Long Bardo Poems

"Oak" 

The guardians
stood around and 
shook their heads

great thoughts 
quivering 
from the ground, roots up, 

as if to walk 
confidently 
with great armies

yet hesitation 
was witnessed
in their waving gestures

perplexed 
and touching 
green crowns, 

there they...

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"Peace in the Nowhere"

Ghosts remain in this place
they read their words 
marked each day on walls
like prayers, it gives them
peace in the nowhere

someplace relevant to go

Ghosts commune in this place
disowned long ago or walked
off the...

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"The Pages"

Missing all those years
like a page you could turn, 
a book you could throw casually aside, 
to be eternally forgotten in electric shady libraries;
at some point you turned around, 
and remembered, what you long...

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"The Unlit Flame at Blue Feather’s Cross Roads"



Words these days are seldom Red
like drops of lifeless blood falling cold on a hot frying pan,
sentences are scattered, stuck in Go Nowhereland,
semi-solid, immovable coagulating gelatinous, turning dark...

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Cypress trees like evergreen steeples
rise above rows of gravestone woes,
their shadows lie side by side like railroad ties 
across writhing paths banded like snakes;
gravel birth cords sinuous 
sensing the ground   seeking the sun
crossroads...

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mind that thinks
heart that feels
senses five

reflect

thoughts vary
emotions differ
senses too can ebb

yet

we are alive
in the waking state
but what of dreamless sleep

where are we then
we recall it not
yet awake from it nevertheless 

so

are we not the screen...

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"Samsara in the 5th"



The phenomenal world
is illusory, it calls for 
nothing of substance
romance is laid out
legs and hearts spread
open like a catalogue 
touched through the 
remittance of words
clicking like 
manolo blahniks
across a warm keyboard
cool slender...

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"The Tree Hugger and the Lost Paradise"

They called her 
the tree hugger,
her forest was full 
of trees that watched
silently, they had 
no mouth to speak,
rustling their leaves
like fingers writing 
strange stories coded
for decoding a mystery
on...

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Could it be that two city streets meet at a portal
of awakening that leads to enlightenment?
May your next frontier be "Inter-Be" discovery.

Nearly forty years ago on July twenty-fifth,
working in the center city of Philadelphia
I was...

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"The Haunting"

What happened 
was a crime
in more ways 
than one

who can understand 
the mind of a recidivist
twisted, calculating
in this story, there is 
more than one, 

the night 
of a thousand 
cutting knives
the turn of the...

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Those practicing Tantra urge us to celebrate,
albeit in an aspect of childlike trust and surrender,
whilst Buddhists lay emphasis on emptiness,
essentially negating play of aversion and desire
and as for fundamentalists, lost in the scriptures,
lost in labyrinths...

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It was strange
the cars, 
like stand alones, all unoccupied,
dotting the dark wet stained streets,
the moon licking puddles 
like a stray dog thirsty 
checking its reflection 
for a friend, yet no master -
It was strange
the cars,...

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great expectations
anticipated in the 
poetic heart 
Havisham delivered
all and more for love, 
a separate unseen thief, 
tore the others’ worlds apart

webs like ectoplasm
from underneath a rock
scurrying swiftly out of sight
wrapped tight around a child
dressed in...

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As the gatekeeper of both time and space,
surfing the bardo that lies in between
aether and form, wherefrom radiates grace,
existence reveals its throbbing bliss sheen.
Singular Self has an urge to create
a domain where ascent follows descent,
that...

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Earth element

Driven by instincts feral
Self-centred stance
An animal in human form
Gravity pulled me down

Material possessions
I seized by any means
Territorial behavior
In an imaginary cage

Yet in this density
In moments of silence
Love within stirred
Signalling God's presence

Water element

Lust and domination
Testosterone...

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Ancient wisdom ~ as above, so below
So if God exists, He must be within 
Contemplating calmly in stillness slow
Relinquishing all knowing, we begin

Poised in the bardo, our inner eye sees
Head ovoid is in fact a...

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be we in duality
or in singularity 
essence of aliveness
requires a vibration
renewing itself within itself
or what we call consciousness 

the screen of space-time 
is the stage set for duality 
of what is all that is manifest
as...

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"The Elemental’s Confession as a Peace Offering"



In the moment I lost my head
my hands tied without voice 
I wasn’t crucified

I was looking for some kind of 
release from the solitary confines
of a confessional habit that...

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"Haute Desiderata" 

things of beauty
drip off bodies
transitory

le rêve privé
vague veil 
reveals desiderata

transparent
magical
pomp

exotique
automaton
idle idol walk

robotic
sensuous 
cool and vacant 

such beauty 
drips off bodies
transitory desiderata

elusive
illusory 
birds of paradise

haughty 
haute
pomp desiderata

gilded
graceful 
incomplete 

desiderata drifting
dwindling 
desideratum

elusive
statues idyll 
idle idol...

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"Burning Bushes Treacherous Cargo"

They say hell 
is on fire 

but there in 
The Lawrence Forest 
exist many, 
burning bushes 
waiting on deliverance
delivering messages,
hidden shadow angels
waiting for their
Bardo exodus

they are 
allowed to 
come and go 
but...

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"A World Inside - Love's Glamour"



See the golden chord
it extends beyond,
resides inside your world

you remain connected
the true Love
never lets you go

somersault backwards
then forwards like a child 
rolls down a lush green hill

towards
the next exit
tomorrow

blue sky...

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"You really shouldn't park your white horses next to my Subaru."
"Rain? Rain? Are you listening?"
She picked her sleepy head off the teller's desk,
Her hair cascading over her cheeks.
"I was somewhere far away," she spoke from...

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"The Forest"

In the forest 
we meet strange gods
our reflections 
are seen in their eyes

in our dreams
we remember them
we meet them face on 
we touch them

they do not remember us,
they consider us, 
we are common, and...

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Would you crusade to remote regions
in search of that timeless tomb, the one made of seasalt & sandstone,
to towns tempered by the terror of war, windswept with worry,

Do prayer calls of the Jihadist singe the...

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in the inky black void
we are as we are therein
bereft of senses we see nothing
and yet know we are herein not alone
our awareness thus in formlessness 
communicates with the absolute
as a child speaks to his...

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