"Blow Up"

The timely 
point of the movie "Blow Up", is that the photographer 
discovers evidence  of a murder, but because of the orgy 
of self indulgence that is his world and  is the world around 
him, he can't make anybody listen...they don't care...and
eventually, he ceases to care himself. There is the rub, 
and the well pointed out connection to the main truth.

"Wake up...time to die."

That was Leon in Blade Runner.

I'm not pulling my punches any more…

there are no bets left to hedge.

I'm pulling out all the stops:

humanity is on the verge of an

inévitable extinction.

I'm not Chicken Little…

the sky IS falling:

the gourd of ashes is about to

tip over.

Forget about the wars.

Forget about personal plans.

Do you look around you?

Do you want to wind up

like the victims of the World

Trade Center…suddenly dust?

Or, would you prefer some warning?

Would you rather be tenderly aware,

or completely oblivious?

For most people, that is a rhetorical

question…..my dears, reality is

slapping you in the face.

Enlightenment is ordinary life

without the delusion of discursive mind…

without the tyranny of ego. 

If you are that, neither life or death

is an obstacle. There is no where to go…

which is a magic feeling, as a Beatle said.

Wake up while there is still time.


(P.S.
I sent this to Obama)

Condiments

Well, life has them,

in fact, that's 

what we live for

symbolized in words:

the spice of life,

the pursuit of freedom,

Liberté, Egalite, Fraternité,

the myths we pour on

to our banal , unsuspecting

lives.

Does Art Imitate Life?

Sure, if you as good as Shakespeare, Debussy,

the list is long, all the ones that mattered…

but nothing on ABC  or any of the other lettered

stations…no…their art ain't the same as life;

that's not why people watch it. People watch

those droids to escape from life. 

No, T.V./movies mimic life that people want to see…

it's all in the demography, in the market sangfroide

strategy…in the gleaming eyes of "mad men" frozen

in robotic hustlery. Art can only imitate life if the

artist is human; sweating, farting, anxious, euphoric,

angry, heartbroken…..especially heartbroken.

That art is an extension, a reaching out of life.

The other is garbage created by jackals for mice.

Ode To Shakira

My hips don't lie…

I got you hip-notized,

mesmer-angued by a 

pie in the sky…

I'm engineered, 

a misdirection

for your heart connection...

my hips don't lie;

they're your conception,

so, follow me, adoring fans.

life's not so bad when you 

can watch my hips, you see?

Kiss my false flag 

and worship me.

Talking To Myself

I call it rehearsing 

for when I want 

to have a conversation.

There are a lot of topics,

and you have to be prepared.

Besides, I'm an actor 

and a poet, and I'm always

creating out loud.

If they think I'm crazy,

well, thoughts are like busses,

and too many people get on the 

wrong one.

So, I sing to myself, sometimes

out loud.   That should be a cause

for joy, not shame. 

I declare…..life….not myself, 

really….just sheer being…the

fact that we are standing just

somewhere.

Blood Lines

Fault lines….song lines…wrinkles….

looking at the stars through blood filled eyes…

looking at our relatives filled with the same blood…

the fluid of our fluidity.

Veins of blood, veins of gold, veins of humor….

life-giving transport arteries, highways of being….

the flow's the thing in which the play is revealed….

Blood of life, blood of family, blood of tradition

flows from one generation to the next, pure or not.

We begin life in a pool of blood, sink or swim.

The ruby port slides down my throat
and turns to blood.
The blood from all the lives  you've had
would fill an ocean.

"What did you get out of Buddhism?"

"What did you get out of Buddhism?"
Absolutely nothing.
And I stopped looking for anything else.

Groove

Listening to Buddha Bomb's groove…

peaceful clouds…rain soon…

in a place where I can be myself…

sad about world confusion…

happy I found the right path…..

fresh roses and incense…

music moves my body a little;

whatever it is, it's not me.

Driving Of The Year Nail

A title of a song by Leo Kottke

that bears scrutiny.

Driving of the year nail…

what is that?

It is a driving

of what we know what to do.

It is a driving of inexorable now.

It is the driving in us

that makes us do right.

