"The Boys of War"

The boys of war are at it again

transferring the 'epic fury'
they feel toward their fathers
onto others.

The boys of war are at it again

aiming the alienation they feel 
from women
from Nature
from Earth-rooted people
from people wiser than they
onto 'The Any' and 'The Other'
who resemble anything different than they.

The boys of war are at it again

projecting their projectiles
their hatreds
displacing their loneliness
so others will feel the same.

The boys of war are always the same:
bold and boisterous 
sending the sons and daughters
of others into harm’s way

yet not having the courage
to truly face themselves
in a room
in the dark
in a mirror
night or day.

All the tributaries of tragedy
they spin up, and spin out,
and send down the line
for their children’s children to bear…

…all because the the boys of war 
never received a true blessing from anyone
leaving them incapable of doing the same.

______

"Settling of the Dust"

Clearing away shit piles
removing cupid's arrows
falling silent.

What now?

Having become a hidden mountain,
I am at the mercy of clouds and rain,
shadows upon shadows,
refractions within dreams.

I cannot join the world of titles again.

What would I call this human windsock
being blown about by the Great Pattern?

_____

"Outpost"

The world is falling apart again
slowly disassembling
by unseen forces
loud bombs of concussion
ill intent
strictures of choice, body, sovereignty.

I awake to blue clouds
rolling through tumbling waves of green
far from choked cities
far from bombs
far from pits of hissing vipers.

Spade pulled through soil
as if combing an old woman's hair
I just shake my head
and plant more cucumbers
for a simple Wayfarer's meal.

_____

"Spring Breeze"
- after Sister Chiyo, hermit-nun of Matto

With a mischievous wink,
Chiyo of Kaga
fanned her sweating brow
and giggled.

"I went beyond the mountain hermits and immortals.
I remained in the town
and made my cloud paradise
behind the brushwood gate

...but still close to the river of humanity."

_____

"Inwardly Mobile"

For years now, I've held a fantasy.
I blame it all on Master Five Willows.

Three or four acres.
Woodland sanctuary.
A clear flowing stream.
A year-round garden.
Fruit-bearing trees.
A hermit hut.
A tea pavilion with low-table for long study.

A view: 
      mountain
           cloud-forest
               horizon of hills 
                  unfurling meadows and fields.

Rounding the bend on sixty,
I still wade through the dust

but more and more
I dwell in the hermit hut
found in the Great Within.

_____

"Cosmic Chiropractic Adjustment"

Sometimes
just being aware
of being-within-Being
is enough
to crack your back
split your skull open
to reveal the glowing mind-spark
that's been there 
liberated
all along.

_____

"Coagulation of Territories"

For years, a knotted skein.

Different threads,
each pulling in its own direction.

At times, it felt akin 
to traveling through different provinces,
or living in the encampments
of very different tribes.

Skein.

True that it can mean
a tangled, complicated arrangement;
and there's always the risk
of remaining coiled-up 
with one's smaller vision for oneself.

But on a bright Autumn day,
it can also all come together.
Then the skein gets loosened out,
becomes a V-shaped flock of geese
moving toward the true weave of you.

And the weave is glorious and strong.

This is when the many worlds
you have inhabited
start to become one.

Hexagram 64.
An old Scots saying
about Brighid and the fox tail on ice.
A poem by Luo Hongxian the Cartographer
walking barefoot through the amethyst forest.

When you embody the way
that is the 'way of you',
your way and the Way of Heaven-and-Earth
are in true accord.

And that, fellow traveler,
is felt within your own bloodstream.

_____

“Tribute to the Sun” 

As the slanting sun 
turned Her shoulder 
toward Night

I thought of Her 
many contributions made 
gone unnoticed by the masses. 

Infinite rivers of light 
cascading down 
renewing the land

coiling around trees and sundials
reflected in slow-flowing rivers
children’s faces
hummingbird eyes  
as they sip from blossoms. 

Across every domain there is, 
there are givers, 
there are takers, 
there are conscious, grateful receivers.

_____

"Sage-ing"

I know you won't believe me
but there are men 
who are pregnant
with river-dragons 
in their bellies.

It is a ninety-year pregnancy.

“Ten-Thousand Forms of the Formless”

The Tao cannot be sought from others; it is attained in oneself. If you abandon
yourself to seek from others, you are far from the Tao. - from the Huainanzi
__

The Soul of the Wayfarers is a luminous prism.

The Spirit of Wayfaring is a light
that shines through each facet differently.

Don't compare your 'way' to another.

Remember the Wayfarer Santoka
and his words on the matter:

"I cannot be Basho. I have no choice
but to be Santoka."

