Knowledge and Enlightenment

To attain knowledge
Add things daily
To attain enlightenment wisdom
Remove things every day.

Gathering pieces of coal from mine is knowledge
You need it to keep you warm on cold nights
Or cook meals for your hungry children
It can even be sold to buy things you need
But stumbling on diamond embedded in a coal is enlightenment
You did not look for it nor did anything to deserve it
Other than recognizing it when it came your way
Throwing away your cache of coal to hold it close
Coal becomes inconsequential for
What you have now is much more precious


Diving into deep sea to gather scallop is knowledge
You need to feed your family and pay the rent
But discovering a Lion’s Paw pearl is enlightenment
All you wanted was meat, shucking away shell and viscera
Unprepared to finding a royal purple gem among ravage
Now you care less about the meat going bad
More about keeping your treasure safe
Millions of scallops to be harvested
Only handful of perfect pearls to be found
Choosing to walk away with most precious is wisdom

To attain knowledge
Add things daily
To attain enlightenment wisdom
Remove things every day.

Phoenix

I was looking for a recipe for brownies when I came across these lines that I had written some 10 years ago. As I read them, I laughed and then I cried; laughed because I was reminded what it is like to be 25 again and cried because I could feel the pain and confusion all over again that I would have felt when I wrote these lines.

This poem is part of- Angels Vs Demons- An anthology by Destiny to Write Publications. Free copy of the ebook can be downloaded by visiting the below link

http://poetrybybarrymowles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/angels-vsdemons-ebook-final1.pdf

Segmented lives
story line of a new movie
badly edited
one thing does not lead to another
only to confusion...
...and fear
broken images stare back
from the fragmented mirror
as I gasp for air
living a hundred lives
dwarfed...
I had my own sky
for a moment
price is rest of my life
but I lived
I was alive if only for a moment
the putrid smell of sadness and wisdom
emanates from what was alive once.





Laughter, bloating numbness,
and pain, rising alternatively.
blow was heavy and swift,
still stinging into my skin
making the sting of successive
blows insignificant
I am no longer myself
what I am afraid of is that
someday I will rise again
and be myself again