Wrestling with my angels

1.
Shattered Sanity Satori- aka Wrestling with my Angels

At the moment of awakening, everything is shattered
there is a story of a zen monk, who in the moment of his awakening heard a birds call
and could no longer tell if he was the bird or himself
it is disorienting, who am i?

another restless night, broken open
i feel so shattered
the bitter taste of my tears is on my tongue
should my heart rejoice unless i am burning?
it is so hot in my bedroom that i am sweating, kicking off my covers
the holy men say that thirst brings us closer to god
yearning makes us pray and prayer breaks the veil to ecstasy
well, by god i am thirsty and begging for mercy
there is no one left to cry to but the heavens
hear my cry, oh lord
all this burning is making everything i know die inside me
everywhere i look is the death, destruction, emptiness
my father, my father, why hast thou foresaken me?
if all my dreams are burning and dying inside this frail body
my bones are turned to ashes
then bring me a new dream
renew this charred, blackened earth
let me sing a new song
i am tired of hearing my own voice

Am I crazy?
Can we boil it all down
to psychosis?
Neurosis?
To storms in my brain?

I have a friend
who likes to explain my brain to me
he says it is a very interesting brain
firing off so many colors
well, fine then
you can explain my brain
but where does my brain come from?

Am I not made of star particles from the furthest galaxies?
And the photos from the hubble telescope
show rainbow colored clouds of stardust in the dark
container of limitless sky
when I close my eyes
I see these rainbow constellations
strobing and pulsing the light and color within itself
that is what is happening inside my brain
that is why I love tantra so much
it says, “nothing exists outside of you that does not exist inside of you”
science is only starting to be able to prove and comprehend
putting words to the mysteries

but tell me, what words do you have for the big, brown eyes
of a little brown boy
naked, playing at the water pump in a slum?
You would not dare drink that water
would you say his poverty breaks your heart and his naked joyful laughter
gives you hope?
there are no words for the mysteries of the contradiction of heartbreak and hope
in ordinary, everyday life

often, I wrestle with my angels, who morph into devils and back again
the deeper the darkness
the better the light show
and yet, this play is often painful
the ecstasy and the agony
the vast stretches of emptiness
razed by the fire of yearning
I have another friend who says
we walk in both worlds
it is disorienting

what does it mean to be shattered?
Perhaps a good shattering is what we need to see Reality
and yet, I fear the breaking

after the sundance
the medicine man who is always so strong
came stumbling out of his house
asking for another medicine man
they took him to the other side and brought him back
later that day, he was alright

what would you say if you could float through the stars
like you do when you sleep at night
wouldn't your mind be a little unhinged?
At the tremendousness of it all?

2.
Sons, Snakes and Poision

last night
in my dream
my son was holding a snake
a black snake
which became his friend and wrapped around his body
and I thought it was beautiful, but then I was afraid
I tried to take the snake away, but the snake bit me
and I began to wail
“I am going to die”
but my son did not get upset like I wanted him to
and then I stopped running with my wound
and I thought, If I relax
maybe the poison won't kill me
and then I laid down on the ground with my son and the snake
and the snake bit us both many times
and we laughed because we knew
we loved the snake
and the poison was becoming something else in our bodies
and then a group of people walked by like tourists
and the snake stood on it's tail hissing at them and the snakes body puffed up like a cloud
but the people just laughed and took pictures
and I told them if they did not respect and fear the snake they had to leave