joy and happiness

are so fleeting...so brief...

you must touch them

as they pass

in order to

hold them forever...

Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

ugly world

on a beautiful earth


when will we humans

break our mirrors as last?




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

is it really so bad

to give up your torments

and rest yourself?


to release an identity

you recognize only

those its pain?


to feel the ache fade

as you surrender to your true state?




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE END OF VISION

where all parts of the spectrum

fuse into one light


the prism-split rainbow

cast on many a dour wall

cannot tell it’s own various tale


one light subsuming those multiple hues back into itself

and no longer inviting the eye to see and wonder…


but to go blind in the blaze of knowing...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights rrserved.

I am renewed


fresh input from those I love—

and who love me

I know what to do and what I need to learn

to do it...


but I’m still the one

who has to do it and therefore feel

not quite as renewed...to translate the possible...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

NOT THE QUESTION

unholy injustice

in the very substance of creation…


why?

is not the question to ask…


seek and you should find...

ask and ye shall receive...and fall from


grace the moment you do so...and find why

acceptance is the hardest thing...






Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All right reserved.

oh come

blessed relief



come before

my soul is totally lost





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SO MANY DREAMS

so many dreams
seeping out through cracks
in the will

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

thought act and will
capturing for this plane
the planeless vision




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.


                                                                         

HIS SHADOW

like the long corridor of light

from a setting or rising sun—


I imagine my soul standing

like the shadow of a mountain on the sky—


no vision here—

just the vainglory of a frightened man


who knows he's smaller

than his shadow...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

BRIEF TIME

I don't know where or how I'll end up

but in the name of all that's allegedly holy


anything in God's crazy creation beats

being stuck on this earth...


even if it's just for this brief time...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reerved.

EVERY CHANCE

ends begin

and beginnings end


and all the while

you're where you are


everything happening

and everything that's happened


whirling around and past you

dying leaves or the coming snow


and a lifetime of mistaken faiths

have led you to this collapse


time has run out and every chance

has been spent and whatever ends


or begins is as nothing

as all in this earth is nothing...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

Let this ‘Mass of Humanity’ resolve itself

As it will person by person by person

It has ever been thus and pity fools like me

And you and he and she and it and whoever thinks

They can stage-manage the Infinite





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

a nearly full moon


time to close a chapter


life as a saga

some titivating adventure

future anecdotes

for the children of your children


there's the only completion in this

in your life this finish

showed only the vastness of a start

which you're still following


nearly full moon setting


lighting the way opening before you...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip M ilito. All rights reserved.

LOOKING FOR THE WAY?

there’s no going back

when everything’s always in front of you…







Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

yet another summer--

yet another summer in the World--

how many more in my life

how many more in the world

many or not

more or less

but enough to guide us

to the fall

Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

KNOW WHAT YOU'RE REALLY ABOUT

the  joke of vibrant

positive days like this

is you feel your full vigor

and think you'll live forever


well...yes perhaps...

but your body won't for sure...


thank your stars therefore your body's

not the reason for your vibrancy




Contenbt (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

turds cascade down

the Alps of my former ennui

I’m glad I’m not there anymore

moving away swiftly to anywhere else




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

OLD MAN STARING AT THE CEILING

Long I’ve waited for this—

Long has one been calling me
And long I couldn’t hear—

Now—stuck in my last stand—the full halt—the leg’s strength
Draining out through sore feet—

Now do I hear
Sounds from the Unknown World—

Now do I long perfectly…




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SUNDOWN AS EVER

fallen pride

hangs my hide

over my boots and scythe


the low sun

paints the cabin red

as I amble inside


peace from the day's been won

and sleep is the prize instead




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

TALK ABOUT GETTING THE BIZ

flat broke...

no work prospects...


tough when I was young

tougher now that I'm old


a lifetime of experience

disregarded by automata


raised in this semblance

of what used to be life...


and the joke is

I work harder now


than I ever did sitting

in a cushy office


just trying not to go

under...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito.

mists of miasma?


you fool

I asked for a splash in my mimosa!


damn...now I do need a drink...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

damn it...

didn't die again...


