Altruistic World Online Library

What the Eye Wants To See, by Charles Carreon

What the eye wants to see
is curves.
Lines that come around to
meet each other.
What the mind wants to feel
is closure.
The sense that things conclude,
come round,
reach fulfillment.
What the ear wants to hear
is rhythm,
a pattern in time
to pace its passing and
provide assurance of return.
With each beat we return,
coming back to ourselves,
back to here, this space.

What We Are, by Charles Carreon

we are colors fading in the sun
on tattered fabric
we are bones bleaching in the sand
next to old rocks
we are buzzards sailing silently
in high clear blue naked air
we are the waters soaking
an infinity of interbranching roots
while wandering aimlessly in search of stillness
we are the ancient sun,
burning its life away in the throat
of the sky
we are an old piece of string,
frayed and coming undone,
black rocks,
washed with salt for ten million years

When I Was Alone At The Edge Of The World, by Charles Carreon

When I was alone at the edge of the world
I listened to the cries of birds sailing
out far beyond the rim.
I gazed at the stars implanted in their
strange geometries,
Out of reach.
 
Now I have listened to the songs of scientists,
Playing their lines and graphs like lute-strings,
Making good guesses with strange methods,
Phrasing their questions in terms my dreaming eyes
would never have conceived.
 
Then again the old mystery swamps me;
Amid the wreckage of torn charts and battered sails,
All destinations suspended,
What I cannot disbelieve yet turns to mist
before my eyes.

When You Really Ask Yourself, by Charles Carreon

Not a pity, not a prayer,
Not a regret, not a sigh,
Not a hope,
Not a request for intercession,
Not a plea for benediction,
Not a memory,
Not a response,
Not an accident,
Not a prodigy,
Not this, not that,
Then what?
Just a sterilized brain
Just a scalded tongue
Just a numb fingertip
Just an arrow in flight
Just an empty jug
Just a chair without a backrest
Just a car without nostrils
Just a girlfriend without bitterness
Just an ocean without dead
Just a butterfly floating
over the edge
of the cliff.
 
(1/94, Colestine)

Whoa Earth, by Charles Carreon

Whoa, Earth, I want to dismount,
Said the Buddha
and got off,
Letting the orb resume its spinning,
Humanity continue sinning,
Now he's standing there in space
An azure smile upon his face
Which is to say
Without a trace.

Windy Weather Sets You To Thinking, by Charles Carreon



Wind-whipped morning,
Steel-gray light.
 
Spring is a sure thing now,
and winter's in a panic,
pulling out all the stops like a cop hoping for a suspect,
whipping up
a river of air that buffets everything and
sprays chilly droplets
against the windows
like buckshot.
Over this rough conduct preside impassive clouds
whose gray faces do not even pass judgment.
The sun like a friendly accomplice trying to lend a hand
probes with slender knives but can't even slip
an edge of daylight through the stuck casement of dawn.
The woods struggle on in the gloom trying to pull off the job.
Individual trees are only as sure of staying in their place
as their trunks and roots are firm.
They cross their branches and hope for the best.
 
Easy to lose your foothold in this world,
and never get it back.
So when we hear strong winds blow
and big branches creaking,
It sets us to thinking.
 
A wind can fell a human
as easy as a tree.
A person's roots aren't so deep.
And like a tree, when a person goes down for real,
We others can't help them up.
 
Do trees mourn fallen brethren
who go down with a crash?
Do they think, "There go I when the next wind blows,"
or "Life is short, make sugar now?"
 
Probably not, and still,
sap is flowing,
and after the difficult wind,
Spring comes for every one still standing.
 
(February, 1998)

World Class Buddhist Shopper, by Charles Carreon

How's a man to be happy
When the world won't turn the right way?
How can I be happy
When the wind's always in my face?
How can I accept a situation
That so contradicts my will?

