~~FlowingOm~~

I am not
Dalai lama

I am
Buddha
With a lampshade on my head

I cannot
give to you
My emptiness
Until I dance it into my joy

Then I will hold you


The lampshade
Is
And grows dusty


So I try


Moving in stillness
From my core

Then I sneeze

The lampshade is dusty
I fall over

When I rise
The sun shines into my eyes

The lamp shade has fallen into the soil
My forest of ghosts

I can breathe now
So I give you my breathe

It is not mine to hold

Though I have no arms
I am determined
To reach out

to hand you

My shadows
My heart
My blindness
My sight

Are they mine to give?

Can I forgive my falling
When in a moment of fear
I reach for the lampshade?


Will you hold me then?

1

In the throws of languor

I am covered in seawater

Sea turtle heavy against my chest

And cannot feel

My mother’s embrace



2

In my suit of torpor

I grow large

With protection

That leaves me

Raw



3

In the craving of release

I am the gardener

Growing “I’s”

And watching them

Fall away

Shattered masks



4

In a moment of vision

I can feel

Each small feather

Of change

Brushing my skin

Before sinking in



5

In Cultivating now

Now

I am swimming to the surface

Of my depths

And smiling in the mirror

Of every one





6

In the comfort and discomfort of attention

I can breathe

Gliding on the turtles back

Towards the sea’s

Mothering embrace



7

in the wind of today

I am a riddle

With ever changing answers

And only one truth



8

in the captivation of laughter

I can dance on fishes

Swirling into the places

Language has no need to reach



9

In the mundane

Everything is sacred

And becoming

Is merging

With everything

And no thing



10

In the seat of my palm

My heart

I stare into this stranger

And she courses through me



11

In the quiet of quiet

Silence embraces

A deep breathe of thunder

When sinking is floating



12

In the contemplation

Of the journeyed path

I am traveling the arteries and vessels

Of the universal body

And my feeling of being lost

Is illusion

Lynn Frances
8/22/04

I used to sit

In bed




Art books piled high

Poetry anthologies

Balanced on my head




Journal and pen at my side




Flipping pages

Diving into

Images



Waiting



For the first line

To jump

From the photographed paint

From the near biographies




Finding it’s way

Onto the soft paper journal

The underside of my wrist




And then words would follow like waterfalls

And in the moonlight

I never knew what words were next



Only that my face was upturned

To the rush

And I knew I could

Breathe underwater



The words formed tapestries

Filled pages

Fed me



I would stay up all night

As if

With

A new lover