Two Poems Marching...

Stuffed Into Little Compartments

Are we made of a string of experiences or
cubes of experience?
Are we hanging around the neck of princess-time,
or does the time-child use us like lego blocks?
Perhaps these are questions with no answers, but
they’re questions we need to ask ourselves.
Koans fly up like sparks from the friction in the fire,
and we need to capture those sparks.
Some turn into fireflies.

If we’re like string,
and we’re strung together,
we can place ourselves
in the Web of Life.
Every filament would fit.
There would be no discrepancy.
But if we liken ourselves to a collation of cubes,
the Web of Life couldn’t hold us.
The weight would be too great.
The burden placed on each filament would be too…
well…burdensome.

There seems to be a modern and instinctual
need to place experience A in cube A and experience B
in cube B.
With the cubes, the boxes
of trapped experience,
we create a pyramid of
rationalism.
Then we look at it. Admire it.
“Yes! Oh yes! The sterile intellect.
Perfect in every way.
The trauma in cube 23 almost makes it imperfect,
but it’s probably best to repress the contents.”

I say we dismantle this structure,
this cubed psyche,
with some quakes and hammers.
I say we pry open the cubes, put the jewels of
experience on a string, and let pain and pleasure,
malice and compassion, and past and present dangle
together.
I say we make a vulnerable and honest necklace
for the gods.

Secret Door

All doors must not become known to the eyes
that seek either an entrance or exit.
There must be at least one, just one creaky door,
that remains incognito, surreptitious
to the optic nerves.
It can remain hidden inside the nuclear core
of the atomic apple for all I care.
Just keep it away from the cameras and peepers.

The Secret Door would lead to a freedom not
contained or contaminated by words.
Therefore, its location is not privy to the alphabet-sleuth.
The Secret Door would lead to a space beyond space.
Therefore, its location is, in a sense, nowhere to be found.
To assume it has a location at all would be inane.
The Secret Door, as has been indicated previously
In this unfolding of words, remains incognito to the very
notion of “locale”.

The Sage speaks:
Lean closely.
I am going to tell you where the Secret Door dwells or not.
Closer!
Yes, there.
I am going to whisper into your ear the secret of
secrets.
Very softly now:
The Secret Door has always been inside the very fabric
of your being.