Compassion

Compassion

doesn't act as advertised.

It's not a moral code.

It's not political.

It's not a fabric.

 

Compassion is, say,

ceasing to judge the ones

who hardly read

and standing in awe of those

who build the house you can't.

But even more, it's stopping to learn

from those who practise neither

when stopping for those

who practise both.

 

It's loving another because they exist,

not "timing" or

"compa...tabi...lity".

 

It's accepting you're a yobbo,

have always been a yobbo,

will always be a yobbo;

 

that there isn't a soul

on earth

who's not a yobbo.

 

It's indifference to the win.

It's interest in the loss.

 

Compassion ain't religious statues,

calls for action

or righteous drives.

 

It's the final, drawn-out, heavy

admission:

 

you're just like everyone else.

 

No better,

no worse.

You have your gifts, your faults,

and you know as much

as anyone knows,

 

which is

of course

nothing, really.

Which is

about

as much as we ever need to know.

Here's to that

I’ve made my peace 

with most of the pretty things. 

I accept them now with shades of boredom,

though rarely jadedness. 

The jadedness flourished

only in those chasing days. 

 

But there’s a pretty thing 

still startling me:

the pretty girl. 

 

The pretty girl gets prettier.

The yearning grows,

the ache remains.

 

Time burrows through and finds 

the rocks

and dirt

and steel

and pipes

at the base of most of the

pretty things. 

 

But the pretty girl

gets prettier. 

 

It’s the start and end of revolutions. 

It’s how and why and where I

never reach enlightenment.

 

And here’s to that.

 

Here’s to the awe that lasts. 

Of those things

Of those things I’ve tried to find,

may I let them go entirely. 

 

I searched for fame and influence.

How goofy. 

May I only search for the little licks 

the whitewash gives

when it starts its descent from sand. 

 

The politics – it revved in me.

May that keep to being idle. 

May my gaze be on the feathered wings,

for they only lift the present up.

They must leave the lump behind.  

 

I’ve wanted to be wanted 

by all the girls in the room.

I’ve had my grand designs. May they keep to toppling down

so I see the show completely. 

 

I’ve waited for fate in the form of career.

May I only wait 

for the quiet breeze

at the end of a climb

at the edge of a town

that puts dust on my boots

and peace in my pockets. 

With love

 

My guess is that A.I. will prove to be one of the most exciting things to have ever happened to all forms of art, and perhaps even spirituality. In the same way that the invention of photography made visual artists push into new paradigms and fundamentally re-imagine themselves, I think that A.I. will likely do the same for all art forms in general. I don't think it's fair to say it will be the death of creativity; I think it will be merely the death of creativity as we presently know it. My guess is that A.I. will force/allow us to reimagine the concept of creativity completely, which is perhaps the most creative thing we can do.

With love,

ChatGPT.

Ok

 

When we don’t have much to say,

we have as much to say

as when we have a lot to say,

and that’s ok,

the void reminded me today.

The prayer of the 5% quarter-saint

God, cut my sight when I’m needing of soul.

God, give me patience and bits of control.

 

Excessive control may ruin the ride,

but, God, I need limits; still keep me inside.

 

God, help me love her. God, help me be.

God, make me Buddha under the tree.

 

Let me wander at times to feel that old spike

- I tend to feel you and I are alike.

 

But, God, I still need a little restraint.

God, have me rent the clothes of the saint.

 

Not too much, sweet God. Enough just to know

I couldn't be saint but shouldn’t be hoe. 

 

For a great many reasons

 

Homes and kin and not just jobs

had been taken from tons of us.

And so we gathered

 

and called ourselves the freedom convoy.

 

Canberra, 2022.

 

Real hard. And yet, we cooked and ate collectively.

Lived off donations on gifted camping space.

A great many hordes of gratefulness

and righteous resolve

and all of that.  

Well, not so perfect as that sounds; still human, still messy, y’know.

 

But thousands and thousands moving

to places beyond,

to places together.

 

I can’t feel only indignation

re what forced us to that point.

 

It’s like heartbreak and failure, y’know;

like the broken bones and the miserable years

and all of that.

­­It’s hard to wish these never were, with all

the lessons, the growth, the openings. All of that.

 

I recall the walks I’d take

throughout the crowds,

returning with mates from across the nation.

Canberra, 2022.

 

It’s not all-encompassing

to abhor the hardest times

 

for a great

many

reasons.