These 48 original watercolor paintings, 5” x 7” each, are, collectively, a small tribute to the art of Marc Rothko. I picked up a book of Rothko reproductions in Borders Books in Bettendorf, Iowa, one afternoon in ’04, and, sitting in the Borders Café, as I was preparing to write what became the book called “Mother”, Rothko’s art brought me to tears, surprising me, at the time.  I was in the Quad Cities, now called the Quint Cities, more specifically, Moline, Illinois, where I was born and raised, after my formative years in McCook, Nebraska. I was living with my mother in the last year of her life, taking care of her and writing about it. After my time with her, I left her in the care of my brother, John, who had been with her for two years before I was. On my return to Seattle, I began a series of paintings based on the square. This series is the result of that time.

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I Am

Sun is shining in its place as Sun, and here, now, Sun is shining in this place I am. Sun fills me with its heat and light, and I am made the same as Sun. Never thinking I am the Sun, I am Sun.

“The Wind blows,” we say, but Wind is Wind. Standing in Wind, like a fish swimming in the ocean, I swallow Wind, it swallows me, and I am Wind.

Earth, this land, this soil, this ground beneath our feet is lifted from itself by wind. Earth becomes scattered across the surface of itself, as I am scattered from my origin, across the surface of my life. I am Earth, I live apart from myself, I settle down to myself again.

Rain falls, as rainfall does, down upon the land and sea it rises above. My eyes rain from themselves, in brokenhearted memory of what’s been held close as my own self. I am the rain of a tear that falls to sorrow from sorrowing. I am this Rain that evaporates in the air, to fall again, when sorrow calls again. I am the rain of my raining. I am Rain.

I breathe in and out the Air that breathes me. I am the Air that fills and empties me. I am its vessel, its container, the shape of its strength. Air opens and drains my lungs. I taste its nectar. I am the shape of shapeless Air. Without Air, I am the shape of its destruction. I am the Air of my demise. I am empty Air, from which I breathe myself alive. I am no difference between in and out.

I am Water, as I seek the shape of my container. I seek my shape in myself, as flow seeks itself across the flat bed of a stream. As I level myself with any like me in my range. I am Water, in being round in round things, narrow in narrow things, spiral in spirals, wide in deltas.

I am true to myself in many forms. I am Water. I am Air. I am Rain. I am Wind. I am Sun.

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Contents

I Am

All Fall Down is a book of poems, or lyric essays, that speak of the state of awareness, the consciousness, and the thinking of a man who has let go of desire, and then discovered there was a romance of reality lurking beneath desire, that had also to be let go, in order to be clear of the attachment to living a way of life, so he might be clear to live in life itself.

I’ve added a open space version of All Fall Down, to satisfy the inclinations of the non-traditional among us, and to see if it works better. Sometimes, innovation is ineffective and of no particular use. Sometimes, it matches the heart of the poem.

I’ve added a one-piece version of All Fall Down. This is a single poem, excluding other poems that aren’t part of this piece.

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All Fall Down as One Poem

All Fall Down Contents

All Fall Down

All Fall Down (Open Spacing) Contents

All Fall Down (Open Spacing)

Prepare to Dance  is a small book of poems, written in 1993, a year after I got back from India, during which time I had seen myself surrender to myself, to Being Itself, and to the love of another. All of these surrenders mirror the same emptiness of intention. Recently, I thought to give a copy of Prepare to Dance to a woman friend, and, realizing that the poems are often addressed to a woman, I tried addressing them to a man, instead. The result is helpful, I think, in removing that gender hurdle for women who might want to read the poems as close to the heart as possible.  I include the two versions here.

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Prepare to Dance (She)

Prepare to Dance (He)

Savage Amusement

The Autobiography of a Semi-Unknown, Semi-Genius,

The Life of a Poet in San Francisco, in 1975. 

Longing for One in the Other

When I told you I was embarrassed

To know you so well as to become you,

I was confessing a terrible emptiness.

When I look down and see my cloudy

Transparency, I become afraid.

My yearning to be full doesn’t diminish you,

But makes you unbearably desirable.

I don’t see through you, like I said I did,

I can’t become you, I can’t fill myself with you.

If I alone ghost the space between us,

I will succeed only in vacating myself.

Sometimes, I’m lost outside my bones,

And I look so hard for them, I think I see

Other people’s bones beneath their flesh.

When I feel their bones and their flesh,

Temporarily, I quit looking for my own.

I find myself in being alone.

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Savage Amusement Introduction

Savage Amusement

All Fall Down, the poem, is on this page. Just scroll down and keep scrolling. Altered Egos, a book of brief, satirical biographies, now appears on this site in a updated version, including contemporary characters. Use the Search box to your right to bring it to the front of the pack. The page 50 Covers, on your right, provides a capsule view of what follows below on several pages. Square Roots, a series of paintings in tribute to Marc Rothko, is new on this page. I Am, a collection of poems about this elemental life, is new on this page. If you’re looking for Alone in Too Much Beauty, scroll down this page. I’ve added prose excerpts from Beyond Desire, written Summer, ‘09. The excerpts are included in the page to your right. If you would like to be on a mailing list, or if you’d like to leave a message, contact: steve@steveabhaya.com.

