They Make It So Easy To Fall Asleep

 Just watch one of their boxes, oh,

T.V.’s I mean, especially the ones

that are yards wide with a high 

definition screen. You sit there in

a waking dream, hoping not to wake,

eyes annealed to bring along the brain.

and the rest of the family…how comfy.

Joke

Thing about the Kardashians....they'll never look older...

plastic surgery is too good...

Look at Joan Rivers...she's 81, in a coma, and she looks Fabulous!

Bolero

Once again,

into the breach,

uh, ditch,

uh, routine,

circus act,

busy schedule..

it’s all building

to some crescendo…

..or, it merely repeats

itself, and, you just

numbly, don’t get there.

Afternoon Of A Faun

An old faun

simplified…not waking

to a new world…amazed…

no. Watching the world it took 

so long to know slip simply 

and  beautifully away.

Nation Of Addicts

Let’s face it, folks, it’s time…

turn off whatever channel you’re on.

Really, that’s all I have to say.

That’s all you need to see.

We thought the complications

delightful…all the choices…

the markets…the crisp packaging…

too much sugar, Honey.

I can’t say I’m not a master of

self abuse. I did it so I wouldn’t

be like you.  I did it to out surf you

through this particular illusion.

I got this…like a battalion of Seals.

Jesse Ventura is the only one that

could still be my boss.

I’ll be dead pretty soon…I’ll be gone.

What I see now, maybe many of you

never will.

But…try to look.

Slight Problem

“When you believe the lie, you allow the eating 

of the energy of awareness.”   Unknown

“No wonder truth is stranger than fiction…

fiction has to make sense.”  Mark  Twain

Yes, Ahem! Didn’t mean to go sub orbital

so quick, but, HEY!  I’ve got the Technology!!

Thanks, all you Greys, all you Greens …

sure are cute, once you get over throwing up…

It’s nice that we’re all used to each other….

hey, yeah grab a chair, float in the air, I don’t

care….

I’m in a higher dimension right now,

believe me, or, Jesus, if you like…

by the way, He ain’t back yet….

I heard that on the street.

UFO…your living room…it doesn’t

matter. Just consider how many buttons 

you push in a day. Do you really think you

have a mind anymore? Honey, I’d say it’s

more a program.  

Radio Show

Listening to her voice

no matter who’s behind it

I’d marry that voice

If the voice intoxicates

you must not  litigate.

Imagine jumping off 

a bridge….no, that’s 

wrong, shouldn’t be in 

this poem, but, I’m not

going to take it out,

because, I’m not one 

of those.

No, intoxicating sounds,

that make you dream at 

night, or, in daylight.

“Look, Flipper wants us

to follow him!”  They don’t

call them day dreams for

nothing. That’s how we got

to Woodstock….all of us.

Which is why I’m still listening.

Inside my head….insight…

the words speak for themselves.

Listening to the music in a diner

anywhere in the USA  is my idea

of heaven…and, a good chicken 

fried steak.

Edlin Story

When I was a junior in high school

I had a friend, Jamie Edlin, a Jewish

Fox, she was a senior, and we just

connected intellectually personally,

you know….she was a good friend.

I visited her in Ladue neighborhood

of St. Louis….meaning money…we

went to a buffet at the Jewish Country 

Club which was fabulous….she had a 

sister, Laura,  I fell in love with something

about her…I think it was her tits, but, I’m

not sure. I visited her once at Vassar…

we slept in the same bed, but it was just

friendly. I went to her theatre class and

did something onstage. I heard much later

she attended St. Louis University…had a 

nervous break down. That’s the story.....no

that's not all...one time, at Carleton I finished

a radio show high on LSD,  then, hopped 

on an airplane to St. Louis to visit Laura. 

Ended up in a beauty parlor with her mother

who picked me up from the airport. I slept

on the chairs in the waiting room. Later that

night, I couldn't sleep, went for a walk in Ladue

and the police picked me up, took me back 

to the house where, they woke everyone up 

and  embarrassed the hell out of me.

The Third `Man

I was walking down a side street in Dansk

with a friend. The morning was crisp, 

cold and clear. We had just concluded a 

conversation about metaphysics, and were

just walking. Sound became prominent as

we walked in silence, wrapped in our own

contemplations. We stopped at a corner where

there was a slight panorama of the city, There

were few other people on the street at that time.

An old, ragged man, pushing a cart down the

sidewalk came closer. In the cart was what looked

like junk. The three of us were slowly walking 

towards each oher.  We naturally stopped when

we were upon each other. There was a pause,

I remember.

“Good day, Sirs.” the old man says.

“Good day to you,” says my friend,

do you have anything to sell?”

“No, Sirs, nothing I reckon you’d be interested in…

but, I have some free advice. It’s free because I

can only give it away. You gentlemen look like

thoughtful sorts…..maybe you could use it.”

My friend and and I gave each other a wink.

