Desayunos

I write about what I do,,,
Eat, sleep, practice, shit, that’s all…
Anymore, I’m a true kusulu…
Not much going on.
So, I’m in the market this morning,
Tostadas con pollo, tocino, jugo…
A pit stop on the road to enlightenment…
The clientele of a would-be-bodhisattva
Swarm around me…I breathe in their salsa,
Breathe out my delight in their human presence.
That’s all I got…I’m just a drop of water
Trying to wear away a mountain…a mountain
Of ignorance, and confusion…of illusion.
At least, I’ve got plenty of work.
When a baby stares at me, at my beard,
at my long hair, at my white skin, and I look
into their crystal-ball-mind, I know there’s
A connection: you’ve got to get to them before
They have teeth,... before they can eat solid food,
Before they eat food that makes them solid.
Then you can speak their unspoken language,
And show them something they’ll be looking for,
For the rest of their lives.
Right now, people walk past…
The way they’ve walked past
For thousands of years, caught in the current
Of their continuity. Once in a while, a drop of water
Hits them on the forehead, out of a clear blue sky.

Friday Afternoon

Time to take time.
Plenty of time to do nothing,
but no time to lose.

Luxury of time without
past or future. Luxury of
nowhere to go.

Just smoke drifting,
flags waving in the breeze,
ambient perception.

Another cigarette, another sip,
floating on the waves
of the life.

The Verisimilitude of a Simulacrum in Virtual Reality

Metal streamers glitter sparkly red, green,
silver in the sun, behind some trees,
a display of secret joy.
People on about their business as if nothing
never happened. There’s beauty,
that’s for sure, or, what we think
there is. It’s good enough until it’s not.

Humor is seeing through
the cracks in the mirror….
…a slapstick double-take
prat fall that destroys
concretion…a clown jumps
out from behind a curtain,
forever.

I wish I had something to say
about it, a pie-in-the-face chart.
No, we’re alone…children
in a carnival, crying because
we think we’re lost. Someone
hands us ice cream and we’re
happy again.

One life, and the game is over…
forty nine days to re-boot.
The last line is saved
for the next time. Here’s a hint:
It’s the same as the first line.

How I Came to Mexico

I robbed a bank
and got away…
so now I’m free
down Mexico way.

The feds can’t touch me,
I’m off the grid.
My friend erased me,
The Computer Kid.

I thumb my nose
at the Status Quo:
paranoid robots
that really blow.

I have no future,
The past is gone…
I’m a perfect hippie,
right on, right on!

Let them build a New World Order,
a house of cards on a bed of sand.
I laugh on the way to fiesta,
I sing to them in their sleep.

I am the nail that brings
their kingdom down.
I am the butterfly in Japan.
I am the thing they can’t control,
because they don’t know what I am.
‘

