at any moment

we can be called away
from our lives

at any second

all we've cherished
will vanish from mind and heart

any time now

we may peek behind
that long-feared veil

before you know it

all we've wondered about
will at last be confirmed



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

Ever the mistaken love…swept into the reality of the ideal…rather than the ideal of reality…and no sensibility to distinguish…




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

in decay is ultimate freedom

from form


mulch for the blooms

shackled to their roots


bizarre that life is containment

while death is a release


a vase of trembling petals

and the petals covering the table...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

let us end as we began

going out through the way we came in


well not entirely


what was fresh and pink

is now stale and gray


we came in as blooming stalks

and go out as withered stems


entirely




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

The fleeting moment passes; your chance is gone. And here is another moment; here is another chance. One after another follows, and you are still standing, eyes glazed, watching what we call time whiz passed, your first move still in motion…




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I’ve always felt that fate had never given me a break.

But then, it seems almost all the rest of humanity is in the same condition, but for an indeterminate few who seem blessed with every move they make, (and who knows how they achieved that status; they are too few in number to register the radar of the rest of us.)

So thus is the so-called Human Condition; an endless stream of bad luck, unconsidered moves, desperate plunges out of alleged sanity, pain of loss, fear of gain, bewilderment in the face of every single moment of decision, lust firing up the hope of a species to rise above the wreck with an ecstasy of titivating nerve endings snapping within the loins, despair dousing that fire and leaving a cold ash of remorse smothering in a closet of prayer and hopelessness, only to end in a calm or violent closing of the eyes.

And out of this suffering comes Mercy? Repentance? Forgiveness? Grace? Peace? (Dare I say…)Blessedness? Dissolving barriers of earth and an opening to the sky?
And all of it right here in the ruining flesh, atonement revealing the unbearable Face?

Mystery of all that animates creation…my body is well aware of the former.

May my soul survive its travails and quests to learn the Truth of the latter.




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.  

hard to keep your wits about you

when nothing makes sense any longer


but movement keeps your momentum

and let it keep doing so


even if you don't know

where it's taking you


every point along the way

is a dissembling and a re-integration


and a new triggering of wits and wiles and wonders

hard to understand when you're in the process


but you are the process

and every move is a glide along a track


that is only yours

to follow...hard or easy as you make it for yourself...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

how ordinary my gripes


I wait on a street corner

with the other discredited ersatz mystics


bemoaning our earthly condition

while drooling as hot young'uns


saunter by in their cut-off jeans and halters


all the different ways we're trying it out

just trying it out...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

had I known death will be

so long and hard in coming


I'd have taken more wrong turns

I'd have been more of a bastard


than I had inadvertently been


nothing like a little concentration

to get what you want even if you wanted it


because it was marked down....




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

every time I make a move

the One blocks it

with another catastrophe


I'm not given to

"eyes to the ceiling" glances


but it is getting out of hand

why not just kill me and be done?

I'm finished

but sadly the One

isn't finished with me




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

why is life a condition where

we must learn and learn again

what we already know?


is it the hubris that thinks

none of it applies to him

or that he'll but the one to outwit the fates?


the conditions of creation

seem to favor delusion

but the conditions are just what they are


we add the missing ingredient

of vanity and stupidity

we all know better yet we all do the same


stumble like idiots toward a light

that faintly glimmers at the limits of our will



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

you yearn to reach somebody

but they're already taken


they're with somebody else

and their is nothing you can do about it


short of interfering

and disrupting both their lives


and yours into the bargain

who'll have pain on top of the yearning




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

you thought you were happy

until you met someone happier


you thought you were on top

until you met someone above you


you were content to be where you are

until you saw someone else's spread


and now you're inconsolable

now you've created flaws that didn't previously exist


now you know the hunger of delusion

now you know the folly of attachment


now you blame everyone but yourself

for the hole you missed seeing and fell into


now you think you're unhappy

and need a fix of something...quick...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the love you want and the love you need

are often different as cold and hot


and either of them have leave you freed

you'll have to choose and be glad with what you've got...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

desultory in the autumn heat

I hang like a summer cypress

the hazy sun is not strong

but uncomfortable


as a a body roasting

over a low fire

this dead zone

in the changing seasons


has us on a spit

turning and turning until we're done


had I known I'd live

to experience this decline into the elements

I'd have offered my body to the Lion

in the full vigor of my dying fight...chow down kitty...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the setting sun's rays

