Old Summer, Old Age - Poem (in progress)

Old Summer, Old Age

Too many shadows

This late in the morning

And the shadows stay too far into the day

But the light comes in at angles that illuminate

In a less garish way

And bounces back

So the world looks new

Every morning

There are too many shadows

But the world looks new

Like light filtered through

Golden aspen leaves…

--Eric Marley

September 2013

My Little Boy - Poem

My Little Boy

Dark desert

Wet street

Recent rain

Bare feet

No light

Stars bright

He walks

Alone.

I see him now.

Hair tousled but not

With Sunday morning love

A child, maybe four

He runs out the door…

Because for this child

There’s more.

Swooping down from the omniscient sky above and behind him

I can see

On this dark road

Between Cheyenne and Laramie

A teddy bear

Vigilant button eye

Spies behind

Ready to warn

The road weary child

Of impending...

The bear feet

And bare feet

Are torn

Pebble worn

Soiled jeans and

T-shirt too light

Even in daylight

This boy keeps walking -

Walking the dark highway

Walking.

He doesn’t see the stars

Instead he sees the wet street

Tears leaving streaks

There are no cars.

Looking left

Then looking right

He is encircled by

Cavernous

Eternal

Emptiness

Oh the questions in this young soul’s eyes!

How did he get here?

Why did this loneliness happen?

This falling through all things…

What Being thinks this is ok?

He feels no support

Lost and bereft…

And then at that point

When all hope seems lost

The teddy bear in

His dirty right hand

Pulls him, gets heavy

The boy

The weary traveler

Looks down towards his only companion

And there in the ditch

He sees

An apple.

--Eric Marley

June 2013

Leaving You (for April) - Poem

Leaving You

I feel like I am considering suicide when I think of leaving you

Like I’ve betrayed the only person that would stand by me

Dooming me to my dreams and nightmares

Making my very own body my enemy

Melting me in my chair, spineless, sleepless

Holding my head so it doesn’t come apart all day

Prayer doesn’t work any more

Caffeine doesn’t work any more

Blue sky doesn’t work anymore

It has wandered away, bored

I can’t blame it

I can’t stay either.

If I am not sick, I am with us

I thought we could be well

But all I can see is me

My pain, my confusion, my time

My selfishness, my inability to capitulate

To you and your demands

That multiply and expand

That dictate to me the definition of

Your Man

There is no more us

Only you

Only me

And I want us to be

Happy

Like we were on that sunny summer afternoon

In head-high grass by the river

I think in some alternate universe we could be

We are
But I can’t keep going

I can’t stay with you while you heal

I can’t stay with you while I heal

But I feel like I am considering suicide when I think of leaving you

Except that suicide won’t hurt.

--Eric Marley

To/From/Because of... Fourth Month

Fourth month, 2013

Celestial Cinematography - Poem

Celestial Cinematography

A dog with antennae

A sleeping witch

A Suess-ian tree

A bear with a turtle shell

A man looking up, crying

A gi-normous butt

A man in a boat

A mermaid…

I love clouds!

--Eric Marley

June 2013

Why We Practice - Very short essay

Because of where I find myself in the waking up process right now, I am fascinated with seeing the things that knock me into the fantasy land of unnecessary past or future thought. Those "things" are entertaining as hell to see and they have this "squishy" quality - every time I see one, it morphs into something else the next time. For example, I have noticed that I have a visceral resistance to setting my ass down and doing my practice in the morning sometimes. I can feel it in my body, a charged restlessness. That's normal for me and I accept it with, like I mentioned, a bit of humor. The squishy part comes with the reasons my hyperactive mind comes up with for not wanting to practice. These can be chores, puttering, basic laziness, it's too nice out, it's too not nice out, I should text Sammi, I should, I should, I SHOULD, etc.) THE REASONS ARE SO COMPELLING SOMETIMES. But really, unless the cat is on fire (again) or I truly overslept and have stuff to do that are important to my soul AND that are time sensitive to this world, the centering practices that anchor and help charge my moment-to-moment practice of seeing the natural tides of my funky mind the rest of the day are too valuable to pass on. And here’s the point: the things that try to take me from my practice are some of the same things that knock me from my Practice of just Being present in every moment. This gives my little morning ceremony even MORE value. If I didn’t have that, the things that knock me off my moments wouldn’t be as visible to me. Here’s why: a practice gives a point in time to value on a soulful level. That’s like baiting ego because ego generally HATES soulful things. So we stick the bait out (“Hey ego, guess what? I meditate at 530am every day and I LIKE it!”), and ego takes the bait every time. Then we watch dispassionately what arises, recognize how that happens ALL FREAKING DAY in different ways and then go back to breath in our practice with a little smile. This gives us strength to deal with the daily stuff because we’ve seen it before, we know where ego wants to hide and we know it’s as simple as returning to the breath because we did it that morning in practice. Other times, ego will shift on us. It will suddenly LOVE soulful things and start to see itself as holy and WAY righteous. That one manifests as judgment of others and self-pissedoffedness (not in Webster’s dictionary), and many other individualized ways we can observe. Isn’t it a gas? I think it is. As Jeb Barton once told me, seeing all this is “serious play!” OK, time to go organize the garage. J