With or Without Muse

1/14/19

Discipline gets lost on the weekend

When it is considered a blessing

To stay up late and sleep in the next day

And though this may be the case

There would be a much better service if the same schedule

Takes place, for the power comes with consistency.

Tomorrow, take the body to the athletic club

Sign up, shake immediately

Listen to what Jocko says

Do not judge those warriors of the military

And though you may not believe in the politics

There is a lesson to be learned about determination

About training the body, about being enough

Popping right out of bed offers a sense of accomplishment

Drives the feeling inside that I am becoming

And though it can be argued that this is part of ego

The truth is deeper, part of the system

Part of the questioning, part of making

A difference in the way the thoughts are shaped

In what you believe. It is so easy to become stuck

In the cocoon of comfort, lying under blankets

Escaped from the cold outside, curled up

Beside the dog. Thoughts and yawns come

So that the written words feel like a joke.

You want to deliver the sentences of sleep

To tell yourself that you need more, that you are not ready

That you are not enough, that this day will be failure.

And why does the mind wake this way, chasing the dark

Perhaps what is put into the body: both thoughts and fuel

The cookies after six in the evening

The confusion about who you are

As a teacher, the idea that there is always too much

The not knowing where to begin

The feeling behind.

None of this can exist in the now, for the now

Is only about the moment, and in this moment

All is perfect. The coffee wakes though then

The thought comes about addiction to caffeine

Always judging the judger

Finding something, discontent.

The goal is to wake ready for the day

To get up and under that cold shower

To shake into the vision of morning

To see that waking is a gift not all get

Instead of the hangover of sleep

The desire for more, the dream world

Unreal. The words will not come on this Monday.

The beginning of change is about to be witnessed

Too late you stay up and this is

No excuse to be taking more sleep

For when the body and mind are tired

They will sleep, and it is not up to you

To decide this, the notion of how much

You will always chase and say that each day of sleep

Is not enough for something needs blamed about the way

You feel. Something needs to be seen as that which

If with improvement would change everything

That is the nature of the ego, to always be grasping

To blame, to create situations of despair, to compare

To create if...then situations constantly

This is where fear thrives, like a boiling secret

And we all being a pot of frogs, disturbed by the water

But not until after we have gotten used to the temperature

What a strange thing the way this happens

That we can’t even see as it is happening

How we accept being run by a pain body

How we let this take control of the mind

And most do so without the slightest of examination

If there is to be a change in neuroplasticity

The desire for the change must be addressed daily

No donuts can save that which is ingrained

No mission with an unknown target will overcome

Still seeking comfort first thing in the morning

Beneath a blanket of the sofa, the time coming close

For the ways of meditation, again another discipline

Lost in the late nights of the weekend.

There still needs to be a gathering, but this gathering should end

No later than ten, if the body and brain are to rise

To wake and complete the same as the week

After meditation:

The doggy cries in the distance, a sound so helpless

A sound that makes you want to cry

To stay under the blanket, to sleep more

You struggle to see, the thinking continues with:

This time is being wasted, the thoughts keep coming

A day or two away. Should not Saturdays and Sundays

Be even greater opportunities to connect spiritually

In the morning, to make your own day better

Yet there is programmed in the brain

That sloth is a blessing, lying down even now

The head against a couch pillow, avoiding

The inevitable. The missions and mentors

Out there those who await the times to teach

In them is there the discipline? Is this discipline

Even wished for. Everything is questioned when

The ego has taken over and fallen out of sorts

And though Saturday’s morning did start with writing and mediation

It was done later, and this turned into being up later

Into waking Sunday without enough sleep

Into only three minutes of meditation and no writing Sunday

What might come out of these realizations

This idea that consistency results in the building of difference

To sit with a man and listen, to hear the voice of blood

Struggle for his own place in the world

To try to fit within his own family

Knowing his first family never fit, to take the stomach

Ache that is form the coffee or the fish

And to realize that some days there will be no muse

No inspiration behind the words that you write

And in this is still the necessity of sitting

For you never know what will come from

Picking up trash in the parking lot of Living School

Finding a glass bowl beneath the safety light, a halo filled

With water, and you tell a teenager how this could be

A birdbath. And she and the others like this idea

And one of the girls says, “I like you. You’re calm.”

You’re not sure why she says this, but you do know

That there is something for you in the service

Of kids in the 9th ward, something more perhaps than standing

In front of a classroom and delivering. There is

And should be a way to pull them out of them

To allow for the spirit to enter, to strip away the ego

That causes M to dance nonstop when he is not supposed to

And then refuse during the school assembly.

There is the ability to build relationships

The more that you are able to talk

The more you can hear and learn and listen to L’s music

And maybe she can then listen to some of yours

And the two of you might discuss why you like or don’t

Like. As adults. As two having a conversation

To share, to learn something new, to create a fire

There is kindling throughout the neighborhood in every yard

And even in the few alleyways hidden between shotgun houses

There is the chance to lift up and to be lifted

Yet when one side knows everything, the other side will

Never be listened to; untapped potential, possibilities missed

Gifts squashed and robbed in the name of compliance and test scores

Yet do not walk against;

Never walk against, for there is self-debilitating anger

In the very notion of against. So move toward and forward

What is it that you are for? In the morning, the brain settles

The moment becomes able to be the moment

The glory not in the long run but in the now
The glory comes in being here and now without thinking

Like the dog continuing to chew his leg

Without turning to acknowledge the fart he just let

As if everything is normal because

Everything is normal

And today is a gift and a beginning of what will be

A beautiful week of learning and growth

A chance to find out more about who you are

And