remember not to suffer a thousand weighted moments for ten of bliss; for real joy rises up from within you and cannot be bartered for nor won through coercion.
as romantic as you are, remember too not to suffocate nor to project any of your tactile visions on those you would presume to love. let them be, and they will let you be, so that you both may grow wise in the accrual of your own selves. you may be mirrors for each other and very little more; and when mirrors are brought close enough together they make infinite curving hallways. find a love that can walk you down that infinite hallway of you without anything but their own reflection as a map.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
learn
remember when you are smallish that nothing actually exists as you perceive. remember that you are smallish and nonexistent too. the whole rhapsodic verse of this world you sense is just passing through you. a melodic interference of the tides, a moonlight that you mistake for something more real. take your life up about you and wrap it tight like the obis of japanese concubines. take the cues from gods long dead. from the minds that had the influential power to create them. someone imagined buddha and jesus so fervently that they created them out of the flesh of man. become a creation of your imagination that rivals them and includes them, precludes them, as they do each other.
go forth symphonic and rhapsodize the world as you see it through your eyes...eternally through your actions. treat people as they are. they truly are only what you are - unseeable. and if you think you are to see them, first learn to see yourself through those same eyes. otherwise, don’t presume to know. what you think of your gift of discernment is not as important as the gift given you of humanity. the wheel of life has brought you here to learn a lesson that it hasn’t necessarily given you the tools to apprehend.
it is up to you in your youthful folly to begin to understand and be ashamed of the silliness of your waste of moments. see through your own moments and disregard anyone else’s version if it is not in line with the (un)god you see in every breath to (par)take.
go forth symphonic and rhapsodize the world as you see it through your eyes...eternally through your actions. treat people as they are. they truly are only what you are - unseeable. and if you think you are to see them, first learn to see yourself through those same eyes. otherwise, don’t presume to know. what you think of your gift of discernment is not as important as the gift given you of humanity. the wheel of life has brought you here to learn a lesson that it hasn’t necessarily given you the tools to apprehend.
it is up to you in your youthful folly to begin to understand and be ashamed of the silliness of your waste of moments. see through your own moments and disregard anyone else’s version if it is not in line with the (un)god you see in every breath to (par)take.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
dissimilation
i would miss you if i weren't already caught up in some kind of amiss
and if i wrote to you, tonight it would rhyme. that sucks but it's beautiful
if only that meant something. it fucks me up that what i'm writing
could be sung.
i suppose that i am supposing. or cogito cogito ergo cogito sum...
a quote. meaning: i think i think therefore i think i am.
and yet...maybe i think too much and think i am something to be..,
thought about. but "i" come to realize that whenever i am lost,
whenever i am frustrated or disappointed; it is because i think...
that things should be other than they are.
well then, how am i to change things(?) perhaps by knowing. which is not
like thinking. i know in my bones that things about my behaviour need to change.
and the mirror of the people around me confirms it. but the change itself is
a downscaling. not an ascension to something that i can't be.
reader, i love you. because you are me. and if there is anything to love it is
me...which is you. if more needed to be said about the topic, i think they would
have discovered that about it 2000 years ago when it was being formulated.
and thank you. for loving [us] too.
and if i wrote to you, tonight it would rhyme. that sucks but it's beautiful
if only that meant something. it fucks me up that what i'm writing
could be sung.
i suppose that i am supposing. or cogito cogito ergo cogito sum...
a quote. meaning: i think i think therefore i think i am.
and yet...maybe i think too much and think i am something to be..,
thought about. but "i" come to realize that whenever i am lost,
whenever i am frustrated or disappointed; it is because i think...
that things should be other than they are.
well then, how am i to change things(?) perhaps by knowing. which is not
like thinking. i know in my bones that things about my behaviour need to change.
and the mirror of the people around me confirms it. but the change itself is
a downscaling. not an ascension to something that i can't be.
reader, i love you. because you are me. and if there is anything to love it is
me...which is you. if more needed to be said about the topic, i think they would
have discovered that about it 2000 years ago when it was being formulated.
