two darkfigures

am I

leaninginto

the

abyss of

mysoul

burnt by

sin gonewild

and stale

awaitingjudgment

or 

light

ofmercy

above

mysorrow

*Seeing is a neglected enterprise.

-Saul Leiter

*I like the idea that simple and unimportant things can be a source of great beauty.

-Saul Leiter

*Art ain't about paint.  It ain't about canvas. It 's about ideas.  Too many people died without ever getting their mind out to the world.

-Thornton Dial

-We are weak and fallen human beings who continue to murder by word and deed.

-Today we honor the dead to whose numbers we add by killing others in the name of peace.

I'll ferry you to rest with me

beside the sperm bank, rich for robbery

beneath the ocean swells

rising on the beach of my flesh

on skin so gentle, a poetry of love

that you'll wed the heat, ocean and all

and rob the bank of its whited gold

so soft, moist, warm and long

in bolting hugs that guide with each embrace

till passions' sleep soothes us to its hour

*If I Fail

If in my quest 2 achieve my goals

I stumble or crumble and lose my soul

Those that knew me would easily co-sign

There was never a life as hard as mine

No father - no money- no chance and no guide

I only follow my voice inside

if it guides me wrong and I do not win

I'll learn from mistakes and try to achieve again.

-Tupac Shakur

*What Is It That I Search 4

I know not what I search 4

But I know I have yet to find it.

Because it is invisible 2 the eye

My heart must search 4 it blinded.

And if by chance I find it,

Will I know my mission is achieved?

Can one come 2 conclusions,

Before the question is conceived?

Just as no no one knows

what lies beyond the shore,

I will never find the answer 2

what it is that I search 4.

-Tupac Shakur

-If death doesn't get you, something else will.

*The dangers of life are many, and safety is one of those dangers.

-Goethe

The unadorned Christ

Splattered with sin

the servant-God in flesh

of human nature's gifts

you stand, bare-assed

head caressing the whipping post

where soldiers' blood-letting strokes

release health upon the human race

 You are the sorry-sight of us

the sullied grace of God

deserving life into Hells upon Hells

moaning now the saving prayers of death

facing the tree barren of its fruit

You are the apple, pealed

nailed to Our Parental curse

shiv'ring neath the Eclipsed Sun

the Spirit-seed released from your core

You are a naked-nothing

full with All we'll ever need

*Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt.  On the contrary, the deep, in expressible certitude  of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt."  This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious "faith" of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion.  This false "faith" which is what we often live by and which we even come to confuse with our "religion" is subjected to inexorable questioning.  This torment is a kind of trial by fire in which we are compelled, by the very light of invisible truth which has reached us in the dark ray of contemplation, to examine, to doubt and finally to reject all the prejudices and conventions that we have hitherto accepted as if they were dogmas.  Hence is it clear that genuine contemplation is incompatible with complacency and with smug acceptance of prejudiced opinions.  It is not mere passive acquaintance in the status quo, as some would like to believe - for this would reduce the level of spiritual anesthesia. Contemplation is no pain-killer.  What a holocaust takes place in this steady burning to ashes of old worn-out words, cliches, slogans, rationalizations!  The worst of it is that even apparently holy conceptions are consumed along with all the rest.  It is a terrible breaking and burning of idols, a purification of the sanctuary, so that no graven thing may occupy the place that God has commanded to be left empty: the center, the existential altar which simply "is." 

-Thomas Merton

naked child

naked child, where are you:

on a path running

dashing toward childhood

to an innocence lost?

guide me to the inside

the safer side of fear

far from the trembling fright

the echoing noise of night

i yearn for tattered Eden

but cherubs block return.

i scour the streets for heaven

and devils chase me in

*The Shining Star Within

                         Dedicated 2 Marilyn Monroe

Secrets R hidden with the clouds

of Darkness.

And in this place no one Dares 2  Breathe

in Fear of self-expression 

It has been this way

forever and a day

until she came 2 shine

with a spark of innocence and questions

only 2 be answered with Darkness

Not just Darkness but the silent kind

that steals your soul and kills your mind

There was no compassion

for this thriving star

only exploitation

and confused jealousy

u saw no hope and brought the end

Never acknowledging the star within

-Tupac Shakur

*Starry Night

                                 Dedicated in Memory of

                                           Vincent van Gogh

a creative heart, obsessed with satisfying

This dormant and uncaring society

u have given them the stars at night

and u have given them Bountiful Bouquets of Sunflowers

But 4 u there is only contempt

and though u pour yourself into that frame

and present it so proudly 

this world could not accept your masterpieces

from the heart

So on that starry night

u gave 2 us and

u took away from us

The one thing we never acknowledged

    your life

*Tupac Shakur

Wrestling angel

Myst'ry angel of Jacob

brown angel of mine

both angel and Jacob

tussling in myself

on the rocky desert floor

minus comfort, minus rest

for my sore, naked soul

Kneed to my side

my nerves ache for balm

that God soothes o'er wounds

had in the struggling feud

Tis God who is the balm

masseuse, physician, friend

wrestling angel of Jacob

wrestling angel of mine 

*It is not we who choose to awaken ourselves, but God Who chooses to awaken us.