fan over the western horizon

like a peacock's plumage


enticing the tired to rest

at last under the orange bands

embroidering the fading sky


follow

follow with sleepy closing eyes

this last invitation


to the beauty folding over

the quickening night

follow


as it leads you from this world where

death is the last mercy left...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

too many realities

for one voice to address


too many universes

for one language to convey


the multiverse rings

with process and transformation


and no one voice

and no one language


can communicate

the inexpressible


conditions

of conditioned creation


so let the wise

stay silent and endure


let the fool also

goof in his own pattern


all will be what it is

beyond our imaginings


and where we'll find our places

is where the event horizon


of the Ineffable

will spend our remains in unassailable light...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

to trust in grace

is the biggest gamble of all


because you will pray for a personally

favorable outcome


while the Grand Design might require

your downfall to make all right


to turn mere desire into aspiration

trust in grace without any expectation




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I'm facing my reckoning

as best I can

I've been given more than I can handle

(despite the scriptural word against it)


maybe that is how the Vengeance of the One

gains the price due for sins of all status

to be purged you must suffer

to live you must die...





Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

will you be happy to know you're not the only one

suffering in this world?


probably not


you'd feel cheated of some glory

as if your private misery


were a badge of distinction

that sets you apart and makes you feel


you've had it harder than the rest


well everyone feels that way

and now you know why this world


is such a miserable place

everyone a power onto themselves


everyone the god in their imaginary universes

will you be happy to know you've done your part?




Content (c) 20028-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I come with no burden but my own


however much we are One

each of us is a different cut


of some divine cloth

and here in this world


such distinctions as essence and the divine

matter not too much (oh such a burden)


and my raiment needs a tighter fit for sure...



Contewnt (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

foul in the stinking pit of the world


we soil our highest ideals

with the expedience of our lowest desires


there

the obvious has been stated


and even a prophet of someone else's idea of god

will just be "one more person crying"


stinking in the foul pit of the world




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

if there were mercy

we wouldn't need justice


does the Source Of All Life

get this?


forgive me for asking

but I certainly don't...





Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

everyone wishes you well to your face


behind your back however other tales may be told

what creatures of spite and envy we truly are

what self-serving assholes hungering for

another's fall to raise themselves up in esteem


oh I tell them off in no uncertain terms

and I can only imagine what monstrous character

will emerge from their gross vengeful gossip


even those who are more balanced in their telling

may relate about me a more human picture

it's all well and good to see yourself

as others see you

but others...but everyone...sees what they want to see

and how well does anyone know themselves?


yours are the eyes eyes with which you see

yours the only ears with which you hear

the only road you can walk is the one that opens right before you


and disregard all well-wishing

and whether gracious in your response or not


that is all you can do

you are a mystery even to yourself...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

this may be our end

which is just a fresh start


and we panic because

we can never control the particulars


what a leap of faith to just let

everything fall out as it will


so we can stand without our bullshit

in the Clear Light of Actuality!


no recourse there but to accept

our condition


no recourse there but to face

the wrecks we have made


and no recourse but to take the all-inclusive instant

to move on without the chains of our evidence...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

well where are you now?

who turn away when your vanity is offended?


when you attack a simple observation

in guilt and shame


because you think everyone can see

the hole in your pants


and can't see the hole in theirs?

well where are you now?


who speaks so easily of abstracts

no one else can grasp


since their views are equally valid...or false...

or simply theirs alone?


somewhere in that perpetual scrimmage

who of us will know the truth that releases us from this bondage?




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I might as well be barking at the moon


I have my own vanity and inflated self-worth

to hobble any goodness

I may try to impart


and any may challenge my assumptions

I know know what I know

and they only know what they know


and if we coincide it is simply the fortunate

merging of views and experiences

that mark kindred souls


against other kindred souls

the division false

because each of us for all our individuality


bark at the moon together....



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

how days on earth vary!


one day is smooth as silk

soft as butter

or whatever cliche you feel

best expresses your imagining

of an ideal condition


then the next day overturns that

with strange forces prowling around the stars

and human idiocy unleashed

among the frayed conditions of the earth

man against man for the sake of survival


on the universe's dung heap


while we idolize some static heaven

powered by black holes and nova explosions

that beggar any catastrophe we know in the earth....




