An Ecstasy

Whether beloved

Buddha or saint

Your breath quickens

Lips part pulse

Races your lids grow

Heavy so heavy

You aren’t bothered by

Your hair a bit disheveled

(I wonder if Saint

Teresa’s toes curled)

We cannot help ourselves

We ache for bliss

Mystical or corporal

Seek out an ecstasy

Seek to lose

Ourselves in the vast

Expanse of another

For a moment euphoria

Unburdening our identity

Setting aside agenda

Ownership power

The shame of suffering

Unleashing devotion in

Willingly relinquishing

Our bodies our souls.

How It Is

Here’s how it is

As I understand it

(Have I got this right?)

We go about our business

Scurrying about the planet

Clumsily clamoring for a spot

Spinning round the sun

Occasionally looking up

All crowded into a precious

Little space worshipping

Pondering upon the stars

And of course God who

Resides beyond those stars:

A lanky decrepit white man

Dementia setting in

At the very least quaintly

Absent-minded though still

Omnipotent and omniscient

Who merely surveils

Suffering from afar

Lazy old voyeur

And once in a great while

Sends someone special

When we get a bit untidy

On the seasonal precipice

Of self-destruction when 

We slaughter one another

Over slight differences 

In interpreting God’s

Incompetence God’s love

Another Silence

For those sages

Lao or Chuang Tzu

(Maybe even Siddhartha)

Silence came naturally

Nirvana turned slowly

Silence now requires

The unattainable –

Far too much patience

To be at all effective

To have any impact

Upon our lives

Our intricate elaborately

Constructed karma

The well-intentioned

Vows of silence

Of monks and nuns

In serene monasteries

Seem quaint but futile

Solutions to the clamor

Of a peevish throng

And I am thinking

Anymore silence

Is rather irresponsible

A reckless wu-wei

An obsequious inaction 

All spins too swiftly

Suffering too pervasive

Comes hard and fast

Though priceless

We’ve run out of time

For mute circumspection

To adequately flourish

David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.