“Yes, esteemed Sir, we would be honored to 

hear what you have to tell us.”

“Very well,” said the old man as he scratched

under his arm.

“You think you’re fine gentlemen because you

wear fine clothes, eat at restaurants, sleep in

silk….you think your life is much different than 

mine, when, really, it is exactly the same, and,

perhaps a wretch like me can see that even more

clearly than yourselves. That should give you pause.

Every description of reality you come up with is

like a balloon that a child has lost the grip of,

and vanishes into the sky.”

He said nothing else…passed by us then, as if

we didn’t exist.

Out Of Body

I had that experience
at Elgin Academy,

my senior year, so, probably 

1967, in the senior lounge 

after lunch. I was reading

Huston Smith’s “The Religions 

Of Man”, and, I believe I was 

reading about Hinduism…..one

moment…..the next I was staring 

down at myself, on the couch,

reading the book.  I can still see

myself clearly there. I panicked,

and, within a moment, I was back.

in my body. I never told anyone

‘till now.

Fledgling (For Paulo)

You fell out of the nest, or 

were pushed, but you didn’t fly

that time… you hit the ground…

your parents fed you there, tried

to keep the predators away, but,

you were threatened at times.

Eventually, you did find your wings

and became a full bird, which

experience will serve you the rest

of your life. Fly. Fly away.

My Life Is Flashing In Front Of My Eyes…Slowly

I think they call it remembering.

I’ve figured out the pyramids, but

what I can’t figure out is how I got

through my life, because it was the 

road less traveled…but, I did have 

the best guides. I took a lot of chances.

Trusting myself was the best move…

I had to figure that out, myself, in 

order to survive. How did that happen?

My life is debriefing. Do I have to wait

until I’m dead for them to tell me if

I won? 

Profound Treacle

I picked up my laundry

took out the garbage….

now I’m puttering…

I mutter when I putter,

that’s another thing…

I don’t call it talking to

myself, I call it rehearsing.

That way,  I’m always ready

for my close up.

Once Again, It’s How Long?

That’s a Fahey tune I listened 

to on an ancient album….

“How Long?”

I could only Grok short 

messages. The rest test

meant nothing to me. I 

always rathered to have

listened to the rain…which,

as we know, goes on forever.

How long ‘till I meet myself

again in a place that allows me

to recognize that I am meeting?

It happened once, for billions

of beings, isn’t that a clue?

Not A Haiku...# 3394

oops!  drunk again!

..it's like I'm not paying attention or something.....

oh, no,   I am.

Belief Is Denial

Belief in God is denying 

what you don’t know.

Right now, the belief is

that  alien intelligence

doesn’t exist, because

there is so much proof 

that it does. Belief doesn’t

kill the mind so much as

it puts it to sleep. If you’ve

ever woken up from a belief,

you know what I mean.

Denial is a stage in the 

dying process…so, if you

believe, you’re not busy

being born, your busy dying.

The truth is never negative,

The opposite of denial is 

equanimity….seeing all 

things clearly and equally. 

What you don’t know is 

equally important as what 

you do.

If Ever We Needed A Deus Ex Machina

We need one now. Yes mankind is in an

intractable position in a myriad of ways.

It seems we need a miracle to get out of 

this mess…these messes. The Elizabethans

believed in God….the Mayans may have 

thought aliens were gods. Maybe they 

helped us before, or, made us this way, so,

they should take some responsibility, since,

it seems humans can’t.

Pyramids Theory

I think prehistoric peoples around the world built pyramids to 

mimic UFOs. Remember the story of a plane that landed 

somewhere in the South Pacific and encountered an unknown 

tribe, and then they left. When they went back some years later, 

the people had built an effigy of an airplane. In the Vedas, the 

Vimanas, flying machines, even look like pyramids. I think all 

the pyramids  themselves are proof of great intervention  

by aliens in this planet's history.

Don’t Exit The Bus While It’s Still Moving

Find your stop.

Get off when the bus has stopped moving.

Go to a cafe or a bar. 

Sit there and drink your choice ‘till it becomes

apparent.

Pay the bill and tip well.

Leave and walk a little through the crowd.

Walk until it’s time to stop…sit down.

Now, it’s time to cry.

Rehab

Let’s  see… Robin and Philip

both recently got out of rehab,

and they both killed themselves….

rehab doesn’t sound like  such a 

good idea.

If these people could handle their drugs better

they wouldn’t be killing themselves.

The Stones look like they could die

and they wouldn’t decay…everything in 

their bodies that can decay has decayed,

they handled their drugs so well.

A good worker doesn’t blame his tools.

Hey!

Hey, Mom!

This one’s for You!

Hey, Dad!

This one’s for Mom!

We’re done here,

genetically, or, just

in memory.

All the Christmases,

those memories that

seem like implants now.

Soon, our lives will be

preserved in museums

if they already aren’t now.

The tablecloth is being

pulled so fast that the dishes

hardly quiver.

