Statue of man with head in hands - Poems by Mike Larcombe

POEMS BY MIKE LARCOMBE: Christmas Feeling, Thoughts, Conscious Selfishness

Last updated: December 24th, 2021

Christmas Feeling

That Christmas Day feeling is here again.
It’s Christmas Day, Christmas time,
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
It’s time to be joyous.

Not for me, not now,
Something hard and solid inside of me.
Is it the pain of Christmases past?
Or something about now?

It sits inside, unmoving.
I don’t know what it is.
Sadness, disappointment, disconnectedness?
Left out of something?
A missing-out feeling?

It hurts, sort of, but is bearable.
Is it about now, the past or both?
I don’t know.
But it’s come again, right on time,
On Christmas Day in the morning.

I have to take this with me throughout the day,
Carry it along, as I grin and bear it.
It will all be over before I know it,
All this good cheer that I don’t see.

Feels like depression to me,
Something wrong with me.
I’m supposed to be happy on this special day,
Should be smiling at the Christmas tree.

Don’t want to ruin it for anyone else.
Are they pretending when they’re happy?
They’re not pretending when they’re not.
Can’t connect with delusion,
If that’s what it is.

The miserable one, breaking the rules,
Is that me?
I’ll conform and comply as best I can,
But something uncomfortable sits inside of me.

Something says no,
Not here, not now,
But Christmas Day is here and now.
Just one day.

I don’t want to be one of them.
I’ll take this pain over whatever they have.
Are they real?
Are they stressed?
Or happy?
Is there a difference?

I see people trying to be happy
And trying not to be stressed.
Perhaps some make it through.
I hope they do.

The triers and the fakers will fall.
Please God, let there be people out there, somewhere,
Who are genuinely happy
On Christmas Day.

Please, don’t let all this be for nothing,
For everyone.
Some must really be happy today.
Surely, that is so.
It has to be.

To those of you that remain,
Those who haven’t failed,
Remember us, the fallen,
As you enjoy this special day.

To those who find love, connectedness and good cheer,
To those who found what they were looking for:
You were the last hope—the only hope—for today,
So happy Christmas to you.

To the triers
And the fakers,
The failed
And the fallen,
To all of you who just couldn’t do it,
I love you.

Person looking out rainy window while wearing Santa hat - Poems by Mike Larcombe

Thoughts

There’s nothing to say
About something that can’t be explained
Or understood
By thought.

I know what I know.
I know there are things that I don’t know,
And things that I don’t even know I don’t know,
That no one knows.

I live in not-knowing.
But I know it’s now, always,
And that everything is my experience,
Experienced through me.

I know that the mind thinks.
Emotions happen and the mind thinks.
The senses receive and the mind thinks.
The mind thinks.

Thinking is overrated,
But without thinking we have no self
And nothing to believe in,
No one to be.

There’s no self beyond thinking,
Not a self we can understand.
So who are we without thought?
Something that’s unknowable.

It’s not what we think, but what we believe,
But a belief is just a thought, just what the mind thinks.
What is not thinking?
What is it to be and not know?

Thinking can’t think beyond thinking.
We are thought, and yet, thought isn’t who we are.
We don’t know who we are.
We can’t know.

No thinking, no self,
The self isn’t thinking about itself.
Only thought can think it’s a self,
But the self isn’t thinking.

All we have is this moment and our experience of it,
But our experience of this moment is thought,
So this moment is experienced through thought,
But thought isn’t who we are.

Thought is a thought that thinks it’s a self,
So is there a thought-self and a real self?
We can only imagine a self through thought,
But that’s the thought-self, not the real self.

We can’t know who or what we are
Because the real self isn’t thinking about itself.
The real self is what’s left after thought,
So we’re an after-thought, and a before-thought.

We experience “right now” thoughts,
But that’s not who we are.
Our real self isn’t thinking,
Only thinking is thinking.

We experience thinking happening,
And believe that’s who we are,
But it’s only thought believing in itself.
Without thought, there’s nothing to believe in
And no one to be.

Thought is trapped in thought,
So is there something beyond thought?
It’s whatever we believe it is,
Because we can’t know it.

It’s thought that wants to know,
And it doesn’t know, it can’t.
We ask, who am I?
And think about it
As we become lost in thought.

Thought is part of who we are,
But it’s not all of who we are.
We’re thought and we’re what isn’t thought.
Who are we without—beyond—thought?

We can’t know, because thought doesn’t know.
Thought can only think about it.
Thought can’t go outside of itself.
It can’t go over the wall.

We experience thought,
But thought isn’t who we are.
So who are we?
We don’t know.