and thank you. for loving [us] too.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
mm
my love, my love whose voice is dusk sweeping up the ashes of day
who speaks in swerves and returns vertiginous covering her eyes with squints
my love, whose eyes are torpedoes churning the sea toward me
whose eyes are tropical squalls impending
my love whose neck is a bamboo temple, whose neck is an egyptian obelisk etched with runes of the future
my love whose feet carry an emperor, carry a galaxy, whose feet curve gently toward infinity like the face of the universe
my love whose navel is Aphrodite’s dimple
my love who careens through me on Icarus’s wings, comes close to my heat, a bat overhead swooping
who walks through me like novels, as through walls
my love whose breasts are heaps of cinnamon, warm loaves, painted urns, whose breasts are hieroglyphs of lock and key
my love whose hips beacon and repel: a lighthouse on a craggy shore, sirens singing arias
whose back is a row of pigeons aligned against the sky, whose back is an envelope opening to a love letter
my love whose arms twirl out song and spin like Sufis, enclose me and send me away to my own wishes
my love whose hands are branches tearing at the sky
my love whose wrists are sprigs of mint
whose brow unfurls at my caress, whose brow is a quilt when she cries
who speaks in swerves and returns vertiginous covering her eyes with squints
my love, whose eyes are torpedoes churning the sea toward me
whose eyes are tropical squalls impending
my love whose neck is a bamboo temple, whose neck is an egyptian obelisk etched with runes of the future
my love whose feet carry an emperor, carry a galaxy, whose feet curve gently toward infinity like the face of the universe
my love whose navel is Aphrodite’s dimple
my love who careens through me on Icarus’s wings, comes close to my heat, a bat overhead swooping
who walks through me like novels, as through walls
my love whose breasts are heaps of cinnamon, warm loaves, painted urns, whose breasts are hieroglyphs of lock and key
my love whose hips beacon and repel: a lighthouse on a craggy shore, sirens singing arias
whose back is a row of pigeons aligned against the sky, whose back is an envelope opening to a love letter
my love whose arms twirl out song and spin like Sufis, enclose me and send me away to my own wishes
my love whose hands are branches tearing at the sky
my love whose wrists are sprigs of mint
whose brow unfurls at my caress, whose brow is a quilt when she cries
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
boulder
this town
laid out before me
walking slowly down
its snow mantled
quiet, down its
damp asphalt losing
consonants for coffee
this city clothed old
in brick and stone
transitions to soft
bundled in scarves
toward christmas, breaths
plume, pick up “ahh”
sound hands in pockets
i stride streets past
frosted windows
past cafés, people
in patterned sweaters
inside speaking of other
people over piano music
this town reading
newspapers about itself
yesterday predicted snow
now flakes fall
catch in my hair, eyelashes
i go inside, listen to
door hinges, voices
murmur, espresso whir and
footsteps
cars lurch around billowing
rush from light to light
on wet black in this
city they’re hanging
wreaths and strings
of christmas bulbs bright
green, yellow high on brick
façades above storefronts
little boutiques where
dresses and jackets glitter
wet beach sand from
the windows
laid out before me
walking slowly down
its snow mantled
quiet, down its
damp asphalt losing
consonants for coffee
this city clothed old
in brick and stone
transitions to soft
bundled in scarves
toward christmas, breaths
plume, pick up “ahh”
sound hands in pockets
i stride streets past
frosted windows
past cafés, people
in patterned sweaters
inside speaking of other
people over piano music
this town reading
newspapers about itself
yesterday predicted snow
now flakes fall
catch in my hair, eyelashes
i go inside, listen to
door hinges, voices
murmur, espresso whir and
footsteps
cars lurch around billowing
rush from light to light
on wet black in this
city they’re hanging
wreaths and strings
of christmas bulbs bright
green, yellow high on brick
façades above storefronts
little boutiques where
dresses and jackets glitter
wet beach sand from
the windows
on love on 5.12.04
if it were mine to,
i’d offer
any word synonymous
with, “universe”
up to you
out of this
language of mine:
love.
but i’m not sure
what that word is,
“everything” is close
containing “nothing”
inside it
but this is beyond
things.
though all the universe,
even this small
dark room,
is comprised
of so many objects,
people.
love is why.
why we breathe
and exchange
even objections.
“without object”
means love
in every direction
those words:
the answer.
i’d offer
any word synonymous
with, “universe”
up to you
out of this
language of mine:
love.
but i’m not sure
what that word is,
“everything” is close
containing “nothing”
inside it
but this is beyond
things.
though all the universe,
even this small
dark room,
is comprised
of so many objects,
people.
love is why.
why we breathe
and exchange
even objections.
“without object”
means love
in every direction
those words:
the answer.
