MAGNIFIED

I struggle with my pipe each-day

With a paralyzed hand, one

To hold and one to light it.  I want

To get down to the nitty gritty

What’s missing from my life?

It’s not intellect or imagination.

It’s just the stuff of life, the stuff

That gets us through the day.

The surreal glue that bonds

Reality to mythology, the cold

Hate prize.  I live to shite an-

Other day that’s my hate prize.

I want to under-stand stroke

To give me a fix.  You understand

My frustration, I fed you every line.

Now it’s poetic stuffs turn to blow

My mind.  I don’t want fire works

Displays or anything like that, just

Plain speech, words magnified by

Water, step forward to step back

Read write withdraw, then every-

Thing is clear.

SIMPLY BE, TRANSLATED TAO BY LAO TZU TO HELP ME UNDERSTAND

Part one

1.

The way that can be crushed is not the way.

All in the world know beauty is beautiful

Be clear and kind and true, be true to yourself.

Walk the path of the nameless one

stand your own ground don’t retaliate

Without desire we are found in mystery.

2.

Under these two aspects that are the same, development grows

Together we call them mystery subtle and wonderful.

So, it is that existence and non-existence is born.

The sage gets things done without doing anything

The work is done, no one can see, the power not cease to be.

3.

Not to employ men of superior ability to keep them from rivalry.

Not to prize is a way to stop them becoming thieves.

Their desires are not desired, to keep them from disorder.

The government empties their minds and strengthens their bones

Without knowledge and desire good is universal.

4.

The Tao is like an empty vessel, we must guard against its full-

Ness deep and unfathomable the honored ancestor of all things.

Blunt our points unravel things, brighten down our brightness

And agree with others.  How pure the Tao is, the Tao will continue?

I don’t know whose son it is, it might be before god.

5.

Heaven and earth don’t act on impulse, they deal with things

As dogs of grass are dealt with.  Your inner being guard

And keep it free, the valley spirit dies not.  The female mystery

Long and unbroken does its power remain, use it gently

Without the touch of pain.

6.

Heaven long-enduring earth, heaven and earth endure because

They don’t live of themselves.  The poet puts himself last and yet

Is found foremost.  A foreigner is preserved, no personal private

Ends, therefore such ends are realized.

7.

The highest excellence is like that of water, it appears beneficial.

Hence the way is like that of the Tao.  The place of the mind is

In stillness with virtue, good order, a movement of timeliness.

No one finds fault with him.

8.

Leave the vessel unfilled don’t carry it full.  If you keep feeling

A point its sharpness won’t be long.  You cannot keep safe

A place of gold and jade.  When wealth turns arrogant

This brings evil back on itself, when the work is done withdraw.

When he has cleansed away mysterious sights of imagination

He has become without a flaw.

9.

The Tao nourishes all things, he does not claim them all his own.

The thirty spokes unite in one nave, but it is on an empty axle.

Clay is put in vessels, but it is hollow emptiness.  The doors

Are cut to form an apartment but it is an empty space.

Positive existence serves profitable usefulness.

10.

Five colors hue eye sight, five notes music ears, five flavors

Taste on the mouth.  Wild hunting waste drives you mad

Evil conduct makes the mind strange.  The sage seeks

To satisfy the bellies cravings not the longing eyes.  We look

At it, listen to it and don’t hear it, we try to grasp it but we

Can’t hold it, we name it subtle.  With these qualities

It cannot be the subject of description, we blend them together

And obtain one.

11.

It returns to nothing, ceaseless action.  This is called the form

Of the formless, the unwinding clue of the Tao.

The skillful mastery of the Tao and deep mysteries

Elude man’s knowledge.  Beyond us, this is what they appear

To be:  Shrinking like looking in a stream in winter, for those

Afraid to look around, grave.  Like melting ice unpretentious

Wood that can’t be fashioned from muddy water.

12.

Who can make muddy water clear, be still.  Returning to stillness

Is called, luxuriant growth it returns to root.  The Tao endures long

To end his bodily life, decay.