TOMORROW

wherever tomorrow

I open my eyes to


it will be like today

which was like my yesterday


time's an inaccurate measure

of what time it really is


but wherever I am here and now

I'll face again tomorrow...






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

RECKONINGS

I thought I knew what was to come


but it was only my imagination...

the Reality is so beyond reckoning


that I can only stand locked in my position

and all I disdained will deliver me


to that reckoning beyond imagining

even though I made it with my own actions


and repent of it with my own sorrow...






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

LOU REED

Lou Reed gone...


yet another guru sliding away

his time done

his work finished


a matter of time before more of our masters

(Leonard...Neil...Joni...


even the great seemingly indestructible Dylan)

will be called away to...like Jarry...

continue their bicycle races airbourne



so many of our mentors fleeing the earth

as if they knew something we didn't

and was too awful to tell...


well we'll know soon enough and

like Lou Reed we too will be gone from here...






Content (c) 2008-2103 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

WRETCHED CONTINUUM

things are hell at the moment...


everything we used to know breaking apart

and everything we used to do dead in the water


when the children of this current generation

of assholes arrive (hopefully an improvement


hopefully a corrective to their parent's

unbridled ignorant pride)


this moment of hell will be a story to tell their children

though life being what it is


it will be just another campfire story told

that they won't get


having their own need to craft the tale of their downfall

their karma for which to atone


their hell in their own time...






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

APOCALYPTIC POKER

even the commencement of a New Age

must pass away in time


once it has happened

it's the 'new norm'


and we have no speculative agendas

to fortify or to advance


it's another day in the world

and though the stakes are raised


we still must play our hands...








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

WHICH SHALL IT BE?

oh love I cannot take you

from the carnage of our lives


I stayed with you

thinking in love we're work out everything


but didn't realize this rude suffering

was the working out


there's nothing to save us but our love

and even that's a paltry thing in the great Cosmic Eye...


or not... I don't know but I do know

nothing matters...not even that merciless Perfection...


except the love we so bitterly share

in raging anger or soft truce of memory


remembering why we are together

and how that surpasses everything but the alleged Love of God...


how simply to make the One put its spiritual money

where Its yawning mouth is


either we hate and die of that hate

or we love and live that love


well Lord of Lord which shall it be?

our eternal deaths for not being perfect enough for You


or our eternal life because we love

and live beyond the cruelty of Your vengeance?


which shall it be?





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

major changes in the cosmos


some Great turning has arrived

and yet...here in the earth


all continues

albeit broken and jangling


as above so below?

maybe...but whatever is changing the sky


here in the earth we still live and die...






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

HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME

our options have run out...


we repent our wrongs or suffer

we forget our egos or continue our doom

we give up on our maniacal visions or perish of them


while this has always been the case

this endgame now demands our bid

do what you must and you'll learn to your joy or despair


which option played itself out to get you there....






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

NEW AGE INDEED

the New Age sure isn't looking to good


if evil rulers run the game

do their damage and lay the blame

on those who do not do the same...merde...


they're happy to take us down with them

and it's so easy since we share their whim

and we're all One but which One you quim


you complacent compliant sack of shit

you think you're above it all you twit

you sad and silly and murderous nitwit


and is this "da Lawd" cleaning house for renewal

stringing us up by our own nuts for refusal

to admit our wrong and participate in our own denials?


this New Age looks more like the past than it should...







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

WORDS CANNOT RELATE TRUTHS THAT ARE BEYOND WORDS

I feel such relief

shutting everyone out!!!


I needed the solitude

to hear myself breathe


join with your fellows

and get lost in their mess


keep to yourself

and inhale the peace that all could share...


a simple fact that needs reiterating

a lone reality everyone forgets


we may be One but which One

haunts our thinking...stop thinking...


and feel the relief of isolation

the place where all you are is all there is...






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

oh the relief of giving up a false view


quitter you say?

you fool

a quitter refuses to see the best way

and clings to an egotistically agenda


that will bind him to failure to loss and to shame

but trying telling that to myriad fools

who will never know


the relief of discovering the right way to go...








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

what is left after the useless raging

but remorse for one's mistakes and and ignorance?

what is left but acceptance

of the limits of human vanity?


you can't talk to anyone

we all pick our forward

each of us sure of our paths

but to each of us our own aftermaths


listen to no one

not even me not even teachers not even scripture

each of us trods our own Valley of Thorns

and each of us finds our way through or fails


there is no grief or mercy after our falls

only the silence that to our reckoning calls...







