Sunday, July 27, 2008

#8 Olvido Under Bougainvillea

A couple of intense bursts of showers, now is cloudy and still.
A few things seem to have happened today...conversations,
practical interactions....nothing of significance.
Prayer flags hang in various poses of dishevelment after the
shower, waiting for a warm zephyr to uncurl, unfurl and get on
with the business of prayer flags.

No idea.

Beautiful, though, pretty pretty...
yes, I remember that night...let's not
talk about that now, shall we?
So much more interesting under the 
recumbent evening sky...grey clouds
beneath a lighter shade of pale
canopy tapestry over mountain valley,
fraught with the living.



Friday, July 25, 2008

I Am the Counsel

I am the Counsel, set adrift by my country,
Shambhala,
in the sweet extremities of a country, Mexico,
that is too busy with it's own soap operas to
notice a pincy gringo who wears bright shirts 
and staggers sometimes....so, my exile is a 
mystery to those around me....and to you, 
I daresay,  dear reader....
...an obscure swirl on the mandelbrot that 
Trungpa left behind.

I was privy to the scene and made a bit
of a mess of things.....sorry to say...like 
the other Counsel....in  "Under the Volcano"
...he is my assumed Doppelganger....
....whether you like it or not...

rain coming....my white collar askew...
...eyes bleary with "Jesus".....
must be part of the mystery....

Latest Buzz


Flowers in tropical splendor kind of shit...
twittering, chirping, trilling, from every  direction...
elsewhere, fate is being established...my Casablanca
is here.

What'd ya think I'd do with the money?
Living splendid simple with enough beans
is all I ever wanted to wander aimlessly
letting chance occurrence  lead the way...

I gave my rational mind to science, not that
I can't still shop,  but it never made the right 
....Big Decisions.....it was always a combination
of phenomina....a door opening when someone
said the word; "simulacrum"...
....two people with the same birthday saying
"Happy Birthday" at the same instant....
....stuff like that...that made me trust my "intuition"

...so much for a poem...












Monday, July 21, 2008

Reading Under the Volcano while a Friend Trips on Ibogane:The Great Mexican Lie

Mexico, land of mystical uncertainty, where natural power
has not been subdued by dark age "death by machine"...
...babysitting a poor slob unprepared for a cosmic journey.
Lowry wrote of the unseen forces of Mexico...he though
it was his life he was putting down on paper...rather, in the lines
of his novel are brushstrokes, shadowy glimpses of the unseen,
subtle sensations, as well as the truth of his journey....

Between the lines are the life here...the hopelessness and joy,
the constant presence of death, as well as birth...futility
bravado, recklessness, machismo, passion, flowery exaggeration
and abstraction, hopelessness and acceptance, bravery and sacrifice,
a tragic, romantic, slapstick, horrible theatre of the absurd.

So, if my friend comes away from his experience wildly changed,
distorted or visionary, inspired or depressed, saner or more solidly
crazy, it is no matter...he took his adventure, as many Mexicans do
with their lives,  with little thought of the consequences, with a 
Mexican love song from their childhood, with a naive longing for the 
possibility of life, no thought of the past or future, as if time was a 
concept thought up by gringos....and the risk he takes is that of a
creature born in a jungle...into a wild remorseless fiesta, if you want 
to call it that.

The truth is not of great value here, or, I should say it is not well 
known here...everything exists in shades of meaning that are constantly
recolored and embellished...the Spanish lied to the natives and the 
natives lied back...the Spanish killed many natives, it's true...but they also
intermarried, and the lies of that were the basis for a cultural stew made of 
blood and subtle lies.  Up North there was just the killing and the occasional
whopper as was needed to aid in the killing. The American indians knew they were 
being lied to....after a while...there was nothing subtle about it or slavery...
In Mexico,  the whole culture became a lie with the hope that the truth would
somehow manifest miraculously, like Guadelupe....like a whore that wakes up
every morning with the belief that he is still,  miraculously, a virgin.

In the North, the truth was whatever the victors wanted the others to believe,
and they did and do. In Mexico, power was just another, a bigger lie. Those that
stood for truth as power...many of those noble people...were assassinated and 
slaughtered....just as the Mexican army now slaughters the drug lords and are in 
return slaughtered....many men working both sides of the fence, because, in reality,
"on the ground", the moral distinction is cloudy at best....another example of
how strong the lie is here in Mexico.


Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Sitting On The Plaza

Plaza outside mi casita, brick on the grass....gets a little mossy....talking to mi compadres
about bad weather and dogs this time...luckily the phone rings and breaks the train of thought
so we all have a chance to see if we really like what we're talking about...but the rain has paused for now...no telling how long that now will be....and, in the end, the conversation proves to be like all the others...a temporary relief of pressure on the soul time to check out things and see what's
next.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Mexican Justice #2

Sam borrowed the car from Nancy... a gringa that had been living in Tepoztlan. So, Nancy was involved...a criminal because she had loaned the car to Sam....Violet was also involved for having not revealed certain information to the cops...and Bob and I might be involved for helping out....

