Saturday, July 30, 2011

Life is valued individually

While death is common property






Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I wish I could comfort you

rest and reassure you that all

your peace is an epilogue to troubles



but as every closure opens a way

all this stasis is a pause

a prologue to continuing on...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
Love changes the world--just not always in the way we'd want or expect it to...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

the last teacher clears his throat--

and belches--


ah--at last the answer we've been waiting for--


to the clear and compassionate

and the deluded and self-serving


the same instruction--the same lesson--


we've learned our lesson but can do

nothing with it--the world a rock


of perpetual intractable material


that stymies all amendment--so the hell

with intent and clarity and whatever else


we know what we have to do--whatever it is--


the last teacher turns to leave--

and farts--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I would speak of the end of the line

but why? who on earth

doesn't face this finish line?

who doesn't dream of passing

through some winner's circle

and on to a wreath and a heavenly reward?



our own acts determine whether

we take the trophy

to be buried with it in honor

or wind up in tatters outside the track

and who doesn't coat that last hard reality

with fear and regret?


live while you can--

and to hell with the race...



content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
we're alone in creation--

whatever mystery animates creation

grinds on to its own ends--

and why go on sweating it?

why worry about a hereafter

or the continuance of the soul

in whatever way it continues?

we have our hands full

right here

right now--



to those who pray endlessly

but can't treat their fellow souls

righteously--fairly--civility--decently--

to those who think they will

get to some heaven and try keeping

others out--

to those who think they are god (and who doesn't

on some level)--

let them do their worst (they're so good at it)



for the rest--

no matter all the levels of the Infinite

being here

being now

on this earth we will always

have our hands full



we just have to be careful

with what...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

may God--if God He/She/It truly be--

protect us from those

with plans for the world



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
fundamentalism--of all stripes--is the problem

ideologies--of any kind--is the trigger

'decent' folk--all kinds--hold the gun--

who help from all these funda-maniacs?


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
may the murdered of Norway

now have the peace

their assassin

will never know



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

a million hearts

irregularly beating



a million minds

ceaselessly throbbing



a million souls

endlessly weeping



a million assholes

evacuating



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


there's no devil--

no need for one

as long as we're

in top form



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
Does peace love and brotherhood

require a lobotomy?



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
stupid average joes--

sweating and dying under slabs

of intense heat

while dreaming of arctic winters in the Sun Belt--

and all the while

saying climate change is horseshit

and anyone who believes in it is a screwball--


brain-dead normalcy--

these clowns could see their disaster after disaster

happen right in front of them

and they'd say still disbelieve--even if they saw

the grass fire speed up their legs...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
now is the time to regret humanity--

now is the time to wish whatever mystery

animates the universe

hadn't bothered...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
can't tell friend from foe any more--

what were once private failures of loyalty and trust

have blossomed into accepted social norms

of treachery and betrayal--

this inhuman generation will pay its price--

but unfortunately a lot of the rest of us

who remember these now ridiculous notions

of civility--are going to pay a price with them...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
another tense day in the world--

oh where the hell is that damn asteroid?



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
HAVE SOME OBSERVATIONS:


God saw a thirsty man crawling through a desert--

so God mercifully gave him water

by drowning him in the kind of floods the deserts had never before seen--



*


don't cry out for a rope at the bottom of a pit--

your rescuers will only throw you a noose


*


a woman died in birthing--

seems the baby tore the Veil of Forgetfulness

remembered the life it was bound to suffer here

and refused to be born--

thus causing his mother an agonizing death



*


bodhisattvas ruin their own salvation by vowing

not to enter Nirvana until all sentient beings are saved--


but then a bodhisattva might be saved precisely because they've

made such an outlandish sacrifice--


I wish I could tell you so for sure--but then I am--and we are--

not bodhisattvas--are we?



