Tuesday, June 30, 2009

as if a starting gun were fired

some new race is placed before us to be run 
with patience
and panic--

growing aware of plenty of no time left
to get to where we always are--

                  here in these limited skins
that'll groan and bear full weight of the terrible consciousness
of the actual grinding of universal process
                                                                           crushing
the bones that bear the flesh that envelope the organs that pump
the elemental sustenance
through the corporal body

that holds the mind and awareness
that this is us and all we do--
                                                   on every level through
each dimension--

we are always here in Creation

the Universe finishing and restarting
in each instant of our lamentable notion of linear time--

so here in the echo of the fired shot
here the course opens
and here we go

                            not moving a muscle--

no need to--

we are where we're going

patient because we're already there-- 

in a panic because
in these skins
we don't quite recall 

where that is

 
                                            Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.
the saga continues
the struggle goes on--

heroism built
on a heap of cliches





                                                                             *


you will not miss me
in the fulfillment of your need

as my absence will provide it--




                                                                             *


mastery of small things
turns the vast actualities of process

man the initiate
biting a nail



                                                                            *



the Gold of Love
from the dross of bewilderment--

each of us
in that translation of divinity


                                                                           *



                                                  Contents (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.

Monday, June 29, 2009

maintain your mystique
if you wish to speak
of mysteries defied
and of aspirations denied

call from behind a veil
and explain the quester's tale
to the quester so he won't roam
a path that is not his own--

better still don't be weak--
don't even bother to speak
but hide so you won't show
just how little you yourself know

                                          


                                       Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

no expectations means no hurt

no hurt means no experience

no experience encourages expectations

which brings hurt 

which brings experience

which teaches 

no expectations...






                                                                           *


my ears hurt when you start yowling
it's like you floss with barbed wire

no one to silence you
my ears are too busy bleeding

and I imagine Hell quite easily---



                                                                           *


awakening from a dream
into another one
and awakening from that one
into yet another one
which awakens from that yet another one
into yet yet another one

and so on....
awakening dream into dream

endless chain like facing mirrors
one into the next
into the next...

as if I were sleepwalking
and calling myself alive..



                                                                            *


hoisted petards
like statue pedestals

by our acts we are known
by our legends overblown

I wouldn't have bothered
if I had known

I'd be leaving memories of me with others
that do not resemble me at all

but that they saw in an objectivity
incomprehensible to me

         

                                                 Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I've been saying good-bye
to the earth
for most of my life...

I mean
you never know
when one of those 
good-byes

will take...





                                                                             *

like Shiva--

when you awaken

worlds will end...




                                                                             *



thoughts

should never

be confused with

Thought--




                                                                         *


my entire life
right before my eyes--

all I've looked at
all this time

such as time is--
such as Life be--



                                                                            *


the Ineffable
invisibly reveals itself

so brilliant
beyond our eye's capacity

that all we can do
is look

and see nothing but what
our eyes believe--

     the Ineffable
supporting all

that is and isn't--
there--nothing to it--

nothing to it
at all---



                                   Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.
saw
little 
to
be
afraid
of

that
is
how 
fate
gets
you

as
ever
it 
is
what
you
do
not
see 

that
snares
you

tired
of
being
blind
for 
the 
sake
of
your
vision



                             Contents (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.
42 years ago today

I first put pen to paper
in earnest to write poems--

a 14-year-old bedroom visionary
who felt some urge
and thought he had something to say

even if he had no idea what it was--

for years--decades--afterward
I scribbled and scribbled
slowly but surely
replacing daily living
with these mounds of blackened paper--

now--with some things said
(and said over and over)
I've run out of different ways of saying

and the daily living I disdained
is all that remains for now--that 
mounds of blackened paper--
blackened with words
few have read and even more had heard

but no difference to me nor that fugitive audience
nor the teetering world at large--
words preserved on the Akasha--if nothing else--
but in their tangible material form
not all that likely to survive whatever cataclysm awaits--

I know none of this for sure--"what endures what perishes"--

I've read Plutarch's History of Horseshit
and though Runyon says the odds are always
six to five against--considering the way of the world
they might as well be even--

so here they are--preserved in some eternity
along with everything else--

for whoever will or will not

receive---


                                Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

what the hell did I do now
to assure the powers
would bugger me whole
                                          (get it?)
with assent from some Almighty
I wouldn't recognize
even if I had no preconceived notion
     coming up the street at me
with obsidian eyes and meat-scraped talons
claiming uselessly to be one of the sheep
when it's really the horndog shepard

who because we are made in the image--
                   is the spender of sexed self-hatred
for which we are recipient of
terrible affection--

if I didn't know any better
I would say I asked for it
simply by obeying ethical stricture
but then 
       I've never had great regard
for the self--        so much what I must be
I took for granted
what fools rage to establish--
        that there is no executioner better than
our own awareness setting up what
could
perfectly be described as
                                           roundly fucked----


                                Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.
lobotomize the Mass Mind quick
while there's still Life to save


                Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.
vegetables
have more on their minds
than meat can imagine

which is easy
because meat doesn't know
its own mind





                                       Contents (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.