9.20.09
the mess of you in my bed,
the whole spread out fling of us
in this weary world where
we topple each other and
our topographies combine,
make new wavy maps like
marbled paper, where we
shimmer and swirl, become
untraceable light
_____________________________
god, grant me more than serenity,
grant me sovereignty to know that
i am always my own, and no one’s.
grant me the will to disbelieve and be
proven wrong, to give space like a
spray of flowers and love myself like
the sky seems to love the wings of
raptors, the cries of starlings.
how i want to call you honey,
by any other name your nectar
(drink of the gods) would be as
sweet. but you bite, like whiskey
leave me
intoxicated by your warm breath
your cold cheek, diverted eyes
ring out: go now before...
and when you sleep, behind your eyes
i battle, the forgiveness of sinners; saints,
and wake up with blood in my hands
like a tempura paint mosaic in the
making. love, you stain me for days.
and how with my iris, cones and rods
am i to look round and revert the inverted
world we’ve created in my full heart.
how am i to relearn to see, see you taking
wing, feathered, picking yourself up from the
mess i’ve been, like my bed after you,
in your whole life.
my tears come with difficulty, force
themselves out of me and fall with thuds
to my thighs. these are the nights full
of stars and friends, where i see the drift
of time swallow me as though i were a single
kernel and not this dynamic cataclysm.
the whole spread out fling of us
in this weary world where
we topple each other and
our topographies combine,
make new wavy maps like
marbled paper, where we
shimmer and swirl, become
untraceable light
_____________________________
god, grant me more than serenity,
grant me sovereignty to know that
i am always my own, and no one’s.
grant me the will to disbelieve and be
proven wrong, to give space like a
spray of flowers and love myself like
the sky seems to love the wings of
raptors, the cries of starlings.
how i want to call you honey,
by any other name your nectar
(drink of the gods) would be as
sweet. but you bite, like whiskey
leave me
intoxicated by your warm breath
your cold cheek, diverted eyes
ring out: go now before...
and when you sleep, behind your eyes
i battle, the forgiveness of sinners; saints,
and wake up with blood in my hands
like a tempura paint mosaic in the
making. love, you stain me for days.
and how with my iris, cones and rods
am i to look round and revert the inverted
world we’ve created in my full heart.
how am i to relearn to see, see you taking
wing, feathered, picking yourself up from the
mess i’ve been, like my bed after you,
in your whole life.
my tears come with difficulty, force
themselves out of me and fall with thuds
to my thighs. these are the nights full
of stars and friends, where i see the drift
of time swallow me as though i were a single
kernel and not this dynamic cataclysm.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
solipsism
write down, sit, the dictionary
falls over beside the bed
recall a floating feeling after
a binge night, what to say
to her damn demanding eyes
her flicker response to my fall
and fuck you’s all around
the yard strewn with cans old
friends in town don’t say no
or get lost after all, what’s a
party when i’d rather be buried
in her breasts or mound of
venus, rather be soaked not
sodden - a sod - bird beggar
left to sleep it off with a tome
of language besides who’s allegiance
is my sense to: her legs, cleft,
navel, iliac crest, lips, oh what
full lips from between which
such cramped oft languorous
much melancholy dribbles...
but to take me into her mouth
and want so much from me
at once, what graceless beauty
but beauty!
falls over beside the bed
recall a floating feeling after
a binge night, what to say
to her damn demanding eyes
her flicker response to my fall
and fuck you’s all around
the yard strewn with cans old
friends in town don’t say no
or get lost after all, what’s a
party when i’d rather be buried
in her breasts or mound of
venus, rather be soaked not
sodden - a sod - bird beggar
left to sleep it off with a tome
of language besides who’s allegiance
is my sense to: her legs, cleft,
navel, iliac crest, lips, oh what
full lips from between which
such cramped oft languorous
much melancholy dribbles...
but to take me into her mouth
and want so much from me
at once, what graceless beauty
but beauty!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
response to tim's letter...
we wander the same streets friend, staring at all the people, placing them in the categories we can name for how they dress, how they hold their heads or hands. we try to find ourselves out there in amongst that throng of people. pretty girls in pretty dresses, tan legs unfolding on park benches. sunshine littered all over everything. even the dirty, stupid, stoned old men who ask for a slice of pizza or a dime...and yet, we can’t find ourselves there. the men that we are, are not. because we haven’t put ourselves on those same streets; we keep these men chained up in our heads with shackles of words and notions of “self”. the man in the suit very well could be, is, you. as is the boy who was flung out to the world and scattered over its face chasing an illusory man.
