Best Conditioning Poems
air conditioning
never summer or winter
nose on the window
just take off a layer
or walk around
topless
i am the archpriest
eating sugar puffs
i am the prelate
eating bagels
i am halfway
in
and halfway
out the window
the mother-in-law wants it off
i am not for sale
my successors are labouring
like hercules
the hidrosis is formulaic
like glib one-liners
"it's bad for the bones and
you'll catch a cold"
bring on the catarrh
the indisposition
the bogeys
the runny front bonnet
and collectivist honk
the towel over the bowl
of hot adam's ale
seduce my soul my doxy
my concubine
a night emission
i make love to the air conditioner
AI
AI stories
Are unending
Algorithms untiring
Reaching into their
Immense conditioning
To concoct what
Attracts and repulses..
Hmmmm..
Sounds familiar...
Conditionality of your love is exploding under my fingers,
under one of my potential hands
What took place goes forward and returns.
Fear and my back against the wall.
I hear voices deafened by my attempts,
Somewhere in the distance,
gliding over the edge,
inviting the banality.
Identification and it's number.
Components and they're for me.
I'm standing on a stair, on a relative elevation,
And mute everything, rowing with a low tone.
The full scope and the end
Everything what's happening is crashing against my recultance to be here.
The breeze of AC, the murmur of conversation, a hearty bustle. A cocoon built of gifts, fused by will. Comfort, warm touches, the caress of the past. A place to worship. A place to build, to return you with gifts of your own.
I spurned your love and am sorry everyday.
The constant flow of AC, hushed tones. Frantic silence, pretending there is no Outside. Alone or not, it matters not; A cage with light filtering in. The faded memories of olive branches, of sad smiles. Stuffing oneself. Pretending you can't fit through the bars. Death cannot hold many together at once. They remember.
How does a cage differ from a protective cell
How can silence be comforting or frantic
Whose love was spurned
Why
You are awaited
The shabby hotel rooms were dank and dour
An indigent family blinked in the dark
Too dull to see much at this wake-up hour
The man of the family has such a bark.
A new baby! How marvelous! An unthinking person said.
But a new child in this family was just another to be fed
We don’t need another mouth, mama unkindly thought
The others seven children knew to do what they ought
In these rooms, seven children tried their best to please
They welcomed the tiniest bit of a summer breeze
No air conditioning for this family of ten.
Every day was a day of labor, once and again.
They did their share, and they kept the baby clean.
He was a sweet boy, but enthusiasm did pale.
They had not needed another; it might sound mean.
But this baby was an extra to feed and had such a wail!
("Pema", 2017, original pen and ink)
The Journey of Souls
Dogs make the ultimate example
Of a conditionable being,
And my deaf-dog buddy
Old Pema the Pug is no exception.
Meanwhile Buddhists of all faiths
Believe reincarnation effects us all
And involves the journey
Of a soul through countless lives,
The idea of improving our lot
Being central to life’s meaning,
Improvement which comes from the habit
Of accentuating the positive and eliminating
The negative, combined with deep insight
Into our true nature.
One way to do this is through meditation
And contemplation in a mindful way,
But the point is, it’s up to each of us to do.
So back to my pug.
Like I said he’s getting old,
But he’s still a best friend
And I’m sure I mean the world to him too
At least in the basic fact of how he’s bonded to me
In a way that’s sweet but
Also unfathomable.
This morning as I worked on a project
Building some closet shelves in my study
He came to hang out with me
And of all the soft spots available
Chose to take his place
On my meditation cushion
A spot he has over the years grown familiar with.
And it strikes me as a profound
Yet obvious fact that his conditioning
Is leading him to not only follow me
In this life,
But to set a course for his future lives
To improve his lot
Whether he knows it or not.
Maybe at some point I had a similar mentor.
I did flash once on seeing the dark soothing inside
Of an ancient Tibetan temple
From the edge of a wide open windowsill
High above the valley below,
And in the moment recognized
Something of the heart, something familiar
A point of some significance
Now matured in time
To something vastly different.
And the thought occurred to me
Perhaps I was a small bird then
Attracted to the place, perhaps simply
By a morsel of food,
But in the moment heard and felt
Something much more significant
Much more substantial and transformative.
Maybe it was a million years ago
In a different galaxy,
Maybe it was just a lifetime or two ago.
What does it matter
To the dreamer dreaming this now?
Like for my pug
Pursuing his own self interest life after life,
It makes all the difference,
And eventually becomes self evident
To mean everything.
(2/21/24)
Conditioning
Is what we all
Carry along with us..
All of those boundaries
And attitudes toward
What confines and frees..
Then to discover..or not
That Freedom is overlooked
In our life as lived...
Some men are breast men,
some men are leg men.
Some men are butt men,
and some men focus on that area most feminine.
This behaviour that men display towards women,
is all due to a lifetime of conditioning.
Primitive tribesmen admire the whole woman,
and caress from the top of their head to their feet's bottom.
Whenever you show your pet affection, you pet the animal over all.
You don't pet your pet and then focus only on your pet's balls.
when filling out an application in the companies office area, I feel like a popsicle in the air conditioning
my parents never liked air conditioning
only turned it on for company
not every summer day, maybe twice in August
if it was over five hundred degrees outside
both were Iowa farm kids
used to the heat and being sweaty
hard workers who cared little for luxury
did not hold stock in fancy fussy things
Many times when the hardships we are experiencing seem unending, we must fight our hardest when realizing that perhaps we have been conditioned to be in that hardship. It is the mindset to the condition that must change greater than the condition itself.
What we ritualise
Is illusion in disguise
Blocking divine surprise
Of pristinity
Mantra then not by choice
But guided by inner voice
As in stillness we rejoice
Divine connectivity
Take the mantra Ohm
Manifesting a bliss dome
Vibrationally our true home
Reclaiming divinity
No pattern following
No self within anticipating
Save innocence celebrating
Timeless eternity
Conditioning
Is seemingly
What we are..
Patterns inlaid
Are there for
Comparisons..so that
An appearance might
Be labeled and
Understood..
Such a story may
Arise...
'Tis like to be loud weather.' (The Winter's Tale)
conditioning
repetitions in
time's stories
configure a
future story
in the image of the
conditioning