Monday, June 22, 2009

the mystery man spins

in his own head--

his own way the same

mystery it has always been

but for the confusion of mind

that locks him in this certainty

                                                                   

                                                                               *


the reboot has taken--

what was so important

is a done thing

and this new set-up

is as much a set-up

as any that has undone

all that was done--

so why reboot?--

     to continue

to the end of this

particular sojourn

coming any moment now--

thirty seconds or thirty years

from now it does not matter--

     done        and happy to be

what we call

free


                                                                           *


all I needed I had

all I wanted I hadn't

no difference now

that these things have passed--




                                                                           *


in the long leaning light

of the hazy afternoon--

already a pale rising moon

drawing the gathering night



                                                                      *


so does Love endure

despite (and even because of)

our failures to love--

it will not be denied

and even our frightened

weary acquiesence

cannot diminish it--

in this we perservere       

         and endure




                               Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

if I were loved any more than I am now
I'd be dead

what kind of love
blesses you for the very suffering it causes you?

what kind of gift
has such lethal strings attached to it?

I'd rather be dead than loved by you
you scumbag you vampire you freak!



                                                                              *



how in just a few hours one can go
from the highest heaven to the lowest hell
is a highlight of living in the earth

where God's love earns our disdain--
for my part I curse and go on




                                         Content (c)    2008-2009 Philip Milito.
wide the exit from where I am

as I leave through the way I came

every gray swampy day
the projection of disappointed heart
and of bitter unhealing regret

while every luminous sun-soaked day
the warm blinding amber afternoon
of eternity cradling the wounded

entity in the strong certainty of Mind--

coming and going in its permanence



                                                                               *


I couldn't be sure of anything

as long as I doggedly searched
for what I had not lost--

the forgetfulness of earth
is distressing only to those who remember

the other worlds they had to burn through
to get where I am now--at peace

while certain of nothing--



                                                                                *

vampires form
in the crevices of reprobate minds


                                

                                                                               *


ah 
to have
a happy mind
whose happiness is not
contingent upon having
a brain 
without

convulsions



                                                                           *

I have been dismissed--

so what--
I came expecting nothing
got nothing
and am leaving

satisifed (not to mention

greeted elsewhere--)


                                                                              *

I am most lost
when I am not alone--

that is why
those I love are always

with me--especially when
they're not around--

we all know exactly
where we are--


                                                                           *

the surface of the earth is home
for all of us while we're here--

nothing's lost and nothing's found
if it's all there around you

so it does not matter where we are
each of us knows and silently says

wherever I am welcome
is where I will be





                                       Contents (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.
I see the clouds
hug the rooftops

my past over me
like a lid

damp in the chill
when wanting stops

a break in clouds
does surrender bid


                                                                             *

a second thought
leads to a third
to a fourth and on

and you're back
in some world
of purpose that
betrays you

don't      you      think     ...


                                                                          *

beware the timid unyielding mind
that thinks itself so wise
it needn't think

even as it vaguely doubts
what it thinks it knows


                                                                        *

you now have an idea
of why your life doesn't work
and why not one stab at atonement
draws blood

but if the One itself doesn't care
why should you?
you know what's right for you--
whether for better or worse

is beyond what is for you to say
but you'll do what you will anyway--




                                 Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.

yet another summer--

yet another summer in the World--

how many more in my life

how many more in the world

in full light of longest day
we stroke our chins
and pick wedgies out of our brains
adjusting to the total disclosures
on our faces in the instant we make them--

so that in the briefest night
we turn over in sweat reimagining
the reactions to our exposures--
the vanity that is our consciousness--
sorry or justified or (dare I say) illuminated--

how many more summers of renewals

before we forget ourselves in the lush blooming

how many more before we awaken just as

this high eternal instant    also passes--


         


                                                                                  *


completion is all inclusive--

just do what you do 

and you'll always be

done--


                                                                                *


evidence 
we leave evidence 
with every move
willed or not

might as well
identify yourself
by announcing
you've eaten

a can of corn--
wear a sandwichboard
proclaiming 
the diner's name--

                         

                                                                            *


every act every achievement
preserved forever
on the permanent record--

well could Blake proclaim--
just think on the thing
and it is done--

it is    and it is--


                                                                          *

so many dreams
seeping out through cracks
in the will--

do not reign them--
follow them on flight
with your chosen medium

Thought Act and Will
capturing for this plane
the planeless vision--


                                                                           *

i keep talking
waiting for the One
to answer
and the One
does answer
but in silence
so that i 
cannot hear

as i am not meant to
with ear alone
and i forget this
at my chagrin
     my Spirit cringing
having heard--


                                                                         *

if we do not see each other
again in this life
know I enjoyed the company
and you'll always be welcome
wherever I am

if nothing else



                                                Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito. 