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

we must care for each other

more wisely


for when we wish to do our best

we seem to wind up at our worst


and all the hurts we call love

are bad excuse for fear


we must care for each other

more wisely


or have nothing to say...





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

we

are

all

we've

got


and

forget

so

easily


except

when

we're

truly

alone


and

have

lost

the

way

back

to

each

other...





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

OUTSIDE THE BOUNDARIES

I'd stepped outside the boundaries

back in my ignorant youth

and my ignorant aspirations

kept me there as the years sped past

and now I'm old and no better off

than when I began the folly of this quest

all my achievements weak and as nothing

in the nothingness of creation


and what of it? I couldn't care less

the whole fucking issue's an absolute mess

I'm outside all boundaries

happy to let all Divine Designs unravel


let the One who demanded our love on pain of death

be left alone at the end with His own shit in His hands...






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

I fear I will die my father's death...


a hard struggling work-a-day life

followed by a long slow dying

where lucidity ebbed and diminished


and deep memory in all joy and rage

spilled out in trance-like laughter

or sudden snipes at long-gone enemies


or face turned to a wall

talking to loved ones in fragments

of some phantom dialogue...


the call one 5 am announcing his release

was by then more blessing than grief

for the whole family but I fear of all my father gave me


his way of dying may sadly be the legacy

that most manifests in my own passing...

the breaking connections of intent and action


the simplest assent or most complicated denial

hurtings practically prehistoric surging fresh

and staring too at some middle distance


at the signal of some long unheard song or thing said

I cannot know for sure being so busy with my own daily deaths

but whatever comes after...whatever the actuality is...


all deaths are one...all our deaths are one....






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

so fate cripples you

and damns you for being crippled...


take with a fistful of salt

the self-help reforms of idiots


yes you made your mess for sure

but amending the damage is not as easy


as making it in the first place...

how easy to fall and how hard to rise


and fate cripples you

then damns you for being crippled...





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

BOGUS

bogus friendships

and resentful loves

and imaginary demands

from on high


have twisted more

than one poor soul's head

and done more damage

to the intent of setting things right


if life is this hard

and the One this unforgiving

then fuck 'em all

and have your fun


the Ineffable will screw you

no matter what you do...so do as you will...and do it well...




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

A RECENT 3 AM

torn by a dozen jostling needs

I tossed my head on a twisted pillow


no peace for no resolution

just running all kinds of crap through my mind


facing inevitable invincible consequence...

and for a moment I ceased to turn


and saw a waning moon through

the slats of my window blinds


and I did not feel any flooding of calm

I did not resolve all things


I just froze in my heaving and stared

as some night animal in the woods pauses


from gnawing on its prey and emptily

stares up at the white eye of the black sky...






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

OUR DESIGNS

I gave in far too many times

to keep peace

to soothe intractable egos

to work benefit for the bystanders

where there was none


but I was meant to stand down and suffer

and the raging egos confronted and suffered

and the bystanders too were meant

to be there to atone as collateral damage...

each of there to do as we may


and were it not for previous failures of nerve

we may well now be repeating

we'd all be standing elsewhere

in others in a separate knot of obligation






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

NO BETTER PLACE

I see no better place to stop and rest

but right here and right now


all the ruin I've left behind

nourish the new lives coming after me


I may miss my own seedtime and wild spring

and miss my own summer's fullness


but I see no better place to stop and rest

here under the falling blazing leaves of autumn...






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

I tell you I wish to be other than what I am


but I am already that

doffing the mask of this Philip Milito life


and becoming one of the myriad souls

that constitute my whole being...


should I gain enlightenment they'll all merge

into me at once and be all...


and rather than be other I'll be all I am....






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

LIPS IN THE AIR

you must be destroyed to be

completely recreated


don't fear what you'll leave behind

all that will go missing


is what wasn't yours to begin with...

so I say...like lips in the air


a voice bodiless and void...

be destroyed and be renewed






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

blues in the bottle

got the stopper in my hand


Lightnin' Hopkins told it true


but if I tried it...a good chance I'd miss the hole...

but then again I'm not Lightnin'...