Full Moon In Pisces Redux

Magik moonlight in daytime rare as a star…

in my space…

familiar and frightening as an ice cream cone…

music moves me as it does us all….

the atmosphere does not tingle…nor is it afraid….

moon power is peace beyond all misunderstanding…

whatever we feel is magik because……..what else?

you gottan explanation?

Full moon magik….all constraints dissolve, 

so, watch out!  Keep your head about you 

in the moon wail….

the howl of chaotic uncertainty…

The Spanish, the English didn't conquer nothing…..

Nobody conquered nothing…

all are laid to waste like Ozymandias.

f

Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun

This is the world.

We try to get up on our legs.

We try to get up because that

is the first thing.

Then, we begin to look around.

So bright, so real that we don't

know what real is or care…we

are just there.

Then, shades of colors and light

begin to be seen…we see subtleties

and complexities that our minds

cannot filter yet….

But, sooner or later, they do.

A Mango And Four Cigarettes

I went to the store, bought four

cigarettes and a mango....this will

prove anything is the basis for a poem.

I came home, put the mango into the

refrigerator so that later I could slice it

and eat it cold….got me yet?

One of the cigarettes is in my mouth

on fire.  The other three wait in reserve

for the Zulus…am I coming through?

I'm enjoying this picture, whatever it is,

except for the very real compressor filling

the air with noise from next door…

jack-hammering my reverie into random bits….

Rinpoche walking by smiling, saying hello;

David and I frozen in our suits holding 

ice cream cones….

…the first night in Mexico….so strange it

absorbed me.

…the Quinenteneros celebration where I was 

completely out of place but totally accepted…

…so many shards of moments of visions

triggered by a simple action…thus worlds

unfold if we even bother to look at this one.

for Paulito

Every living thing

is reaching for the sun.

Humans write poetry, music, 

paint, dance, sing…all like

Morning Glories climbing up

a string. 

Vision Of Odessa

The tea house overlooking the docks…

smoking the huqqua with the old men

wrinkled like leather tanned over the years…

their whole world aged with millennia of the

comings and goings of civilizations…

Smoke rises from the chimneys and the stacks

on the steamers anchored in the harbor.

Workmen and seamen in dark clothes are seen

as smoldering shapes animating the landscape.

We hear of the rest of the world haltingly…
there are newspapers…and gossip and rumor
that blend into the atmosphere hazily like the
smoke that rises in front of us. How can anything
change under this rock of our certainty? People
live and people die,and, here, death has a
certain logic.

We know of the wars and the slaughter…
we've heard the words, but like the indians
at Plymouth Rock that couldn't see the ships
coming in, because, to them they were like
UFO's to us, we do not know what that
slaughter is, so, 

The days continue into the nights, the lights
come on, the cafes glow with chatter and
intrigue of a minor key, We play backgammon
late into the night….the air is pure with seasoning
of smoke. The old men are not concerned

of what is past or passing, or, what may come to be.

Common Sense

The heart
recognizes the truth
when it sees it.

Topsy-Turvy

Looks like Allah is going to have some 

new admissions to Paradise…..

as The American Way crumbles

to dust….and the Japanese lose their Chutzpah.

Time, Karma And Synchronicity

"When causes and conditions come together,

manifestation arises in various forms."

Time cannot be described as a container with a 

series of moments within it. It is more like an

unfolding or flowering of phenomena that

never ends. Synchronicity is that the flow of

phenomena manifests in certain patterns.

If you look at a  stream flowing around rocks,

the water seems to have a constant shape because

of the path the water has to take around the rocks.

The shape is nothing more than the constant 

movement of the water. Karma is the position of 

the rocks in the stream. Synchronicity is that the

water flows where it must.  

"I felt alone my whole life"

I felt alone my whole life,
but now I like it, because
I learned how to use
this body/mind machine,
this personalized space suit,
and not identify with the
equipment.

Rainy Season

I go to bed around 7 PM
these days, when the sun
is going down and the
rain is coming in...
I love lying in bed

with a clean body

on clean sheets

listening to the thunder

and rain. Simple joy,
simple life.