Nothing Happened

I got drunk and f’ed somebody. My girlfriend didn’t like that very much, so she left me. I lost my job because I was so depressed I couldn’t work. I went to therapy, which made me think I really had a problem. I quit therapy because I couldn’t afford it and it only made me more miserable. Got a job on a fishing boat with a captain that was a vicious sadist. When I realized he was more interested in me than fish, I jumped ship in the Bahamas. A brown girl took me in and we had a great time swimming in the blue ocean, eating fresh mahi mahi and getting stoned and f’ing our brains out. I didn’t want it to end, but it did. Worked in the engine room of a liner to get back to the states….landed in San Diego. Hitchhiked to Wyoming and got some cowboy boots. Fooled a rancher into thinking I was a farmhand and ran off with his daughter in one of his trucks. Made it to Denver and a cheap motel. She turned tricks and I sold crack which we both agreed were the best jobs we ever had. We saved enough to make it to Alaska, where we lived on the ocean and watched the whales. Made friends with some Inuit folks. They taught us the meanings of whale and ocean. I felt they all were my family. Everything was fine till the two goons that her father had sent showed up. I guess he had some money. They beat me to a pulp and took her away. My Inuit friends took care of me till I could walk. They wanted me to stay with them, marry their daughter. We f’ed a few times, but I was just too restless to give in to their idea, though I don’t think it was a bad one. They gave me a chunk of gold they found and I left with no hard feelings on any side for once in my life. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Spent a couple of weeks in Fairbanks at a nice hotel. Got to know the bartender, a wise man. Instead of looking for life, he watched it pass through his bar. He knew what people were about. We both knew that something was happening, but we weren’t quite
sure what it was. We agreed that that was better than thinking you knew what was going on. We went out together on his nights off. He knew the night scene
in Fairbanks. He took me to places you wouldn’t believe. They were like night time theme parks for adults. I stayed longer in Fairbanks. I wanted to see this one through. My money was running out. Frank, the bartender, let me stay at his
place. I had a few side jobs. They were usually a little hairy. I didn’t care much as long as no one got hurt. Frank was of the same mind, but the clientele were in the gray area so you could never be sure what would be going down. One night, one of our associates had to cream a guard. The money was good from that one, but Frank and I had a weekend retreat with drugs and babes to figure out if we wanted to continue. I decided to split for the contiguous USA. We both figured that if the heat came his way, he could blame me and make a bit of restitution. We parted best of friends. I flew to Austin and spent a few nights dissolved into the crowd. Texas didn’t grab me.
All balls and no dick. No wonder the women there tried so hard. The South wasn’t for me. They consider ignorance an heirloom. I got a ride with a middle aged couple in a Winnebago. When I turned them onto grass, they suddenly got much younger. It was the best vacation they ever had. I still get Christmas cards from them. Santa Fe and southern Colorado were interesting. Lots of space, lots of
unique people, when you ran into them. Had a few tense moments with a trucker who took me home to his battered family. Said I could stay there as long as I wanted, f’ his wife even. He was the only man I ever killed. I figure the police wouldn’t look too hard for me once they saw the situation.
Turned out, I was right. Had enough money to take a flight to Kyoto, and the balls to do it. I was invisible in Japan, like everyone else. Of course, I stuck out because I was a white guy, but no one let on that they saw me. Found an ex-pat
who was teaching tea ceremony to the natives. Seems they lost their own culture, and Jim was trying to help them get it back. I guess the a-bomb was a
pretty big blow…knocked them cultureless. I heard from the states that it was cool to come back, so, I made arrangements. I didn’t have the desire to do what it would take to become part of the Jap scene anyway…too ant like. Meanwhile, I discovered I had cancer. I figured a year was enough time to get ready to die.
I looked over what I had done in my life, what had happened to me. None of it really seemed to matter. In fact, none of it seemed really to have happened. Maybe my memory wasn’t that good because of the drugs or something. In any case, I didn’t feel bad about dying. I didn’t feel much about it, like I was just putting away my laundry or something. Like it was one of those moments at the party when you’re just looking at something, or just feeling relaxed. Those were the moments of my life I was remembering . The dramas held no interest for me now. Actually, I couldn’t care less, as if everything I’d done in life was a trick I’d played on myself.

Oaxaca Saga

Oaxaca, November 12, 2003

The day broke full of possibilities. Most would go unnoticed like the life
of a mayfly. You could almost see steam rising from the brows of the waking hordes as the computers started functioning in their heads, plotting, scheming, coming up with a plan to make it through the day. They thought that they had souls that needed protection. They thought they were real. It was a mutual delusion between all of them. It was a self-existing conspiracy. They took everything they couldn’t make sense of, that didn’t seem to fit into the picture, and called it God. They hoped there was a higher, more powerful computer looking after them. They feared they were alone. The hope and fear were like the parts of the machines they exercised on to try to keep their bodies corporal.
They took bits of the chaos going on in their heads and put them together in some kind of order that seemed to go along with most of the events in their lives. They called these fabrications their “life plan”, their “philosophy of life”, and other euphemisms for “no idea”. It was obvious that those of them
that believed anything most strongly were the most solidly confused. Challenge these types, and they immediately go crazy.

Muffin, Coffee, Mountains

Life is exceeding simple...
death will come,
but not as a surprise.

I caught a wave and am
in the pipeline…it might
last a few more years.

To all of you out there,
worried about your lives,
I would suggest you meet
an enlightened being.

You individualists who
rely on no one but yourselves;
Nature wants her flesh back.

Muffin, coffee, mountains,
trying out some more words.
Life is exceedingly simple.
Success and failure have
already happened in the
great déjà vu. Love to all.

Poem: August 15, 2006

Thunder echoing
last night off the mountains…
today sun and a few clouds.

She collects dogs from the street
but she can’t save them all,.. it’s like
the Mexican tunes she hears on the radio
and remembers from years ago.