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

PERILS OF CHARITY

a drag to always be on guard in this world...


even the meek and poor

may not be so meek and poor


but vengeful and manipulative

and conning you with the Christian Guilt game...


but it is on you to do right and give aid...

it's on them and not on you if they abuse charity


for some survival more empty than death...






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

PLACE YOUR BETS

the wise man frowns

as the fool laughs again


I'm putting my money on the fool...











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

COMMON PRIDE

someone imagines a hell

filled with those who sent themselves there


someone is smug and self-deceiving

thinking he can tip-toe his way around


participating in the world we know know...

who will bother to bless him


if he's locked outside his imaginary heaven

and doesn't know it?








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

I do not pretend to knowledge

I'm too much the fool to put it off


let the vain posture all they like

they get over because they don't know


how foolish they are...






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

MY BUD

oh the imp the scamp the lovable rascal

gone coming on seven years


and still I think of him and weep


he who prowls around

the foot of the bed guarding while I sleep







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

THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR RE-READING "SIDDHARTHA"

fine lines and noble truths

may tell of some Ultimate Truth


but down here in the earth

they arouse dreaminess and indulgence


lost in imagination

the real becomes unreal


that wasn't real to begin with

but was only the dream of a god


call it Atman or Jehovah or Allah or Sam

God or Truth or Love or the Ineffable or the One


there is no-thing behind truth or consciousness

do you need to be told yet again? but of course...


we are free in Unity and enchained in discord

until shackles fall and illusions fade Truth


in Its fulfillment is forgotten...







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

I do not intend to keep quiet

about your homey illusions


it took a little of shame and wastes

to strip me of mine


that's the way we all go so forgive me

if I butt in with (likely) unwanted advice


it's not my my glory but your suffering

that I tell you to wise up...we're more One than you know...






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

am I ready now to walk it like it talk it?


well...no...no one is ever prepared

to walk free of their own bullshit


but all or nothing is truly the game

you cut yourself loose or stay tethered


to all that prevented you from your freedom

there's no middle ground


you either aren't...ot you are...







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

little plumper

how I loved thee


with your full fresh flesh

your breasts like watermelons


succulent and sweet

it looked for a minute you'd found


your first mister...but you ran away

to your abiding sister and there you'll stay


sweet succulent lesbo

frightened by a switch-hitter...


who (if truth be known) lied

through his teeth like he did


with other loves...just to taste

that sweet flesh and forget for a moment he was done...





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

you thought I was serious

about the dying of the light


and now you're horrified

to see I was right


but it's no big thing

we all face it in our time


this dying light will only reveal

the Greater Light that beyond this world toils behind...







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

I have little time left

to wander through this lifetime

I'm grateful for one last memorable

perfect classic Autumn

the only time for me that nature

shows its beauty full

all the blazing glory of Life

as it's about to go...






Content (c) 2098-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

YOUR CALL

your decision to go forward

is made by all but you

you must align yourself with these forces

or else be counted as through...

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

COMPASSION IS HOLY BUT ONLY GOES SO FAR

I saw you rise

I watched you fall


I hid my eyes

and ignored the call


for help that no one

could bring to you


my heart bled for none

could for you what you had to do


we are our own jury

judge and executioner


but I will bring you

coffee and donuts


at the recovery station where you

will find compassion in your remaining guts...






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

THIS ISN'T THE ONLY ONE

much as I despair of this life

I have to remember this isn't the only one


it might be wiser for me to stop regretting

all that was done that can't be undone


and know a future hardship will be the atonement

if I were wise and strong enough to handle it right


with more behind than ahead of me

it feels fine to settle into the moment


(the same eternal instant from which we all commenced

and in which we always live)


it's all well and good to know this as a concept in mind

but to live in it as the Only Reality there is...ah...


there is where the illusions of knowledge fall

and I do my best to disregard...and rise...





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

I don't give up

oh don't think for a minute I do


let the predator strut and tear

the blood of the weaker running down the chin


let the weaker dart and hide with their cunning

keeping their blood until whatever conclusion of movement


I learn from each condition in its turn and act accordingly

never giving up...






Content (c) 20082-13 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

DAMN FUNNY BUSINESS THIS...

wish I could lighten up

drink a glass of wine

forget my cares joined in

the roaring crowds of football fans

hogging every tavern

in this perfect Autumn afternoon


but then no thanks

I have my own rituals

and I remember why such heaviness

makes for such sparkling fun

when the weight is lifted (or even of itself)

and the mix of dark and light intensifies everything


wish I could hold up better and take more since

the harder the suffering the lighter and happier the joy afterward...