your third eye knows this; knows that the looking must be done the other way around. there’s nothing to be stolen, only a sense of being the victim of a theft. maybe because money says so. maybe because those girls rarely meet your gaze with theirs, and when they do...they’re crazy right. yet behind your eyes are your true eyes, look back in and then back out and what really matters becomes more evident.
there is great temptation to blame this lackluster slothful society for our own distressful ennui. there is the temptation to blame the “man” for asking too much. but we have to know, have to take away a different ease and take responsibility for our vision. existential crises too often get bullhorned, shouted to everyone else (who surely doesn’t want to, cannot hear them). hold your anxiety closer, hold your abhorrence for the men with pockets full of cash closer. “everything’s amazing, and nobody’s happy.” -CK Louis. want to be the exception? you’re halfway there. put down these amazing devices, pick up a book–or don’t–and begin to see yourself being the man you always wanted to be. because you are, and you don’t owe anyone a fucking thing for it.
as for what keeps us off the streets and able to take girls back home and get in those dresses: that is called the seat of our pants. fly by it. we’ve got healthier senses of entitlement and healthier doses of middle-class luck. it is not written in our futures that we should actually have to live without a roof over our heads. like the grifters in the movie “the sting”, we’re smarter and know the game too well to let it play us. always, just by a thread, managing to hang on. one damn dollar, one damn day at a time, but always singing loudly in our heads. -t
your third eye knows this; knows that the looking must be done the other way around. there’s nothing to be stolen, only a sense of being the victim of a theft. maybe because money says so. maybe because those girls rarely meet your gaze with theirs, and when they do...they’re crazy right. yet behind your eyes are your true eyes, look back in and then back out and what really matters becomes more evident.
there is great temptation to blame this lackluster slothful society for our own distressful ennui. there is the temptation to blame the “man” for asking too much. but we have to know, have to take away a different ease and take responsibility for our vision. existential crises too often get bullhorned, shouted to everyone else (who surely doesn’t want to, cannot hear them). hold your anxiety closer, hold your abhorrence for the men with pockets full of cash closer. “everything’s amazing, and nobody’s happy.” -CK Louis. want to be the exception? you’re halfway there. put down these amazing devices, pick up a book–or don’t–and begin to see yourself being the man you always wanted to be. because you are, and you don’t owe anyone a fucking thing for it.
as for what keeps us off the streets and able to take girls back home and get in those dresses: that is called the seat of our pants. fly by it. we’ve got healthier senses of entitlement and healthier doses of middle-class luck. it is not written in our futures that we should actually have to live without a roof over our heads. like the grifters in the movie “the sting”, we’re smarter and know the game too well to let it play us. always, just by a thread, managing to hang on. one damn dollar, one damn day at a time, but always singing loudly in our heads. -t
Saturday, May 2, 2009
a hypothetical conversation: i am my own interlocutor.
A: people are mostly stupid (uninformed, lazy, uneducated, foolish...)
this is okay.
get over it.
Q: ...who the hell are you to say that people are stupid? are you the smartest person around(?) i bet many of the people you call 'stupid' know a lot more than you about a lot of things...
A: and, just who the hell are you to be asking me who the hell i am? are you saying that i have no right to judge the people around me? even if i don't treat them like morons? this could go on forever: who are you to say...etc.
Q: aren't people worthy of "the benefit of the doubt"(?) isn't this what compassion is about?
A: no. people need to earn intellectual respect. and compassion is about seeing our kinship on a human level and not separating people from ourselves. yes, calling other people stupid is separating them from me. but maybe i can't be bothered to look past idiocy in order to "bond" with my fellow human.
Q: does it bother you being the asshole with a superiority complex?
A: yes. but it bothers me more that everyone else makes such a big deal out of it. i wonder if we were left to our own minds and thoughts without constant interaction if we might just slip down into our own personal madness...or if we might transcend co-dependence.
Q: but there’s something wrong with your worldview: you aren't and can't just be left alone to your own mind and life. you live in a society with other people whether you constantly condemn them or not. they're there. wouldn't you rather be happy than judgmental?
A: no. while it's true that there's nothing, short of going and living in a cave, that i can do to escape my place in the vast web of human society; this does not mean that i have to be okay with what i witness. happiness is dependent on the external world (and people), expectations being met. what i seek is a joy that wells up from within, regardless of who is saying or doing what to or near me.
Q: it seems that this joy would cause you to be kinder and more accepting of your peers instead of dismissive and "superior".
A: yes, joy leads to equanimity. and this angst doesn't so much manifest outwardly toward everyone else as fester in me; a constant and irksome nihilism. i tend not to reach outside with my words and thoughts in an attempt to harm others.