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the calm night

of a wild day is welcome

beyond all desire to possess


let love and greed

and righteous indignation

and inflated self-centered


ruin other's day

the calm night is beyond

all coveting


and can be had

by all who recognize

above and around them


excuse me while I sink down into

my calm night of this day just gone...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

world after world

teaches us our measure


and it is hard and harder

in each of those worlds


if I abuse you in one

I'll rectify in another


if you harm me now

you'll heal me later




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All right reserved.

aphorisms

flow from the precision of reflection


tame the heart's passion

and the mind's confusion


distilling the turbulent

incidents that shape us


into the essence that shapes

our empiric experience




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I would be sorry if anything happened to you

it being so rare for two persons to find themselves

in each other


I know you feel the same way

it being so common to project a self-reflection

onto your other


we would be sad if anything happened to us

the tricky negotiations of self and other

assured as chaos


may all our outcomes benefit the love that binds us

the love that is bigger than both of us and could just as easily

tear us apart


as keep us to together for what appointed fates the One

will not spare us...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

shadows lengthen

on this perfect autumn day

blazing sun

crystal blue sky


the perfect (yes perfect)

Actuality

as the unimpeachable source

of cliche


but actually living the instant

void of yourself

you are the full

content of this moment


you are the lengthening shadow

as the blazing sun leans

to the Western sky

the crystal blue sky becomes


a velvety violet illuminance

and in the bracing cool of evening

the perfect autumn night

resolves the sun's long shadows


ignites the stars and cast faint

night shadows re-tracing the day


their cold glittering fire your peace...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I thought I would do well

in the outer realms of our being...


surprise!!! it didn't happen

if you can't cut it here

what makes you think

you'll make it there?





Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

my higher self

looks at me with resignation


oh well

didn't make it off

the Wheel of Karma and Destiny


this time

and who but the One knows when

that lifetime will be


well deep within

I also know and sweat every effort

to get my business straight


so I can look at all my temptings

with the detached glow of nostalgia

purring warmly at what can no longer do damage...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

how I hate it when I'm out

with my old  lady

and see beauty pass by


the old dog revving up

at the scent of young meat

the perfect large heart-shaped ass


with long brown hair hanging down the back

perfectly pear-shaped body

a perfect plumper begging other woman as she strides


not that my old lady is a slouch

she still has hips that could kill

a guitar-shaped body that still allures


but you know us dogs

we're always hungry....





Content (c) 2008-2012 Phiulip Milito. All rights reserved.

ornery this morning


wanna burn everything down

wanna shoot everything that moves

wanna kill every one of our 'cultural guardians'

at their lattes

while they presume to tell us

what we can or cannot do


when I hear these bastards

I smell the sulphur on their breath

when I see their easy judgments

I wanna strangle them

with their own self-righteousness

evil comes in every disguise we wear


and I'm sorry I was too weak to resist its temptations...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

you were young and strong

you didn't think any rules applied to you

so you played your hand

you made your call

and win or lose

your victory or your defeat

was just one more item

in the perpetual chain of happenstance

passing into some void


and now you are old worn

down and hobbling

to the soon-to-be-obsolete newsstand

to read a soon-to-be-obsolete newspaper

to eat an egg and potato breakfast

at some coffee shop

and inspect the fools of this age

as they parade their vanity

seeking some empty immortality

of being famous

of letting ages to come know that they were here


and even then who remembers

Al St. John

or Mary Pickford

or Stoopnagel and Budd

who still alive remembers

Fibber McGee's closet

or Barbara Hutton

or any who were "famous long ago"


while you sit in the coffee shop

remembering your own youth

your memories the only record left

of your time

when you were young and strong

and thought you'd make some kind

of difference


only to see all you thought you were doing

mixed into a blended past

that speaks in generalities

to lives so foreign in its particulars

but in essence

no different than yours


headstones in cemeteries

worn by wind and rain

to indecipherable markings

of vanishing name and inclusive dates

if you're not too anguished

you'll see that the only time that matters

is the Present

the only time there is

where whether young and strong

or old and hobbling

you are still here


you are still always here....