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

TIME AND IGNORANCE

children and nerd visionaries and drunks

are targets of ignorant sniping...

the children experience the Only Moment

in all purity and with unawareness of time

the nerd visionaries think they can manipulate

time and change the course of the Grand Will

the drunks we know are disabused of such notions

and lubricate their way toward release of their lost time...

and imbeciles view them all as some form of saint

the most brain-dead of sentimental illusions

by the timid who have a sip too many

and call for the abolition of Life As Lived...

and all the above...all of us for sure...share this waste

this uncontrollable loss of what we foolishly call time...

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

'WHAT ENDURES WHAT PERISHES' #PLUTARCH

taking a shit today I read young Leonard

poems that helped get me into poetry...


forgotten why I write

but as we slip and are wiped away


the poems're still there...






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

SEE YOU AGAIN BUT WHO KNOWS WHEN?

this is as far as I take it...


either a way opens on this same path

or I'm obliged to go a different way


and since the conditions of this life

are as intractable as heartless vengeance


does it matter which way I go?

long as I'm in this fate all catastrophe will prevail


and any intent to reform and repent

will see all earthly power spent


to be renewed and carried forward

to a time when I just barely hope


I'll be strong and wise and brave enough

in some future dispensation


and with speculation I'm as far as I can take it...




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

ANOTHER AUTUMN

in the worldly moments when

I forget my immortality


the only healing for my ignorant

bitterness and regret


is to not think of the One

(thought of whom makes my blood boil)


and forget myself under the october leaves

the motley leaves soothing in the low leaning sun...






Content (c) 2008-2103 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE MYSTERY AS EVER

I gave up nothing

I couldn't stand to lose

but eventually even that stuff

will disappear too


nothing we glance at

or fully desire

will endure through

through the dying clutch of our ire


at being merely human

a stuttering joke in the Void

that nobler spirits

would be inclined to avoid


if such posture wouldn't

diminish and drag them down

our Oneness being such that together

we rise to the skies or fall to the ground


like many before me and many after

I gave up nothing and lost it all

but the brief transcendence I found therein

has with its fullness slid away past recall


I rely on nothing now

but the instant I inhabit

and who I encounter there

equally knows the instant and has it


and the renunciation that gains all

remains the mystery it'll always be

if you give up nothing then nothing is lost

and the an Ineffable Essence constitutes you and me...





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

EXTENDED REACH

I once also worried about

things beyond my scope


I thought my calling valid

my vocation correct


but all I did was tailor

some design that didn't quite mesh


with the larger patterns weaved and unraveled

by processes that shape our endeavors...


the pattern sets the limit beyond which one

would care to try grasping beyond one's reach


and what I once entertained as worry

is now put to better use in my extended reach...


calling and vocation beside the point

now that done is done...




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

and here at last—Ultimate Reality—

the life and death I cannot comprehend—

and all that lies between and beyond

that I cannot control

but yet a choice required my own choice

from all the imperatives of the One—

nowhere near as merciful as we imagine


but All That Is—and that is All—

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

I give up my purpose

I hope it was authentically fulfilled

but then it wasn’t for me

it was for God and it was for you…






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

DETACH

detach from the life you live

on this cold beautiful planet


watch and command yourself

as you do your daily toil


it is a busy productive eternity

and as has been given


you have all the time in the world

and more lifetimes to come





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

OTHER SIDE

and now

on the other side of hope


a certainty cracks a whip

on the scarred flesh of the timid


the simplest life requires a bravery

none of us know we have


unless in the middle of some act

we discover...to our lasting regret...that we don't...


all of this outside

the bounds of our thinking and our knowing


all of this outside

the limits of our imagination


on the other side of faith

a heart stripped bare in its beating...





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

LYING IN THE SHINGLE

exhausted by a dune

waves lapping up

in the late autumn afternoon


I look out east

against salmon-colored clouds

painted by the low leaning western sun


and I feel nothing

but emptiness and relief

the passing of a lifetime


that was long but proved so brief

and the foolish scramble of the world

continues as it always shall


with no definite peace achieved

no good will and no rewards

and all the soul had tried to hoard


will slip away as will the boast

that we had mastered our own sad fates

as if some judgment did not await


one that was rendered by our own acts

one built upon our own intractable facts

we judge ourselves and accept or deny


and as we call it so we live or die...

for my part I've done all I can

and give up the futile effort to lie


by this dune and watch the waves

that will deliver me to my source

and the hazy damp twilight falling


and everything I loved surrounding me in mind

in this late afternoon where for once I feel

happier than I've been in years...happier than I've been...





