Author: tomgrasso (Page 29 of 38)

Time With

February 6, 2009 / tomgrasso

If today is but a reflection of time
Spent longing and searching for more,
Would you grasp me and hold me forever
As if you had never known me before?

If I say that pain lasts forever,
That memories are wishes come true,
Would you still hold onto the day that ended the way
That this time with me was cherished by you?

If fate turned today to forever,
With tomorrow an end that we knew
Would you choose to be eternally grateful
If I spent this forever with you?

There just doesn’t seem to be enough time
To change the things that I have ruined
Time with.
There just aren’t enough ways to say enough times
Or do enough things to end the pain I’ve spent
Time with.

If memories mold us forever
If the footprints behind choose the path up ahead
What hope do we have in the walking
Perhaps the living are already dead?

We ignore all the love left in passing
Instead it’s the pain that we choose,
Yesterday becomes our eternal today
Such comfort where nothing gets soothed.

I just hope today is enough time to know
Enough time to grow beyond the things we kill
Time with
It’s just long enough I hope I’ll know
How to show my love with those that I spend
Time with.

Love

January 30, 2009 / tomgrasso

I am at that point
I see over the ledge into the end of nothing
The darkness, pure and hateful
Encompasses all beneath me, all that I surround.

I feel but a faint breeze,
A stirring in the silence that enshrouds me
Such silence that makes this breeze remarkable
But a drop of water is an ocean to a thirsty man.

I reach out for you, you respond
You hold me tightly to your breast,
You give me pause to see but a single point of light
You give me hope to be so much more.

Such light, the darkness fades,
Such warmth, the comfort of this moment,
And I step back from the ledge,
There is no need to seek its prescription.

And I feel love, I feel loved
I am love, I give love,
Such things are never to be forgotten,
Such things are never to be lost.

And as you let go, your smile shall never fade
For it is you, it is love,
It has saved me, it has taught me
And I can never let it go.

Hopeless

January 29, 2009 / tomgrasso

I sleep but not to rest
I pause but not to think
I eat but not to be nourished
I pray but not to find forgiveness.

I grab a hold but not to hold on
I take a seat but not to rest
I long to be but all to you
I seek those things that cannot be found.

I find victory in all defeat
I find defeat in every win
I drink in all but do not thirst
I see the light as all light fades.

I am hopeless I am hopeful
I am so happy I can cry
I am so lonely I need to be alone
I am so right that I know that I am wrong.

I am hopeless, lost, and have never had more hope or been more found.

Gone forever

January 28, 2009 / tomgrasso

You came to me as if in a dream,
And scolded my innocence, disciplined my naivete,
You pushed me into some beckoned call,
And whispered softly words I cannot recall.

That look, that look,
That eager look that haunts me still,
You took what you wanted, you gave nothing more,
You had certainly sung this song before.

In the blink of an eye, in the sound of a gasp,
My world became distorted, such things became a blur,
You came as did I, you went as did I,
Some things will never be the same.

About Rangel and Reich’s comments regarding white workers…

January 23, 2009 / tomgrasso

I thought about this…and came to one logical conclusion. First, I don’t find it correct in any way, shape or form to segregate people for any reason whatsoever. However, when I hear my white brothers and sisters complain as if they have just had a toenail removed without anesthetic I can only say that I feel not one ounce of sympathy. My response to them simply begins with a question:

How does it feel?

All of the fear, anger and hostility you feel when a government official actually EXCLUDES you from something need not be anything but a lesson. Discrimination is bad. Treating someone as an unequal just because of their skin color is horrible. Earmarking money that is designed to exclude a race is abhorrent. Creating policies around skin tone is ludicrous. Lumping people who will revel in the spoils of power by race is wrong.

Now we get it. Now we simply know how it feels.

