The Tutor

Be silent and listen: 

have you recognized your madness 

and do you admit it? 

Have you noticed that all your foundations 

are completely mired in madness? 

Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? 

You wanted to accept everything. 

So accept madness too. 

Let the light of your madness shine, 

and it will suddenly dawn on you. 

Madness is not to be despised and 

not to be feared, 

but instead you should give it life...

If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, 

since it makes up such a great part of your nature...

Be glad that you can recognize it, 

for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit 

and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, 

since life itself is full of craziness 

and at bottom utterly illogical. 

Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. 

Life itself has no rules. 

That is its mystery and its unknown law. 

What you call knowledge 

is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life."

C.G. Jung

Moment

An older woman walked up to me 
after my morning swim
as I was walking stick my way out to my car
 slow as a fucking slug
and says

"I watch you come in here every day 
and exercise in the pool 
... I respect you so much"

"Thank you," I replied. 
"You are most kind
You just made my day"

Didn't help me move faster
or without my good friend, pain ... 
but that touch of simple human kindness inflated my lungs with emotion
with gratitude

As my long time compadre and friend
Cameron
is prone to say when moments like these 
arrive out of the ether

"Better than winning the lottery"

~ zjm

16/8/19

For Matt Meg and Cam

UNDERTOW 

I set out one night 

When the tide was low 

There were signs in the sky 

But I did not know I’d be caught in the grip

Of the undertow 

And ditched on a beach 

Where the sea hates to go 

With a child in my arms 

And a chill in my soul 

And my heart the shape 

Of a begging bowl

Leonard Cohen

From 'The Flame

Mt. Baldy

Only

By crossing

The Bridge to Nowhere 

In both directions

After immersion

 In desolation

Does one find

Their fucking way

Out!

Perhaps

~ zjm

15/8/19

Visitor

visiting light 

slips through my fingers

 like morning mist

~ zjm

15/8/19

Leaving

I don't need a reason
For what I became
I've got these excuses
They're tired and they're lame
I don't need a pardon, no no, no no, no
There's no one left to blame
I'm leaving the table
I'm out of the game
I'm leaving the table
I'm out of the game

~ Leonard Cohen

My song for today

"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."

~ Anais Nin

Exhale

Beautiful sunrise with cool low humidity air greeting my morning. 

Left my parking lot and stopped at McDonalds to get coffee and a sausage sandwich. Talked with a young man about to end his 10 hour shift, go grocery shopping, then home to his 2 and a half, and 1 and a half year old kids, spend some time with them, and his wife, before trying to sleep this afternoon to ready himself for work tonight. 

He was full of optimism laced with fatigue ... 

I am in front of the Y, getting mentally and physically ready to make my way to the pool to swim and work out this body that battles me constantly ... 

Thinking of my daughter Megan ...  my grandkids Emilio ... Camilo ... and Neali, asleep far away on another coast ...

All of us
Tired
Resting
Getting ready 
Hunting for cagey optimism 
To live another day

Exhale ...

~ zjm

10/8/19

From the parking lot I call home

Before

I sleep ...

Cat naps in my

Projectile home

That guide me to a new dawn

Crammed in like

Charlie the Tuna in a can

Yet

There is beauty to drink

That tames the soul

And brings rest

~ zjm

9/8/2019

Relinquishment

August 7

First day of autumn 

On ancient calendars 

First brushes of colour

Hint of changes

On their way

Welcome or not

Dark

Cold

Snow

Shadows

Starkness 

 Death

That offers the costly

Olive branch

Of rebirth 

zjm ~