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

LAWYERS LIE IN WAIT

I'm glad you think this is funny


generations of husbands and wives

hocking each other until each are reduced

to anger or tears


but MCs at wedding receptions get off

dozens of stale old jokes on these subjects

and everyone chuckles in recognition


glad they think it's funny...until it isn't...






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

ZOMBIES ARE SOOOOOO FASHIONABLE

I might as well be a zombie


my productive life is over

but I live on for no reason

apparent


and like many these days

who've made the 'Zombie Apocalypse'

the defining metaphor

of their generation


I also live with no reason

but to subsist on the waste of the fallen


those crushed by the Powers Of The World

who worshi[ nothong but their own evil...


no...no sermons here...

I came up in a moral universe that no longer exists


and death will be a comfort embraced with more passion

than I've embraced the wild women of my time

(whose daughters and granddaughters exhibit zeal

with all the inborn conditioning of a comfortable acquiescence)


zombies...the human race has finally fulfilled itself...






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

MODEST IN SCOPE

a throbbing headache

announces the assumption


I ascend to the attic

and lob water balloons into hell


I think I'm funny

I'm having a good time


some aspirin and a rest

then I'll go change the world today







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

I killed the god

of my imagination...


that self-image

hasty and sad


and it solved

nothing...


I'm more alienated now

without this sense of self...







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

what is to be said?

some final good-bye on behalf of righteousness?

some mutterings of graciousness

to absolve the guilt of those who used the word ‘love’

a little too freely—too thoughtlessly?


what is to be said?

with words as meaningless as silence is full—

it’s all been said—it’s all done…


and there’s no going back on anything...







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

I might as well be alone…


every time I asked for help I regret it…

each ‘helping hand’ holds a joybuzzer…


and sets me back too far to make up ground…







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

love is a reason to hate

without censure from your fellows


we worship our lovers

with the same intensity with which we'd kill them


(and this only because we cannot kill God

for the grief the One's so-called love imposes on us)


oh fool who had faith...damn imbecile who believed in mercy

God and your kin will bury you


unforgiving of your uniqueness...even if its just a cut

from the bolt of clothes that is the essence of all of us


and all our specialness wars against each of us

love the reason to hate


because even God himself could care less

whether we perish or not...damn scumbag life...





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

COUNT ON NOTHING

I count on nothing...


I'd be the damnedest fool if I did...


with every vow undone

and every intent overturned


and no mercy from the universe

and no mercy even from the ones you love


nothing can be counted on


but a death...and relief (or not) beyond imagining...





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

defeat is victory over the world

so say the defeated


for the victors have sold their souls

for dross and will never understand


the world they coveted will pass

and they will pass with it


while the defeated being defeated

rise from the dust and and settle their place...






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

what is the greater assault upon pride?

forgiveness? acceptance? getting and keeping it real?


or is it the massing of tiny shames that always remind

you of how unaligned you with everything?


take your pick or suffer them all

something will throw the switch in you


let it occur to you...as when you realize in the instant

you are looking at everything through your eyes...*






(*thank you Will Blake for opening mine!)





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

a man's word is his bond

but his actions lie and break the vow


act is thought in motion...

think twice before giving your word






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

GRACE AND HEALING

unfortunate (at best)

the angry one who's hurt will never heal


will never discover the rest

of his mischief that his pride made real


not for this earth

or at least not in this time


will there be any truth

up which his angels can climb


to escape the pit he so doggedly dug

pulling down all into his yawning ego...


we remember him sadly when we lug

our own remorse wherever we go


there but for who's grace so miserly to bestow

unfortunately (at best) we just don't know...






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

MIDNIGHT THROUGH MORNING

the wild night of doom

descends through our bloodlines

as seas roil and lands break and sink and rise

and swirl on the plates of their bearings


and the blazing scarlet skies are just

the reflections of souls on fire

and ruins fall back

into the ground of their making


and I who wanted a ringside seat

to watch the fall of my enemies (how pitiful like them I am!)

plunge with the crowds into what sinkhole

swallow an eon of our misdirected living...


oh see you (maybe) in the shingles of dawn's beach

nourishing other forms in the light of the mild morning of bloom...





