look, look, look
Me, Me, Me
here and there
with this and that
each selfie spiritual
always up
always hashtagged
always posing
always poised
BUY, BUY, BUY
such a thrill
cloaked in prosperity
escape with me
checkmark, heart, smiley
emoticons ate emotions
emotionally so intelligent
being so mindful
feels so really
Me, Me, Me
Copyright 2019, All Rights Reserved
Photo: Limo2PHL2LAX (Philadelphia, July 2019)
When the sky darkens
With the approaching storm,
When the sky darkens
With the fading day,
I will not retreat.
When the shouts drown out the smiles
And children stop being happy,
When sadness becomes infectious
And metastasizes into gloom,
I will not despair.
When the numbers overwhelm
And all feelings become scary,
When all lose forever all hope
And desperation paints all into corners,
I will not surrender.
When heavy rains turn creeks into torrents
Of heavy brown turbulent mud
That erodes both earth and lives,
I will not get swept away.
When death and its stench
Foul the land and our nostrils,
When sobbing is the only
Sound greeting the morning,
I will not stop living.
I will not succumb
To all the hells that have been
To all the hells all around me
To all the hells that will be.
I am burning bright even in darkest night
Glowing above the most terrifying storm
Not dimmed by events on Earth or in sky;
My eternal joy, hope and optimism burn
Stronger than mere dogma, fear, and power.
I am the sun.
© 2017 by John David Higham: All Rights Reserved
Sky, Sun, and Earth (Windfall Road, January 21, 2017)
On this road I walk,
I saw a mountain
That was such a mountain
That was a barrier
That was a wall,
It
Stopping me from moving
Stopping me from living
Stopping me from being.
On this road I walk
I saw a cloud
That was such a cloud
That was a darkened crown
That was a Night Angel,
It
Stopping me from breathing
And filling my mind
With thoughts of retreating
With thoughts of failing
With thoughts of surrender.
On this road I walk
I saw the sun lighting
That was such glowing lights
Breaking through the gray veil,
It
Melting away my fear
Melting away my surrender
Melting away my failure
Until this mountain
Until this cloud
Until this road
Was
Once again
Mine.
On this road I walk
Mountain,
Cloud,
And sun
Guide me this day
Guide me this path
Guide me this life.
© 2016 by John David Higham: All Rights Reserved
Photo: White Christmas 2016 (Thunder Mountain, Sedona, 12/25/16)
Little minds,
Little minds
Please don’t
Distort, defile, define
My reality;
I don’t need
Your language of violence,
Your language of oppression,
Your language of fear.
Little minds,
Little minds
Please
Go run and play with
Someone else’s soul
And leave mine alone;
I am not your playground.
Little minds,
Little minds
Your swirling evil
Blurs my vision,
Hurts my ears
And numbs my skin.
Little minds,
Little minds
Please:
I sojourn through worlds
That you won’t
Allow yourself to comprehend.
Little minds,
Little minds
Please
Let me bring you here,
But you have to
First
Free yourself
Of the violence that binds you
Of the oppression that binds you
Of the fear that binds you.
Little minds,
Little minds,
Thank you for being
And
Thank you for teaching
Me patience, serenity,
And temperance
Again.
© copyright 2016 John David Higham
Who wants this truth
That is flowing like a river from the sun
And cascades all over my life
In a nurturing flood
Of Abundance and bliss?
Who needs the touch of the warm wind,
The hypnotic sound of the ocean’s waves,
And the comforting embrace of a lover
In the middle of a raging snowstorm?
Why would I share these worlds?
What might they bring me
Or take from me if I sat only in silence
And said nothing of the thousand worlds
Inside my head?
What should become of those
If each were hidden in a prison of my mind’s making,
Each submitted to a rigorous test before allowed
To grace the glorious light of day?
It reminds me of the dawn:
In the morning, the sun brings the birds and their music
Until the discordant logic machinery disrupts
The day’s symphony.
These things my path consists of;
How many countless times have I lost myself
Justifying my truth to the birds who only care to fly,
The sun that only cares to shine,
The wind that only cares to move about?
They’ve no use for my justifications
And neither do I;
Truth exists sans words and reasons
And requires I justify
Nothing to my strictest judge: me.
My art is my truth,
My truth is my life,
My life is my being,
My being is this poem:
Nothing more I will explain.
© copyright 2016 John David Higham
I saw
Blank pages,
Blank books,
Unfinished poems,
Unfinished synopses,
Unfinished pitches;
I saw them everywhere.
I heard
Unspoken dialogues,
Undeveloped characters
Unrealized plots;
I heard them all night.