alright then

better hike up me trousers


and get me ass in gear


shit piles up every day

and I gots me shovel ready


till those turds and fertilize...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

if it all ended tomorrow

I'd go peacefully

happy to leave a world

I no longer recognize

Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

REPENTANCE AT TWILIGHT

in sweet olive twilights of early summer

with the low leaning sun slipping under the western edge

I see the same instant I saw as a child


but where once there was the absence of ego

that allowed me to be the instant

now the same reverberation of being


is soaked in every ache of identity that presumed

on the higher Self in delusion of who was who and why


and yet the the green air under the leaves

glows with the same intensity and the instant


is as always is the only moment in the only Reality

and the little ego me who thought he was his true self atones


but sweetly as if the lifetime of remorse and gratitude

into this twilight as I walk beneath these branches...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

some people are out to find me

I have no support behind me

everyone's looking for a fight


let them slay each other

brother to brother

while I stand in plain sight


all I did was detach from the world

and watch these lost ones fall like autumn leaves curled




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

some endure tragedies onto death

others sweat broken fingernails and missed appointments


somewhere in this absurd range of experience

is the common thread that binds us...


the will to continue

and the wisdom of perspective


to discriminate what strengthens the heart

and what darkens the soul...


mercy on those who know

or who have yet to learn


this...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

an optimist

is someone

who hasn't

suffered much




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

SUCH IS THE LIFE (with a nod to Tolkien)

stumbling in this era's dispensation...


I see grass green as emeralds

and people feasting and laughing and singing

with occasionally a duck under the lip of a boulder

as a shadow glides across the field...


and so people relax...but guardedly...

relieved that no one in particular is searching them out

because if any of these others were looking

they'd find them and make holy hell of their lives


in which case...except for the manner and means...

nothing really has changed at all...

the peaceful are always prey to the predators

and the predators tear each other in their tiny famines


and life in the earth is ever tenuous...



Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

YET AGAIN AGAIN

so the bad guys won yet again

Big Brother has his nose and his dick

in everything now


and apologists of all stripes

make allowances for our conduct and our privacy...

this is news?


this has been coming for years...

the codification of evil in the State

or the BusinessIndustyFinance complex


into an all-embracing (all smothering)

techno-environment...

all long last the Kings of the World have their earthly dominance...


and...so what? what can be done against it?


die out in your own true righteousness

and help any going your way...


the rest are lost until they wake up and release

the complying Egos that kill the Self


as another era of karma plays itself out...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

A MAN OF ALL SEASONS KINDA

all is vanity

sayth the preacher


as he looks at the sky

and imagines himself




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

IT'S CALLED 'SEEING THE LIGHT'

the autodidact

discovers fire

by another's

flaring match...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

PROPHETIC

sorry to be

always right

about the

terrible things


sorry to be

always wrong

in thinking I'm

always right


oh good and bad

relative as they are

throb in each of our

common happenings


sorry my tongue

isn't multiple enough to tell it




Content 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

BEING IS ETHICAL

do the crime and pass the buck

and all the day your dick they'll suck


but own up and except your blame

it's through the mud they'll drag your name


they are our fellow creatures

with whom we share our common features


Oneness some state of grace all can share

if we weren't such bastards in getting there


so our choices smudge our unique reality

for we lack the One's totality


when in righteousness we feel strong

our outcomes show we've done it wrong


in forging our fates we all share the blame

in facing our reckonings we all share the shame



Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

FAUST'S ERROR

I—we all stay in this moment

just a moment longer—


oh how easy to ruin the instant

and turn a heaven to a hell




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

JUST A THOUGHT AGAINST SELF-SABOTAGE

that for which you wish

 may not ever be yours to have…


but will that stop you from realizing

what right and good is yours?




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

TRITE TRUTHS

no denying we're in these calamitous times together


some in bitter denial

others awake to it and wishing they weren't...


but hell

nothing will really be different in the world


we either extend our hand and help another

or we all go down to ignominious deaths...


why after centuries on this earth

must this still be said?


and why do each of us in our own ways

do such thorough jobs in the opposite direction?


no denying we're in this together

and no denying we're the only reason


we find it so hard to get out of it...




Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.