Q: why do you feel this way? what justifications do you have for thinking that people are generally stupid...and why do you even care? also, what makes you think you're not like them?
A: "why's" enter into the land of belief. and belief is tricky and shifting (don't believe everything you think). that said, i believe that the evolution of consciousness (that is, our ability to witness the world in a spiritual and intelligent way) has been seriously compromised and degraded over the course of the last couple hundred years. as a whole our species has entered a time of technological advance which has left our minds-- the very tool of perception-- to rely on crutches. (picture the world at this moment if suddenly every cellphone, computer mainframe, server, power source failed at once)...mayhem. and what have we gained for this reliance? every gain seems to come with more than equal and opposite loss. for example, we create medicines with our amazing technology to treat mental illness resulting from our lack of real primary relationships caused by technological reliance...moreover, these medicines end up in our drinking water and work their way into the genetic structures of our children, and the future of our species is compromised on a very fundamental level. everyone knows this is happening, and yet nothing is being done to remedy it.
i believe that the native americans and other indigenous people had reached the highest point thus far on every level in the evolution of humanity. they lived harmoniously with the land and had healthy relationships with each other and the earth and their gods. their technology was advanced enough to allow them comfort, yet did not destroy the environment in which they employed it. it's no wonder that the advancements into their land by foreigners had such a dramatic and damaging effect. i think that the susceptibility to alcoholism and drugs addiction, along with their repercussions, by the natives of this earth had a lot to do with the delicate balance that they had reached--a respect and reverence for objects, people, substances, and spirits.
we've now lost respect and perspective on the issue of our human place on earth. we have 10,000 songs on a device in our pocket; that device takes over 10,000 years to break down in a landfill. ("landfill" i hate the word. as though the land weren't already full...with land!) 88,701,000 i-pods had been sold as of january 2007, over two years ago. and what does it gain me to have all this music and distraction at my finger tips at all times? i find that instead of talking to the people around me, learning, teaching, and discovering more about our intricate human existence, i am updating bullshit on the ubiquitous "facebook", shuffling songs around, downloading movies, and rarely finding anyone who has something really worth saying.
the comedian CK Louis recently made a comment on late night television that kind of sums this up; he said, "everything's amazing, and nobody's happy." it's true, as our language breaks down into an unsayable " il B here 4 2 mins bro whr u @ i mn WTF did U here Wt she did OMG, lmao, yea l8r sk8r" we lose touch with our own minds. we lose touch with those around us. we're plugged in, and we don't realize that we're plugged into nothing because we feel so connected. it truly is amazing to hold 10,000 songs in a pocket, or to be able to talk on the phone anywhere at all, but what happens to these objects of persistent fascination in the long run, and what do they do to us on their way to their inevitable ends? the reason i'm tempted to point the stupid label at everyone (even me, i have to admit) is because we can all see this happening, and yet we do little or nothing to offset it, or to change our behaviour.
i think our unwillingness--or intentional ignorance-- might be due to the inflation of everything:
since the american industrial revolution (1865ish) we've been polluting more and more of the earth while slipping further and further away from each other. (huge gatherings of people these days seem, like legislation, to be more symbolic than real.) the graph of the extinction of species over that same time period is a gradually ascending slope that becomes steeper and steeper the closer to the present it gets. this could also be a graph for the inflation of time--or the perceived "time-in-a-day" in which we live.
as technology makes everything easier it would make sense that more time would become available to us. instead the opposite seems true; the more we can accomplish in a given day, the more is expected of us, the more we expect of ourselves. and so, time seems to "speed up", leaving us tired and depressed and alone. "no man is an island." except now, every man is an island.
i think all these effects, are the cause of a stupid and greedy species. we are hellbent on destroying ourselves. scientists and activists point it out all the time, we all know what's going on. and yet, the reason SUV sales are down? people can't afford them. that's it. greed and gluttony.
something is going to happen. the earth will react savagely to our stupidity. people will call upon the deaf ears of their respective gods and many millions, billions, of people will die. i'm not a doommonger; i can't bring myself to believe in the "doom" of this. i see it more as salvation...a truer atonement (at-one-ment), a returning to "god". (there can't be "punishment" without a punisher, so we will suffer incomprehensibly at our own hands).
i guess, after all is said, that i am no better than anyone else. i have an i-pod and a laptop and i've thrown away old cell phones. i consume foods that are grown by starving people and shipped halfway around the world to my kitchen. the difference that i see between myself and "others" is that i am willing to ask myself these things and converse about them and wonder why my life could mean anything in the face of such a hopeless future. (if you're saying to yourself right now that it's not hopeless, then you're exactly what i mean by unwilling to ask).
