Tao of One

Kaila, are you OK? This poem is about the agony of a peopled lonliness. A hot subject to touch poets with. I couldn't follow it entirely, but I don't suppose I have to. You capitalize Beloved, but say nothing nice at all about...IT. Attention is given to your emptiness, but you are not allowed to finish with the throbbing need, and your desire is torn assunder, yet, you say "WE". I think I understand. I just get my own picture....wcw

I find the poignant and very strong. Without knowing you I am at a loss to fully understand; I cannot even say with certainty whose Tao it is you speak of: the "you" or the "I" here. but I wanted to comment simply because this is real and worthy. ken

I find this poignant and very strong. Without knowing you I am at a loss to fully understand; I cannot even say with certainty whose Tao it is you speak of: the "you" or the "I" here. but I wanted to comment simply because this is real and worthy. ken

Well ~A, if I was your master I would have already freed you so since I am not this is a lovely write and I particularly like "dark-pelted" I dont know why! I do love the Ginger blossom as well. You know its so hard to tell what we carry over from past lives and if we are paying our spiritual credit cards off. This poem reminds me of just such a debt. Best regards Stuart

You have such a creativity in you and this is a lovely worded write and I enjoyed this. It has a feeling of being trapped actually, I dont know why but I feel that way about this poem, but underneath there feels to be a battle not yet over. Maybe wrong but I love it just the same. A little cryptic and intriguing. Love Lyz. Xx

You, Poet, are riding some near unbroken quarter horse. I woke with poems almost sputtering on my tongue. Perhaps because I am building a new third in the bathroom - tile shower and bookcases. It is Olya's birthday present. When I work with my hands, I find comfort. Well, when I work with my hands compulsively. I return, for a time, to the feel of childhood; that place of safety, seeming simpleness and less weight on the top of the skull. Olya calls the condition, little Brian. Once, when I was a teenager, I built a biplane, roughly two feet wide and the same long, with working ailerons and flaps controlled by the cockpit stick. It was to scale and had a small gasoline engine. The wings and tail had their proper curves for lift, each rib independently manufactured. At some modest level it was a masterpiece of obsession. All made from toothpicks, model glue and a skin of kleenex, water shrunk, doped and painted. I had no idea what to do with it once it was done. So, I travelled to New York, resided at the Whiteplains home of a beauty named Kathy Spellman, and gave her the little model as an unspoken token of, what, lust, infatuation? Well, certainly those things. But also, of joy, that thing of childhood which is so covered by the weight of want, fatigue, and the complex adult methods to obtain affirmation and touch. Poor Kathy didn't know what to make of her gift. She was polite, of course. It was our tipping time, when the weights shift along the slide to adult things. Odd as it may sound, obsession of that constructive sort remains one of my touchstones to joy. You are writing, writing, writing. Writing masterpieces of obsession, and thus, one hopes, of joy. "you are a terrible master my Beloved,/you steal my surrender and send 19 white-headed vultures /to strip me of my hunger for daybreak’s rotting flesh/I perish the thought of You/and still you keep beating my ravaged heart/I am/a ginger blossom wasteland of fragrance/you leave on the feather-pillow of dreamless dreams/You prowl my emptiness in a dark-pelted growl/you lift my head from your throbbing need/and tear away my desire.... The poem is wonderful. It bares truths. It is as if your ribs are open, offering the inner cavity and its contents for public view. You are terribly brave and, I trust, rewarded. No stars or any such thing. Just an admiring. Brian

I love your verse, the best of which shines a mystical light on normality and unveils the holiness in everyday objects. Tao of one is one such as this. Love Dalton.