___

Liner Notes: 

The Wayfaring Spirit shines through Baisao and emerges as tea gatherings under pines.
The Wayfaring Spirit shines through Rengetsu and emerges as sculpted clay bowls and paintings. The Wayfaring Spirit shines through Hanshan and emerges as a rustic in a cave. But, if we belabor the point by too much explaining, we will get away from our own Wayfaring.

___


"Integral Breakfast"

Master Dragonfly said:

"Sitting still, sunning...
Flying with zip-zip-zip abandon...
Having breakfast...
...all are meditation.

___


"The Lost Scroll of Hidden Mountain"

If a master-sage hands you a text
and says, "Something to govern your life..."

...always read the fine print.*

*Enlightenment means every dark corner of the self.

___

"What They Do Not Tell Us"

What they do not tell us
is that regardless of outward
goings-on

the threshold of midlife
leaves one speechless,
stupefied even

attending a silent, invisible funeral
for all that you were and have been;

and the journey cannot truly resume
until one has completed the tasks
of one's deep inner-looking.

Everything else is a detour.
Everything else is a thin tributary
incapable of quenching the greater thirst.

___

"Sendatsu"

When I encountered
the Tao in human form
I realized there is no guiding others;
only supporting others to guide themselves.

___

"Have You Seen Them?"

Cross-eyed coyotes
standing at podiums
vomiting lies.

A nation of brave defenders conscripted 
into a confederacy of dunces.

American Presidents
once mounted horses,
hill-walked mountains;
talked the night away
beneath giant sequoias
with Nature-loving visionaries.

Now we are ruled by a devil in diapers.

____

"Swiveling Ribcage"

The last time I split open
the husk of the "self,"
I found a pesky saboteur 
lying in wait.

Like a stranger
that moves into one's home village
and starts seeding all manner of discontent,
I sparred and sparred against his ways.

This time, becoming aware
that I've covered myself in armor again,
I watch as the husk slowly disintegrates,
drifting on like eagle down
being carried by the Spring wind.

I'm gentle with the husk now.
I'm gentle with the "self" now.
I've embraced my Imperfect Fool status.

____

"Everyday Homecoming"

Some of us,
by Red Dust World standards,
are strange birds.

We much prefer a hidden perch
at the edge of the world
than to shape ourselves
for the world of constant being-in-Time.

Being outside-Time
the "self" can settle
into the Way of the Self,
into the Way of Nature,
into the Tao.

The Way is an everyday homecoming.

____

"This Ever-Deepening, Ever-Going"

I already hear haunting echoes
of things yet to pass.

Having "traveled ahead,"
I've stood upon the soil
of memory and ashes.

I've wept beneath pines,
mountain laurels,
waterfalls.

I've seen days, nights,
in the quiet valley beyond.

I sit alone
in the cascade darkness
sipping tsukizake (moon-sake).

Veils of remembrance
billow around me.

My old friend: Solitude
punctures me anew.

I exhale and begin a new life
of measured speech
and unmeasured days.

____

———

“Castor and Pollux”

Most see twin stars.

Moon-lit travelers
know them as cicada eyes.

———

“Back When”

Back 
when I was in love 
with the shimmering world
there was a girl.

I couldn’t speak her language
but I would’ve run off the ledge 
of a mountain to chase after her sunset.

Now the dark of night is my bride.

——

“Footfalls”
— to the First Peoples

I saw them today 
in the high hills.

Soft brown feet
shuffling their way
to the sun temples again
to renew the light of the world.

___


“Unhooking & the Sovereign Gaze”
– a scent trail

Woman: Deconstruct the Animus.

As the old feminist bumper sticker says:
You need a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Brothers: Deconstruct the Anima.

Do you really want to wander 
all the years of your days
being pulled on by tethers and hooks?

We’re not taught to break this trance
but the “ideal inner image”
is the only scent trail you need.

The world is filled with playboys and sorceresses.

Do you not think 
this is what the Buddha was talking about 
when, in the presence of Mara’s alluring daughters,
he cast his eyes downward, and said:
“The Earth is my witness. I am liberated…”?

——

“Offerings From the Heart-Mind of the Thunder Mother”

Delicate moss.
Quiet trickle of crystalline water.
Invisible stream-fed world.

Hard to believe
the Thunder Mother
made all this
with nothing but a few
slivers from the silver dawn.

Her teaching 
remains the same 
after all these years:

Memories become 
all the more precious
when you realize 
they are fading.

___

“By Crook Rather Than Hook”

If you step out
into the night air
and it is thick with dust
nestle your face
into the sleeve
of your Dark-Enigma robe;

be filled
with the deep, sheltered breath
of the ancients.

We 
Are 
Them.

Right there
both arms bent at the crook
hands resting in your lap
is relief from these war-torn winds.