-Thomas Merton

*Contemplation is not trance or ecstasy, not the hearing of sudden unutterable words, nor the imagination of lights.  It is not the emotional fire and sweetness that come with religious exaltation. It is not enthusiasm, the sense of being "seized" by an elemental force and swept into liberation by mystical frenzy.  These things may seem to be in some way like a contemplative awakening and control exercised by our empirical self.  But they are not the work of the "deep self", only of the emotions, of the somatic unconscious.  They are a flooding up of the dionysian forces of the "id". Such manifestations can of course accompany a deep and genuine religious experience, but they are not what I am talking about here as contemplation.

-Thomas Merton

What of Fame?

everyone knows ure Face

The world screams ure name

Never again R u alone

-Tupac Shakur

Finding one's place in the sky

can balk ones movement midst the stars.

Their lights beam bright about;

one's own, a flickering match, it seems.

Yet, an ardent match can set aflame

the wood which firemen sweat to tame.

*Moment

at any given

moment we can

become transparent

without the wind stopping

or the waves counting on

themselves to be waves-

a naturalness in

the way change

and change again

rises from a thousand

campfires on an endless

plain before the oldest

battle to discover the brilliant

emerald valley at the end

of a moment of

nothing but breath

I hang on

-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

*Out

of light

of darkness

of every

I am

at play

on the edge

of the deep

I miss

being

in

but more

and more

I miss

being

out!

-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

Heaven is

Heaven is
   a long-awe
   endless wonder
   'tinous delight
   child, leaning back
   on pitched arms
   struck that Such
   can so enrapture  
   that one's all-pleasure
   is being-still
   absorbing All

Reflections on a day meandering

My heart is a zillion whirlpools

spinning in a symphonic chaos.

I race 'tween doubt and doubt

to touch one second of assurance

enough to push me through the gate

The twisted road of hist'ry

where the sure and lame are halt

is the only trail to Home

where You stand at the door.

There I'm Yours, all Yours

A tattoo upon Your arm

written, "Mine, all Mine",

my name inked in red

No mad eyes rolling out of sight in their sockets

nor perfumed anger torching the toxined air

but a Doorjam-Daddy eyeing the distant street

awaiting my return from the stockade of The Found

where I fashioned a home of filth

midst the stick horses loose in the world

Tis there You stand, searching the distant scene

as bedraggled I walk, rememb'ring

those tattoos writ in red

*The Eternal Lament

From my mind 2 the depths of my soul

I yearn 2 achieve all of my goals

and all of my freetime will be spent

on the 1's I miss I will lament

I am not a perfectionist 

but still I seek perfection

I am not a great romantic

but yet I yearn 4 affection

Eternally my mind will produce

ways 2 put my talents 2 use

and when I'm gone I'm done no matter where I've been

I'll yearn 2 do it all again

-Tupak Shakur

*Contemplation does not arrive at reality after a process of deduction, but by an intuitive awakening in which our free and personal reality becomes fully alive to its own existential depths, which open out into the mystery of God.

-Thomas Merton

*For the contemplative there is no cogito ("I think") and no ergo ("therefore") but only SUM, I Am.

-Thomas Merton

We're in

We're in

We're in

We're in You

imaging

imaging You 

at ev'ry corner

imaging You

on ev'ry street

in the maze of written hist'ry

in ev'ry strange

and not so strange

us

whom You mother

on the breast

the abundant breast 

of Your Spirit

Grace-juice

spilling free

a niagra flowing

moistening open mouths

a-ga-pe with credos

and manna for the soul

*The only way to get rid of misconceptions about contemplation is to experience it.

-Thomas Merton

*Contemplation is not and cannot be a function of this external self.  There is an irreducible  opposition between the deep transcendent self that awakens only in contemplation and the superficial, external self which we commonly identify with the first person singular.  We must remember that this superficial "I" is not our real self.  It is our "individuality" and our "empirical self" but it is not truly the hidden and mysterious person in whom we subsist before the eyes of God.  The "I" that works in the world, thinks about itself, observes its own reactions and talks about itself is not the true "I" that has been united to God in Christ.  It is at best  the venture, the mask, the disguise of that mysterious and unknown "self" whom most of us never discover until we are dead.  Our external, superficial self is not eternal, not spiritual.

