The Rambling Taoist: Poetry

Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Sunday, July 21, 2013

TYT - 'If My Vagina Was a Gun'

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Beware the Smile of Eli (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: February 28, 2011

Beware the Smile of Eli!

It lurks everywhere,

But mostly within,

Where it vies for our lips,

Upon the world to beam

And warm us within.

Beware the Smile of Eli!

We know it without;

It makes our hearts cringe!

Yet dwelling within it fills us with pride,

How vast is our wisdom,

Our insights so deep!

A sage among sages,

One of the wise.

Do they not praise us,

Bid us enter their fold?

What is this smile so foul yet so fair?

Why spirituality itself,

Did you not know?

Wisdom and insight,

Care and concern,

All in the grasp of a heart self-involved.

Spirituality itself,

Our most holy grail!

How it betrays us,

Or it we betray.

How can we know it

This smile so false?

That we know at all is answer enough.

It is spirituality self-aware,

Wisdom wise to itself,

Care convinced of its care.

Hard-won insight brims;

We have so much to share!

How great is our nurturing,

Our intentions so pure,

To be a sage of true standing,

A sage among sages,

Known to ourselves

And others as well.

Beware the Smile of Eli!

It lurks everywhere.

But mostly within.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

A Poetic Pause

Trey Smith

Truth be known, I'm not much into poetry, but I read a poem recently that I'd like to share. I thought about including it in my infrequent series, Pop Culture Tao, but decided to just let it stand on its own. I do think it has a philosophical Taoist spirit to it, though.

DIALOGUE OF A MAN AND A TREE
by Vincent Godfrey Burns, Poet Laureate of Maryland, 1965

The Man: Why do you grow so tall, way up there in the sky?

The Tree: I love the heights that are clean and free, where the lonely eagles fly, where the crane and the hawk can nest with me, and my friends, the geese, go by.

The Man: What do you use for food, tree to make you grow and grow?

The Tree: I live on a diet of Nature's best from my roots deep down below; I never go hungry, I rest and rest and wait for the rain and the snow.

The Man: How do you grow so strong, Tree, sturdy and straight and true?

The Tree: I live in the light of the sunshine and yarn for the sky's deep blue; the clean, sweet air is always mine, and the cold winds help me too.

The Man: How do you live so long, Tree, so much longer than man?

The Tree: I've geared my days with the Creator's ways since ever the world began. There is no death when life keeps faith with nature's wonderful plan.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Dao Is What Happens

Scott Bradley

This heart opens

In thankfulness

And in thankfulness still more.

Or is it joy?

All is well

All things perfectly themselves

Perfectly Dao

Dao that unfolds as me.

What happens is Dao.

What A. C. Graham calls the "most obstinate of dichotomies", the distinction between the human and Heaven (Nature, Reality), is conceptually resolved in philosophical Daoism's understanding of Reality as emergent; all that happens is Dao. And it is resolved in conscious human experience, at least in theory, in the Authentic Person (zhenren) who, in realizing her unconditional identity with Dao, opens her heart so as to "encompass all things".

"Heaven, Earth and I emerge together and the myriad things and I are one." (Zhuangzi, 2/52-53; Coyle) Thus wrote Zhuangzi, if not as a zhenren, than at least as one who in aspiring to be, participated in some of the freedom and joy that accrues therefrom.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Rambling stiles

Ta-Wan

Alone I walk and who am I, crossing over gates and stiles. I am the freedom all persons seek, I do not know a working week.

If my eyelids rise I'm happily here, if they close I sleep no fear. I am the comfort people desire, no home have I my warmth a fire.

Ah!

When I'm needing sleep, my bed I meet. When hunger arrives, I'm ready sat to eat.

So this may have sounds of greatness, how then can we emulate this? The answer is simplicity itself, united in oneness there is no me myself.

Suffering is a relative term, your life so far will confirm. Oneness can not be so split, it's all so simple when this is it.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

Friday, October 5, 2012

The Night Horizon

Scott Bradley

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
— David Whyte, "Sweet Darkness"

This is just a fragment of a poem and I won't pretend that how I speak of it here is what its author had in mind, though perhaps it is the power of poetry that it should find a unique resonance in each reader.

Immediately, this insight into the potential of darkness to take us beyond what we can see speaks to me of the Zhuangzian vision of far and unfettered wandering. Where the understanding leaves off, the wandering begins. Like life itself, this wandering is its own reward and makes no promises of certainty or truth. Yet it liberates.