Perhaps this feeling we have now will better serve us in the future when we are serving drinks at a banker’s convention and there are only a handful of whites in the room. Perhaps this feeling we have now will serve us better when a black man turns us down for a job we know we are qualified for, only to leave the building and not see one white face in the crowd except for the janitor. Maybe we will get it when colleges don’t take our applications and the black man wants to eliminate quotas. Maybe now we will question the righteousness of our getting paid less than the black man for the same job. Perhaps we will wonder why there are so many more white men in prison than black men, and yes perhaps we will even blame the black man for our problems.

We may remember when we had the ability to cause change in such a consciousness. We will remember the opportunities we have squandered to end color as a means of advancement or repression. We may even shed a tear at the understanding we could have ended it all by just not making others have to work for such equality. Perhaps we will then understand that equality is not work unless there is inequality in our hearts. and the only way to truly be equal is to have such blind love in our hearts.

And perhaps there is opportunity in it all. Perhaps our own Dr. Martin Luther King will emerge; someone who rises above his God-given condition to preach peace and love and non-violence as a way to achieve greatness. Perhaps we will feel anger when he is gunned down by a black man with a sniper rifle. Perhaps in our sadness as seeing such waste we will learn hatred above all else.

Perhaps we will now have the opportunity to face down water cannons aimed at us by black firefighters. Perhaps now we get the opportunity to stand up to the black man’s German Sheppard as they gouge holes in our legs. Perhaps now we can walk arm in arm with some blacks who seek equality into the Washington Mall to hear a speech that changes our lives.

Perhaps now we will get our chance not to surrender our seat to a black man on a bus, or can look to take a beating from a white cop just for walking down the street at night.

And even perhaps we will want to be reimbursed for the injustice. True, our culture never was enslaved at the whips and chains of others, but bondage takes so many forms it is impossible to tell the difference. Maybe at this moment we could begin to understand what pain our history has inflicted, how our refusal to understand such pain only creates more of it. At how our lack of remorse, lack of caring, and lack of a sense of justice only creates more and more pain in those this history has caused so much pain.

Perhaps we will vote for the political party that seems to want to assist us in our condition, even while those different than us not sharing in our despotism will rail against that assistance as furthering our demise. Perhaps the pains in our stomachs and the cries of our children will makes us a slave to such programs, another form of bondage that transcends the physical and now delves into a desperate sense of spiritual dependence.

But wait, I am full of it. Just another liberal in a long line preaching guilt and earmarks, socialism and falsehood. Such is what your mind MUST tell you, or else this could just all make way too much sense. YOU NEED TO DISAGREE, because you are not there yet, you do not understand the sting of it all. Those of us who have never felt the tinge of pain at the hands of the whip or the coldness of the steel of bondage can never understand things from such a perspective.

So, let’s just cry some more about what Reich and Rangel said. Let’s whine about it, and be all offended by it. We haven’t faced an ounce of the pain and suffering we have caused, so I feel no sympathy at all for my own kind. An old friend once said to me “karma’s a bitch”, and we can only hope it doesn’t pay us nearly what we are owed.

The Simple Word: ‘Me’

January 22, 2009 / tomgrasso

This blade of grass I hold
Or does this blade of grass hold me?
Such divinity in its simplicity,
Such simplicity is its divinity,
To be held by such a thing
Is to see life as it is meant to be lived.

A breeze takes hold of this part of me
This part of me that is free
And whisks it away in such abiding revelry
To go where Being says it must,
To be as time shall make it be,
Without complaint it rides the wave
And seeks to be no other place.

For what is a tree if not part of me?
What is this blade of grass if not me?
What is it that defines that what the wind does hold?
There is not one Being in this place
Who is a sum of the parts that make it seem to be
Who we are is the force that holds these parts as one,
Who makes those parts the simple word: “me”.

A week of inspiration and love.

January 18, 2009 / tomgrasso

This week you inspired me, not by orders and dictates, but by example and love. Watching you work hard toward the happiness in others, all the while finding enjoyment in the task in hand showed me something beautiful. You again challenged me to see beyond the voices nagging me to something so much more beautiful. It is a beautiful and so worthwhile lesson.

