The Soulsmith

Poverty of moisture

Often makes a root run deep

Limiting the sunlight

Surely makes short branches reach

Pruning spawns new growth each year

And seasons of drought

Make a wood grow stronger

The tightened grain weaves density

In each successive ring

Yet these are groomed through trial

Into more enduring things

Crowded forests makes growth straight

With fewer knots

Both born of challenging fate

Thus life is not for leisure

But the tempering of will

We’re held within the fire

Till our mettle is revealed

And when the Soulsmith’s hammer falls

Potential seems impinged

Yet passing through the cold of death

The spirit’s strength sets in

Thorned Rose

He never told me to my face

He spoke behind my back

He always agreed with a smile

That lied with every pact

A rose with thorns

Hallow with horns

O’ how the man could act

An enemy will lull you

Like a friend before attack

Presage of Faith

The power of faith in creation

Is the conscious will to proceed

Founded in laws of causation

Ends through their means are achieved

Born through the presage of planning

The future is seen through belief

Hastening works that must follow

To bring fruition to being

Ballast

The gold that poisons lives with greed

Can buy a slave his freedom

The clothes that feed our vanity

Can thwart the cold of even

It’s not material things we fight

But spirit that we wrestle

For ballast itself can weigh us down

Or stabilize our vessel

Gold Mind

Desires influence our thoughts

But thoughts also influence these

For as we apply conscious reasoning

Desires acquire their breed

Some selfish, some selfless, some neither

The reason for want genus brings

Its not in the object desired

But the motives we have towards such things

As gold is not bad in its essence

The evil is found in our greed

For if it is used to bless others

The worth of all souls are increased

The Key

When but a child

One time I spied

Through a keyhole

On the other side a mirror

Reflecting but an eye

I startled, as it opened wide

At first I couldn’t recognize myself

And then considered why

There’s more to me then meets the eye

When looking through a narrow die

Then something said inside of me

Into this hole insert the key

Unlock the door and then you’ll see

Open the door and set me free

Sometimes I think upon that day

Of what I learned and how I may express in terms

The Golden Key

I found in shapes of empathy

The tumblers are no mystery

The teeth are as you know to be

The good, the kind, your hopes, and dreams

See others as you would be seen

Unlock the door

Open your mind

To broader views

And Self you’ll find

Portals

Just what do we identify

As sovereign to the self?

Do energies that we exude

Infuse our works with wealth?

It’s said that where our treasure is

That there our heart be also

An omnipresent portal to

A sense of self we follow

Do we infuse ourselves into

The girth of glitz and gold?

Or do we serve the living

Those with heart, and mind, and soul?

As love expands our essence

In the seeds of self we sow

Investments in life’s field will yield

A harvest manifold

Though confined to our entity

Our presence spreads abroad

Those heightened in awareness

See the greater Self in awe

Thus, forms which Self inhabits

Does not matter to the sage

Such see their own endurance

Through the course of every age

Framed

Each human has a different slant

On what they think and feel

And so one must determine

If the cause of such is real

What is the source of confidence?

What is the source of fear?

What is the source of contentment?

What is the source drear?

Are these produced within ourselves?

Do they jive with conditions?

Are they constructive signals

Those which enjoin good ambitions?

Are they but empty drama

Born of specters which we conjure

If so they serve no purpose

To awareness though we ponder

Perception can be tainted thus

By savor of emotions

And frame our own experience

In predetermined notions

Clean

Through the dark pane of life is seen

But outlines of our fellow beings

Each in disguise

We try the same

To hide our difference ‘neath our shame

To know them

We must know ourselves

Beyond the masks

Beyond the pelf of false self-worth

We must come clean

To see them as we would be seen

Gearing Down

To move that which is mammoth

We must always gear things down

Where small force prolonged over time

Can ease the task per pound

We conquer the impossible

By doing what we can

With honest pure consistency

These mountains move as planned

The Absolute

I questioned why I questioned things

Can any truth be known

With unshakable certitude

Before one knows the whole?

And yet I knew I was aware

Though dreaming or awake

Though lucid or deluded

The Self is not a fake

The Plot

The map rosette showed north and south

As well as east and west

Yet gave no clue to where I was

And so I took my rest

But as the sun began to set

I found my bearings true

Triangulating by the stars

I finally got a clue

Without the point of self to guide

All bearings have no plot

Inside this massive universe

Direction would be lost

Likeness

“Created in God’s likeness”

What does this really mean?

In form?

In mind?

In property?

Or substance of our being?

I’d hate to think that Providence

Was limited to these

Unless our own potential

Were beyond our wildest dreams

Side Effects

The power of placeboes

Trick the mind with some finesse

And yet their healing power

Is the power you possess

Thus those which promise confidence

Transfix the very source

And make self-love dependent

On external fraud endorsed

And thus, in fact, they weaken

The resistance to self-doubt

Creating feeble addicts

Which eat dust to cure their drought

Then real soul sickness deepens

As they won’t address the cause

But focus on the symptoms

While ignoring self-help laws

Some wear a string of gold and bling

Like garlic ‘round the neck

To ward off social vampires

Their weak egos to protect

Some wear sheik clothes like armor

As protection from derision

Some try to buy acceptance

And endorse a class division

Yet these are all illusions

They add nothing to the soul

Don’t buy into snake oils

Or the bane of doubt will grow

For self-respect cannot be earned

By praise received from others

And independent liberty

Is not safety in numbers

For such will leave the weakest

Of the herd to become food

For this social cohesion

Is but selfishness imbued

So disregard the bleat of sheep

Their hype and bray is gas

Heed not such foolish flatulence

Their talking out their ass

By feeding insecurity

You propagate its life

It then becomes a monster

Which will dominate your life

Yet if you starve the monster

You’ll be surprised to find

That you are the beast’s master

Without you it can’t survive

Such are our little demons

These imps deceive the heart

Imaginary monsters

We fear lurking in the dark

Turn on the light--they vanish

Just call their bluff--they fold

Their bite turns to a bark

Then to a whimper fairly droll

Let go--the beast is toothless!

Fear not its feeble wrath

Such collared beasts will drag you down

A dead end prim rose path

Let go of fear --release it!

The leash is in your hand

This monkey on your back

Is but a “kick me” sign to ban

Let go of pride and glory

Let go of airs and caste

Let go of petty vanity

Let go of your ballast

Let go and rise above it

Let go of cool and class

Let go of these placebos

And their shelf life you’ll outlast

A Valentine’s Day Sonnet

Roses are red

Violets are violet

Money is green

I wish that I had some

Blacktops are black

Oranges are orange

There’s nothing about love

That rhymes with violet or orange

Except smorangiolet

But still I like those colors

So I thought of you

And remember orange and violet are almost opposites

And you know what they say about opposites

If you mix them together

They make brown

Okay, I don’t like brown

So let’s just say that love is pink

But that rhymes with stink

So on second thought

Love isn’t a color at all--it’s a word

A very colorful word

Is

Born to death

We grapple truth

Seduced by good and evil

Forgetting the clear, patent proof

Man’s destiny is equal

All that we hope to possess

Is a ruse that’s cloaked in bliss

For life is but a lie

Like the betrayal of a kiss

So what is all desire?

And instinct’s biased slant?

Our torment in pleasure and pain

But vain significance

Are these born of awareness?

Or taradiddles’ wrath?

Is self found in the ego?

Or beyond all earthly chaff?

So what’s the Grand Reality?

The fact behind the phiz?

The permanent, the meaningful

Beyond the is what is?