Bent and Beat

nor monks

and need to behave as such, to approach the world in the way we must

we must meet it halfway and seek to understand the clues it gives us

in the context of our dirty fingernails and creative outbursts

as well as the bone dry seasons and champagne hot tub nights

we are sitting cushions stole from couches

royal deluxe page aspirations

with some offbeat cracker ass circadian rhythms

we are thrift store tweed and hats found in trees on windy samhain nights

dog eared hand me down inspiration and the repetitive dreams of the rut stuck and struggling to stay alive crowd

boys pretending to be fathers

fathers pretending to be boys

without what we want but holding firm and shaky to what we need

(remember what Tsongkhapa did without his mandala? red and raw wristed he improvised and did what needed done with whatever washed ashore (like gilligan said))

settle down and settle in and don't pretend to be anything more than you are positive to achieve

it's one thing to aspire

another to bullshit your self

why waste words from your mouth

when the blank paper could use them more?

work

write

sit

repeat

could be that easy if your ideas of how to accomplish all of those things weren't so complicated, dependent on circumstances like a table or magician's illusion

like a carter family song that has shades of heavenly beauty and filthy truth

grimy hand's clasped in fervent and boozy prayer

but prayer is prayer

and a drunkards prayers have an urgency and poetry that rival that of more pure and holy men

from the cornfields to the light polluted smog sunsets (yet awe inspiring)

to the bardo between the graveyard and university

to the sun falling behind the mountains, to hiss and die in the western ocean

a lay practitioner's best excuse is that he could never gather as much righteousness as a monk

but he is better placed than the highborn in some respects

if he were to open his eyes

open his hands and see the riches within

and simply

seek

even if the thing sought is not to be found

seek