I thank you for the experience and the challenge.

And although today you are challenging me is a much different way, the lesson of the past week is helping me see past it. The anger is no longer strong, although it is there. You are pushing my buttons, working to get a reaction, but I am not seeing those works as much as I am seeing the love I have in you. This is not you talking.

The lesson I learned last week was simple in nature but complex in understanding. The awareness of the situation shone such light on the cause of things, the anger I felt in the situation, the feeling of separation, the shaking of a new foundation that had so caused pain in my life. I realized that I was making others stand to a standard not created by the present, but by the past. The haunts of this past were like voices in my head, and driving me to the insanity that has plagued my life. It had to end, and it took the unassuming guidance of my soul mate, my wife, my lover and my friend to guide me.

You did this without beating my head with my faults, without hitting my soul with anger and stabbing my heart with words. You just where, you just did, you just loved. You just showed the way with passion and commitment. That is all it takes.

Thank you for this lesson, thank you for the answer to the voices in my head, thank you for the challenge you pose. You are the soil that challenges this seedling while nourishing it all the same. You are the most beautiful thing in this world to me, you are the love of my life.

The renewed presence of nothingness

January 8, 2009 / tomgrasso

I was just laying there, arms outstretched, relaxing silently under a light sheet while enjoying the soft breeze of the ceiling fan above. My mind was empty, just being in the moment, searching for nothing and getting everything in return. This moment could last forever.

I feel her reach for me, softly caressing my shoulder and the arm, followed by tender kisses to trace where her fingertips had been. Her lips were soft, perfect, loving and tender as they stirred me from my trance. They moved slowly down…down…down.

I was awakened before the moment of contact I so anticipated. I looked around the darkened room, lit only by the pending dawn and the warning of sunlight to come. As my eyes hastened to clear from the dream I had just endured I searched for her, my love, my life, my despair. Hidden beneath the layers of blankets she was, sound asleep and ready for nothing remotely close to what my body yearned for. My head hit the pillow with a thump and my mind slowed to receive that which it was dreading with every part of its being…

..the renewed presence of nothingness.

It is the sort of thing one gets used to but never really enjoys. No warm touches, no unrequested kisses, no show of desire save the random “you want to go in the bedroom?” or the casual wearing of sexy attire. Something’s missing, and I can’t put my finger on it yet (or perhaps my finger is afraid of what it will feel when it finds it) but I know it’s there. It’s kind of like a cold draft on a winter’s day and you just can’t find the source, or a drip on your head in the darkness. Damn annoying thing…

Such dreams are common for me. Perhaps it is the cold reality that brings me to such warm things in my sleep. I often wonder if this is how a sun worshiper feels while on vacation in Seattle, or how a bird feels when its broken wing keeps it from taking flight. Such is the loss of something you love, the very part of you that makes you whole, the part of you that cannot be found in any other place or part, yet the part of you that is needed most. It is empty, it is cold, it is…

…the renewed presence of nothingness.

So we drone on, like zombies in some B horror movie with subtitles to blurry to read. We live our roles, fight to hold on to the vestiges of arrogance that ensure the draft remains regardless of how distant that draft’s source may be. We must remain rigid to our goal, to beat one another into submission, to win the battle. We must pay not only for our sins but be beaten with them. We must chill the air around us for whatever reason we create. Such is the state we are in.

This is not about our imperfections, but the constant reliving of them. We are imperfect, no doubt, but imagine reopening the or a wound not weekly, not daily, not even hourly but nearly every minute of every day and then expecting it to heal or not even be bothersome. We are imperfect, in fact we are only perfect in being imperfect. So to be so utterly destroyed in those things that just are for as long as we are seems insane at best.

Yet here we are, and I prepared to drift off to another nights visit to heaven, to feel that which makes me feel alive, that which feeds me thoughts of paradise and of that entanglement between love and lust that somehow creates such joy in that which does not exist. I will dance in the rain while basking in the glow of the sun. And yet when the dawn comes we shall still have all the ability to see dreams turn to life, lust turn to love, love turn to lust and all that could be become what is. All that could be wasted on the inevitable and unbearable weight of being in…

…the renewed presence of nothingness.