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

it's worse than any of us thought it would be...


our foes try to crush us

and our friends track and control us...


humankind is its own Anti-Christ

and all of us will suffer for it


and here it is

and there we go


who help us?...none but ourselves...and what good are we?






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

one day the sun will cease to shine for you


and whether the other side of the veil

leads to eternity or oblivion


the sun is shining now and you see

its light and feel its warmth now


and whatever comes

and wherever you go


now is what you will have with you...





Content (c) 20-08-2013 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

paralysis of self-awareness

shocks the will to stasis


few can handle this

or the falsity it displaces


begging for a shot at renewal...

well now you've got it


the question as you play the fool

is what will you do about it?







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

PONDERING GRACE

I howled in my head for relief


and yet nothing is ever as bad as I think


am I being saved for a worse fate

or am I finally getting an insight into


how grace really works...?






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

OUR UNFORTUNATE BREAD OF COMMUNION

people think they call their own shots


they think they are powers unto themselves


and such idiocy perpetuates the world

let them them think they follow a clear inner voice


or think they bring forth the Kingdom within...

they only walk with a wisdom of their own


they ruin themselves and because of our Oneness

they ruin the rest of us as well


though all of us suffer this delusion in some measure...

we're expected to act in accord with our consciences


so some of us rise...a little...and most of us fall

grievously because we are connected in our essence


and where one goes wrong all of us suffer


but where one goes right all of us still suffer...






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

everything's improbable

but nothing is impossible


just when your raving hits

the ceiling of heaven


someone shows a kindness

(or at least doesn't get in your face)


and you think "uh oh...

now what?"






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

I spin a tale and watch it whip

across the floor like an annoyed cat's


I feel like such a hack sometimes

trying to converse in words no one understands


and that I have no dictionary with which to explain...







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

THE FALL OF AN IDOL

I'm Popeye the fuckin' sailor man

I'm Popeye the fuckin' sailor man

my strength I diminish 'cause I dump my spinach

and eat M&Ms all I can....






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

how much do I know?

not nearly as much as I wish I did...


if I knew what I was ready about

I'd probably collapse into a state of shock


so until I'm granted release

from this flimsy earthbound knowledge


I'll cling to my illusions

even as they crumble away and I slowly know better...




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

EYE FOR AN EYE VS. A UNIVERSE OF BLIND PEOPLE

Call it Nemesis…call it God’s Vengeance…what does it matter? The Unforgiving One reaps the awful price…and no repentance no amends no change of heart makes a difference to this Source of Life.

Do good…and a smidgen of grace trickles down and dries…but do wrong (even if it’s your foot slipping 1/10 of an inch unintentionally) and you’re in for lifetimes of punishment…and if you want to live forever…you’ll have to giving up any fairy tale of God that holds you to your fall…accept at last that God is some gangster who created you to assuage God’s own vanity and power-madness.

There’s truly nothing you can do, but endure the judgment of the Unmerciful One, and do as you are bid. If you think that’s not living, well, you’re right, but to do otherwise is death. This is the actual Reality. This is the ruin of our bright hope and strongest faith.

This is where all the illusion of life destroys even the soul. And if there’s a resurrection out of this, we have only our discredited trust in it. If this unyielding suffering leads to some enlightenment and freedom (I use the word loosely since blind obedience is the demand) then we wouldn’t know unless it happened. So we continue in the earth (beautiful earth, disgusting world) and have no idea of anything, except all the fleeting joys when we can forget for even a few moment, the awful Reality of God.




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

KINDNESS AND GENTLENESS

kindness and gentleness

brings out the worse in God...


I don't know why

it's like we're being punished for doing


the very things demanded of us...

but then if I find kindness and gentleness


outside the strictures of the One then maybe

it was false all along and now I'm truly free


to be good...whatever hell that brings down on my head...






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

WHICH THE FAITHLESS LOVER?

I've reached the end of all endurance


I've stopped the futile trying

and will just stumble down my path


I don't care if some Great God

is waiting to slam me for fulfilling


the Idiot's Grand Design or not...

I've reached my limit and don't really care


what the Unmerciful One thinks about that...






