Priorities

tonight there is tonglen
for a woman
near a ranch
somewhere in texas (little t)

black presidential (little p) lemo
flags quick-flap
leading the tinted glass

death in iraq
somehow less important
than kicking up dust
in her face

Shadow Mind

summer afternoon
sunday
old asian buddha
carved in wood
on the window
shaddow
thrown on ceiling amid
wavering
leaves

Abraxas: revisited

Abraxas black mother reclined and shining in flood of color

Red-blue winged sky dancer dakini flitting across the cover

Santana Santana Santana Santana

Abraxas crystal breasted mother of 1970 ecstasy rhythm dance heat summer midnight smoke

Abraxas pot mother mary jane sister lover of sweat filled holy night

Were you really Troma whom I could not handle in my youth?

Were you really Vajrayogini dancing,

driving bliss into vibratory wisdom delight?

Om Vajra Yogini Hung

Om Vajra Yogini Hung

Om Vajra Yogini Hung

Oye Como Va!

Clouded days of quivering, seeking chemical heaven, inhaling nirvana, quick fixes Abraxas

never recognizing you, you not separate, not other, no different

from our own true nature

from Epistles

Epistle 1: To Hungry Poets

raised, ruled, ridiculed, run off

it has been beaten into us

no emotion, no cry

not on the street

not in the house of our own fathers

nor the ship

nor enterprise

or

August 1999, He returned:

from high snowy peaks

above the sub-continent

(o Milerepa in your cave in Labchi

how did you survive eating

how could anyone eat only (nettles)

or that time Rasheen (street captain

blood captain

said:

all of us here are poets

emotion is what is important

returned (walked out of Zhangmu

hitched and hired rides (130 km)

down the river gorge

(streams launched over cliffs

from a thousand points

slogged two mud slides

arriving in Katmandu

dead night

returned to paint a yellow mask

returned to piece together

not retrace or recreate but as was said (make it new)

how to sew the crazy quilt

this life

is

to find Trungpa's crazy-wisdom and run it

like mandala

EP:

only

emotion

endures

returned, found my brothers and sisters

in an upstairs flat on Homer

sat on hardwood floors n' ate

the time

(I will always remember the time) David Jolkovski said:

I come here because this is where I can say what really matters

our heart

is what we're

always eating

Blow

(Santa Cruz

your mountains

crumbling into the sea

your green Pacific

eyes

of a blonde I met here once

rode off on the back of a bike

clutching the ribs of an Australian

hurricane blow-out, up from Mexico

wind rip-snapping my tent

Brian to me: you should dig a trench around your tent

it's gonna rain like a mama

once

Brian got up to cook breakfast

two feet into boots

one found a scorpion

clouds hurtle up over us

criss-cross in layers

boil,

billows of rising heat

we can't see it

but we feel that great eye rotating

(khil-kor

circle and fringe

mandala

all night mountain thunder crash, like cannon

flash lightning flicker-images of friends n' mountains

bottle of Jack Daniels' back n' forth

round the front porch of the yurt

big bill on his feet circling: come on! I'll wrestle ya!

stumble to bed

in morning sun

tent dry as dust