Below is a list of what can be found on this site; a wide variety of written work and art work, including poetry, prose, humor, journalese, zen consciousness, autobiography, satire, and a children’s book with illustrations. Art Work includes nothing but art. Fearless in Lucknow describes time in India with H.W.L. Poonjaji, also called Papaji, a tough, brilliant, 80 year old man with the eyes of a tiger, the heart of a lion, and the wisdom of unending stillness. The book leading up to that time is also included here, Ordinary Ecstasy, written in the ashram of the notorious guru, Osho Rajneesh, by someone who was not a devotee. Borderwalker is a story of a drunk poet who comes to a crisis of transformation. Mother is the story of taking care of one’s elder in her last year of life. Zenwords is a zenictionary of zensical and zenfound zenguage. Alone in Too Much Beauty is a collection of recent poetry drawn from the prose poetry of A Prisoner’s Cave in Heaven. Two versions of All Fall Down are available here, one with open spacing, the other more conventional.

Steveabhaya.com makes it possible for these different kinds of work to be gathered in one place. I believe that creative work is completed by becoming the provenance of the reader. Work, that’s found a limited audience, can now be made available to a potentially unlimited audience.

If you don’t care to scroll through these pages, you can go to Search, to your right, and type in the name of the post you are looking for. This page will come up first, because it contains the name of the post, followed by the post itself. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and see the post. Voila!

There’s no absolute order to the postings, so I suggest you look down the list below to see what strikes your interest, or look at 50 Covers, and see what visually attracts your interest.

All artwork is by the author, except for the cover of The Exquisite Poet and The Blood & Turnips Poetry Festival Anthology, by Alexandra Benjamin, the cover to The Zen of Housepainting, by Chris Blum, and the paintings that accompany The Lonely Lion, by Christine Schibly. The cover photo for Fearless in Lucknow was taken by Michael Schiesser. The artwork that accompanies Let’s Spend Some Time Together is by Gregory Vose.

Steveabhaya.com now contains these complete posts:

Fearless in Lucknow, 53 pages, prose, up close with a teacher, H.W.L. Poonja (Papaji) Lucknow, India, 1994

Alone in Too Much Beauty, 124 pages, selected poetry, 2007

Square Roots, 48 paintings, art, 2005.

I Am, 48 pages, poetry, 2009.

All Fall Down, 55 pages, poetry, 2009 (also 62 pages, open text)

Prepare to Dance, 32 pages, love poetry, 1993.

Savage Amusement, The Autobiography of a Semi-Unknown, Semi-Genius, a poet’s life in San Francisco, 212 pages, journal prose, 1975

Borderwalker, 55 pages, parable of loss and redemption, 1989

Never Mind Gertrude Stein, 200 drawings with aphorisms, 1982

I Became a Florist to Run for the Roses, 25 pages, humor, 2001

The Boy Who Named Himself, 8 pages, fable, The Carlton Hotel, Lucknow, India, 1992

Spike’s Eye View, 80 Cartoons for children and others, 2000

The True Story of  Zenman, 98 drawings with captions, 2001

Music Night, 13 pages, abstract art and poetry, mid-Nineties in the Honey Bear Bakery Café in Seattle.

The Cartoon Kid, 76 cartoons, 2000

Big Head Theatre, 202 satirical drawings, 2001

Café Life, 117 pages, Life in the Owl and Monkey Café, SF, 1991

Café Faces, 60 drawings of café patrons, done at various times

Pardon My French, Illustrations of French Colloquialisms, 1995

Let’s Spend Some Time Together, drama, Intersection Theatre, 1972

Art Work, paintings and drawings, 1990 to the present

I’m Alive, 29 pages, drama, Seattle Playwrights Festival (Honorable Mention) 1990

Joni, 45 pages, biographical prose, 2002

Fleshy Blue Boat, 55 pages, poetry, 1972, light, early poems

Fierce Tranquility, 101 pages, a journal of inner discovery, 1989

Being Itself, 78 pages, prose poems of awareness in being, 1993-2008

Death, 39 pages, poetry, 2000

The Exquisite Poet, 51 pages, poetry, 2008

Regina, 52 pages, biographical prose, 2002

101 Ways to Avoid Reading Self-Help Books, 11 pages, suggestions, 1996

Philip Blanc in San Francisco, 6 pp, light surreal poems, drawings, Panjandrum Press, 1972

Walking in Ellensburg, 42 pages, poetry  on the streets of a small town, Ellensburg, Washingon,  2008

The Zen of Housepainting, 11 pages, prose, from City Miner Magazine, 1982

Half Past Kissing Time, 104 pages, novella, 2000, sequel to SWIMMING

The Cock Poems by Georgio Vesta, 17 pp, poetry, Love Lights Magazine, 1974

Ordinary Ecstasy, 157 pages, journalese, written in and around The Osho International Meditation Center, Pune, India, 1991-1992