Remember 
the line from the 
old Wayfaring song:

Go to and fro 
as you must,
as you must,
but don’t abide 
in the clammer
of the red dust.

Just this 
just this single breath of return
can put your Heart-Mind
back on the Way.

It’s why we incense our robes.

It’s why some
put cypress oil in their hair.

It’s why we present
the ‘All’ of ourselves
to the pageantry
of the sing-song dawn.

It’s all to remind ourselves
that the edict of this hard world
is null and void 
in the deep hours
in which we work
for our true reward.

The Red Dust World says:

Your value is commensurate 
to the degree to which 
you wear out body and soul.

Behind lantern-lit courtyard walls,
in hidden hills of long practice,
a different edict holds sway.

——

"When Sentinels Go Beyond"
- for the Sage of Arrow Mountain

Gray clouds above.
Magenta sky below.
Far-sight vista drawn near.

Sanctuary of rolling hills
fern-lined woodland shrines.
Only a few steps in,
the rising inner tide swells.

Grateful for what has been.
Mourning what will no longer be.

With some souls,
no matter how much time we spend with them
it will never have been enough.

Let us sip 
some of the medicine 
of memory.

______________________________

"Having Entered the Territory of Proper Placement, p.1"

Some nights, it's quiet tea in the darkness
listening to high winds, bamboo chimes, cicada.

Some nights, it's hexagrams bending time
revealing what the soul already knows
but wasn't quite ready to admit.

Some nights, it's dragon-riding:
Dark-Enigma ink on moon-white pages.

Some nights, it's remembering
mountain-caves-as-dark retreat-rebirth.

In the end, there's nothing that isn't a womb ---
even the next moment, even the next wound.

_____________________________

"Having Entered the Territory of Proper Placement, p.2"

Some days, I second guess this ancient road of poetry;
even five decades in 
there can be nights
when I'm convinced 
what lands upon the page
won't be anyone's cup of tea.

Then, two great sages 
who sometimes visit me, 
Rain Bursting From Cloud, 
Bloom Bursting From Branch,
chide me:

"Who are you 
to judge the Tao 
when it's flowing through you?"

_____________________________

"Wabi-Sabi Dream Guide"

When you feel you've lost the Way,
it may be the smallest rivulet of beauty
that brings you back to your Vision-Self.

There are ten-thousand worlds
on the back of a dragonfly's wings.

_____________________________

"Quickening Palingenesis"

For the Spirit of Nature, Winter is a death.
A deep, slumbering sleep.
Why would it not be thus even for a seasoned Traveler?

For the Spirit of Nature, Spring is rebirth.
A simmering vitality.
Why would it not be so for a Wayfarer?

_____________________________

"Don't Overcomplicate It" (Dream Conversation #96)
-- after James Hollis

Don't overcomplicate it.

Alchemy is the process of True-Seeing
-- sometimes painful
-- sometimes challenging
-- always self-illusion-affronting.

It never happens at our preferred timing:
this burning-off 
what no longer serves our evolution
in service of what does.

______________________________

"The Eloquine Pursuit"
-- in honor of the work of Byron Metcalf

Every luminous procession:
intimacy with endarkenment.

History and movement of a passage made.

Try to pin it down,
corral it,
it will break free, 
evade,
with ferocious fence-breaking hooves.

Surrender categorical mind at the border.
Become a Quiet-Flowing-Human-River.

_____________________________

"Prescription from the National Academy of Internal Dreambody Medicine"

When a nation
loses capacity
to see the sanctity
in the life of The Other,
we must ask the Great Physician's question:
"What sanctity has died in the soul of my brother?"

_____________________________

"Vessel"

For some, the Dark-Enigma is a place of terror.
Terror of the unresolved, the repressed, the untransformed.

For others, the deeper strata is a place of friction ---
inner battles, obsessions, temptations; 
thirsts they can never quench
hungers never satisfied
itches they ceaselessly scratch 
because they really have a "rash."

There are others walking around
who have engaged in a deep dive;
inner excavation, off-gassing fixation.

They don't speak of their quiet freedom.
Slowly, they cease to be "an identity."
Instead, they become a vessel.
________________________________

(c) 2026 / Frank Inzan Owen / The Luminous Procession: Poems From Within and Beyond the World of Red Dust
________________________________

soundworld: "Essential Peace" / ACTIVATION / Byron Metcalf + Billy Denk

“Archaeology of the Invisible”
________________________________

These times are a gut-turner.

Like tides being pulled by an unfair moon.

The kind of tumbling
that feels like a punch to the gut

when we sink for a second
and have to fight for the next breath
because of the weight of our knowing.