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

SHAKEDOWN

like all who can't believe

they're still alive after all


the torment and suffering

they've endured


the thought comes of what worse

can happen


before every whit of the price

is paid to the Eternal Loan Shark...





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

STALE DAILY BREAD

every promise is horseshit on rye

with a double dose of hot mustard


a steady diet for the earthbound trolls

who want all others to die their death


gobble it down you unconsciously evil

and pass it through your holes as pity


there's no light within that you'll find

because you're too damn stuffed to see it...





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

surreal in the autumn heat

the dark afternoons in the vaults of branches


glow in the haze of a vanishing season...

the very last things we'd want to confront


are the very first things we must surmount

and afterward we are left with only


the consequence of our thinking

and the bittersweet sorrow of our feelings...


ask for more and more you'll receive

and if it's more than you reckoned you'd handle


there's no other blame but the hubris of your vision...

if our weights are heavy our strength must be stronger


before the warm afternoons of dwindling days

fade as the night grows longer...





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

LITTLE WISDOM

my little wisdom

is an ignorance in creation


that joins with other's ignorance

to form the truth of our situation


everyone knows and no one knows

and when we exhaust blame


we find we're left with our notions

transformed but still the same...





Content (c) 2008-2013 Philip Milito. Allrights reserved.

EVERY BIRTH

every birth is a new world born

even as death leaves all old worlds torn


and in each harvest lies the grain

of seeds to plant that worlds begin again






Content (c) Philip Milito. All rights reserved.

THE RUDIMENTS OF COURTSHIP

I play many tunes on my flute

steady and true


I play many tunes on my flute

and i wish you would too...




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

oh rage that has no outlet

but a sputtering into a dark corner of midnight's room


blow yourself out and lie weary and worn

and let the bitter calm turn sweet the rest that follows...






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

I CLOSE MY EARS

I close my ears to the yowlings of the earthbound...

let them have their ignorance and their hates

let them wreck the world in the full vent of their fright

I trod a a higher path no less fraught with peril and fear

I can have nothing to say about it...

anything you can imagine isn't the ideal state we crave

and if man is wolf to man it is precisely

because of our Oneness...so don't be surprised 

when saying "we're all in this together"

gets you bad French and a whipping...

all self-hate sees itself in the mirrors of ourselves 

and each other...so we kill...

being unable to kill God for the wretched cruelty of

life as is...I close my ears so I won't have to hear myself...

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

WHO DARES SPEAK

recondite out of spite

foolish and stupid and violent to boot


what great design needs the intractable brute

to spoil his chance to get it right?


some promise of grace that's withheld because

nothing fool does is perfect enough?


and where does that leave us mighty mandarins

whose strength was not enough to slip into vanity?


and who dares speak up for his beliefs

when every reckoning points to the end of an illusion?


the Reality we yearn and strive for

is so neutral it suffers you to act


and that is where each flaw flowers into mandrake of the soul...

we choke as we imagine we are being choked...





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

HOLY THE HELL OF THE PRESENT

oh holy the past and holy the future

and holy the hell of the present


forgiveness lies in the scent of the rose

that clings to the heel that crushed it


I have regrets but no remorse

I knew this would be a hard course


but I didn't know it would be that hard

and somewhere in that is the glory





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

RELATIONS BETWEEN WORLDS

if you're as happy as I am


then there must be something

seriously wrong with you...







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

there's always some smugly superior moron

warning you from "sinking to the level of your opponent"


well what if I did sink to being a smug superior moron?

what if I did "sink" to the level of my opponent?


the pile of shit is so low based and so high rising

that I'd sit on top in a lounge chair


a full inch lower than where I stood

with plenty of fresh air to breathe...





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

we're in new territory now


each side of any side

rages in its wrong


and no word of reason

or compassion is heard


or even respected...


but we condemn ourselves

to our reckonings


no imaginary god does us in...

our actions and our self-judgments


are on our own heads

and our egos alone lead us


to this mass murder where

each of us will fall...or rise...where we stand...





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

ALL WELL AND GOOD BUT...

we've been told endlessly

love God with your whole being

and your neighbor as yourself...

we invoke the Golden Rule

because we will reap what we sow


all well and good but yet...it would take

a deeper love and a stauncher compassion

and frankly a total spiritual overhaul


to transform this laundry list of cliches

into a philosophy that will sustain us for life





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