There’s just the moment and our experience of it,
What we feel, see, hear, taste and smell,
What we sense—our intuition, our sense of direction, our sense of movement.
We’re all of that and more, plus our emotions
And our thoughts.

You’re no more or no less than this present-moment experience,
And the present-moment experience is all there is.
You are this moment and your experience of it,
And thought is part of that, on the inside looking outside.

You just are.
And what is that, exactly?
You can’t know what this is or what you are.
You can’t experience any more or less
Than your experience of this present-moment experience.
That’s what you are.

Think about it.

Conscious Selfishness

Couple turned away from each other on bench - Poems by Mike LarcombeI’m a selfish self,
100 percent of the time.
Everything I do,
I do for me.

I never act against myself.
I can’t do that.
I only do what’s best
For me.

With unconscious, deliberate intention,
There’s nothing that I do for you
That doesn’t benefit me.
It’s all for this one,
And this one is all.

Just like me,
You’re a selfish self, too.
We all are.
It can be no other way.

You’re not the separate, self-sacrificing being
That you like to think you are.
You never give for someone else.
It’s only for yourself.

It’s not just that we’re trying to get our needs met.
It’s more than that.
It’s because we can’t—won’t—don’t care for anyone else,
Above ourselves.

We give for what we can gain,
For what we might get back,
And because it feels good
To be kind and generous.

When I give to you,
I give something to myself,
and when you give to me,
You give something to you.

Selfishness is a dirty word,
And self-less-ness is seen as noble and good.
But every act we do, every thought we think,
Is 100 percent for ourselves.

When you do your good deeds,
Acting from your kind, loving heart,
Know you are selfish,
Because you want it for you.

There’s nothing wrong with your selfishness,
And knowing that whatever you do,
Everything you do,
You do not for them, but for you.

We do to them whatever it takes.
For one it’s forgive, and for another, it’s punish.
Both want the same result:
To make it right, to feel better.

We want something, anything.
Is it happiness, peace or satisfaction?
We want whatever it is
That we think we don’t have.

We want to make whatever it is
That’s causing us to feel bad
To go away,
And for whatever makes us feel good
To stay.

I do it not for you,
But for me.
Your pain is not as important
as my pain,
Not to me.

Sometimes I feel your pain,
And then it’s mine.
I don’t mind helping you.
I’d like to do that,
But only if it benefits me somehow,
Making me feel good about myself.

Why would a self
Want to be self-less?
Why would a self
Want to act against itself?

Everything I do, I do for me.
Everything you do, you do for you.
Everything they do, they do for them.
It’s the way of it.

When we can all own our selfishness,
And drop the act of the unselfish self,
Will a world with the truth of that be better off?
Can it be worse than this?

One day, somehow,
Will we be free to realize that all along,
We all wanted the same thing?
A contented self living in a better world.

A world that’s more loving and kind,
More accepting and giving,
More friendly and caring,
Understanding and forgiving.

A world where we understand that
Giving to the other is giving to the self,
Where we see that there’s only one self,
And all is one and one is all.

I don’t want that world for you,
Or for them,
But for what it would bring me:
A “me” no longer lost in separation.

I want to see you happy, and them happy,
To see peace and love in the world,
The end of stress, manipulation,
cruelty and greed.

The end of destroying the planet
And killing people for profit, belief and fear,
And the end of thinking we’ll be better off
When the others are dead.

The end of hurting myself as I hurt you,
Of neglecting you when that’s a neglect of me.
A seeing that my harm to you is self-harm,
That your scream is within me,
And when I walk on by, I walk past me.

I want to see the end of the unselfish self,
Of people pretending to be that way
And thinking that’s how they should be,
Thinking they’re separate.

Separate and unselfish,
Please stop doing that.
You’re the selfish one,
There’s no two.

United in our selfishness,
Free to be how we really are,
We can stop pretending to care
As we hurt others and then ourselves,
And be with how it is, how we really are, naturally.

Honest selfishness,
Loving selfishness,
Kind selfishness,
Is honest love.

Unselfishness is separation.
Me and you, you and them.
Selfishness is completion,
Doing whatever you do for you,
Because there’s no other.

I’m all there is, as you are.
There’s only one,
And that is you,
That is me.

I want to be like that.
I want it for you and for them,
For everyone to be that way.
I want it all.

Not for you,
Not for them,
But for me,
My selfish self.

«RELATED READ» POEMS BY ROBYN PHILLIPS: The Threshold of Acceptance, There is the Wind, Allies, The Wipers»


image 1: Pixabay; image 2: Pexels; image 3: PublicDomainPictures.net