—

The knowing in the gut
is the kind people feel
when there is a death
or an ending

only now 
it’s all of us
even those who are pretending. 

—

Like falling from a great height suddenly
part of this tumbling is the Knowing-Body —
the Knowing-Body being stirred awake,
the Knowing-Body tracking a wisdom.

It’s what the Knowing-Body does.
It’s what we Wayfarers do.
It’s why everyone eventually says:
“I felt it in my gut.”

—


This isn’t “woo woo.” 
We’re all in the saddle now.

And that turning of the gut,
that roiling unease,
has a name.

The Enteric.

The enteric nervous system.
Your gut.
Your body’s Second Brain.
A wise-protector
hiding like a ninja within you 
keeping watch
listening deep
quietly whispering —
keeper of faithful signals.

—

And so it is:

Any knowing is a weight-bearing knowing.

A weight 
that makes an indentation
on the malleable clay of the soul.

—

Time is a weight.
The passing of time is a weight.
Anticipatory grief is a weight.
The arrival of grief is a weight.
The past is a weight.
Parting is a weight.
In some cycles, the future is a weight.

—

Quiet-Stillness is the practice
of sitting with the weight.
Contemplating the weight.
Seeking the healing and the wisdom inside the weight.

And of this, none of us should wait.

—


The weight is the same invitation
that has always been here throughout time.

Plow: your inner Earth.
Plant: the right seeds inside you.
Ensure: that something roots and blooms.
Share: the harvest.

—

The weight is the same call
that has always been heard.

Despite external conditions:
Practitioner, begin. 

Despite external conditions:
Practitioner, sustain. 

Like that little shrike on a withered branch,
his silent song echoes through time:
Never stray from The Way.

—
Liner notes: We are all feeling density because of the density of this cycle of time. There will be a lightness of being again. A Lightness of Being like a group of travelers around a table feasting on the good-heartedness and spirit invoked there.
—

“Jury Duty”

We are all witnesses.

Watch.

The smoky mirrors 
are starting to turn on each other
even as we speak.

We are all members of the jury.

Watch.

The whip-smart vipers
will poison each other
in the end.

—

“Transmission”

There are no gurus on this trail.

This path isn't one that is passed down.

It is like a hand
giving you a cup of tea
on a day when
you suddenly see
the light shining through everything. 

—

—
“The Last Step”

The days of taking a breath are over.

Now we receive The Breath.

Now we are breathed.

—

Friends of the Way, 

tonight,

knowingly or unknowingly, 

we step through the Gate of the Hazy Moon. 



Acknowledge the terrain

and all the hard work it took

to get here.

Here.



We’ve traded in the old skins 

the old stories on repeat 

the discarded exuviae of identity after identity. 

Instead we’re becoming devotees of Slow-Time.

Riding on bright-tipped phoenix wings, 

this next spiraling

is upward-downward-outward-inward

all at the same time.



Our cells pass through this gate. 

Our bones of memory pass through this gate. 

Perhaps even a few dreams 

will serve as solid companions 

as you pass through this gate. 



It is the tenderized self 

following the tendril of The Self 

that passes through this gate. 



I’m not one to blow undue sunshine 

up anyone’s robe

but a moon-sanctioned renewal 

is soon upon us.

Feel Her reaching out to you

through her beams of light.



What does not accompany us 

through this shimmering gate 

are the inner stifling messages 

the magical-thinking montages 

resistance / fear / inertia

all that causes us to suffer quietly

as disfigured expressions of who we are In Truth. 



We are on the bloom-popping cusp 

of a runaway herd of Truth.

Though the silence may be deafening now

the galloping hooves of this cycle

are only one valley over from here

and they ring forth as a liberation chant:



To cease dilution-ment

embrace dis-illusion-ment. 

Breathe the air of freedom

that remains after the mirage evaporates.



We are all silently yearning 

for the Wayfarer’s Buoyancy. 

It is close-at-hand. 

It is close-at-hand.

If his mat was not straight, he would not sit on it. - Book 10, Verse 7, The Analects, Confucius

"Go light." -- Gary Snyder

I feel the scales
being peeled off
one by one.

We cannot, in truth, 
plan for such enlargement.

Carrying the water bucket 
of the ancestors,
year after year,
the slow, soft expansion — just happens
like the widening of shoulders
after ten-thousand sword strikes.

This is a far cry
from all of this
strutting machismo 
we're seeing in the icy streets;
man-boys
lacking purpose
aching for war.

There's a different kind of man
quietly blooming-in-silence.

They are being born-of-themselves.

In a thousand years they will say
we were the hermits of our age.
_________________________________________
(c) 2026 / Frank Inzan Owen / The Luminous Procession: Poems From Within and Beyond the World of Red Dust