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

to those who did not get the memo

(as they say)

you're going to have to mind your manners

calibrate your responses

stop playing the fool and expect instant forgiveness

(or at least accommodation)


while human nature will never change

here in the world's extreme sport stadium

know that you'll learn to beware who you step to...

know that your might may not be right or enough

to vanquish your perceived foe

know that adjustment will be required


and that will be change enough for now

(the ongoing illumination of our beings

followed through rung upon rung

of our own Jacob's Ladders)


so treat me as you'd want to be treated

(why must this still be said?)

do me false and I'll respond


cut you a little

I'll teach you respect

cut you a lot

I'll make you humble




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the one who had been waiting for

has been here all the while


sadly watching us scan the skies

for his arrival

which was accomplished


before any of us were born

into these skins and consequences


peace and sadness one in beatitude


the one we'd been awaiting

is now waiting on us...




Congtent (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

"I am God"

the drunkard said


even if he was a poet of beatitude

he was drunk and falsely

"illuminated" when he uttered this inanity


well we all are part of the godhead

(this much is true)


if we allow ourselves to be

but like the rest of us


his emphasis was a bit skewed




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

you would think

those who play God

would have enough

awareness to realize

that at some point

God is going to play them


but then why not

expect the sun

to rise in the West


one of the definitions

of insanity is the imposition

of illusion on reality


insist on the primacy of your consciousness

but you're just one view among billions....



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I see nothing ahead of me

but right here where I stand

right now as I'm standing

though every part of my being

every act every memory

crowds in with me


nothing going forward

(as they say)

that can hold the weight

of my experience

oh I wonder why nothing works anymore

I must accept my luck has finally run out


because right here where I stand

I see nothing ahead of me...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

no magic tonight

nothing sings


gravity pulls

down dreams


while each wall

holds the limits


of a world where

nothing sings...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

a small turning at the top of a ladder


and an opening in the air

permits you to plunge down

through the ground


all it takes is one thoughtless accident

to cut a way through your fate...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

another dark night of the soul?

for Christ's sake

I'm almost 60

haven't I had enough of this shit?


true instead of tossing

on a twisted pillow

all night long

now I stare out the window


at the red and brown clouds

floating above the rooftops

empty and dully

waiting for sleep


as something anguished in me

slips away nothingness...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

every moment of every hour of every day

is an apocalypse


nation against nation

man wolf to man


all of it rooted in

the only war there is


the man and the woman

the plus and the minus


the unbridgeable division

that generates life


here the dynamic sears the heart

here the conflict seeks harmony


(and don't take the words "man" and "woman"

too much to heart)


where there is no complimentary union

there is no peace there is only chaos


the wars of reaching embraces

in each daily apocalypse...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I am prepared to drop in harness

like my father and his father before him


the bloodlines coagulating with misery

the death lonely but a relief


while the pious and power-mad

who lived off my sweat


will mumble words over my hole

their ends will be worse


the disappointed hubris

the leveling after all...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

welcome to the world

welcome to your place in the galley


before you start your endless rowing

rub your hands in sea water


the brine will toughen your skin

here is a bit of reality


even your master's agendas

cannot circumvent...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the daily hell

the prep walk of conformity

the cubicles bugling

with those wishing to be

nothing more than cogs

in an infernal machine

and fighting tooth and nail

to gain such a position


and responses to a "real" moment?

"oh, calm down

you need anger management"


and responses to any signs

of individuality?

"gee you're weird...what's your problem?"


the lazy vicious Mass Mind

at work casting out the visionaries

(unless they've invented a new techno application)


calling the cops

to beat down the victim


the victims scheming with all

the cunning of slaves


the daily hell

the prep walk of conformity

as ordained


as ordained...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I know I keep pushing

but I can't stop


if I don't keep moving

I'll certainly drop


so here is some doggerel

to help us keep pace


oh let's get the hell

outta this god-damned place...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the good news is

I ain't dead yet


the bad news is

I ain't dead yet



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

my generation

(at least the bodies we used this time)

are entering the end zone

of our current sojourns


approaching the finish lines of this life and time


how do we feel?

how has anyone ever felt to be reaching

this stage of wistful regrets

and dismay at the diminishing strengths


with which we contested and boasted?


we're done for now

no hell arising from our selfish clinging

to our imaginary childhoods

will enlighten or save


sad and unalterable this fact


but the farther we go on

the more clearly we see our return

the more keenly we feel our rest

my generation may laugh its smart-ass way


out of everything but its own humbling end...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the same sun

the same ground


blue skies

and dirt


millions of years old

and half a nanosecond young


the elements will survive their forms

and be the same the same the same...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the long slow evening

draws us down to rest


as the dawn lies sleeping

below the east horizon dreaming of arising


thousands of years long

and millions of souls wide


the brief swift day

drawing us up awake for evening's return...





Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

life is no harder than you make it


and if you have forgotten the Plan

then you'll make it harder to make it real


don't blame the cartoon god of your imagination

don't blame the guardian angels


who seem sometimes like the henchmen

of a cruel tyrant...blame only yourself


for the rockiness of your path...the misreading of your compass...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

blessed is he whose wife is truly his mate


a kind heart

a gentle disposition

but firm in the face of domestic male brutishness


if he treats her poorly

beats her in his frustration and rage

at not being a King of the World


she should and will take her love elsewhere

to anyone who appreciates her loveliness and devotion

for women bear the brunt


they tend to the details of daily living

and when the tyrant returns home

he will either be soothed or enraged by a perfection


he will never be able to fully contain...but she will be blessed...

and he he will have nothing to say but "I'm sorry"

is this a useless idealism?


it is the dynamic by which we endure

and useless only if we countermand those determinants

blessed is he whose wife is his mate


if he knows it...and lives it...and loves it...


CVontent (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the moment has passed and everything's spoiled


I wish I'd seen you coming


I'd have made sure you didn't see me with pants down

behind a bush because the public restroom was locked

(the previous occupant being a total pig and I needn't elaborate)


but fortunately I'm an old man and but for my own shame

I am pardoned by Mass Stupidity by hiding in the doting stereotype

while grinding teeth in my sleep I dream of choking you

with your own mockery


but I awaken refreshed and forget I am old

forget the moment is gone


forget even that you came by...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

short poems rule...


I prefer the luminous instant

to the dim postcard of a Modernism Survey Course


or hear the sharp spheres echoing in the inner ear

than endure the dull blear of a pompous drone

spilling in long form

a theory of life not his own


keep it bwief

(you might as well give Elmer Fudd a Nobel)

take your shit and get off the pot already

your prize poems are toilet paper


short poems hold aspects of the total process

(and shame on me for not saying all this


in a short poem...)



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I've lost count of my opportunities

they were passing before I even knew

they were here


on what do I count now?

what passes in time for me to watch its ass

disappearing down a dusty road


if I try I fail

if I fail to try I fail


but I never tried to fail

at least I can count on that...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

boiling blood spills through rends in the heart


age-old hatreds scream through

the dead ears of the victims of riot and disaster


each locked in his hubris

the will to live becomes someone else's


reason to die and after all the calamity

what left but piles of imaginary kings


and victorious vermin swarming over them?




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I've little time left in this skin


I've learned my lesson

I'm making my amends


but fate will crush me down

to the bitter end of this life


but I figured it out

and that's the only way I can comprehend


mercy being the manifestation of judgment...


what happens in future lives on earth

is not my business quite yet

even if all I've done until now has set it in place for me


but I've little time left in this skin

and all I have left is to make peace


with the miseries that delivered me to this awareness...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

what more do you want?

what more could you possibly need?


your delusions died on the thrashing floor

and all your hungers have been freed...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

well I told you it was ending

you got to the fair too late

the rides have been ridden

the concessions are closing up

and the last bunches of the milling crowd

thin out to go their long way home


the show dissembles for leaving

the live stock corralled and put down for their sleep

and the last fairground lights cast the long shadows

of the loitering crowds ambling out through the exit gates

this was the last night

the bull gang strikes the camp and fold the tents


you got to the fair too late

but to watch the trains loading...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

where are you now?

the landscape has changed

so much you'd think

we were on another world


but no it is the same world

just stripped of all the harm

we have done to it

its healing to be our undoing...



Content (c) 200802912 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I have no hopes to pin my pride on...


bad for me

good for who suffers me


without hope there is no pride

without pride there is no hope


that is good

it sharpens the appreciation of what is to be had


and soothes the pain of what is to be lost...





Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

prayer is vanity

it is always centered on "I"


amends are vanity

no repentance or atonement


satisfies the Will that is imposed on us

nothing we do seems to make a difference


but to live free of your own misconceptions

and just let the results fall out as they will...

there is the true test of surrender and reckoning


there is the acceptance of the peace that beggars vanity...





Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

judgment a manifestation of mercy?


