Sleeping on a plane

Sleeping on a plane.
Can't be done.
The airlines doesn't want
you to take up too much space
and think that you don't have enough of it.

A claustrophobic is the second to
last person you want on a plane.

They pump in cold
air to shrink wrap you
shivering in a cubic
foot of inadequate recline
with a pillow too small
to fit between the seat
and that window cavity
so it just falls
into the lap or feet of the guy behind you.

The blanket, however, is fine:
made of the hair of a blue angel.
It actually makes you colder.

I woke up shivering.
Correction, I opened my eyes
and simply quit pretending to be asleep.

How to ride a plane

1. You will not find homeless people
in the airport.
If you are not sprinting to your gate
you are sitting for no less
than an hour and a half
or a day.

They took your water away,
but not mine --
mine is buried in my carry-on
and I just lucked out at security.

There is a metaphor for life
at airport security.

The absurdity of traveling at
35,000 feet crosses every mind
jostled by turbulence
just for passing through a cloud.
Flying could be the worst decision
you ever made.

They used to smoke cigarettes on planes.
Just imagine.

There is as much technology
in the window separating you
from the enormous clouds
than there is in the clouds themselves
or your eyes, even.

You're breathing, after all
and you're not impressed by that.
You're reading a book.

These passengers are probably
not too different from yourself.
The fact that they are flying
says a lot.  On a plane, a bit more.
A few questions will unlock smiles and gently
murder Time without anyone noticing.

2. Short flights will only provide drinks
and you will have to pay for the alcoholic ones.
Best not to accept credit card offers
even if the 40 thousand free frequent flier miles sound enticing.
Few human being can manage a credit card responsibly.

Don't forget to pray before and
give thanks after a flight.
Science and engineering can't take
all the credit.  Some nano-
fraction of that happy landing
was out of reach of science, engineering
and their instruments.  Call this extra
the Remainder if you prefer not to use
words with religious connotations.

Feel free to clap at the end,
once you are sure the plane is safely
landed on Earth.  Even if no one else claps.
Because not even on a plane
should the joy of getting where you got
be contained.

Interpretation of a dream

I found my passion

it was a picture I saw
a long time ago in
Time magazine of a monk
Indian style on a sidewalk.
He was on fire and
according to the caption he
was silent.  So deep in
whatever else there is that
being on fire was something
else to him.  Something painless.

In the dream I knew that the
monk in the picture was me
as I looked for the metaphor
all I could know was that
there was one.

On the white at the
bottom of the picture was written:

Passion.

And then in much smaller writing set

in parenthesis 

it said (don't look for the lady

in the picture

find her in your arms.).
There was a winking smiley face
that looked like this: ;)

I looked at the picture again.

I saw in this picture

that I found in my mind

a landscape.

This landscape was within me

as if I were a glass sculpture

standing on a lone golden meadow

surrounded by a forest

which grew on the side of a mountain.

It was a particularly beautiful day.

Anyone would want to be there.

This territory was the Earth --

the Mother -- and I was to be integrated

with the Earth.  My mind,

this fire, my figure, were in the Timeless

never going to die

but I can only see them for this little while,

I said to myself.

And then I woke up.

It is true that nowhere is the darkness forever

It is true

that nowhere is the darkness forever.

 

Point a super telescope

at the darkest part of the sky

 

even there

in time

there will be light.

Some Saturday, 12th Grade

Hey mom,  sorry for not calling earlier

I'll be home late, after curfew actually.

I'm drinking heavily and won't remember

leaving this message tomorrow I'm sure.

I'm about to go out with people I don't really know

to a party at a house I've never been to

and don't know the address of

and the driver has only had five or six beers

so he's fine.  We'll all be fine.

We're in the car smoking marijuana

that we bought from some dudes

who went to the city recently.

They said it was the best of Mexico

and the ecstasy is 95 percent pure

so not much risk there

but I feel hot, on my skin,

and my mind cannot be distinguished

from any other thing.  I wonder if I'm here

if I'm alive but I'm okay

it's just philosophy.

Love you forever.

Sorry for the long message.

Okay love you.  See you tomorrow.

Bye.

Samsara, Impermanence, and the Will of Love

Always self-identified as a Buddhist
and so believed that escaping from the cycle
of suffering that is Life was it. That was the goal.
But I've met you now and am confused
like I was before I met the Buddha.
I now think, well, if you're coming back
then I'm coming back, too.
Again and again I'll come back with you.

And I have this poem I read back in high school
getting all jumbled up with my own ending here
and it goes like,
I have many lives to live before I leave.
And I have many lives to live before I leave.

Amidst folly and war and laughter and risk
there is togetherness.
We decide if it is permanent.
And if we decide that it is,
then it is, isn't it?

hold your tongue

You might have ten thousand clever responses. 
It is heartbreaking when you realize that
keeping your mouth shut is the best of them.