The whole universe insults me
Never asking what I want,
And though I don't get tortured
I still get treated bad,
And if this isn't my worst lifetime
It's the worst one that I've had.

All my wantings unfulfilled,
No provisioning for my needs --
It's such a tragic oversight
And never remedied.

No time to think of others
For my sympathies are otherwise occupied
With brooding over every slight
That life has ever dealt me.

This is my inspiration,
and I hold it to my breast,
To look around at all of life
And know what I detest.

Like a demanding Bergdorf shopper
Or devoted Neiman bargain hunter,
I'll find myself the best of all
This universe provides,

And I'll find it sooner than all of the saps
That shop in sleazy places,
I'm a discerning Buddhist buyer
Of the wisdom of the ages.

Workin' For The CIA, by Charles Carreon





Well it's another perfect day
in the neighborhood
With perfect people everywhere
Painting picket fences
and makin' double lattes,
Workin' for the CIA.

There's not a whole lotta places a guy can go
To find employment and security.
The whole private sector is just a show,
A cover for the CIA.

We come in all shapes and sizes
Don't you know,
Mohamedan, Christian and Jew,
Buddhist and Taoist even some of us
Believe in Sai Baba, too
But under the skin
We're all blacker than sin
Workin' for the CIA.

Yeah the money's good here
And it spends real fine
Printed by the CIA,
And there's plenty of jobs
in interrogation
Workin' for the CIA,
Ya get to know your neighbors,
Ya get to know the truth
About a whole lot of things
We know about you,
Yeah there's a whole lotta perks
With a company spot,
Workin' for the CIA.

See that guy over there
In the cycle shop,
And that bum smokin' crack
at the old bus stop,
That postal employee
cleanin' out the box,
All workin' for the CIA.

It's just another perfect day
In the neighborhood,
Developed by the CIA.
And if you're not plugged in
It might not be so good,
I mean with the CIA.
So we'll be by again and see just what
you think,
And remember it's just CIA.
CIA.

Worst Horse, by Charles Carreon

Sorrowful endings,
Endless mendings,
Long nights spent in loneliness and grief.

Stars grinding in the heavens,
heart laboring in heavy, dull thudding,
the mind overrun by armies of disenchantment.
Night is truly the time of bereavement.

Boxing up sorrows wholesale,
making a pyre of regrets,
a bonfire of woe,
Ah the heavens cry and
to their song we add our painful wail.

How long before release?
How many deserts must be crossed?
How many graves must be filled?
How many wombs passed through?
How many days? How many lives?
How many times to taste the honeyed knife?

No number will suffice until the time is right.
The worst horse runs at last,
Feeling the pain of the whip
In the marrow of his bones.

Yearning To Fly, by Charles Carreon



When I was just a little boy,
I thought a lot of things
I loved to fly toy airplanes
With rubber bands and strings

It seemed a thing most magical
To fly up in the sky,
And I longed to be an eagle
With a sharp-far-seeing eye

Yet the years went by
My eyes grew dim
And I never flew a stroke
Before I knew it I was gone,
A victim of false hopes

A man, I learned, just walks this earth
From his birthplace to his grave
And there are few remembered
The lovely and the brave

Our story will be no different
Than all who came before,
Except that for our carelessness
Perhaps there'll be no more

No you may think this is a tiresome tune
With a cheery melody
But I'm not sellin' lollipops,
That must be plain to see

I'm a prophet in a taproom
A real orphan's son
With a chip perched on my shoulder
And an appetite for fun

So if I chap your hide
Or tread upon beliefs
That's why God invented beer
So we wouldn't drown in grief

So have another drink with me my friend
We'll negotiate our way around this bend
Somehow people will muddle through
Somehow you and I both do,
So have another drink with me my friend

Well, back to being a little boy
As I previously said
Who'd seen the birds in flight
And got it in his head

That maybe he could fly
So he jumped from garage rooftops
But he didn't wanna die
So he never jumped off anything really very high