Here are the next two stanzas:

You must learn one thing
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

The world to which I belong was not made to be free in, but it is one in which I might be free. My world is one of what W. Giegerich calls "metaphysical nakedness", where there are in fact no “answers to life's deepest questions”. To seek them would be to deny that world.

Yet in that very nakedness, in that darkness, is this possibility of a transcendence without reference to a defined horizon.

This is simply a human activity, one which we can do because we live and are human. Life requires no justification, no “reason”, apart from itself. Transcendence can be had here, in letting the life that we are live. All that is required is that we thankfully affirm and live in the world in which we find ourselves.

There is also the darkness of our hearts, of loss, fear, pain and sorrow. Yet here, too, is the opportunity to wander where we would not otherwise be able; here is the possibility of discovering that “every enslavement is also an ennobling” and of finding the “Tranquility of Turmoil”.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Selections From Gibran

Scott Bradley

I have finally read a book, The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran. If I may presume to critique, I would say it has much of insightful and practical wisdom, though not so much that is helpful, in the case of my journey at any rate, that illumines a path to liberation. Here are some selections:

"On Marriage": "Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music."

"On Clothes": "Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean. And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?"

"On Reason and Passion": "Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?"

"On Pain": "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. [...] And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief."

"On Teaching": "No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. [...] For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man."

"On Good and Evil": "You are good when you are one with yourself. Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil. For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house."

"On Friendship": "When you part from your friend, you grieve not; for that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as a mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain."

On Pleasure”: “Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek. […] Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found treasure?”

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Like the Seasons

Scott Bradley

You have been told that, even like a chain
you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth. You are also
as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is
to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty
of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast
blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.
(The Prophet; Kahlil Gibran)

Unseasonal weather does not negate the seasons.

We measure and we judge only when we fail of a broader view. Weakest? Strongest? Neither survives the broadest view.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A Misguided Poet

Trey Smith

I've mentioned before that I used to be a poet -- back in the day when I was filled with constant angst. While most of my poetry served as a sort of catharsis from unrequited love or my feelings of isolation (due to being a very strange person), I also had/have a very goofy side.

One of the reasons my grades were nothing to brag about during my first two years of college is that I spent a good deal of time goofing off during lectures. These lectures were held in a huge hall with 200 or 300 other students. My pal Roger and me would sit at the very back and, instead of taking studious notes, we wrote song parodies!

In the space below, I will share two of them. I'm not suggesting these are my best song parodies, just two I ran across recently.

Sixteen Sandals
(a parody of Sixteen Candles by The Crests -- listen to the real song here.)

Sixteen sandals
and not a pair to wear
for none of them match
my eyes or my hair.

Open the closet.
I need to find some shoes,
but they're all gone now
as my thongs are too!

Like in some dream
I was a Roman queen
'n sandals were the prettiest, sexiest things I'd ever seen.

Sixteen sandals
and not a one looks right
with the dress I've chosen
to wear tonight!

Like in some dream
I was a Roman queen
'n sandals were the prettiest, sexiest things I'd ever seen.

Sixteen sandals
and not a pair to wear
for none of them match
my eyes or my hair.
Yes, my eyes or my hair!

~

We're Watching Old Reruns
(a parody of We've Only Just Begun by the Carpenters -- listen to the real song here.)

We're watching old reruns...tonight.
Dragnet and Wagon Train.
Flip the channels all through the night
watching old reruns.

Before the rising sun, we try
to find dear Gilligan
or maybe that Super Stud!
We're watching old reruns.

Sharing the plot lines that we've memorized.
Recalling phrases word-by-word.
Wishing that James Kirk would materialize
to tell us that Checkov was a nerd (so he heard)!

But Lucille Ball is dead...we know!
Why did she have to leave?
No sequels for the Ri-car-dos.
We're watching old reruns.

Sharing the theme songs we can harmonize.
Singing like David Cass-i-dy.
The Flying Nun had us mystified
as did the Partridge Family.

Still, Rin-Tin-Tin is gone...the nerve
to leave us all alone.
The only thing that makes us smile
is watching old reruns.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Hearing the Single Song

Scott Bradley

You can hear it best at night, secure behind the fringing reef —
the ocean's single, ceaseless roar.
Or beneath the trees —
myriad fricative whispers united as one voice.
Or beside the singing stream —
a single song of infinite particle sound.
Or in the symphony of human aspiration —
how could there be too many taos?
You can see it in the meadow —
where ten thousand flowers bloom.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Daily Tao - What To Do?

Now just simplify your mind and self,
that's all there is so just sit;
Be balance and unknowing flow,
Nature's truth is here that's it.