*


do unto others as you would have others do onto you--

unless you hate yourself--in which case

please do not be so generous of spirit



*


so the holy joes tell me--

I trusted--I failed--

therefore my place in heaven is assured--



*



beat the blackened surface sufficiently

and it will whiten under the blows--



it is thus we are led away from any earthly path





Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
oh sure

God is love and it's America's purpose

to Lead Us Into The Light

and believe in goodness and right--

well--don't talk to me about it--

I believed this shit somewhere in my heart

and now this error of faith has diminished

my earthly estate and soured me on this World

worse than I've ever tasted before--

still this world looks like steaming shit

piping hot from the hole--

but I can do without supposing to be

so damned enlightened about it--

this is God's Grand design--

however much God disavows responsibility

for these actions--

and we are beetles scrambling over

this heap--

screw America and screw the nazis who are

finally taking it down

and screw this--this holy Thing--that is allowing it



let Jesus and the Dalai Lama bless and love everyone--

I'm not ready to--


and so my hell continues--here in the good ol' (former) USA


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Friday, July 15, 2011

testament after testament affirms

people are sorry for all they've done

only because they couldn't get over


they failed and either blame someone else

or lie in drunken stupors concocting

revenge fantasies that would even strain Hollywood imaginations


and among those of us who played straight

and did the right thing

only to get done down by those with no contact with


what we used to call reality

we have no comfort in righteousness

no help from the One in which we wasted our faith


I'll let idler minds fret karma so they may

tie themselves tighter in their woven delusions

for they sit and speculate afraid to make any move at all


weary and wasted and tired of this

no one knows what will happen to any of us

any of us


no one knows what will happen to any of us



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

a full moon in Capricorn

thunder moon buck moon whatever you call it

it calls us to a new age where all our freedoms

will be denied us

and your average jackass and janette will embrace

the kings of the world

the masters of the universe

who control the stick and carrot so expertly

so remorselessly

so utterly and absolutely selfishly

that 'pride' is too mild a word to describe

their greed and power-madness

(maybe 'pathological' is more to the point

more precise)

as has been said

ambition without morality is dangerous to life itself

and how many masters and slaves

will face their reckonings with any understanding?

I've lost my capacity to care

I just look out the window on this dry comfortable evening

at this brilliant full moon in Capricorn

in the summer when the new dispensation started kicking in

and I am 'old school' enough to say

to hell with it

and to just fill my eyes with the soft brilliance

of the moon

as it has ever been


the subconscious peace reflecting

the blaze of the raging sun


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


who I am doesn't matter--

it's what I'll turn out to be that counts--

every time we enter a portal of creation

we are different

and every time we leave as we came

we gather all we've been

into the very identity that will fall away

in our completion--

until then I'll be me and you'll be you

and so it will be until each of us is the same one...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
for the moment

let the nothing happening right now

be a balm

from the hurts of too much

living in thought of the past

or regret of the future


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the end of all things

is the beginning of nothing--

or is it?

is nothing something?

are all endings beginnings?

it is--or

so we think when we tackle notions so vast

they are unthinkable...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
a new path into the future has finally been unveiled--

just when my feet have grown too sore to support me

and I have no longer a desire to go forth...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I've never easily forgiven--

I know I should but I'm never up to it--

I always regret doing the right thing

because it never seems to prevail against

the realities of fear and ignorance

that unravel every stitch of the Grand Design--

but because my own failings hobble me

I cannot be forgiven for not trusting in those

strong enough to restitch that design--

vanity--vanity everywhere--in everyone

but those who stitch over and over in mute sorrow

here where nothing is easily given or forgiven...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
when I hear

the platitudes of the pious--

and see the unfortunate consequence

of putting such into practice--

I never know whether to say

God help you--or God damn you...


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
now I see it clearly--

the proud broken and the dunce enlightened--
the wild heart illusing the beaten brain--the sorrowful recall--

memory--memory echoes inside the flesh form--

memory gives identity--and identity gives a death--a release--

now I see it clearly--
why this long to see it clearly?


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

the hope is that one day

I'll have the help of God

instead of getting the brunt

of His vengeance--


the hope is that one day

I'll know the love of God

instead of the fullness

of His wrath--


the hope is one day

I'll feel the grace of God

instead of feeling the force

of His fist--


the hope one day is to awaken

from my delusion of hope

and be certain of my power

to submit to mercy


the mercy is one day

is to do without hope

and to be myself

in such certainty as God allows...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
"Da Lawd" takes da easy way--holdin' vengeance fo' Hisself--

but us po' creatures o'His got da hard part--ya unnerstan'?--

we gotta fo'give 'n' fo'get--



that's what the old guy said to me

as he sat in the shade of the el on

a blistering day--

he has it worse than I do--

(and I have it pretty rough

and so does almost everyone else I know--

no Republicans here--)

some belongings in a cart--

sopping dirty white shirt--

shades and straw fedora

and not begging--not begging--

just telling it like it is--

the same shit

over and over

on every level

of the Vengeful One's creation--



and oh what grace? what grace?


what grace?