Friday, June 19, 2009

I'd have given no thought to my daily distress
had it not been for others

still strong in their sense of purpose
still vivid in their renderings

their creativity total
their aspiration for the work itself

unstinting and necessary as air to breathe--
I'd have gone on with my mute achievements

behind me and part of the fabric
of our earthly living and me tired

the work itself done with no hope of reward
except that the thing itself IS done and what it is

(I'd be the last person to know what I'm about or
what these works are--they are for whoever will

receive them and I only for whatever I am
beyond my own knowing)

but eventually it all winds down to this--
the time alive in this skin dwindling

and all this skin has experienced forming
my full content--and my end the dispersal

of this life among the young just beginning
or reaching the fullness of their meaning--

as I fade  yet I glow brighter--their reflected
fire lighting in me the source each of us shares--

and that daily distress is smoothed away
by the closing of my way

even as somehow I go along with them
on theirs--



                             Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito

Saturday, June 13, 2009

lust like tearing tides
turmoil of frustrated heart
and unsettled disheveled mind
seeing the glowing damn thing
before me in sight
and nothing I would use
to get to it and realize it working
in art or detached meditation
or even in its basic element
of churning loins and ecstatic spout
---oh the heavens in my head
a fury lately and all the hell I want to do
is heal myself of a life battered and beaten
by precisely this needful nerve uproar
     and I spill in an unmerciful
eddy of nerves the only jitter
on a Zen lake of limpid sustenance
a mockery just by being all that 
I would wish to be--

but the wish not enough--
nor the desire that upends
the Will--

lost for the moment
to the perfect breasts and ass and legs
of a faceless perfect woman

and found after in the  limpid lake
storm passed on but unchanged
in its tattered float--

                                                                               *

I will grope my way forward--

I'll go as far as there are walls to guide--
after that I spill with everything else in this world
in unmerciful flux--and end where I will--right near where I began--


                                   Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.




Friday, June 12, 2009

have nothing serious to fret--

did all I could to amend--

I'm glad I made it this far and no farther

happy the measure is complete--


                                                                             *

so much--

thought of you drains all strength
and I've no reason to believe

it could be otherwise--
pity the fool who worships

his imagination--he learns
hard that it torments

so much--

                                                                             *

for this moment I am free
but only because this moment has passed--


                                                                             *

think on it
and then     forget

your harrowing hasn't
happened yet--

                                                                            *

all best to believe--
and so easy

                                                                            *

such is the world

that visionaries found businesses
and that clerks run them into the ground

                                                                           *

no one misses you
after a while

     people should
be grateful

                                                                          *

again the fool
but I knew it

and I find
the irritation sweet

                                                                         *


                     Content (c) 2008-2009  Philip Milito

Thursday, June 11, 2009

anxiety

thick as southern air--
swamp mist and iron rain-

falls into my muscles
like venom--

my flesh liquid as wish
fulfilling physics

into its down-dropping
surge toward  Will

pooling like a stasis
in the brain pan of a 

some fake mystic
who never saw past his

move through the gunnels
of some heavenly terrace

he imagined once to be
his vision of the Infinite--

     here only does even
the anxious ignorance

wash down  fresh as
blooming in a yard of one's own

acquiescence

                                                                              *

what heart now to broach
on the question of loneliness--

none

no one is alone--
no one need say a thing--

only

the heart would do so
that did not know itself


                                                                          *

                         Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.
gray again
animals two by two
waddling on the curb

now I'm worried

                                                                            *



weak and empty...



                                                                           *

air dense as plaster
the body merges with mist


                                                                          *

no light in the apartment

save the dull milky
morning light
       a sheen on the walls
an uplit gradation
along the ceiling

                                                                          *

I slog in step   daily

when will my life resume?
I know for fact
others feel like this

equally helpless
to face the old life  gone

and the new one 
forming around
the defining wound

as if it were done
before it'd begun

each step measured
the pace adjusted
and grind in place

daily just to gain an inch



                                                                              *

                       Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Rinsed in violent rain--

Refreshed heart
In weary beaten waves

Where all remains--

                                  

                                                                            *

My mouth moves
Mimicking silence--
     Were I as wise
As I posit--




                                                                           *


I follow her flesh--
Spirit seeking spirit



                                                                          *



One listens
Hears nothing

Is satisfied


                                                                         *



In the warm thrust
Of ecstasy--
Pure consciousness 
Of being--
Souls seek what mates
They find
And ascend together
Kind with kind


                                                                             *


ALL IS LIGHT!!!!----

except where
all our
shadows block...

      

                                                                            *

There is nothing

--And therefore
    A place for
Everyone and thing



                                                                          *

I would have you
Ever with me

Wherever in body
We are


                                                                        (these words for Ali xoxo)

                                                                         *

extras:

I saw past
The boundaries
     And was paralyzed--
Now past
Paralysis--body has
     Caught up to mind--
Slow movements of age
     Finally in step

                                                                           *

I woke again
to stale fate
as if a change
of world happened
while I slept--

Even the pigeon
cooing outside
this window
peers in
as reprimand
     "I peck
at crumbs
and shit
on cars
and statues--
what do
YOU do?"

                                                                                *

                       Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

delve into nothingness
there's more to it than you realize
  
                  Content (c) 2008-2009 Philip Milito

Thursday, June 4, 2009

another drive-by...

he just went
out to get
Q-Tips



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                            Content (c) Philip Milito 2008-2009