Two poems of January 13, 2010

Avalokiteśvara


With a thousand arms
I hold the thought of you
close to my breast
like mother and child,
my heart beating with you in mind
I bask in the light of your presence,
smiling with you your sense and essence

let us not return to the fallow land,
and lay not waste to the Holy ground
where only hope springs eternal
from a dried well in the Paradise we
have seen as Lost (never Found.)

Tokens of appreciation are poems
lacking any substance
to feed the dying soul,
are playthings of kings and queens,
reigning in bitter denial:
self-righteousness
condemnation
apathy
and
fear--
four steeds of Death that shall ever tear
us apart.
beget the sin of separation.

This is a perfect act of contrition
weeping of humanity.





Dear President Obama


Forgive me.
But you have let us down.

You feed the war machine
and not the common people.
You lied
and you bailed
out the banks and the car companies,
left more people jobless in the process.

It's not enough to pass out food in
soup kitchens a couple times a year.

It's not enough to be black and sell
your lily-white soul to the highest bidder.