Motosai Meditation

Wow...I'm all ABOUT the poetry right now!

Living in Asia has inspired me to meditate daily--a practice that has changed my entire life. Sometimes, however, I oversleep or have difficulty fitting it in, so I do it on my way to and from work. And, well, seeing as how my main form of transportation nowadays is a motorcycle taxi, I frequently meditate while balancing on the back of one.

This poem is the product of one of these mobile meditation sessions. 'Cause, well, there's just no excuse to skip meditating!

How to meditate on the back of a motorcycle

Close your eyes
Smell bursts
Shrimp, garlic, jasmine
Feel the driver balanced in front of you
Like a pot sprouting lazy leaves and
Pinpricks of color like anointed eyelids, resting

Trust.

Thrust your head upward under cranes and scaffolding and a night without stars
As the motorcycle jerks in its self-preservation
And its gasping movement reverberates
In the deep, dark seed of your belly
Expanding and contracting in pure presence
Cells thick with earth and time transforming the urban air

Breathe.

And the grief swells up and joins the oily neon
Sliding under the transient darkness of closed eyes
Eyelashes grip each other like hands in prayer and
The grief makes the night electric and real,
Feelings and thoughts scattered on iridescent waves,
Hardening in the dense chasm of this moment
This moment
And the grief rises and falls until
It is carried away on the stooped backs of headlights, of smoke
Carried away until all that remains of it
Are your outstretched arms,
Reaching for it

Release.

Eyes open
Heart slows
Coins tumble into an open palm.
Kap khun ka.

Gratitude.

Today

Today the old woman with the stooped shoulders rounded the corner the same way she does every day, like clockwork, her canvas bag bulging with mundane treasures

Today I saw that a tree had finally blossomed, its yellow flowers extravagant and poofy like meringues or Easter bonnets, adorning a small alley where its inhabitants cook over an open flame, crouching in the dirt

Today my elephant is chewing long stalks of grass, trunk curling and uncurling, jaws laboring in elastic circles, gulping air, fueling a lazy sway. I miss her.

Today the motorcycle under me feels like an organ digesting and processing the sharp turns and unexpected road companions, shuddering in its liveliness, swerving around motorized street vendor stalls carrying children in white uniforms, bouncing like joyful popcorn, school bound

Today the plumeria tree outside my window is shedding its white petals, making me sneeze, making me delirious with grief as its branches bare themselves

Today my new amethyst necklace hangs around my neck, the one I bought outside my dance studio, its stones like shark teeth, thin and long and aggressive. It is a deep, inconsolable purple

Today I will visit my favorite DVD vendor, the one who lets me pay 60 baht per disc, the one who always wears a wooden necklace and courteously blows his cigarette smoke away from me, the one near the Middle Eastern restaurant where cockroaches crawled out of our food and we didn't eat for days after that

Today is warm and slow and lingering, an unwrinkled pace, watching shadows stretch themselves along the grass like sated lovers

Today the hammers pound and progress somehow emerges from routine and repetition. The nails bellow a mantra in their stinging. ForWARD. ForWARD. ForWARD.

Today is celebrating the bliss of forgetting, the utter absence of grasping and holding. Time slides through my fingers, bringing its oily coating of memory with it.

Arc

There's a story behind this poem, which I'll write very soon in another post (though you may want to look at these pictures for some context). For now, enjoy!

We could both feel it
Fear--chemical and rich
Like lemongrass being crushed underfoot
The hairs on my neck
Like down on the throat of a bird
Standing upright--undotted i's
The hairs on her head
Like broken violin strings, curling like fingers into shy fists
Curving around the wakes of my fingers
And then
Around the bend came two slices of tusks
Framed in green, in gray
Like broken moons, like fenders
And from deep in her belly, a scared growl
A groan
An apology
And I cocked my ear, listening
My minuscule ear bones straining like baby wings
My knuckles whitening around the leathery flaps of her ears
And then,
A message
A transmission...
Her head was an arc between past and future
Her movement, my movement
A strange dust rose as she shook
Mud and roots and growth filled my mouth
As I hit the ground
Gasping, laughing
Safe
And the face of my Teacher
Bent, creased, parched with knowing
Smiled with tusks instead of teeth
And the space between danger and safety,
Known and unknown
Was paved with air
My skin was left behind
And the mud was a deeply lined palm
Breath stopped, then started again
The trees and the minutes were elephant ears
Mapping the future in folds
Filling the dark caverns with a simple, timeless faith.

On the SkyTrain

Bangkok has a public transportation system that is TO DIE FOR, with the SkyTrain being its crowning glory. The SkyTrain is an immaculate train that speeds along above Bangkok's chaotic colors and congested traffic. The inside of the SkyTrain is a simultaneously polite and infuriating space, as younger people relinquish their seats for their elders, people cover their mouths during cell phone conversations so not to disturb any fellow passengers, and eating and drinking are not allowed. However, most individuals also tend to not move all the way inside the train after boarding (a cardinal sin in American public transportation) and stand in a Gregorian knot near each of the doors. Other individuals have a habit of leaning the entire length of their bodies against the poles, thereby making it impossible for anyone else to hold onto them. This habit of, er, getting strangely intimate with the poles is especially annoying if someone decides to do this AFTER you've already been holding onto one. In this case, you suddenly find your hand lodged at the nape of a person's neck, or getting smushed by the jagged undulations of a person's spine.

