Tricycle | Awake in the World

Last week I posted 2 poems by a writer named Patrice Mason and invited any and all practitioner poets to submit their work to our blog at tricycle@tricycle.com.  This week I am very happy to be share these two pieces by songwriter Dan D'Agostino.

The Way of the Wrathful Deities

An expert eye for the dark arising
For the dancing, whirling, wrathful gods
For the cruel streak in the human species
For the rot behind the bright façade

Will have you marked a sour insurgent
The sunlit realm you have betrayed
But the wrathful gods are always calling
“Approach us now, be not afraid”

You do and with their claws they scourge you
You’re pinned upon their cross of wrath
Then a lonely, bitter resurrection
This is the temple, this is the path

Wide awake you’re a different person
You’re solid now, your heart is full
To the light of loss your eyes have opened
You can’t dismiss compassion’s pull

And the field of all is the fuel of wonder
And the field of all is also you
The wrathful gods brought you to this
“We do just what we have to do

Our bloody sword is grace unending
Mercy fills our poisoned cup
It’s fear of death that keeps you captive
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

This next one is from a series of sonnets on the Bhavacakra called "The Suffering of the Different Realms":

The Human Realm

A scream at first: it’s no easy birth.
In baby’s combustible world senses roar.
Denote, disperse the overflowing earth
With I love this one, that one I deplore.
As blade of flint I is born from this;
As Leader loud and paranoid becomes
Dispatching shadow threats into the abyss
And quite moments beating down with drums.
Then stare down the dragon: it runs and hides.
No hero arrives for no treasure to win;
No wisdom to hold, everything glides,
Everything flows without and within.
The universe first an explosion of power;
The force of the blast unfolding a flower.

Copyright Dan D’Agostino, Toronto, Canada 2010

Image via himalayanart.org