The Lost Poems of Jesus, 45 pages, poetry, 1993, Talking Raven Magazine, ‘94

Eternal Ruse, 44 pages, poetry, 1985

Minnie the Mermaid, 20 pages, fictional prose, short story, 1990

The Blood & Turnips Poetry Festival Anthology, 42 pages, satirical poetry and art, 1978, compiled after the one-man show of the same name, Intersection Theatre, The Precita Park Café, and other venues, 1978-88

The Lonely Lion & All the Animals from A to Z, 26 pages, children’s stories and art, 2001

Mother, 608 pages, prose, taking care of an elder parent, 2004

Zenwords, 141 pages, prose, redefining words in Zenthink, 1999-2008

Dear Nadja, 179 pages, autobiography that parallels the fiction of Borderwalker, 1982

SWIMMING, 145 pages, coming of age fictionalized autobiography, 1989

Altered Egos, 171 pages, prose, invented satiric biographies of the famous, infamous, and legendary, 2007

A Prisoner’s Cave in Heaven, 378 pages, contemporaneous prose combined with the poetry of Alone, 2007

I Spilled Coffee on the Buddha, 58 pages, imaginative poems and art, 1991

In the Garden of Fugitive Souls, 40 pages, surrealist poetry, transliterations of the poetry of Rimbaud, Breton, and Lorca, 1976

The Dancer in the Heart, 89 pages, poetry, 6 paintings, Philos Press, 2001

The Queen of the Rhumba, 50 pages, poetry in the city, 1980

Invisible Lion, 137 pages, autobiographical prose, starting over, 1985

San Francisco Snapshots, 68 pages, short poems, written on the street, 1974

The Roomless Room, 30 pages, poetry, after a heart attack, 2002

]]> http://steveabhaya.com/2009/03/01/whats-on-this-site/feed/ 0 Abhaya Llama Painting Dogie Roper http://steveabhaya.com/2009/02/25/being-itself/ http://steveabhaya.com/2009/02/25/being-itself/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:13:11 +0000 Steve Abhaya http://steveabhaya.wordpress.com/?p=482 ]]>

Being Itself is a compilation of a particular kind of interior language, written after I got back from India, after enjoying the presence and the awareness of H.W.L. Poonja, who was a teacher I didn’t seek but found. In his presence, I saw another human being speak what I knew to be true. In his presence, I witnessed doubt, that I didn’t know I carried, disappear. I’m not a disciple of his, and he’d be happy to know that, because he sought no disciples. His teaching, called Advaita, is the practice of no practices. These writings are as close to the kind of language that would exist if there were no religion, as far I am able to make them. Papaji said to me, ‘Nobody has ever been able to describe this, but don’t stop trying. You are a writer. Write from the source.’ He meant that I write as one who was not separate from the source, as the source speaking. I saw him speak, not as one speaking about being to others, but as being speaking to being. In his presence, I saw love pouring out toward itself. I’ve never seen that as clearly, in any other human being, before or since, but I believe it is the natural state of our existence and not confined to the people we hold up as teachers, gurus, and masters. If it’s true for anyone, it’s true for everyone.  I have meant this writing as awareness itself speaking to one who is ready to live in his or her own awareness, because that’s how it came to me. That experience has lead me to address myself and the reader as you. This is the writing of one person who is open to his awareness, the same as anyone might be, so you is you, and me, and everyone else.

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Being Itself

 Borderwalker is a novella, from 1990, about a poet who becomes lost to himself and discovers a deeper reality.

“He lay in an unhealed heap, drawing his only nourishment from the sun, like a decrepit house plant that hasn’t had light or water for a long time, root-bound and dried out, then moved, palest green, to the sun, and the sun beats down like a tidal wave on a parched and thirsty man, drowned by what he needs, unable to receive it.” 

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Borderwalker

The Lonely Lion & All the Animals from A to Z is a collection of alliterative children’s stories for adults and the children who love them.  I began these tales, one day, with a casual remark to a friend about the similarity between the words juggler and jugular. He suggested I write a story about it, so I did. It was called ‘The Juggler in the Jungle.’ After that, it was only a matter of time before I began to write stories using all the letters of the alphabet.  An artist friend, Christine Schibly, was visiting, not long after these stories were written, and I thought she might be a good one to illustrate them. She has a narrative style in painting that I could not match. She agreed to do the wonderful work you see below, and this book came into being. Her original watercolors are 11×14. Christine lives in San Francisco. The second section of animal paintings are my own, later, less complex versions of  The Lonely Lion. The paintings in that section are 5×7 watercolors.

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Lonely Lion Introduction

The Lonely Lion

Glossary

Abbreviated Version

This is the anthology for the one-man show, The Blood & Turnips Poetry Festival, which was first performed by the author in San Francisco in 1975 at Intersection Theatre, and later at other venues. 

“My woman has great steaming tits!      I love  to grab them      into heaven of terrible death!      When I am dying      inside my woman,      I scream, “I AM LOVER!”      and the flowers of our mouths      blossom into the crimson    of our love’s anguish.”  (Perfidio Vitus) 

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Blood & Turnips Introduction

Authors’ Credits

Blood & Turnips Anthology