Q: that's depressing. why do you get out of bed in the morning? what's the point?
A: i don't need a point to wake up and live my meaningless life. i feel like i'm being honest with myself is all. there is no point. that's okay.
...flip. everyone is born a good human being, we end up kind of fucking each other up, but we're good. and we're all connected, through the earth and our collective human spirit. we probably won't prevail over the damage we've caused the earth and each other, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. try to treat every single person with respect. try to see that it is no "bother" to see the suffering of others as our own. try to project the joy that wells up from within us and illicit it from others.
i am. i am the obese man in the ford excursion throwing a bag of mcdonalds trash out of his window on the freeway. i am the soldier shooting the child in the face. i am the pregnant teenager and the man who raped her. i am the dalai lama. i am the buddha. i am anger and calm. i am ignorance and intelligence. i am tolerance and hate. i am human.
people are basically good.
this is okay.
get over it.
this is okay.
get over it.
Q: ...who the hell are you to say that people are stupid? are you the smartest person around(?) i bet many of the people you call 'stupid' know a lot more than you about a lot of things...
A: and, just who the hell are you to be asking me who the hell i am? are you saying that i have no right to judge the people around me? even if i don't treat them like morons? this could go on forever: who are you to say...etc.
Q: aren't people worthy of "the benefit of the doubt"(?) isn't this what compassion is about?
A: no. people need to earn intellectual respect. and compassion is about seeing our kinship on a human level and not separating people from ourselves. yes, calling other people stupid is separating them from me. but maybe i can't be bothered to look past idiocy in order to "bond" with my fellow human.
Q: does it bother you being the asshole with a superiority complex?
A: yes. but it bothers me more that everyone else makes such a big deal out of it. i wonder if we were left to our own minds and thoughts without constant interaction if we might just slip down into our own personal madness...or if we might transcend co-dependence.
Q: but there’s something wrong with your worldview: you aren't and can't just be left alone to your own mind and life. you live in a society with other people whether you constantly condemn them or not. they're there. wouldn't you rather be happy than judgmental?
A: no. while it's true that there's nothing, short of going and living in a cave, that i can do to escape my place in the vast web of human society; this does not mean that i have to be okay with what i witness. happiness is dependent on the external world (and people), expectations being met. what i seek is a joy that wells up from within, regardless of who is saying or doing what to or near me.
Q: it seems that this joy would cause you to be kinder and more accepting of your peers instead of dismissive and "superior".
A: yes, joy leads to equanimity. and this angst doesn't so much manifest outwardly toward everyone else as fester in me; a constant and irksome nihilism. i tend not to reach outside with my words and thoughts in an attempt to harm others.
Q: why do you feel this way? what justifications do you have for thinking that people are generally stupid...and why do you even care? also, what makes you think you're not like them?
A: "why's" enter into the land of belief. and belief is tricky and shifting (don't believe everything you think). that said, i believe that the evolution of consciousness (that is, our ability to witness the world in a spiritual and intelligent way) has been seriously compromised and degraded over the course of the last couple hundred years. as a whole our species has entered a time of technological advance which has left our minds-- the very tool of perception-- to rely on crutches. (picture the world at this moment if suddenly every cellphone, computer mainframe, server, power source failed at once)...mayhem. and what have we gained for this reliance? every gain seems to come with more than equal and opposite loss. for example, we create medicines with our amazing technology to treat mental illness resulting from our lack of real primary relationships caused by technological reliance...moreover, these medicines end up in our drinking water and work their way into the genetic structures of our children, and the future of our species is compromised on a very fundamental level. everyone knows this is happening, and yet nothing is being done to remedy it.
i believe that the native americans and other indigenous people had reached the highest point thus far on every level in the evolution of humanity. they lived harmoniously with the land and had healthy relationships with each other and the earth and their gods. their technology was advanced enough to allow them comfort, yet did not destroy the environment in which they employed it. it's no wonder that the advancements into their land by foreigners had such a dramatic and damaging effect. i think that the susceptibility to alcoholism and drugs addiction, along with their repercussions, by the natives of this earth had a lot to do with the delicate balance that they had reached--a respect and reverence for objects, people, substances, and spirits.