Too many
Worlds were swirling
In my head;
Waking, dream, creative, mundane
Were all begging, stealing, fighting
For my attention, my energy, my soul.
Too much, too much, too much
In this writer’s world
Being pushed aside ;
Creative opportunities,
Artistic potentials
Flowing like floodwaters
In all directions
Across an infinite plain.
Will my passion shrivel
If I don’t overfeed it?
Will my magician
Cease making his magic?
Will enslavement
And mediocrity
Be mine?
Meditating,
I sought out
The Inner Voice,
The Universe,
The Great Spirit,
The Angels
To direct me.
Breathing in,
Breathing out,
Breathing in,
Breathing out,
Breaths cleansed me…
So loud the answer
Came to my consciousness:
“Temperance,”
“Temperance,”
“Temperance.”
I saw my smile.
I heard my bliss
And the worlds
Stopped swirling
In my head
So that I could once again
Write my soul’s poem.
© copyright 2016 John David Higham
In the deepest part of the night
When silence replaced commotion
And the cries of suffering souls
Were more easily discerned,
My path intersected with yours;
Our words becoming interwoven
On the electronic page.
You who questions
In a half-sorta-kinda way
(Was it sarcasm dripping:
I’m still not sure)
Like a lightning bolt that
Flashed deep into my soul
To that faraway place
Of transcended yesterdays.
There,
I had fought my way
With submission and suicidal self-loathing
Out of school buses ruled by bullies
And into those governed by men
Who sought to take that which no one gives
And repulsed those beasts with such rage
That they rightly feared for their lives.
I, who have seen childhood nights
Blossom into hells created by psychosis
And rage by those who parented me,
Learned to know me
Learned to know waking and dream worlds
As safe and loving
And learned to challenge evil
At its every turn on my path.
Imperfect, I
Shattered windows, walls,
Windshields, and hearts
During my clumsy evolution;
Those painful episodes
And subsequent amends
Now distant mileposts,
But always significant lessons.
Yes, your words
I gave immense power
To take me to such places,
To recall being so hurt,
So sensitive that my only safety
Was so far deep inside my writing
That nothing and no one could harm
That nothing and no one could enter.
Too,
My words and wit
Once won me many a fight
(Or, misunderstandings that
Evolved into silly battles of egos)
That served only to bloody the souls
Of all involved.
Those, too, are of my past.
I will not hide my faith,
I will not rage on you or me,
I will not dig deep into you
And subject to ridicule
Your motivation,
Your being,
Your pain,
Your path.
Instead,
I who learns,
I who meditates,
I who listens to The Angels,
I who knows my path
And respects you on yours;
I send in The Angels
And embrace gratitude
Because I can turn my cheek.
© copyright 2016 John David Higham
Air dancing, air slamming me
Closer toward the ground,
Making me forget
How high I have flown.
Turbulence; my sweet foe
Twisting my wings,
Pushing at my eyes,
And making me gulp
For the very air
That pounds at my chest
And quickens my pulse.
Turbulence, fucking turbulence
Making me plummet,
Turning me from a glider
Into a stone,
I wonder: How many seconds
Are mine until I
Will be smashing
Into the ground?
Turbulence; too much air
All around me;
Not in my lungs,
Not under my wings,
But instead
Twisting, twisting, twisting
Bouncing me to and fro,
Like a crazed puppet
Tangled in its strings.
Turbulence turns me upside down,
Pushes me backward,
Wringing all life out of me,
Forcing me into a midair standstill,
For an eternal moment
Of hellish inertia.
Will I resume defying gravity?
Will I rediscover propulsion?
Can I again triumph over drag?
Will I ever again celebrate
The ecstasy of lift, of knowing
I am gaining, gaining altitude?
My little heart bursts in fear,
My little mind races with contingencies,
My little body fights, flees, freezes
All at once in a crazy destructive dance
As turbulence from within explodes, joining
Turbulence from the sky to erase my aerodynamics;
But still, I make myself flop fly
Without thinking,
Without feeling
Instead just being, trusting this new glide path
That has its own awkward logic.
Somehow, flight is mine again;
I seem to have broken invisible puppet strings
And again bounce and bound
Through the skies
And choose when to land.
I am air dancing,
I am air slamming,
Flailing and flying,
Climbing and diving.
Turbulence laughs at me, it
Appearing from and
Disappearing into
Thin air that flows
All around and within me;
Sky and I are again at peace.
© copyright 2016 John David Higham
I must today visit
A very dark place,
(a very evil place)
To be a sunrise with Light and Love,
To free another’s soul imprisoned,
To undertake a new journey
That will also liberate me.
