sun-baked plains
To sooth the fevered brow of anxious earth.

But no, the world prefers anxiety,
And spectacle, and miracle, all three.
Under the aegis of our false worship.
Caress the creed or else caress yourself!
Do anything but see Abba within.

I give the name of Satan to all fears.
I watch the mechanisms as they rise:
Magical mystery and vaunted power.
Misplaced worship and vain idolatry.

My sojourn made these curtains drop away.
And in their place a simple reason rose.
Turn and believe this good news here and now.
Abba's at hand. Join hands. Create. Enjoy.
And, if that's so, this whole charade's kaput!

When you pray, Lead us not, the temptation
Is to trade freedom for a mind that's blind.
I hear your cry: Don't let our pleasures die!
For then we might be seeing with clear eyes.

On Great Events

We do not see a future in our hands.
Instead we are in thrall to Great Events.

The greatest thing of all would be to own
The very challenge that is life's essence:
That is to freely choose to co-create,
And build the values on which life might thrive.

But no, see what we do, and how we fail:

See here, disaster one, the crumbling towers!
What values were revealed upon all sides?
The puerile values of the puerile past.
With but scarcely a hint of new insight.

See here disaster two, the waters rage!
What is the value of recycled awe?
Doomed to repeat a way of proven doom?

See now disaster three, more waters rage!
Well, didn't Noah have the right idea?

The truth is that we close our eyes to truth.
And Great Events repeat to gaping eyes,
Incessant nostrums and obscene sound bites.

Just as "addiction" forecloses freedom,
So "Great Events" foreclose all saving change.

Our heaven is impotent candy dreams.
Hell is evoked when called for in the script.
Heaven could be a reasoned reaction.
Hell could be seen as mindlessness unloosed.

I once was said to create miracles.
I merely did what reason can well do.
I merely previewed possibility.

Aye, few perceive the largest miracle:
That Abba is at hand, a partner, friend,
That hoary past is lifted feather-like,
That we can say goodby to Great Events.

The greatest event would be values changed.
That is the only option that remains.

On Poets

What is the obligation to retain?
Memories fade. Why not my own? It does.
If I say poets lie, must I explain?
Must all be held to everything they say?

Are you confused? "But that was yesterday."
Hard work, to gather reasons to retain.
But then again, why should we be believed?

Precisely then, I do not seek belief!
I do not seek a sanctifying nod.
We poets can't be shackled to The Truth.
Our knowledge is too small, our learning weak.
There are too many truths for us to reach.

We have the talent to take fair refuge,
In this or that delicious sight or place.
We have the ears to listen, eyes to see.
And if our senses lie, that's poetry!

Does wisdom lurk elsewhere than in our minds?
Beyond some dumb facade or dormant form?
Why even words are slippery, they flee.

I long sometimes to lie down mindlessly,
And let heaven and earth be poetry.

Why are my feelings more precious than yours?
More noble or more honest or more sharp?
Come, celebrate our dullness, it is real!
Today we have no wisdom to conceal.

We poets craft big answers from our pain.
I know you may resent this laying bare.
I speak it merely to connect with you,
At the precise spot where the mind meets heart,
Where, from a certain angle of vision,
The spectrum of the whole self can be viewed.

For if upon it lies no spark of life,
No inkling of what love or light might be,
And if one's story now cannot be told,
Then look again! Or has a poet lied?

By now you are well sick of poets, right?
But I have led you here with honesty.
And when our excursion is said and done,
Your eyes may open to your only home.

Wherefore I strip the poet's practice bare,
And gather fiction to a special pyre.

I say, Look, look within, seek Abba's fire.
In sight of light today, not yesterday.
Seek presence, not the promise of beyond.
Let past be gift. Let expectation be .

What is more real than what is real in you?
What is more timely than the present time?
Abba does not deceive, neither do you.
And on a good day, poets speak what's true!

On Scholars

I was a scholar at the age of twelve.
Now see my dress, my life, my wandering way.
No more a sought-after iconoclast.
No scholarly profiles or praise for me.

I chose this path to learn the whole of life.
And yet no scholar will accept this claim.
I wander through the vacant-eyed and lost.
And sometimes I collect a spark of life.
I look for Abba's flame in everyone.
No scholar will see this as fair travail.

I know the truth is too much to be known.
There are too many truths, all theory fails.
The more we know, the less we can absorb.
So masses gravitate toward easy things.
And, like a house of cards, perceptions fade.

What thoughts do scholars lavish on such truth?
My favorite places are where children play.
For their invention knows no boundaries.
And their emotions are not hid from view.
I like the look of thistled, ruined walls.
I send regards to scholars, one and all.

What is a scholar but a spectator,
Who values only objectivity?
"But I shall go out and observe the field!
But who will there be to talk to out there?"
What is a thought if not thought by yourself?

I come before all in simplicity.
I cannot offer multiples of truth.
I say Abba's at hand, within, around.
If you ask who, I say, Go ask Abba!

I have no ingenuity to sell.
I need not keep a sharp eye on my peers.
I have nobody that I need mistrust.
I have no rivals I must overcome.

This freedom can be lonely, even sad.
Sometimes I wish a scholar would note me.
I long to sit down at some learned feet.
And converse with the knowing mind to mind.

One sentence could change everything I hold.
One verbal holograph could change my all.
Why then rail on, why not just let it be?

The reason is: ideas are not equal.
Nor are the levels upon which we live.
The truth is in the words and deeds themselves.
All else is academic robes and dross.

And finally our face to face is us.
With Abba perhaps not too far away.
And even scholars end up face to face.

On Perception

Perception's seeing through to to something else.
Perception's intuition on the move.
Perception is a quality of sight.
Capacity to see and understand.

Look in a pair of eyes, see subtle moves.
Perception isn't fixed ideas we have.
It is awareness, it could lead to joy.
Or it could lead to sorrow, or stone rage.

The future is perception's only proof.
The most perceptive are the most mindful.
Self-reference and perception do not mix.
Perception is secure in its silence.

For one can see and see, and not perceive.
And hear and hear, but never understand.

Perception precedes creativity.
There are one thousand visions in a view.
Perception picks out one from all the rest.
There are a million tunes in just eight notes.
Perception hears a single ordering.
There are a trillion cells in pregnancy.
Perception sees the living in outline.

Perception's one of Abba's precious gifts.
You might call it divining mindfulness.
Or native instinct honed to danger's drift.
Perception is not sentimental cant,
Not maxims, sayings or "philosophy".
Perception is attuned to earth's cadence.
It does not despise earthly evidence.
Perception is not selfish, it is free.
Perception knows and feels the earth's beauty.

Be a creator, procreator, love!
Do not feign contemplation with closed eyes.
Courageously perceive the beautiful
In what stands tall and bends with Abba's winds.

Believe in you, for Abba does the same.
Believe the truth within and look without.
Value perception beyond every sense,
For what is sense if sense cannot perceive?

Life is no game, it is creation's stage.
The arts you have are servants of your sight.
Breathe in, perceive, embrace and love the earth.
Not as it is, but as perception sees.
See first, look hard, then create what is seen.

It might be simple as a pot that boils,
Or strands of hair let fall in morning light.
Or a small motion beyond entrapment
In hells made by our bullish blindfulness.

Design a home in which we might know life.
Design a way of life that does not kill.
In place of superstition, open eyes.
In place of fetid foulness, spaces fair.

Perception makes demands blindness ignores.
Perception propels spirit toward the real.
Perception transforms chaos with a glance.
Perception can transform the present day.