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Saturday, December 10, 2011

Zen Insight #4: Dodging Bullets

"It is not about anger---it is about peace. It is not about power---it is about grace. It is not about knowing your enemy---it is about knowing yourself."     ---from the movie "Bulletproof Monk"

"But from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out in you where the heart lies"    ---Pablo Neruda

The appointment
with the cardiologist
was uneventful.

They ordered tests
to be completed 
in a month, no
sense of urgency.

My anxiety about 
going back to Altoona
for a court hearing 
was unfounded. 
My lawyer told me
not to even show up!

There were damages
done    I lost friends
and my relatioship 
with my Zen Master
is questionable.

That happens
everytime I get up.
Hazard of being bipolar
Oh, well...

I live my life
with no regrets
I am who I am
and if someone 
cannot handle that
then they do not 
need to be a part 
of my life.

I try very hard
and strive to be 
courageous and
compassionate.
I have my moments
of being an asshole.

But as Tom Waits sings
"If I exorcize my devils/
my angels may leave too/
and when they leave/ 
they are so hard to find."

ZEN INSIGHT #4: DONE!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Zen Insight #1: Another's other, AGAIN!

"But I have promises to keep
Miles to go before I sleep."
----Robert Frost

I don't know why
but I feel safer
when I fall in love
with someone who is already in a relationship.

Perhaps it comes with the realization
that a relation
will not come to fruition.

Usually the  women I choose
are ones who
are in troubled relationships.

I suit up in my shiny armour 
mount my steed, and
try to ride to the rescue
My aim is true.

Usually I end up in regret
feeling like a tossed aside
rediculous Don Quihote 
who spends his life
tilting at windmills.

I found another's other
that I have fallen in love with
wanting to fill that position of savior
knowing that I am sinning at the same time.

The juxtaposition of ideals is troubling.
It starts innocently enough, but
my constant craving for affection
eventually takes over. Which 
leads to the downfall of the relationship.

There are many of these women 
stilll on my "friends list"
I just cannot bear to make the break
and give up on them, even
if they have given up on me.
If they "de-friend" me, it is a relief
and a disappointment at the same time.

So, I found another friend
A woman who describes herself
as a "broken child."
My first instinct is to help somehow
I call myself "The Fixer."
My second instinct is to flee
because I know
that I will eventually be the one
that is not the one.
I will be hurt, AGAIN.

Ahh, such is my life. 
I have spent a year in seclusion
as if I have been trapped
in a monestary. I want to escape.

But what I actually have to offer? 
I am a "broken child" myself
a manic-depressive on disability
living with my elderly parents 
who depend upon me for so much.
I promised them that they would never be 
put into a home, that
I would take care of them.

I have a deal with my sister.
For doing this task, which she refuses to do,
when it is time, she
will find me a good home.
One where I can smoke out of the hole in my throat.

I still have desire, albeit deminished.
Who does not want to be loved.
My greatest fear is dying alone.
I wish I were not crazy, else
I never would have left my wife.

Zen Insight #1: DONE!

Wm Andrew Turman
12/7/11

Monday, September 12, 2011

"Another Shall Be Another's"

Ode to JB, courtesy of Pablo Nuerto, Poema 20


I burn
my smoke competing 
with the fog sliding
across the pasture before me

I hear the crickets sing
in the darkness
at my feet
another shall be another's

Venus shining down 
through the clouds
whispering
another shall be another's

Leaves falling
from the trees
remind me 
another shall be another's

It is easier
I tell myself
to pine for the unattainable 
so let another be another's

I stare 
at the tattoos that
cover my arms 
what was once art 
is now a warning:
Don't get too close!
Lest you become 
blood of my blood
skin of my skin
bone of my bone.

Bare Naked Ladies 
on the computer croon
"I wake up scared, I wake up strange 
I wake up wondering if anything in my life is ever going to change 
I wake up scared, I wake up strange 
And everything around me stays the same"

So I paint. That is what I do
fast and furious. 
I don't want to stop 
lest sleep over come me

I need someone 
I want to love,
to be loved. 
I don't want to be alone.

But for now
to staunch the bleeding, 
I allow myself only
what crumbs are left over.

A Buddhist, a begger
is there a difference
at this point?
My needs don't matter.
Not when another shall be another's.