Catch a Sunset: If You Can

By Ike Knife

This book of original poems is a collection of thoughts, impressions, and feelings written over the course of the authors early adulthood. It documents some memorable moments of clarity uncovered along the way. It expresses some of the joys and frustrations experienced during one persons journey toward self-understanding and inner calm in our troubled yet still beautiful world. It is shared now in the sincere hope that it will resonate with you and serve you well in your lifes journey. Should you find any meaning or beauty in these words, it was all worth it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503537033

Ike Knife

Ike Knife is a former teacher, coach, principal, and executive director. He has owned and operated his own educational consulting firm and has lived and worked abroad in both the Far and Middle East. He currently resides in the Middle East, where he continues to work in the field of public education, and is completing another advanced degree in leadership. He is married and has a son. He devotes his free time to his passions: meditation, exercise, volunteer work, and writing about spiritual and social issues in the hope that his words can serve, in some capacity, the general betterment of humankind.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Ike Knife.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2015901051

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-5035-3704-0

                    Softcover           978-1-5035-3705-7

                    eBook                978-1-5035-3703-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/20/2015

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Contents

All

Art

Awake

Aye

Balance

Better Way

Body

Brawndo

Capstone

Catch a Sunset

Chooglin’

Chrism

Crusading

Cry

Cuando Pensando

Cube

Cure

Deconstructing Death

Denver

Desert Blooms

Die

Easy

Einkeit

Empty

Exonerous

First of Thieves

Flightplan

Flower

Forgiven

Fountain

Frogmen

Given

Good

Grow

Higher Self

Hologram

Inside

Joanie’s Dream

Just Because

Key

Kimberley

Late

Leaves Bone

Loving

Message

Mettā Mind Infancy Meditating Moral conduct, Concentration, Purification

Mettā Mind Childhood Meditating Service, Wisdom, Truth

Mettā Mind Adolescence Meditating Śīla, Samādhi, Paññā

Mettā Mind Maturation Meditating Dāna, Prāna, Dhamma

Mighty Things

Moment by Moment

Mr. Daniels

Mystic Alchemy

Myth

Nature’s Son

No Hurry, No Worry

Nonsense

Not Required

Now

On Until

Peacework

Pegoté

Pour

Rain

Randomizer

Ranger

Remembering

Return

Revelation in the Night

Rush

Sacred Moments

Sagely Fool

San Pedro

Spiritual Schizophrenia

Second Chance

Seeing Savant

Sheeple

Should Yourself

Skydiving on the Moon

Sunday

Sown

Spanish Pond

Stark

Starlight

Still

Stony Dead Crow

Tears

The -

The Prize

Throw Away Apostrophe

Tired

Together

Traffic

True Love

Tumblin’ Weed

Twice by Nine

Universe

Untethered

Unum

Vacation

Vestigial

Walking to Heaven

War Way

Water

Whatever You Want

Wound

Xploring Palmdale

Your Birthday

Zed

Zoo Life

All

A nything you have

Can all be taken away

What you think you own

Undeniably just illusion

T his includes possessions

Money, reputation, titles

Freedom and memories too

Your health and even your life

F or we are only passengers

Travelers passing through

Adventurers in transit

Seekers on a journey

Y our primal desire to own

Is your greatest threat

Your burning need to nest

The source of all your pain

Y our beautiful home and family

Your perfect little life

Is just contrived, fake fantasy

Promulgated for showing off

T o make others feel less worthy

And you, somehow entitled

Your slice of American Dream

Designed for others’ envy

N ever have you enough

You’ll always still want more

Your uncontrolled attachment

To things of the physical world

I n fact, this is your lesson

To learn and then teach others

Craving material wealth

Is cancer for your soul

E xtinguish this attachment

Eradicate desire

Want not what you don’t have

Accept things as they are

Art

C hromium edifice

In a museum corner

Contemporary replica

Of an ancient ideal

M athematical congruence

Symbolizes harmony

But mechanized textures

Fall short of grace

B loodstained memories

Of faces and smiles

Percolate despite

Today’s mundane realism

A lone, silent tear

Moistens my cheek

This massive structure

Surrounds and crushes me

A nalyzing this art

Pierces my naive mind

Whisks me far away

Distances me from my hurt

I recognize the strife

In this twisting, writhing form

I know the pain

That tortures Laocoön

Awake

A waken to this poem,

Shadows without form,

Meaning without substance,

Feeling without thought.

M ystical days,

Magic sunrays

Shine down upon

What is now gone.

T here on the ground,

What have I found?

An elixir divine,

A potion sublime.

T here for the taking,

Heavenly quaking—

Do not disturb

What others may fear.

A cure for the heart

Bleeding in vain,

Medicine for the mind,

Food of the gods.

F or all those who can see

Potentiality

Of what can actually be

If you shall believe.

I n freedom from disease,

Infinite release,

Unrelenting joy,

Uninhibited peace.

U pon my oath I take

A journey to awake,

Transcend all my fears,

Liquefy the years

T hat held me where I was

Because I was so weak,

Believed what they did speak,

Practiced what they preached.

N ow it is the time

To taste the holy vine,

Take hold thy staff and rod,

Communicate with God.

Aye

I ’m just a little lady,

But something I must say;

You’ll listen to my story,

You’ll listen, won’t you, aye?

I ’m weary and I’m tired;

I’m feeble and I’m old.

But life gets only better,

And every day is gold.

T he wisdom and the knowledge

I’ve learned in this lifetime

Have led me to the meaning

I searched for in my prime.

F oolish was I younger,

Thought I knew it all;

My cocky little ego

Engineered my fall.

C onvinced I had the answers

When nothing did I know;

Fighting raging rivers,

Not going with the flow.

M y humbling was destined,

And naturally it came.

It changed my very nature;

I’ve never been the same.

M ighty men have fallen,

Same as I did once.

As normal as the sunshine

A hungry hunter hunts.

O ur money and our titles,

Our privileges and perks

Do not make us better—

They tend to make us jerks.

T hinking we are better,

Above our fellow man;

Nothing could be further

From nature’s sacred plan.

N othing lasts forever,

Nothing’s meant to stay;

We’re passengers in transit,

Just actors in a play.

L iving out our dramas,

Manufactured slime,

Distracted from our essence,

Ungrateful for the time.

T ime, it marches onward—

It waits not for a man.

The seconds always ticking,

Enjoy it while you can.

I t shouldn’t take disaster

To help us see the way;

My eyes they hold a message,

Look into them, aye?

Balance

A life out of balance

Is a life full of challenge

An angry young man

Cannot understand

T he beauty of koan

There’s nothing to go on

No rhyme or reason

Explains the freezin’

O f mind out of time

Or time out of mind

Infinitely sublime

The moment you find

T hat life is illusion

And reality is maya

Only the god within you

Can ever take you higher

T o know divine eternal

Is just to know thyself

What appears external

Is only what you’ve felt

Better Way

F ind peace in just what is

Let life work its magic

Go then with the flow

The river of nirvana

F eel love in God’s creation

Know joy in morning sunrise

Fundamental connection

True source of happy living

Each moment comes and goes

Each thing and person too

To realize this truth

Is to