Sam had to get on a plane ASAP to Eastern Europe....then he could take the heat off everyone else and still avoid prison....but he couldn't come back to Mexico....and he couldn't help Violet...

...the victims were becoming the criminals, and the criminals got away scott free...

Stay tuned....

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Paradise Lost Haiku

Rainy season now...
any moment the sun could
manifest...fat chance.

Goodbye and thanks for
all the tortillas...sorry
I couldn't help more.

Dogs bark, beautiful
music, birds, clouds, butterflies
all a vivid dream.

I only learn the
hard way...I've stopped swatting flies.
They deserve life too.

Heart broken sadness...
...no reason...just the natural state...
like the taste of  blood.

The truth is never
harmful...the truth is never
negative...that's truth.

Brightly Colored Pinata (Tepoztlan Buddhism)

A brightly colored pinata....
put on the blindfold and take a whack!
You might hit the truth!
So colorful, exciting and hollow!
What will you find inside
when it cracks open!!??

Qualities of Ann Coulter's speech that undermine the truth: some speech characteristics of a charlatan

1. Loves the sound of her own voice and the effect it has on people.

2. Uses logic to support her beliefs, rather than as a tool to seek the truth.

3. Ignores the facts that don't support her beliefs.

4. Dismisses opposing views by denigrating the person setting them forth.

5. Accuses others of the very wrongs she does.

6. Pretends to be an authority when she's not. 

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Mexican Justice

My friend, I'll call him Sam, left my house a couple of nights ago with Violet, his young girl friend...mother of one. We'd had a great time talking  and  tipping a few...Sam was from
Eastern Europe and found his way to Mexico via Texas....smart dude...philosopher, sculptor,
buisnessman, teacher, vagabond. 

They were driving their car home and were forced off the road
by another vehicle. The car was destroyed, Max walked for five miles for help, with a broken arm.
It turned out that an ambulance passed by the wreck and picked up mother and daughter...who
were miraculously unhurt, except Violet had a broken thumb. She was wearing her seat belt, and somehow managed to hold on to her daughter while the car rolled several times.
They knew who was responsible...the father of the child, who had impregnated Violet when she was fourteen. 

I think the statistic is that under ten percent of major crimes in Mexico get to the courts.
Sam was driving the car...so if the police get him, what will happen is he will  go to jail until
a lawyer can get him out...which could take months. The people that were involved in the crime
will probably not be investigated.

It's the law of the jungle here....which I feel is why everyone is extraordinarily polite to each other. It's dangerous to have someone angry with you here. It is a country where passions
frequently overflow their banks and tragedy happens. That situation seems to be taken
for granted. If one has money here, one can literally get away with murder.


Friday, July 4, 2008

Elaborate Koan

Sorry, friends,
Seems like I've been here before
writing a poem
saying goodbye
it's seeing my life
of a piece like a tapestry
one has to take it all in
to get the picture.

Good...though much of it
felt bad...that I think was
part of the training I went through.

Give up all useless projects,
make a living,
meditate,
find out what's real,
would you?
Please?

I won't be around forever
for you to ignore.

Not that I'm the bee's knees,
but your cluelessness means
you can even learn from me.

You can learn from a chicken
crossing the road...why did it?
That's what I mean, Honey.

So lost, like a harp seal pup
on ice, waiting for the cute club.
Sorry to be so blunt...but when,
if ever, did your machinations
amount to a hill of beans?

I love you. It's hard to love you
all at once....even hard one at a time...
but I try because you deserve it...
because you made it this far in the maze...
because you are human...whatever that is.

I cut this off like taffy extruding from whatever
orifice you imagine...just remember this:
It's better to sit with your face looking at
a blank wall than to ever paint it.

When you rediscover you natural mind
there will be plenty of time
to rediscover color.
























Wednesday, July 2, 2008

To Bill Knott

Your fabulous word world of penchants 
decode my own deepest trenchant
I have only yet become.
Thank you for being so obscure brilliant dazzling image guy
WHY Knott?
Reading you makes me come out
in mine own odd cure of daze...

You are better than me.
As my five year old
looked at me and said:
_"I'm better than you."

Somebody Started to Talk and I Lost Interest

Somebody started to talk and I lost interest....
from the group of friends that were together having fun, to
a larger group, where somebody was in charge and started
to talk and I lost interest.  That's how it happened as I tear 
my hair out....do you mind that I lost interest?
Someone said to me "do you have a chair?" meaning will
you please sit down...and I had a chair a  few blocks away, 
so I went there and sat down......I had already lost interest
so I went home and sat down.

I would like to make it pleasanter than that...
I would like to make it more helpful to you than that....
...but I can't....I just lost interest.