I have now been directed
By the Inner Voice
To be generous of spirit;
To give, and give, and give
Before I embark this morning.
Behold my gifts…
Here is how you find a miracle:
Stop looking with your eyes
And start feeling with your soul
Through mindfulness.
That breath you have,
That love you feel,
That bond you embrace:
Know through gratitude
That they are gifts
Given you by The Universe.
Each moment you know these things
Is a miracle: fear and need arise
From the body, not the soul.
Bliss comes from within
Within,
Within,
Within.
Connect to The Light
In each and every being around you;
Let them love you,
Let you love you,
And bliss will pour through your being.
Faith and surrender
Will guide you
But only if you let them.
Achievement and attainment are empty vessels:
Drink from them when you must,
But accept they are poor substitutes for
The serenity that comes from stillness
The warmth that comes from love
The strength that comes from acceptance.
Beware the trap of abundance
As it has nothing to do with mammon
But instead with miracles,
But instead with love,
But instead with bliss.
Know that each step
You take along your true path
Will bring you greater challenges
That would have crushed
Your older self just months
And years ago
Before you learned transmutation
And spontaneous rebirth.
Beware the trap of transcendence
As being numb doesn’t answer the call
For authenticity and evolution:
Cry and retreat as you must,
Tend to your wounds
And turn those scars
Into the living fabric
Of your courage,
Of your soul,
Of your path.
Do not intoxicate yourself
In the empty quest to find meaning
In the empty quest to articulate meaning
In the empty quest to define others
As these follies are like tissue paper fence posts
On the path; they deceive you
Into thinking you are somehow
More profound than the fool
You have always been,
You have always needed to be:
Know and embrace your role.
Do not invest in asking “Why?” or “How?”
But instead query, “What is my role?”
And be prepared to answer
With action, faith, and love.
Endeavor to know
That the voices who speak to you
Are of Heaven and not of Hell:
Query each on your path
And cleanse yourself
Of the impure.
Know that although your path
Is yours and always yours,
You are never alone;
The Angels are waiting patiently
For you
To seek Them,
To realize that you need Them,
To accept that you deserve Them.
May your soul embrace The Angels,
May your being transmit Light.
May you know that
I am sending The Angels
To you as your eyes
See these words.
These lessons of mine
Are yours also,
Though only if they resonate:
If not, dismiss them
And find what is authentic
On your path.
Namaste.
© Copyright 2016 John David Higham
Step (what a step);
Do you see that step
That calls to my heart?
That says I will change
When I take it?
It’s too, too big
It’s too, too large;
I can’t take that step!
So, I push and I push and
I push with all my might
And
I take my step: whew!
Path (what a path);
You see that path
That calls my Inner Voice?
I don’t even know where it goes!
I don’t even know why
It’s here, what my purpose is,
Or how I’m ever gonna
Survive!
I better study it completely
And ask and ask and
Ask and ask everyone else
About their paths, their reasons
Before I decide anything
About this one.
So, I ask and I ask and I ask`
And ask and ask,
Memorize all their answers, then
Start stretching, stretching, stretching
As
I take my path.
Sojourn (what a sojourn);
You see that sojourn
That tests my faith, my discipline?
Should I even continue it
Or
Rationalize it away,
Belittle it,
Call it a “phase,”
Or just talk about it?
So, I stop thinking, thinking, thinking
And
Start being, being, being
As
I embark on my sojourn.
Miracle (what a miracle);
You see this miracle
That emerged from manifesting
And forces way beyond logic?
Should I see and accept it
Or
Complain about it somehow
Being wrong, inadequate
And greatly undeserved?
So,
I see with my heart
I accept it with my heart
And gently wrap gratitude
All around my miracle.
Evolution (what an evolution);
You see this evolution
That challenges my fears
And reduces them to past-tense punchlines?
Should I embrace it
Or just ignore it
And stay in my comfortable rut
Going around in circles?
So,
I consult with my heart
I consult with my Inner Voice
And
I evolve, evolve, evolve.
Mountain (what a mountain);
You see this mountain
That my heart
That my Inner Voice
Has brought to my path?
Should I just admire it?
Should I just be overwhelmed?
Or:
Should I just be?
Should I listen to my Inner Voice?
Should I continue to do?
So,
I just be and listen and continue to do
By
Climbing my mountains,
Embracing my miracles,
Undergoing my evolution,
Becoming my sojourns,
Experiencing my paths, and
Taking my steps.
© Copyright 2016 by John David Higham
John David Higham 