Christmas to me.

December 25, 2008 / tomgrasso

There are few things like this moment, or that moment that has created this one. The warmth of love felt in the gathering of those you share your life with, the connection that happiness creates, the beauty in the smiles and contentment of community for which makes all of us Beings despite our humanity. The removal of form is the essence that glows within us all that does not create, but rather is born of creation and proof of something so much greater than any of us can fathom.

Such is love, such is peace, such is the essence of all things in the condition of that which is its simplest, the simplest form of the formless, the condition of all things removed from their selves.

Such is the gift of Christmas to me, that which is born a Savior is not man at all, or god, or otherworldly, but simply of this world in which Heaven is in our midst and at moments like this we can catch a glimpse of it. The celebration not of the man born, but of the understanding of the birth of formless devotion to Being, a moment of time not of self, but of selflessness. Such is a birth, a melting of self and selflessness in utter perfection, of Divine Being merged with selfless acceptance of the moment. Such is the perfect notion of live lived in that one moment of such a marriage.

A birth, whether of a god or of a man, is such an example of perfect harmony. A mother gives her Self to acceptance of the moment. She does what Nature does prescribe, contracts as Nature does order, and is relieved as is ordained well beyond her authority. She puts her very safety in the hands of Being, and in such trust a Being is born to her, or not, a Being that in its very existence is given to acceptance. That babe will be hungry until fed, chilled until swaddled, cry until comforted and shall be at the disposal of such acceptance. The child is perfect in its need and disposition, and the mother is perfect in her selfless offering to that which has no choice be to be dependent on such selflessness.

And such is the example we celebrate this day. Birth is a gift to man to be better than he is at any given moment. Christmas to me is the celebration not of the birth of a god, but the birth of Being in all of us. When we look past form, the gifts, the man, the faith, the decorations, we can see the formless love that is part of us in the sharing of this moment. We can, once form is removed from the moment, experience that which we can see every moment, the connect in Being between our Selves and the Selves of others. It is the gift that keeps on giving if we just would see it even if for the first time.

So now, I look at the tree and the decorations not as they are, but now see the love that went into making them be. I feel the tie between those of us in this room, the connection of the giver to the receiver, and see that gift is not the wrapped offering we exchange, but of the love that made them be. I can see the joy in the faces of my children and see that the forms are not what has made that joy, but the love that went into such forms. They gifts will fade in time, but the love that made them this moment shall never fade. It is the true meaning of such a holiday, a special day that should be celebrated in such a gift of love daily.

So, share the Holiday, no matter what your reliance on form calls it. Should it be Christmas or any other name, share the truest gift of all with all Beings whether known to you or not, that gift of what your purest essence shall be called: Love. In such a simple state you shall see Heaven in your midst even if for the very first time. It is this simple state the man whose birth we celebrate this day, the message of what should be born in all of us, a message the implores us all to allow love to be born in us, to guide us, to be the gift of each moment that we take as well as give, and the removal of forms that may hinder our ability to see such a thing like Heaven around us.

So this day our family shall celebrate such a birth is such a way, and the peace such a celebration shall extend.

Let go we must.

December 18, 2008 / tomgrasso

So, you want to push me over?
Knock the wind out of me?
Bring it on, work the bag,
And see that what you think you know and what is real are vastly different.

You think you own me?
That somehow I owe you the very air I breathe?
I owe you, that is certain,
But the price you request is certainly not the price I can pay.

So, you can take me or you can leave me,
but choose all the same,
And either accept or deny,
For the sun does not change colors at the whims of those who deem it must.

I am me, not you or your vision
You are you, not me or what I think should be,
So either we can let go of things
Things that aren’t or or things that are, things that were or things that aren’t.

Let go we must.