Un-Rite-teous Behavior

[Guest guest]

"O Brother! when I was forgetful,

my true Guru showed me the

Way.

 

Then I left off rites and ceremonies,

I bathed no more in the holy water:

 

Then I learned that it was I alone who

was mad, and the whole world

beside me was sane; and I had

disturbed these wise people.

>From that time forth I knew no more obeisance:

I do not ring the temple bell:

I do not set the idol on a throne:

I do not worship the image with

flowers.

 

It is not the austerities that mortify

the flesh which are pleasing to

the Lord,

 

When you leave off your clothes and

kill your senses, you do not please

the Lord:

 

The man who is kind and who practices

righteousness, who remains passive

amidst the affairs of the world,

who considers all creatures on earth

as his own self,

 

He attains the Immortal Being, the

true God is ever with him.

 

Kabir says: 'He attains the true

Name whose words are pure, and

who is free from pride and conceit.'

 

~Kabir

 

 

Somehow i always thought

that we were crazier

than anyone else,

or anyone could ever imagine.

Imagine that! Crazier? Us?

 

There's a man who runs out

his open door at the sight

of every passing stranger who stops

to look at his stone chickens.

Not wanting to have them taken,

yet wanting them to be

admired and desired

as one's very own stone birds,

he leaves them out on the sidewalk,

standing in front of his house.

He leaves the door wide-open

every evening to stay on guard.

 

God it was such a howl

when he thought we were about to grab them

and make off like two thieves in the night.

 

But then i realized

we had been standing

in front of that lamp post

we thought looked just like

two glass Buddhas.

Night after night we walked there

as if on some holy

albeit hilarious,

and somewhat humorously embarked

pilgrimage to the Bodhi tree.

 

We stood and stared in wonder,

and maybe it might have been Awe,

at those two Compassionate,

Glass Globed Ones.

Ahhh, it was Rapture!

 

Who stops and stares

for such long periods of time

at a lamp-post?

A lamp post!

Weirdness is

whatever we think it is,

and it isn't even that.

 

What is weird to one

is the grace of God to another.

Let's just say for the sake

of removing any further confusion

that it's all the grace

of the Beloved One come to Laugh.

Laughing at madmen and mystics

making time under a twin-poled lamp-post

looking most Victorian

with two Buddhas perched atop

and sitting in the Lotus posture,

why, i feel such the Love-imposter

for thinking that that man,

the one who loves his cement chickens,

so much so and so funnily so,

it makes me weep.

 

It makes me weep.

 

Were any more certifiable than i!

Or more ready for the coats

than me & b?

 

What a lot of lunatics

we all must be to fail to see

the Beauty in the weirdness

of one another.

i speak only for myself here,

of course.

And maybe

for Mashuq, too.

 

 

"Our only satisfaction must be

to live in the present moment

as if there were nothing

to expect beyond it.

Embrace the present moment

as an ever-flowing source

of holiness."

 

~Jean Pierre de Cassaude

 

Climbing down the stairs to share

a story with some pizzaz,

i spy that regal eagle,

that mosquito-hawk we saw two nights ago

lying dead and stiff

along the stairway,

right in the center walk.

 

What'd he do to do this,

to get this kind of scene?

 

Was he mean or was he nice?

Is a stairway death

the price we must pay to play

and pay up front for our dinner?

 

Was he digging the road to Mecca

with his tiny little mouth?

Was he getting too bossy with clients

and the Big Boss threw him out?

 

Well i can only guess,

and i'd guess

it was just the Light.

He saw the Light

and was taken to flight

straight into the Heart of Love.

He couldn't take the Beauty!

He had to leave the glad-rags

in the middle of the stairs.

The open-mouthed stares we shared!

He had to split like a red,

like a really red, ripe

watermelon thrown

against the White Wall of Life.

Hey, hey, hey.

How about that?

A hawk of small stature

he had the Rapture

right on these very stairs.

 

Let's not tell anyone,

you know,

'cause if we did say anything more

they might want to come here

and begin to knock and knock

upon my door and beg

for just one more look

at the nook

or the platform,

where that Blessed bug bit it!

 

He might be made into a Holy One,

a wholly over-run shrine,

a mystic Mosquito Avadhut

being hailed as the next

Divne Incarnation of Vishnu.

 

So Ssshhhh. Don't tell.

Don't tell.

 

LoveAlways,

 

Mazie

[Guest guest]

, "mazie_l" <sraddha54@h...> wrote:

>So Ssshhhh. Don't tell.

Don't tell.

 

 

....You're cracking me up, Girl!

I'm vaguely recalling that morning, stumbling,

still blind drunk, to this perpetual table

my hair in a chaos reflecting my head

my breath as hard as turpentine from last night's wine

You kept pouring until I saw two not one

my face filled with the stubble of chronology

that documented that banquet's excruciating unraveling

into the slap-stick games of anonymous jesters

bent forward backward inside out I flopped into the

chair reserved for the hungry ghost, no appetite

for Your seductive menu, parched for a simple flask of

water to wash down drugged memories that stick in my throat

like some partially digested identification, stale rancid

bitter tastes that resisted the superficial mouthwash of

ersatz redemption, dazed and confused by Your promises

of oblivion amidst the peaches and the rosewater that

accompanied the mincemeat passions of the cruel sous chef --

the one who coated the razors with that thin icing of honey

just enough to disguise the suicide dessert the maitre `d

neglected to mention through the sharks teeth of his "Bon

Appetite!" accompanying the blithe endearing wave of his hand

as he sat us across from the shadow ones with knives twisting and

turning in damp anticipatory hands of mis-directed bloodlust –

what did we know, what did I know? I blame nobody. I accepted

the invitation, and so as I swooned in this dizzy fogged morning

at the edge of my seat at the edge of my life I reached for the

napkin and coughed up my soul...

 

Thanks for not noticing!

 

LoveAlways,

 

b

[Guest guest]

on 7/1/02 2:05 PM, hrtbeat7 at hrtbeat7 wrote:

, "mazie_l" <sraddha54@h...> wrote:

>So Ssshhhh. Don't tell.

Don't tell.

....You're cracking me up, Girl!

I'm vaguely recalling that morning, stumbling,

still blind drunk, to this perpetual table

my hair in a chaos reflecting my head

my breath as hard as turpentine from last night's wine

You kept pouring until I saw two not one

my face filled with the stubble of chronology

that documented that banquet's excruciating unraveling

into the slap-stick games of anonymous jesters

bent forward backward inside out I flopped into the

chair reserved for the hungry ghost, no appetite

for Your seductive menu, parched for a simple flask of

water to wash down drugged memories that stick in my throat

like some partially digested identification, stale rancid

bitter tastes that resisted the superficial mouthwash of

ersatz redemption, dazed and confused by Your promises

of oblivion amidst the peaches and the rosewater that

accompanied the mincemeat passions of the cruel sous chef --

the one who coated the razors with that thin icing of honey

just enough to disguise the suicide dessert the maitre `d

neglected to mention through the sharks teeth of his "Bon

Appetite!" accompanying the blithe endearing wave of his hand

as he sat us across from the shadow ones with knives twisting and

turning in damp anticipatory hands of mis-directed bloodlust –

what did we know, what did I know? I blame nobody. I accepted

the invitation, and so as I swooned in this dizzy fogged morning

at the edge of my seat at the edge of my life I reached for the

napkin and coughed up my soul...

Thanks for not noticing!

LoveAlways,

b

=================

I always miss the good parties...

Shawn