we've now lost respect and perspective on the issue of our human place on earth. we have 10,000 songs on a device in our pocket; that device takes over 10,000 years to break down in a landfill. ("landfill" i hate the word. as though the land weren't already full...with land!) 88,701,000 i-pods had been sold as of january 2007, over two years ago. and what does it gain me to have all this music and distraction at my finger tips at all times? i find that instead of talking to the people around me, learning, teaching, and discovering more about our intricate human existence, i am updating bullshit on the ubiquitous "facebook", shuffling songs around, downloading movies, and rarely finding anyone who has something really worth saying.
the comedian CK Louis recently made a comment on late night television that kind of sums this up; he said, "everything's amazing, and nobody's happy." it's true, as our language breaks down into an unsayable " il B here 4 2 mins bro whr u @ i mn WTF did U here Wt she did OMG, lmao, yea l8r sk8r" we lose touch with our own minds. we lose touch with those around us. we're plugged in, and we don't realize that we're plugged into nothing because we feel so connected. it truly is amazing to hold 10,000 songs in a pocket, or to be able to talk on the phone anywhere at all, but what happens to these objects of persistent fascination in the long run, and what do they do to us on their way to their inevitable ends? the reason i'm tempted to point the stupid label at everyone (even me, i have to admit) is because we can all see this happening, and yet we do little or nothing to offset it, or to change our behaviour.
i think our unwillingness--or intentional ignorance-- might be due to the inflation of everything:
since the american industrial revolution (1865ish) we've been polluting more and more of the earth while slipping further and further away from each other. (huge gatherings of people these days seem, like legislation, to be more symbolic than real.) the graph of the extinction of species over that same time period is a gradually ascending slope that becomes steeper and steeper the closer to the present it gets. this could also be a graph for the inflation of time--or the perceived "time-in-a-day" in which we live.
as technology makes everything easier it would make sense that more time would become available to us. instead the opposite seems true; the more we can accomplish in a given day, the more is expected of us, the more we expect of ourselves. and so, time seems to "speed up", leaving us tired and depressed and alone. "no man is an island." except now, every man is an island.
i think all these effects, are the cause of a stupid and greedy species. we are hellbent on destroying ourselves. scientists and activists point it out all the time, we all know what's going on. and yet, the reason SUV sales are down? people can't afford them. that's it. greed and gluttony.
something is going to happen. the earth will react savagely to our stupidity. people will call upon the deaf ears of their respective gods and many millions, billions, of people will die. i'm not a doommonger; i can't bring myself to believe in the "doom" of this. i see it more as salvation...a truer atonement (at-one-ment), a returning to "god". (there can't be "punishment" without a punisher, so we will suffer incomprehensibly at our own hands).
i guess, after all is said, that i am no better than anyone else. i have an i-pod and a laptop and i've thrown away old cell phones. i consume foods that are grown by starving people and shipped halfway around the world to my kitchen. the difference that i see between myself and "others" is that i am willing to ask myself these things and converse about them and wonder why my life could mean anything in the face of such a hopeless future. (if you're saying to yourself right now that it's not hopeless, then you're exactly what i mean by unwilling to ask).
Q: that's depressing. why do you get out of bed in the morning? what's the point?
A: i don't need a point to wake up and live my meaningless life. i feel like i'm being honest with myself is all. there is no point. that's okay.
...flip. everyone is born a good human being, we end up kind of fucking each other up, but we're good. and we're all connected, through the earth and our collective human spirit. we probably won't prevail over the damage we've caused the earth and each other, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. try to treat every single person with respect. try to see that it is no "bother" to see the suffering of others as our own. try to project the joy that wells up from within us and illicit it from others.
i am. i am the obese man in the ford excursion throwing a bag of mcdonalds trash out of his window on the freeway. i am the soldier shooting the child in the face. i am the pregnant teenager and the man who raped her. i am the dalai lama. i am the buddha. i am anger and calm. i am ignorance and intelligence. i am tolerance and hate. i am human.
people are basically good.
this is okay.
get over it.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
give it up.
give up. all your emotions. all your wants. make a prayer, call it what you will: dedication of merit. and then know, that even when someone says, "please, do anything, just don't hurt me." that you will. because you sir are addicted. and that when you come up face to face with your heart, you can't bear to look into its eyes for more than an hour a day and after you do you have to drink it all away to be okay.
fall in what you think is love and feel your heart beat for the first time in years, feel the tears come rushing out of you hot on your cheeks and watch her walk away. watch her not be okay with all this shit you've become and the lies you've presented her with, and when your friends were warning you about her, maybe they were just looking out for her instead.