-Thomas Merton

*Untitled

Please waken me when I'm free

I cannot bear captivity

where my culture I'm told holds no significance

I'll wither and die in ignorance

But my inner eye can c a race

who reigned as kings in another place

the green of trees were rich and full

and every man spoke of beautiful

men and women together as equals

War was gone because all was peaceful

But now like a nightmare I wake 2 c

That I live like a prisoner of poverty

Please wake me when I'm free
I cannot bear captivity
4 I would rather be stricken blind
than 2 live without expression of mind

-Tupac Shakur

Moving to old age

How quietly I moved to old age, 

a snail sliding toward the wood!

How could Time walk me to Death

grey me without my permission?

Zero could expand this fast

like  nightfall for some child

playing through the supper hour.

This creeping, crawling process

seducing me to view ME at prime

holds me in procession

while my flesh flakes away.

What wonder at the play

of Time, Flesh and Sister Death

the tide-in, tide-out of living

of being born at the Breaking Day.

The trip from womb to "slow-down"

is sure a subtle leap;

on this I've reached my "Senior Years"'

chauffeured by mem'ries growing dim.

*To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life.

-Thomas Merton

*...contemplation is a sudden gift of awareness, an awareness to the Real within all that is real.

-Thomas Merton

*...we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to answer Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signify Him.

-Thomas Merton

*...the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.

-Thomas Merton

The Light Is More

The Word became flesh as a word of terror

knocking hell from the Prince of Dark

bringing light to the crannies of doubt

where earthlings despaired at the thought of loss

Bleakness held our hopes in bondage

war upon war the prime vision for life

death after death seemed the glory died for

in the name of god or country or lot

Crying aloud for an unknown something

"Peace", a term, sometime slipped from our lips

we shivered in the cold of its mention

shook with the trembling earth underfoot

Then in the night-course of a quieted sky

when sleep engulfed the tensioned horde

he lept from heaven with arms worldwide

and clothed himself in a virginal womb

The word became flesh, pitching his tent amongst us

setting us on an unimagined course.

The journey continues but it is different:

hope's more firm than what's been lost

Though Dark be there the Light is more;

with outstretched arms the Light is Sure

*Under the Skies Above

My child is out there somewhere

under the skies above

waiting anxiously 4 u and me

2 bless it with our love

A part of me a part of u

and a part of this love we share

will protect my unborn child

who lives dormant out there somewhere

Sometimes in my dreams

I imagine what it would be like

How could I properly guide him

when even I don't know what's right

Whether he is born in wealth or poverty

there will be no deficiency in love

I welcome the gift of life

given from GOD under the skies above

-Tupak Shakur

*Life Through My Eyes

Life through my bloodshot eyes

would scare a square 2 death

poverty, murder, violence

and never a moment of rest

Fun and games R few

but treasured like gold 2 me

cuz I realize that I must return

2 my spot in poverty

But mock my words when I say

my heart will not exist

unless my destiny comes through

and puts an end 2 all of this

-Tupak Shakur

Provocateur

I paused this morning to peer through the mirror

to gaze through eyes both green and grey

to plumb the visage upon the glass

I stared to see beyond beyond

to cross into heart and soul

to touch The Face upon face

my face, Christ's face facing

The image stands curious

on a morning after bath

as the world awakes to day

and I to the questions of Life

This icon I bear, is it Christ's?

Is he the one staring back at me?

If he's the one, then who're the others I see?

Is it his face I face in the mirror of their eyes

                                     the molding of their lips

                                     the coloring of their skin

                                     the silence of their cries

                                     the laughter of their heart?

*The Rose That Grew From Concrete

Did u hear about the rose that grew from a crack

in the concrete

Proving nature's laws wrong it learned 2 walk

without having feet

Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams

it learned 2 breathe fresh air

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

when no one else even cared!

-Tupac Shakur

*Sometimess I Cry

Sometimes when I'm alone

I cry because I'm on my own

The tears I cry R bitter and warm

They flow with life but take no form

I cry because my heart is torn

and I find it difficult 2 carry on

If I had an ear 2 confide in

I would cry among my treasured friends

But who do u know that stops that long

to help another carry on

The world moves fast and it would rather pass u by

than 2 stop and c what makes u cry

It's painful and sad and sometimes I cry

and no one cares about why.