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


Monday, July 11, 2011

shackles of guilt

lie broken behind me--

I've had reality

pounded into me--

the snares of perfection

have been evaded

and no more this life

will I let myself be bound--


of course some damage

has been done and will not be fixed--

as Leonard once put

in his youthful wisdom

"a scar is the Word made flesh"--

and so a reminder remains to me

worn like an emblem of arrogance defeated--


but when you see me hobble toward you

feel no pity and do not mock--

that I hobble at all is fine

and what I go on to is my own reckoning--

my own freedom--

my own road--

with hopefully my own renewal of hope to arrive...where?


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
if I were an phoenix

I'd rise from the burnt coals of a barbeque

like a chicken--

to be consumed

like the body and blood--

but it's too great a sacrifice for one

who resents the actual reality

of creation



that's why I sit with the other gaping maws

at the cookout--

cursing creation for being creation

while waiting to eat the sacrifical phoenix

and have it rise from my shit

the following day--



let others denounce me--

I'm too hot and hungry

to do anything but flip a phoenix

at the dull burning sheen of an afternoon



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

another swampy day on tap--

with air so thick I could die
and remain upright--

the height of the light is passing
but the full heat blasts

and I think whoever dreamed up Hell
slept fitfully through a day

as hot as this one...


*


no dreams here--

empty thoughts emptying out
of an empty skull

and the reason for my being
in this predicament

forgotten by me--
so this is what the end of life

feels like to one who cannot dream
who cannot sleep in merciless heat

who cannot know anything but his present hell--


*


a mirror

occupies

the center of

the hottest circle of hell--

while

the center of

the deepest part of hell

is bitter cold

and a shade

would form on the sheen

as it wiped away frost

and stared at itself

in the ice--

each extreme the measure

of some transgression--

ever one's own self

is cause for its own fatality...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

the facile advice of councilors

will encourage you to fly without wings--

to put faith in some magic answer to an unspoken prayer

that angels will carry up into the firmament--

put no stock in it--

no magic will save you from the karma for which you must pay--

nor will the karma dissolve just because you awoke

to its truth and acknowledged your wrong--

consequence will play out--there will be no mockery--

bank on nothing but your own experience--

and don't wait for a deliverance you will receive

only after you realize it will not come until waiting is over

whether you die waiting for that unrealizable miracle--or not--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
addressing earless skulls

is a vocation only God could curse one with--

there's the poet--there's the mystic--there's the saint--

they stumble along howling on street corners--derided

by all who pass--well let all of them have their say--

no matter what mouth issues the Word--soothsayer and mob alike

hear nothing but their own vanity--and the victims of their tirades

are nothing more than skyward glancing earless skulls


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Only a fool would disrupt the even tenor of a gathering;
But then only a fool would be forgiven.




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
You can't disdain the world, then expect it to make a place for you.



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito
If pride were a commodity, it would come with a Surgeon General's warning on the label.



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
For the spectator--the participant-- the value is in the 'done' thing itself;
For the artist or initiator--the value is in the 'doing' that makes the thing manifest.


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
Now to continue--having finally been released
And finding none of the conflict of living has ceased

I will give you all you need to know
But with no clue about how it would go

So I give up my presumption
To see if I have the gumption

To continue with mouth wisely shut
That once had an answer for everything but "what?"



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
Aren't you sorry you misjudged the whole enterprise?
That you did so much for so little?

What learning there is comes against the will,
Because we would avoid what we'd have to face

If we knew we'd have to face it.


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

always last with a broken little cup
always bringing up the rear
always being sat on by some ass
always hearing lies buzz the ear

always told to be looking up
always disappointed up is down
always obliged to give it a pass
always the servile clown

always blaming everyone
always blaming self most of all
always sorry the best is done
always sorry it had to fall


always with not too much to show
always sorry it had to go



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.