It’s not like the city,
rushing continuously to go nowhere.
Time grinds itself slowly like corn…
generations wave to each other
as they pass… no where to get to
because they are here.

The sky comes right down to earth
where flowers bloom constantly

Magic is a word made up,
where there was none, to point
to inexplicable wonder.

A Shrine for the Drunks

I took a photo of the “Borracho Shrine”.
It’s on Calle Jardiner…a cross made of wood
and metal…propped up against a brick wall
on the ground, next to a wooden pole...
a metal Jesus figure on it...a few dead flowers.
It’s the street where the drunks hang out.
There are ten of them, or none, or in between
when I walk by. They certainly don’t keep
regular hours. I say: “Buenos dias, Hombres”
or, “Hola, Senors” when I pass them, when
they’re there. They are not aggressive, seem
to accept me as part of their world.
They seem very gentle, actually.
Everyone in town must know by now
that that’s where they go… in case anyone
wanted to find one of them. All I know is
they are there sometimes, and sometimes not…
standing around or sitting, their backs against
something solid, (one only hopes). The cross
is across the narrow street from them…about
where they hang out…out of reverence or re-
spect, I guess…I doubt it’s because of fear…
maybe they just like to have God hanging out
with them, like breadsticks: you don’t always
want to eat them but they're nice to have around.

I like them. They are
living whatever life they have…seemingly
without remorse…in their own way. I can feel
love for them without judgement. It’s just
“Hola!”…”Buenos dias!” as I pass by. There’s
something profound in that simplicity. Or, am
I’m reading something into even that… and
They’re all just enlightened drunks…with
Jesus there as some anchor to this world?

Dissertation on the Importance of Poetry to Society

If you have all your needs met and you're bored by everything else, then, maybe you'll read a poem...but odds are you'll masturbate instead.

I Relish the Moment

I relish the moment
When we can come to terms of our mutual humanity.
When we can share candle light, tequila and pinya, writing by the light of the
Computer….city lights gone out all around me…

What a Roman night…
Up on a mountain top, candle light, all beauty,
Unseen beings hovering around me, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in
Vast space in front of me always, like a bedtime story…
Hell, it worked for me.

For shadowing seems to be the next concept, vision, illusion….
For shadowing like when the ocean goes out before a tsunami…..
the stock market is doing really well….no….really….


I relish the moment when
Anything can happen….
Because
It usually does
And we’re always busy
Doing something.

I relish the moment when I see you
Whom ever you are….in the street….in the bed…..wherever….
You have a beard and we have a beer……
You die on the way, taking your child to school…

I relish the moment like now, in this prime…prime what?
Prime moment of whatever it is free, in the light
Of adhistana….the blessing in even the bread you eat
Before dinner at a fancy restaurant….

Shards From a Landslide

Kingdoms happen in the moment
And get lost in thought.
Tell me who’s not deceived by appearance.

Just a glimpse does it: straight to the heart.
A world is discovered when no one is looking.

If you say it’s a game, the onus is on how you play.
If you say it’s a play, the onus is on how you act.

What I didn’t know
When I thought it was going to happen
Was that it was already happening.

I looked over to where
You were sitting and there
Were only flowers.

At the Tamale Shop

I had a few cervesas
Waiting for tamales.
That kept happening till
I was borracho, so….
I’m not sure if it’s
success or failure…
That’s how you feel by then.

I’m determined for tamale…
If I die tonight it will be
With a tamale sticking out
Of my mouth.
If that seems odd or
Irrational or some other way,
I can only sympathize with
Your lack of humor.

Tamale, tamale, I love you
Tamale….more because I
Can’t have you….you tease
Me with your non-existence.

I don’t want to seduce you
I just want to be friends…
But the lack of tamale
Has me at loose ends.

I’m German by nature.
I plan my time carefully…
This waiting for tamale
Is turning me Mexicali.

Many times you’ve said:
“You are a patient man”.
My Buddhist name is Patience…
I’m glad you think I am.

I have the coldest beer,
My cigarettes are fine…
Still waiting for tamale,
Tamale on my mind.

. . . . . . . .

I ate many tamales.
I forgot my own name….
Walking in the street of light
Filled with tamale.

Brownian Life

Avuncular manifestation
Eating a meal in open air.
Denizens of that dot of
Infinite space, move in
Brownian attraction and
Repulsion dreaming free
Will. It’s so obvious it hurts,
But then, it hurts anyway.