Prompts For A Poetryoga Playshop

 

Abandon every program and routine.

There is no sequence of postures.

Valiant as an ancient oak,

crooked with compassion, stand

in your wizened spiral of limbs,
swaying in a breeze of exhalation.

Let your body rise, fall,

circle silently, a starry firmament

between your nipples.

Boundless space between

the ligaments of each bone.

Muscles washed in pure attention

moving from their ocean wheels,

each galactic cell of flesh

a Wordless creation

of the infinitesimal.

Don't even listen

to these instructions.

Books come from no-mind,

bodies from no-thing.

Slow down into a sphere

propelled by no-destination.

Vast micro-movements

inventing themselves

in molten golden stillness.

Now it is you own dance.

From the fountain in your crown

to the om in your toes

hums a hollow nerve

where breath becomes

the sap of a lightning bolt.

Bees feast here, making

honey of your sorrow.

Let blue fire incinerate your mind.

How could a single thought arise

in spaceless bewilderment?

Kali will guide you.

Reason not required.

Your backbone is her scepter.

The creatures around you are sparks

thrown out of a burning neuron,

the axis of your soul.

They're all inside you of course,

the song of the wood thrush,

the tangle of devil’s claw,

sunbeams frozen at this end

into mountain tops,

vagabond comets, crazy angels

gazing over the rim

of entropy toward

a horizon of derelict light

curved into this dewdrop

on a blade of alfalfa.

Words like “You” and “I,”

"He" and "She,"

have been scorched into silence

by the Lord of Wonder,

whom we no longer call annihilation

but The Whirling Shaykh.

Whether we cry Allah! Shiva! Elohim!

doesn't matter any more.

The stream of tears is enough.

All that remains is a swirl of cinders.

Grasping the enormity of the disaster,

we know that we cannot control

this laughter that creates the world.

This poem was published in the Empty Mirror Journal.
It has actually been used as a guided movement meditation
in a poetryoga playshop. The photo is by Peter Lik.