-Tupac Shakur

I hold you, scarred one

as your press against my breast

a John against a Jesus

a needful youth of twelve

for warmth, embrace, certain

of unpainning love and care

Your bereft hands finger

those of mine and arms as well

affirming that flesh's soft

in a zoo of rhinos on the prowl

You slouch like a new champion

who's run the course of life

in want of some elusive prize

so long slipped from your grasp

But now, for one moment

however brief or short or long

your heart has banished panic

your face bright-full of calm

while comforting peace enfolds you

your frantic frame in search of home

You're held secure 

*In the Depths  of Solitude

                                        Dedicated 2 Me

I exist in the depths of solitude

pondering my true goal

Trying 2 find peace of mind

and still preserve my soul

CONSTANTLY yearning 2 be accepted

and from all receive respect

Never compromising but sometimes risky

and that is my only regret

A young heart with an old soul

how can there be peace

How can I be in the depths of solitude

when there R 2 inside of me

This duo within me causes the prefect opportunity

2 learn and live twice as fast

as those who accept simplicity

-Tupac Shakur

*Life Through My Eyes

Life through my blood shot eyes

would scare a square 2 death

poverty, murder, vilonce

and never a moment 2 rest

Fun and games R few

but traesured like gold 2 me

cuz I realize that I must return

2 my spot in poverty

But mock my words when I say

my heart will not exist

unless my destiny comes through

and puts an end 2 all of this

-Tupac Shakur

for better or for worst

his father's still about-

disturbing, violent, present

...and boards be used to tame him

to knock sense into his head

when non-sense is what's a-riot

i am not this man for him

i am stranger 

and stranger more than dad

i'm someone's wish for him

a manipulated god to hold him together

while life falls apart, is breaking

but i must cut our chain

while he searches for his strength

for he will call soon enough, I know

and he'll find himself in his weakness

and me in his need

*...to desire things which benefit only yourself will eventually result in your own downfall; to wish something which will bring good results to your people will produce good results for everyone.

-Joseph Burchac

*The contemplative way of life ...is a process that takes you apart and lets you see inside yourself.  It's a challenging life, a life whose goal is change.

-Dianne Aprile

*...the point is to get beneath the surface to the place where God waits in love.

-Dianne Aprile 

a truth to be heard

knocked persistently at my heart

a patient, Revelation-Christ

desirous of entering the den

of the sisterhood of men

sups on their bread

*What about masculinity?  Do you know how much femininity man lacks for completeness?  Do you know how much masculinity woman  lacks for completeness?  You seek the feminine in women and the masculine in men.  And thus there are always only men and women.   But where are people? You, man,should not seek the feminine in women, but seek and recognize it in yourself, as you possess it from the beginning.  It pleases you, however, to play at manliness, because it travels on a well-worn track.  You, woman, should not seek the masculine in men, but assume the masculine in yourself, since you possess it from the beginning.  But it amuses you and is easy to play at femininity, consequently man despises you because he despises his femininity.  But humankind is masculine and feminine, not just man or woman.  You can hardly say of your soul what sex it is.  But if you pay close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman has a masculine soul. The more manly you are, the more remote from you is what woman really is, since the feminine in yourself is alien and contemptuous.

-Carl Jung

man urge 

dad urge

hormonal push and pull

for her

for You

for him 

and You

and me

wanting more

than me

or him

or her

but You

midst the push and pull

of body parts

stretching for union

exchange

genital peace

and release

*...to seek God is no the same as to seek sanity.

-Jim Forest

*They [the iurodivii] remind us of a deeper sanity that is sometimes hidden beneath apparent lunacy.

-Jim Forest

*God is a God of the present.  God takes and receives you as God finds you - not what you have been, but what you are now.

-Meister Eckhart

Last nigga on the plantation

"Ya Sah, Mista Charlie Man!"

"No Sah, Bossman, You!"

No more, no more those slavish words

chocking breath a hue of blue

I've seen the promised meadows

'cross the Jordan's water blue;

have tasted manna in the desert;

got a hunger I can't subdue

I'm not the same, no longer

no slave 'pon plantation land;

have seen my brethren flee over;

no more niggas to command

the comforts of the old place

the mem'ries stored o'er years:

it's tough to brake the shackles

to drop manacles without tears

The flights into the darkness

 near drownings  in the creeks

stumbling through the underbrush:

the journeyings did get bleak

The new land won't be easy

gonna wish I'd never come

but senses will remind me

why this rugged path I've run

When you're standin' on the plantation

looking round to catch who's there

if you're the only nigga peering

take courage and leave it bear

There is only one art to life, namely, to live the truth and be in love.

In our running, are we running toward something or away from something; toward our self or away from our self; toward God or away from God?  At least, we're not standing still unless it is to be quiet. Being quiet in solitude is a movement.

