Best Stakes Poems
losing at some game
produces very little shame
no one else to blame
pride quite easy to reclaim
nothing ventured nothing gained
big or little stakes
wagers may keep minds awake
or make weak souls shake
don't bet what shouldn't be lost
keep in mind that final cost
losing in a war
involves relatively more
lost for evermore
may be people you adore
wagered in deadly gore
bet all of one's mind
on what remains undefined
life a non-stop grind
of intensely out of line
dancing with wild emotion
keep the odds in scope
know when it's time to say nope
don’t ante last hope
when on that slippery slope
full of angles and false tropes
Stakes Root Deeper
When the stakes
are life on Earth,
all else is a diversion.
Susan Murphy Roshi
Here we have co-invested stakes
nondualing claims
of sacred and secular health causes,
and disinvested destroying diversions,
perversions,
distortions,
dismay,
retributions.
Susan Murphy is a Zen teacher,
so diversions from shared stakes
are Empty LeftBrain Egos,
like sound
and sight
and feeling
of one hand clapping,
slapping away life's co-investing stakes,
invitations,
resources for gratitude,
positive health attitude.
Interdependent stakes,
claims of concelebrating life as healthy
over ego-supremacist death as pathological,
are RightBrain intuited
Personal Knowledge,
eisegetical sacred feelings
that each Ego extends
our other hand of EcoEarthOther clapping
in co-arising nondual return.
Both hemispheres,
each sweeping
slapping
clapping
back and forth,
emptiness and interdependence,
YangStrength and YinFlow,
FatherSun and SacredEarth's HolySpirit,
Now, in this critical transition time
in-between Eden's restoring ecotherapies
and FallenEden's re-attributing ego-traumas
Ego pride of accumulating and hoarding investments
in this personal life
does to family and community health
what AnthroPride of disinvestment
away from Earth's divine ecological nature
does to homosapiens
and all sacred DNA-enscribed cousins,
And to our RNA fractally resonant holonic stakes
for eating,
refueling,
absorbing,
restoring rhythms and seasonal light-dark patterns,
Including sounds of two bicameral hands
concelebrating sacred life
on
and within
and flying
and spinning restore-destroy spirals
above
and beyond
SacredEarth.
Trippy hippie likes risky frisky.
Doing gambles of one's living.
the worse it gets, it gets “worser”
a better death is a misnomer
those greedy fingers
and trespassing eyes
the passing of a plate of lies
the only thing that’s shared —
a shovel that heaps dirt
over the “loved one’s” hurt
7/26/2018
will you anti your stake
when I bring this all up
or will you be surprised
that it isn't enough
will you chuck these past months
thinking I gave what I had
or will you work harder
and take one more stab
High-stakes impression,
style is never casual.
All in, fresh laundry.
In troubled times, when people join,
United in resistance,
They share a common hope to find
A peaceful coexistence.
Perhaps they march or chant or sing
While others watch and wonder
If change can be the end result
Of anger’s zeal and thunder.
Or will the protests and the pleas
Fade back to what we’re used to
Before our phones replaced the need
For any network’s news crew?
The expectation now is that
Events may yet compel us
To raise the stakes and seek reform,
But only time will tell us.
Did you bear contentment, leave a fragile footprint
or were you a swine rooting pristine into mud
what will they say as your bones blow away
did you paint stars or did you spill blood.
Were you a gold giver or impish tin taker
Is the character granite or wove from coal flake
Did your knead love or did you weld lust
did they avoid you or could you be trusted.
Did you weave wayward together or polish division
how did you play that hand of black sins
did you glitter the fault line or ask for forgiveness
did you steer the beast toward another's religion.
Did you leave this earth in a much better state
did you play the vamp, licking blood off the stake.
May each new generation…understand the stakes.
May each generation learn from the generation before…
and not make the same mistakes.
When it comes to each generation
may more love, kindness and acceptance find them…
so they can hand off a better world
to the generation coming up behind them.