cry tonight while you type this and fall from grace. like you ever have known grace. i wish, boy, that you could be what you once promised. you looked the whole world right in the face and said, "i can and will be this Man". and now...you, boy, go on being the sadder part of infinity.
wanting to blame it all on karma when you know damn well that you should just give it up and sleep it off and for god-fucking-sakes remember every moment of this to either berate yourself with later or to learn from. but at least to remember for her sake. you owe this to every sentient being that you supposedly make this dedication of merit to and that includes you.
i'm sorry. i'm very much not willing to die, and love is very much not willing to kill me, though it tries. she is the right one. right now. let me see this...and beyond seeing, let me overcome disgrace and show this to every person and creature i encounter. i owe it to no one but everyone: the god contained in every act and every moment. now.
fall in what you think is love and feel your heart beat for the first time in years, feel the tears come rushing out of you hot on your cheeks and watch her walk away. watch her not be okay with all this shit you've become and the lies you've presented her with, and when your friends were warning you about her, maybe they were just looking out for her instead.
cry tonight while you type this and fall from grace. like you ever have known grace. i wish, boy, that you could be what you once promised. you looked the whole world right in the face and said, "i can and will be this Man". and now...you, boy, go on being the sadder part of infinity.
wanting to blame it all on karma when you know damn well that you should just give it up and sleep it off and for god-fucking-sakes remember every moment of this to either berate yourself with later or to learn from. but at least to remember for her sake. you owe this to every sentient being that you supposedly make this dedication of merit to and that includes you.
i'm sorry. i'm very much not willing to die, and love is very much not willing to kill me, though it tries. she is the right one. right now. let me see this...and beyond seeing, let me overcome disgrace and show this to every person and creature i encounter. i owe it to no one but everyone: the god contained in every act and every moment. now.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
it's a ship sailor. look at her.
little bludgeon you thimble prick
and bloody drip break eyesight
sore to be so sired on a new year
text controlled flight shatter in here
blue but bright shoe songs time
and time drive sorrow uncharted away
up out of dark for air take train
rides play hands till oceanview
laughter at the sight of land-ho!
and behold a chewed up horizon
plasma rich skyscape and fish strewn
sand bars where you've been anthems
where letters in sock-drawers aren't
secrets where gravity is the history
of collision at odds with the prize
that is pride
and bloody drip break eyesight
sore to be so sired on a new year
text controlled flight shatter in here
blue but bright shoe songs time
and time drive sorrow uncharted away
up out of dark for air take train
rides play hands till oceanview
laughter at the sight of land-ho!
and behold a chewed up horizon
plasma rich skyscape and fish strewn
sand bars where you've been anthems
where letters in sock-drawers aren't
secrets where gravity is the history
of collision at odds with the prize
that is pride
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
series 2
created a mysterious life-
long heartbreak but forgot
life isn't as much long as
bad novels, greyhound rides
bright skies over night
cities, beds born in and
out of joy, grief, wrung hands
so many "oh.....'s"
screens made of god
knows what, flicker paint
strobe washes on walls,
faces everywhere
and so it starts
out in streetlight neon
pacing enigmatic in puddles
while cars whirl around
long heartbreak but forgot
life isn't as much long as
bad novels, greyhound rides
bright skies over night
cities, beds born in and
out of joy, grief, wrung hands
so many "oh.....'s"
screens made of god
knows what, flicker paint
strobe washes on walls,
faces everywhere
and so it starts
out in streetlight neon
pacing enigmatic in puddles
while cars whirl around
Friday, March 20, 2009
beginning
there are geniuses
in this world playing
their dealt hand
while numbers or letters
make fractals in their heads
in this world playing
their dealt hand
while numbers or letters
make fractals in their heads
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
series 1
cats are patient
i'm six years older than i am and
the night cattails, crumples
itself around us,
us around the nearest star
everything i've been told
about hope, or other beliefs
has come crescendo and mute
against this one mime
of life, this ossified sky
this is every plane in the night,
every airport sigh, all supersonic
and concorde bright, let us amen
with our eyes closed, dream a
perfect god, atone
i'm six years older than i am and
the night cattails, crumples
itself around us,
us around the nearest star
everything i've been told
about hope, or other beliefs
has come crescendo and mute
against this one mime
of life, this ossified sky
this is every plane in the night,
every airport sigh, all supersonic
and concorde bright, let us amen
with our eyes closed, dream a
perfect god, atone
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