For the most part, though, the SkyTrain has some of the most surprising people watching opportunities ever. I jotted this little ditty down (which is sorta a poem, but not really...it is intended to just be a string of observations and therefore doesn't really have a particular shape to it, in my humble opinion) after a particularly memorable SkyTrain ride today. Y'know what is LESS welcome on the SkyTrain (or any other form of transportation in Thailand) than crumbs or litter? FRUSTRATION. It's uncanny. People just DON'T GET FRUSTRATED. It's amazing to be surrounded by that kind of calm energy whilst on public transportation. It's beyond awesome.

A blind man
Covered in blisters, in burns
Makes his way to the door
A stranger holds his arm, steadies him,
Releases him when the door opens
Small surprises
Small explosions, bursts of compassion
Like capillaries across a face
My skin ages, freckles
Folds like linens, like letters
A small price to pay for
breath that comes like ink in water
Full
Freeing blood, releasing bone

A child squeezes a squeaking toy
It is the only sound that darts
Like an insect
Among these crowded bodies
Squeak, squeak, squeak
The muscles around my mouth start to contract
Causing creases
Squeak, squeak, squeak
My fingers grip each other
Like wire around electricity
Like gloves stifling a blossom
Squeak, squeak
SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAK
My eyes expand, impatient saucers
Porcelain faces look back at me
Free of aggravated shapes, just
Skin like walls, like windows
Clear
The squeaking stops, its absence
Barely noticed
Like a hand withdrawing from a bucket of water
Leaving no ripples behind
The air in this shared space
Buzzes with calm
The indentation of disruptive sound is
Like a button on pavement
Like a pinprick in the night sky.

Poetry by Rumi

Rumi has played a very significant role in my life for quite some time now. I just wanted to share a couple of his poems, as they most definitely speak to this moment in my life.

These poems were found at this website, but you can also find them in Rumi's books.

******************************

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

(What Rumi DOESN'T mention here is that if you don't let these things in, they decide to bang and bang and bang on your door and just wreak total havoc. Also, well, sometimes they can become freeloaders and ask for more and more tea. That's when you gotta kick 'em out)

*******************************************************

NOT HERE

There's courage involved if you want
to become truth. There is a broken-

open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp

compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want

a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.

We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change. Lukewarm

won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well-enough getting by? Not here.

*****************************************************

(...and for all you sweethearts out there, this beautiful gem):

When I am with you, we stay up all night,
When you're not here, I can't get to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

Bangkok

Sometimes it is gnarled and absent and full of holes
Other times it gleams like teeth, like
new parts.
Sometimes the veins of its momentum burst open,
spilling salty bits of plans and need
Other times it stands still
simmering in its denied frustration, in its
impossible peace
chunky, clotted, whole.
Sometimes it is a hollow chasm
speckled with nodules and bony parts
shivering in the artificial air
freezing lungs, forgetting breath
Other times it holds you in a grip without fingers
as it exhales rank, wet heat into the
exclamation points of your nostrils.
Sometimes it is abundant and glittery and
pregnant with paper and want
and everything, everything is just RIGHT THERE
and yes, I'll take it--ow,ow,ow*
and a constant burp boils in its belly
Other times starvation's possessed suitors
pull blankets of tin and pavement and memory
over themselves
shuddering in their lust
collecting liquid pools as altars.
Sometimes it is children and knees running
and shrieking and hands folded please
and b...b...b...ball
Other times it is high heels and pearls
and tiny skirts, hips
walking without tripping
giggling without sincerity
silk that billows like filthy light
a face like an angel's wing
This place, this place, this
Mecca for the Homeless
drifting, neon, liquid grasp
Searching, searching, searching
LOST.
And then, one breath, one blink, one
pulsating snap in time later,
HOME.
Sometimes plastic
Sometimes caked in a thick reality
A heavily lined palm
Holding, releasing, slapping, caressing.
Relentless.

*This is the Thai word for WANT.

To Ganesha

To Ganesha

I give you these offerings
Jasmine and marigold
Coated with the steely sweat
Of an oily, pinpricked day
Carried from a blessed strip of sidewalk
Between two carts selling khao neow
One garland in each hand
Like lace and sneezes
Dangling
Like keyholes
In the pupils of your Empty Space
You
The Remover of Obstacles
Your palms perpendicular
to heaven and earth
between desire and silence
Please
Remove the ash
Remove the splintered byproduct of Longing
Remove the finite intersection
Of paper and pavement
Of flesh and circulation
Of vein and abyss
Of arms and abundance
So that I may be a lash
Upon the deep, dark eye of this night
A skeleton broken into a thousand glistening pieces
Absorbing the torrential language
Of this night
And release the laboring
Emaciated
Phantoms from the space between chemistry and electricity
Between synapse and receptor
So that I may hear the vast and unapologetic
Intake of breath
And the white hot revelation of a blink.