the real Laughter of Buddha-me

I was having this conversation with myself, with these
aspects of myself
in the car, on the way home yesterday.

The Buddha-me was talking to an old distant ghost of sad-me--
a former incarnation (and one who was very real, before
Core-Belief Engineering and Wellbutrin—she is just a shadow now;
thankfully she doesn’t live Here anymore, but
I remember her) and

Buddha-me was teaching her about Happiness
Buddha-me said that happiness is just a matter of practicing happiness
that to be happy, one must just
Be Happy

and the sad ghost was so bitter
and sarcastic, and laughed a brittle laugh, thinking Buddha me
must be stupid, must be simple
to be So Happy
but Buddha me just laughed more, laughed bigger, laughed real Laughter—and said—

poor little ghost
you ache with anger because you think I have it so easy
that it must be so very Easy for me to be this Stupidly Happy

Bullshit, sad little ghost!
to Be Happy is Work!
Hard Work!

a discipline takes Discipline, and you, weak and bitter
are weak and bitter because That is the Easiest Way to Be!
Do not laugh with your cutting sneering laugh at me
and believe that I am the foolish one
if you laugh
do not put poison in your laughter
do not laugh until your laughter
is Real

glow

thin white bright long
hum tighten narrow hum
vibrate vibrate expand expand
change white pink green
glow glow yellow pink white green
blink turn reach reach expand
warm moist deep hum
dew green sigh slow
touch light turn reach
reach pull shock vibrate
revibrate vibrate expand push
push pull yellow green pink bright
shock gasp breathe breathe
breathe breathe
breathe

Anderson, South Carolina

the first cotton gin in the world
the first cotton gin in the world
run electrically
was built in
Anderson, the electric city, the
friendliest city in South Carolina, the
first city in the United States to have a
continuous supply of electric power

the boy
the boy born there, raised there
darted about in the blue dusk
with his sister, to milk from the fireflies
the electric face-paint
the boy named for his father, who

flung him away, when the boy ran in to be enfolded
in his daddy’s arms, the father
who did not deserve the son
the son who
needed more than the name of his father, the

first cotton gin in the world
to run
electrically

dust to

the reams of silent expectations
dust
the weight of anticipation
dust
the battered dreams, the reeling wings
the open arms, the broken rings
dust

dust is light

wear it, carry it, layers of it, heavy and dead
or

shake it off

butterflymoth renewal

The dark(ened) and har(er)-scrabble
pocket-linty / crumpled-(up)
portion of your life is
falling away
like so much abandoned chrysalis-tic swaddling

pretty
is just a feeling

self-reflecting
is a way of life

the way to the edge of the water

thin enduring song
wavering distant note

a clear peg in a sound hole
(that’s just how it is, make it good, make it good for now)

bright tongues of light rub up against
everything green

trip breezy
past small rocks smiling
small leaves twirling
small creeks laughing

shimmering long strand of secret feeling
strong like the wind is strong

red warm trees flash
when eyes are closed

down to the line between blue and blue
s& between toes