It doesn't matter where I die.  It does matter how I live.

What's important in life is not to become some body but to know and be ones self.

Jesus if

Jesus, if I could ever shape you

I'd pour you black as tar

and white as snow on Himalayan heights

with brown eyes in yellow face

and feet that know sand and rocks alike

I'd grow you breasts  upon your chest

and hang testes between your legs

your lips as broad as the Ganges

your hands soft as  canyon grand

your smile as wise as the world

You'd hang on an inlaid cross

woods from ev'ry tongue and land

You'd die a freak in Palestine

and  rise, claiming ev'ry Man

*Every saint is troubling.  Every saint reveals some of our fears and and makes us question our fear-driven choices.

-Jim Forest

*...the iurodovii[ a unique Russian holy person] dramatize something about God that most Christians find embarrassing but which we vaguely recognize is crucial information.  It is the special vocation of the iurodivii to live out in a literal, breathtaking way the "hard sayings" of  Jesus.  Like him, they live without money in their pockets (thus Jesus, in responding to a question about paying taxes, had no coin of his own with which to display Caesar's image).  While never harming anyone, the iurodivii raise their voices against those who lie and cheat and do violence to others, but at the same time they are always ready to embrace these same greedy and ruthless people  They take everyone seriously. No one, absolutely no one, is unimportant.

-Jim Forest

*...the Gospel and sacramental life aren't just for smart people.

-Jim Forest

*...to seek God is not necessarily the same thing as to seek sanity.

-Jim Forest

Calvin Klein could never veil

what I see.    You

showing beyond the cloth

and swam of cotton threads

"Clothes make the man", they say

but it's soul, your soul

that's real, supporting flesh

beautiful as yours

"Go naked!", is more than

a Mystic phrase.  It's core

where God begins

and we end

Undress then

and know yourself

for once

*So it is on the spiritual path.  Inner rejuvenation comes only when the outer vessel has been set in place.  Then the very forms that originally seemed restrictive become liberating, for the practitioner has been freed from the fallen nature of reality.  The rose of tradition unfolds to reveal the presence 

of the Holy One within, and the flow of life released finds no better vehicle of expression than the very words of prayer one has been saying all along.

-Eliezer Shore

*Thus, in Judaism, this world is never abandoned.  It provides the tools with which we search for God, and ultimately becomes the channel through which God reveals Himself in our lives.  If our words of prayer have become routine, it is because we have not been saying  them long enough.  One must persevere with the practice despite the difficulty, until the forms reveal their inner meaning.  To keep digging for treasure long after one has abandoned hope of ever finding it.  We are given tools, and we must work with them.  In doing this, we build the vessels to receive.  Ultimately, God in His love and compassion, fills them with His presence.

The hidden things are the Lord our God's,

but the revealed things are ours and our

children's forever, that we may do all the 

words of this Torah (Dt. 29:28)

-Eliezer Shore

i pick up papers and books

setting them about the room

in some display of elegance

some class i believe is mine

but who sees or cares

the print of both is black?

these children of the mind

companions of the noble thought

are heroes to the learner

pals to those with wit

touch them with reverence

place them as sacraments for the brain

take them into tender hands

hold them like crystal glass  

*The purpose of the mitzvot [commandments] is to engender a union with God. The very word mitzvah is from the root of the word "to join".  Furthermore, Judaism does not consider the mitzvot as merely expedient means of reaching the goal of enlightenment, they are themselves considered the ultimate expression of God's will, and Kabbalah speaks of their mystical nature as conduits for divine influx. The practice of mitzvot refines the being and opens it to movements of the spirit. Commitment to their observance, regardless of repetition and boredom, is what ultimately reveals the inner light. Slowly, a window is opened to the soul, so that it can begin to shine in all the corners of ones life.

-Eliezer Shore

*This same process is reflected in every discipline, be it art, religion, or craft.  No great artist ever mastered his field without first being mastered by it.   And nothing new was ever created that did not build upon the achievements of the past.  Only commitment to the exterior form of the craft, in spite of the tediousness of the process, allows the inner source of creativity to reveal itself.  Ultimately, a person touches the core of life, which then flows out and fills the precious static forms with new meaning.  When, through ritual, one reaches the point of infinity of the soul, the ritual itself becomes the setting for the revelation of infinite content.  "A person who  studies Torah selflessly, " says the Talmud, "becomes like an ever increasing spring."  In the mystical consciousness, every detail of creation has the potential for infinite meaning, because the presence of the Infinite God is beneath the surface waiting to be revealed.

-Eliezer Shore