Running everywhere, wildly, excited
to fill his bucket with moonlight,
the young, eager disicple
turned to his mentor and said,
with a crushing sense of zealous overwhelm–
But it’s everywhere! So so much
yet none of it stays in the bucket.
What do I do?
The mentor smiled softly,
and calmly took the bucket from his disciple’s hands,
and used a saw to cut out the bucket’s bottom,
until there was a gaping hole.
He handed the bucket back to his disciple.
But now it won’t hold anything,
the disciple bemoaned.
Good, the mentor responded cheerily. You had a bucket
designed to carry stuff, to fill up. Yes?
Yes–
How much moonlight did it hold?
None.
Yes, the mentor nodded approvingly. Now hold it up and look through it.
And with that bit of advice, the mentor walked away, whistling a bright melody.
The disciple held the bucket up at an angle,
its aperture perfectly framing
the glittering ancient cinema
of stars
which rendered the disciple
spellbound,
silent,
still,
the lover of ghostlight
that couldn’t be held,
only cherished.
After the deluge
of pink, new rain softens earth–
something’s got to give.
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”–Oscar Wilde
In the beginning,
guttersongs carved from starstuff–
we got down with gods.
In a starless sky,
night hastens to remind us–
Ghosts pass softly, fade.
Sometimes I feel like a child
who, recruited for catalytic
growth,
has been given a blowtorch
to raze
and plant
the greenest seeds
in a plot of earth,
overlooking
a bluff,
where the silver-tongued sea
meets immutable stone.
When the gospel
bites at your bones
your skeleton
dances
the charged, hidden keys,
and if music be
the flood of soul,
play on,
as if dawn’s banquet
were a set course.
Please,
do not be afraid
of your bardic voice,
it only wants to burn
through toxic dross
and spiritual plaque,
it burns,
with the soul’s best interest
at heart,
and your responsibility
as an alchemical user,
is how to turn arson
into the art of holy fire,
realized.
The heart’s reminder–
When walking
through the necessary gateway,
the portal conscripted
to your own fulfillment
and radiant quest,
it is not about
reinventing the science
and geometry of walking,
but rather, taking steps,
simply, boldly, one after
the next,
until you reach
your respective there,
motion and stillness
conspiring to merit
your new, immediate present.
I am a young boy,
fated to innocence,
walking through
the lavender mist
of Time’s softly slipped dream,
every grain
of sand
a stitch
in the marvel
of kingdom’s comely veil.
I will
no longer
martyr
the best parts
of myself
to other people’s crosses,
nor indulge the residual
bane of Shame’s
heart-slaying voices
in committing soul-treason,
the season of green fire is
upon me,
and I will do what I can
to honor Kuan-Yin’s
soft white lotuses
floating nobly
in a pond
full of sharks.
John Biscello 