I'd take more mercy than justice

any day in eternity


if only the god who loves us so much

saw it the same way




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I saw a light and followed it


then I stepped in the same traps

I stepped in before


oh call me fool

or or call me brave


but there is no difference the saint

who will forfeit all


or the egoist who will lose all

and whichever I am


follows a light that leads me to rise

while I fall..




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

so it's good-bye to vision

which was only the hallucination

of an alienated soul

who couldn't mix well or play with others


the real test is accepting the divine

in the matter of the earth

and not get tangled up

in the earth whether embracing it too wholeheartedly


or turning from it

to be lost in eddys of abstraction

that entangle the mind

in its own limited workings


no none of us are fallen

our attention is just limited enough

to see the end of matter

but not the matrix from which it comes


so don't look to the heavens

for some manufactured idea of salvation

and don't embrace the earth

to the degree it absorbs you into its element


so that at the end of creation's terms

you'll subsumed back into the Unconditioned

of some Absolute we'll never know in flesh

even while it is the framework of all that is


the consciousness that is yours

will always be yours onto the death of matter

or the release into what Mystery animates the universe

that's the last sermon that's the last preaching


good-bye to vision and our own misconceptions

we're all on our way to where we really are

one day we'll awaken from our sleep and realize

eternity is exactly where we are wherever we are...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

weariness is the grieving release

of will and determination

to change the unchangeable


but weariness also gives

a healing rest who've toiled too long

with nothing to show but weariness


but oh that relief in being done


but oh that relief of evening's soothing close...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the Voice of the People

is the squealing of pigs and the braying of asses


and so by such acclamation does

every barnyard despot feed them daily


and butcher them nightly

the cows and she-goats spared for meat and milk


and the fresh round of generation

to anoint the farm's reason to be...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

let us leave all speculation aside for this instant


we can only know what has gone past

and to where it has delivered us


and no agenda you let do your thinking for you

will be your ace up the sleeve


you'll play hand

then read 'em and weep


so bluff if you want but put no stock in it

if you've got nothing maybe you've taken the pot


and if not you go home more broken than before

but at least with the knowledge


you still somewhere else to go

no matter where you go you'll always be here


and we'll leave all speculation aside for now



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I'm as cold and frightened as anyone else


the darkness is so thick

it fixes me in my place


but as long as I can see

your trembling glow


then I will know

we are One in the night of the world


and that I am not alone in this...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

there isn't a creed or hope or belief

that isn't false


even our most holy devotions

are cries of the self


to be saved from itself

no


there is nothing that will save you

or spare you your grief


yet it's in that dissolution

that you'll find your relief...


no

not nothing but the Reality beyond

anything you can imagine it to be...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

people think saints and prophets

lived on nothing but visions and miracles


don't you think the people of their times

didn't give them crusts of bread to eat

and warm muddy water to drink

then patronize them with the equivalent of a penny?


the same would happen today if any of them showed up

but we'd just avert our eyes

thinking they were manic-depressive maniac

smelly and dangerous to pass on the street?


(and maybe some saints and prophets were just manic-depressive)

what makes people think life was any different


or that there is any time at all?



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I acknowledge the Infinity in the Grain of Sand


on rare unattended moments I even see it


but whether or not I do most times

it's still just sand and it still runs fine...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

all one believed has been proven false

there is nothing but this barren plain


on which to reflect and meditate

as gods and lovers pass diminished


in power and importance

they matter as little as these broken beliefs


or one's own reflection on them

on this barren plain of the world



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

with every delusion shattered to nothing

we continue in emptiness

so black as pitch as to be blindness

to a sighted eye


and so devoid of sound

no music moves a heart

nor heals a soul


what avatar does not have

his work cut out for him?

who is so alive in those spaces

between our jaded consciousnesses?


while we recoil from the bleeding brow

in the garden to be uphold on a stake

wish it a bo tree if it were us...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the injured smile in their damage

while the vain find comfort in every smug spite


just as Christ had his Kundry...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I'd give you love

but you'd run free

and beg from everyone


thus my shame

a dog is only as good

as its master...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

who waits beside the empty bowl

alms for the idiot
the fool
the disgrace

who leaves an offering

one of smug pity
the fool
the disgrace



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

no neat tidy ending

no rapture into the skies


the heavens are here

in this dust and this puddle


and the only release

into some Absolute


is to die in this very skin of yours

and know it as the paradise it is...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the objective material world is a fact

but only becomes subjective truth with one's assent

and participation


such is why it's said truth is relative

but truth is a fact in being rendered such


that is its reality...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

no one will take your choices away

unless that is your choice...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

private myth

and historical fact


two myopias

squinting at each other


over a comfortable lie

or an uncomfortable truth


and no foregone conclusion

which is which...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

love compelled is not love


you won't be mocked

but nor will you be adored


every vanity

of consciousness preens


it's no good if it's not

but too bad if it is...





Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

not even the Judgment of our imagined God

is as harsh and as fatal

as the poor fool who hid in protective delusions

only to crash into the rock-hard facts


and what forgiveness? what mercy?

the will can never really know

but if you haven't walked your living

like you've talked it you'll truly wish you had...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the ersatz mystics who bemoaned creation

suffered so sensitively

sat on their own mountaintops nodding

like drunken monks


were ruined in their advancing age

by the consequences they thought

they were evading

who thought they were escaping


a world of requirements

imposed on their frightened little selves


as they gave no sympathy to any but only pity

smug and judgmental and superior

so do they now look for the succor they've lost

and beg for the mercy they never themselves had shown...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

no poem no painting no music

can be said to exist


until the poem is read

the painting seen

the music heard


and be remembered

in its apprehension as

the content of your being




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

they crucified Jesus

what makes you think

they'd treat you any differently?


and when no hand descends

to rescue you from them (as Jesus rose again)

what bitter howls of hate you emit...


and you find it out hard

we kill each other because we cannot kill God



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

stop looking for the Absolute in the skies

or in some dream you forget upon awakening


if you want to find it just look around you

everything is its own meaning


everyone is his own reason

and every street you walk unwinds continuously


and every person you meet is as much a mystery

to themselves as they are to you...


look there and you'll see the workings of process

that wrought the worlds from every black hole


there's your Absolute

there's your reason for being


stop looking in your hallucination

stop looking anywhere but right in front of you...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

everyone's an expert...on other people's business...


maybe this is some kind of lesson in patience


how much worse would if be

if anyone had to mind their own business?


so this is how brotherhood translates on earth?...

as mutual oppression?...


shitty deal...




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

"hey what's you're hurry?

relax

take it light..."


yeah

easy for you to talk

when all you do is instruct us all

on the virtues of serenity


while I'm holding grocery bags full of perishables...


thanks for your tyranny of benevolence

you jackass...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

no secrets in creation


it's all on show for everyone

every act a fuckin' worm track

wide as a plumper's hips


and it's evident to all

but those in flesh with you

they're like you


thinking you're pulling a fast one


but slip out of this body's identity

and you'll see how obvious your acts

and all your excuses

show as nakedly as if you stepped out of an orgy

your guilt registered on your face

and in your movements only without the excuses...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

the lesson has taken

but nothing has changed


a way has opened

but it is not fully clear


no mercy from a life-force

of process so deranged


that all my good flees

when this ruthlessness nears


and that is how peace grows

out of silenced lives


and that is how the world

renews its murderous births


this is the lesson of fullnesses and dearths

and toward this truth what's left of me strives...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

on some days the Light is bright and abiding

and our direction's affirmed and our trek forward's

energized and swift and sustained


while on other days the Darkness is foremost

in the sky and in our hearts and stumbling comes easy

and we're crushed by consequence and no forgiveness


I imagine you can imagine what kind of day

this is for me because if it were the former

this wouldn't have been written...



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

…here…the brown flakes of dead leaves

in the dirt beside stirring roots

the rain-mulched mud

now hard in the dry sun and shadow of branches…

Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

Some things so beyond me…I am as a speck whirling toward spirals of stars…




Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

We needn’t track love to find it—

But to do away with everything

That keeps us from it…

Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

I don’t listen to the winds or the tides or shells
Cracking under the weight of my soles

I hear nothing but the white noise of silence
That attends the blank vision that blurs this seashore

Blends this sky and this sea in one paisley cataract
Drawing all hues and brightness to a spot

On some distant fading that obscures the borders
Of horizons and constructs and the skin’s limitations

And so it is I pass one time with memories of another time
In the single great instant that defines my only identity
As I walk through all the moments that windowed into this actuality

Permanent with such permanence as there is and will be
As it was in the beginning end endlessly upon end opening on to
This blur I am to someone else not listening to wind and sea



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.