My alley is filled with darkness
A place where sleeping fools lie
for a few restless frozen hours
passed out in pissed soaked pants

Doing the stationary backstroke
in filthy scum water pools

Rolling around in black rancid kitchen grease
oozing from the pavement

sautéed in motor oil and garbage juice
spiced with used needles and condoms

Bits of sticky crap cover the soles
of lost souls who make up
this alley of horror
Filth and depravity

There is a river of poison
Running behind opulent glimmering facades
shiny shopping veneers masking the shadow side

It’s a place where consumer waste is stored
Rolling toxic dumpsters
Industrial metal coffins
Line the dimly lit
concrete passageways of misery

Sunshine is immune for the cracks
of black purgatory foulness
Germs and garbage thrive
but love does not

My alley is real
It hurts
There is no love here
Parents are here
Children are here
members of the lost tribe
do a tribal death dance

No home cooked meals or fresh linens
greet you here
Just drug zombies worshipping pain
with outstretched pock marked arms
paying homage to the dark hole with no end

No one pretends to care anymore
because they have lost touch with those feelings
no one is worth caring about here

There is no use pretending
Everyone is equal
in the alley of pain and misfortune

you can smell the bullshit of someone else’s miserable story
it goes with the stench of the trash
All just garbage in the end
Maybe that’s why this place feels like home
because when it comes down to it
I trust that dumpster filled with trash over there
More than I trust you

Waking up in the dream

Raven feathers trailing behind her
She moves without a movie

She looks like she could be an illusion
But that isn’t the case

She is a place where dark is light
light is dark

Sharing a mystical world of seeing
not seeing

Telling stories that should be said
but aren’t spoken

Subtle differences seem small
galaxies thin

When we share a honeyed glance
Across the Milky Way
Across the table

Slicing the unknowable into subsections
Then gluing it back together with vivid imagination

Identity, separation and the non-dual
These are the specials of the day

Laid bare to be seen by the microscope of mutual viewpoint
Connected and sustained by an inner world so small
It could fall through the pores of your skin

Sing the song of sadness with a smile
Crooked tears run backwards into souls aching well

Say goodbye to the black bird
Flying alone in the night

Everyone seems to only want good things
Positive things
Sweetheart deals
Shopping bags filled with rich gifts
Second helpings served with silver spoons
More
Nicer
Newer
Faster
Bigger
Better

Good things are nice
Nice things are good

Accepting wholeness
Some parts aren’t easy
Some parts aren’t nice
Walk into fear at the beginning
Walk into fear at the end
Then there is a place for love to live
Then there is wholeness
Allowing life’s fullness to pass through
Unabated
Multi dimensions emerge and unfold
Bowing and retreating into infinite space

Families are diverse and alive with difference
Beauty and ugliness are sisters
Comfort and discomfort are married
Dark and light are brothers
Sweet and bitter are grandparents
The strongest medicine is often bitter
Without catalyst cement just doesn’t hold
Good wine is matured in cool cellars
Fine cheese is aged in humid caves
Great art comes from despair, longing and love
Beauty is everlasting
It springs from the well of all that there is

Denying the dark
Delays the inevitable
Imbalance can only result
Silently accumulating in dank corners
There are stockpiles of old bones
Lumps of coal in the bowels of old buildings
When there is a need to draw on deep reserves
Where is the light?
Where is the energy?
The freshness needed to feed and quench
It is downstairs where you left it waiting to be burned
Shovel the black rocks into the fire
While you sit on your pillow and meditate
Watch the flames dance
Watch the fire burn

Or are the reserves gone?
Consumed in a feeding frenzy
Stuffed with sweetness at the buffet of illusion
Decadent desert denial and delusion
Gluttonous and flabby bellies full of worms and fungus
Weak middle core lacking support
Back aching
Luxurious bedsores
Atrophied muscles too weak to lift limbs
Painfully stiff
Too weak to meet the day

Where is spiritual discipline now?
The nugget acquired in the moment
The one you thought was still in your silk lined pocket
It was left on the side of the road
While the party was driving by
Next to the wrappers, bottles and vines

There still is time
Now
To turn in again
And see what is already here

Refuse the limousine and walk in the dark
Into the fresh night air
Take comfort in alone-full-less-ness
Turn off the music and listen to nothing
Decline the invitation
Numb skulls
Chattering teeth
Words without meaning
Better to say nothing
Better to have the sky above as a home
Than the elegance of a soft velvet prison

Morning awakening fills the nostrils
The exquisite breath of freedom
Breathe deeply to the bottom of the lungs
Breathe it all in
Hold it for a few seconds
And then do it again
And again
Until you forget who you are
Lost between the inhale and exhale
Found only in the breathe

Warm bowl of rice in an earthen bowl
Grass mat on the monk’s dirt floor
The comfort of the soul is simple

Walk on rocks and then walk on water
Relax into the cold wind and warmth will overwhelm
Say what is left unsaid and you will be pleasantly surprised

Hoody
Rainy night

Which one is the cop?
All cars look undercover

The guy in crossing the street in front of me
The one with the new trainers on
Is he wearing a bullet proof vest?

What about the guys on the corner in black?
Are they undercover?

This plastic shopping bag I carry
Can anyone tell that it has a pound of weed in it?

My shoe lace is undone but I dare not stop
Then I’d have to set the bag down
Walk carefully
Cross the street walking in zig zags

Everyone is my enemy
Zombie junkies and shifty hollow eyes
Shifty jittery burning black holes

All of this is just a movie
On a dark downtown Vancouver night

Silent watching eye, Cleopatra’s magic portal
A round cavern filled with a thousand dark stars.
Unending black night hangs lazily over the mantle.
I recognized it from the past, exact flashes fired unnervingly.
Lives, bodies, blood, death, human misery, filling volumes, filing tombs.
Candles lit for the shrine of the unfinished, unburied and never always already dead.
I knew that the soft feathers were a distraction, the topical anesthetic to prepare
For the bigger injection, the lethal needle, the suction tube, the vacuum of doom.
The black bird stretches its wings and envelops its prey.
What a feat! What a feast! A feathered celebration of the abyss!
The flesh is fresh and the appetite still wet from the one before.
There is no extinguisher for this icy passion, this dark flame of negative intensity.
It will remove what isn’t even there and leaves nothing that wasn’t.
So clean so tidy is this rare pool of no reflection,
It is so dark the shadows cannot even see themselves.
Imagine what would happen if one walked in who didn’t know, who couldn’t see it?
God bless him and may the lord have mercy on his soul.