the long stroke

(excerpt, 2/26/11)

what would a different
anatomy be like that honored
the body's wholeness?

my dolphin-flipper, swimmer stroke
arm-rippling-leg-kick
on the side that moves towards
ocean
needs reintegration

o healer,
help me reclaim
my flying swim,
my dance swing,
my shimmy shank shakeree,
my wholeness

Lucky Monkey Living Large (or Hanuman’s Propitious Parade)

Lucky monkey feeling fine,

swinging on a lucky vine.

Monkey never had a fall.

No, not really. Not at all.

Lucky monkey. Lucky he.

Lucky monkey. Lucky she.

Lucky him and her are dating.

Lucky her and him are mating.

Lucky wedding. Lovely spouse.

Monkeys find a lucky house.
Baby monkey makes it three.

Lucky monkey family.

Monkey eat and monkey sleep.

Monkey mouth is full of teeth.

Eyes and ears and limbs intact.

Monkey lucky. Monkey fact.

Lucky monkey go to school.

Lucky monkey use a tool.

Look at what you have become
with your lucky monkey thumb.

Lucky birthday chimpanzee.

Monkey friends sing loud off key.

Hungry primates very nice:
let lucky monkey eat first slice.

Lucky monkey sing hosannas
o'er organic-grown bananas.

Lucky monkey pick and choose.

Privileged shopping. Privileged foods.

Monkey neighbor hard to love.

Monkey want to scuffle shove.

No no, monkey go inside.

Make crazy neighbor yummy pie.

Monkey don’t like where you are?

Plane, train, bus or bike or car.

Lucky monkey take a trip,
vacation on big monkey ship.

Monkey job make monkey cross.

Bossy ape is monkey boss.

Yet monkey live in luxury:
holidays and salary.

Lucky monkey student loan.

Lucky monkey mortgaged home.

Monkey credit score depressing?

Even what you owe’s a blessing.

Lucky monkey monthly fee.

Water, gas, utility.

Flush and O away it goes!

Where it stop no monkey knows.

Lucky monkey hear the storm
on the roof while you are warm.

Lucky monkey crank the heat.

Take a shower. Rinse. Repeat.

Monkey gripe and monkey groan.

Monkey grouse and carp and moan.

Lucky monkey picking nits.

Speech is free where monkey sits.

Lucky monkey talking stick,
singing bowl and magic trick.

Lucky monkey you are free
to choose thy own cosmology.

Lucky monkey watch TV.
Other monkeys howl and flee.
Flood and fire, bombs and tanks.

Monkey bend down low in thanks.

Lucky monkey ergo sum.

Wherefore art thou? Boom boom boom.

Hear the tuba. Hear the drums.

Something lucky this way comes.

First world monkey don't forget.

First world monkey fortunate.

Monkey birth is game of chance.

Monkey lucky circumstance.

Gorilla, gibbon, lemur, loris.

Different monkeys sing in chorus.

Lucky genus. Lucky us.

To live at all is glorious.

Lucky monkey. Lucky me.

Laughing in a lucky tree.

Lucky monkey. Lucky you.

Remember that you're lucky too.

Yoga-turiya

standing on my head
in an impossible rain
of sinew lace

outside multitudes
dash in reluctant light across the gash of time
stretched like Michelangelo’s man
in the cross of the wheel

brown & yellow & dipped
in wax & lime
& gold seal & amber
scented caresses left to grasp
in bodies reposes
right in effortless clasps
behind necks of gold & diamond
rings of bones dense
wrapped in spiders silk

as I lay with the black barn cat
& tears newly wet
with the next breath’s desire
to shine in the moon’s corset
of grace.

Pigeon in three breaths

I don’t care if you call me
A rat with wings--
I’ve heard worse.
We gutter dwellers, so misunderstood
I wish I could claim crane,
or lion,
or, Shiva help me,
a Warrior,

but some mornings I have
to curl my bent wing to my heart
and bow down
to the fact of this,
taste the tar as if it’s nectar.

What if you find that your power
animal is an earthworm,
a crafty trilobite,
a small black ant carrying
its dead brother back home?

We imagine grandeur, but the god hands us
a broom and says, here, now this,
And this.
This time around
you are the soiled cousin
of the angels’ white dove,
flying donuts
around that holy spirit,
laughing

Poetry Yoga

Write a poem that flexes you, that stretches you in some way. Arch like a cat or curl like a swaddled baby. Lie down and be dead. Let the poetry restore you to center.

Write down the words, but the words are not important, they are only the footprints of your pathway or map of foot positions to becoming more limber. What does a diagram of creative flexibility look like?

If it helps, take a yoga position before, during, and/or after writing this poem. Feel welcome to take inspiration from one of these yoga asanas (poses) or create a new one:

• cow, peacock, locust, cobra, lion
• mountain, tree, triangle, warrior one and two and three.
  
• monkey, puppy, dog, camel, dancer
• boat, plow, bow, bridge, lotus.

Breathe deeply. Stretch. Welcome to your body temple. Be.

"Early yoga treatises state that there are 8.4 million asanas, of which 84 are the best and 32 the most useful for the health of [hu]mankind." [Source]

Prompt tags: poem, yoga, [poet's tagname]

PS - If you feel inspired, consider submitting a poem to the Poetry of Yoga call for submissions, which has an online submission form, March 1, 2011.