What’s left makes us shiver

in the nakedness of the light

of how we’ve been fooling 

ourselves all along.

How refreshing!

Somewhere Between Betty Davis And Jerry Lewis

Yes, lost between horizon and space,

weather and sweet music and sleep…

Somewhere on the yellow brick road,

Elton’s song, saying goodbye while

you just pass by…the notes and notice

vibrate down the years.

Extremes have their place, like the little

devil on one side, little angel on the other 

of the cartoon’s head. You can begin to see

the white noise in your own head…but, don’t

think those voices are any but your own.

I can see Jerry and Betty in “Whatever Happened

To The Bellboy?”  I can see myself forgotten in the

chaos of uncertainty of present time…at least,
I have some great movies to watch, between
this world and the next.

Listening To “Stars And Stripes `Forever” And Liszt “Les Preludes” Superimposed

It’s all very heroic, and the musics complement

one another. Sousa played for the United States
Marine Band. Hitler listened to Les Preludes the
night he invaded Poland. Les Preludes is more
romantic….more about life…Sousa horns in to
make a point….Liszt responds with a swelling of
violins….Sousa trumpets…Liszt uncorks the
drums….Liszt wins the battle, but loses the war.

Are there marches, now, to see the boys off?
Do they just listen to their headphones in their
war games with real bullets? All the pretense
of war gone…just another business…the only
cause is that they’re brainwashed, or, getting
paid. And you thought war was sad before.

Morning Raga

Starts slowly, like getting the legs

over, out of bed, and, hopefully, 

there is coffee or something.

Getting up is hard….especially

when you have to. Too foggy to

know if there is music, which is why,

if there is some, it cushions the process

of having to do it again.

That’s one way to see it. Another could be

just a human flow of continuity into the next

day, that arbitrary increment of life, the way 

we break it down. Must we? It seems so.

So, once we are up and can hear the music,

whether there is any or not, we rote our way

into the rut. Or, we do not. The big question

is do we have a choice? The answer is yes,

because of the music.

Burma Shave Poem # 465

You think you're here...

ain't that strange.....

you're just passing by...

(check Buddhism for further details)....

Burma Shave

I Worked Hard To Get Nowhere (for Daniel)

I worked hard to get nowhere.

Other people worked hard and

found themselves at the same place.

It seems all of us have been doing

the same thing.

Different things make you work hard.

Love is the best one.

Maybe the only one.

Mere survival doesn’t hold a candle

to love.  Love is the only reason there

are still humans.

Since I’ve gotten nowhere, I’ve relaxed,

or, gotten old.   I bet Lee and Grant felt

the same way.

City Lights

I stood outside the book store with my friends

in the clear light

remembering  the waves of power this place

had for me as it did for many...

I wanted my picture taken here.

I bought a tee shirt.  It was my

Mecca.  I survived to see it....many didn't.

Response

I live in perfect love

of the aberrations around me....

I know they can't take me straight,

or, even themselves for that matter,

so, I twist the dance to get a word through....

we all do, if we know what we're doing....

poems are self secret too.

It's good to gather,

at least, to look,

appreciate the joys we have.

We're not painting our faces

with smiles "to meet the faces we meet",

at least, the ones that get the jokes.

Poem for Bill Forbes

We were in high school together…

boarding, so, we lived together.

He took LSD by himself there.

He was a Zoroaster, that still is cool.

I first got stoned with him after we 

graduated..at the summer theatre

at the high school…it was cool.

AND heard Sgt. Peppers there 

first then…..(I said “I can’t breathe!”

he said  “You are breathing!” then,

I got it.) We went onto a roof, shot

bottle rockets onto the street below….

disrupted traffic. 

His father had a factory….made soles

for shoes.

Bill joked that he worked in his Father’s 

house…saving soles….no joke…he gave

me a Zoroaster name  “Mek”, meaning spider.

He killed himself.

Yeah,  that’s all.

Listening to Sunshine of Your Love by Cream

This is when you knew

you were stoned.

That is all, Captain Tom,

Captain John, it’s Captains

all the way down.

Egoistic Poem

I think I'm helping keep
a few more people alive
with my poems, which are
like stabs in the darkness
trying without meaning to,
to cut through to the light.

I just look at the graph on
the site and it tells me if
something I write gets hits.

I could try to play with it,
but, shit.   Is it because I'm
being honest? (I'm beyond
trying).....

Right now, it kinda
feels like a farce....in the sense
of satire..and, here's the twist....
that being real is satire relative
to what seems to be going on.

Hotel Geneve

Reminds me of the Boulderado

in Boulder, Colorado….old enough

to still mean something..still alive,

as if a building could be a mandala,

and, why not? There’s enough history

here to capture the identity of a small

country, let alone Mexico. And the staff 

knows their stuff…not efficiently, like the

Germans…but always, eventually, which

gives the guest enough time to relax and

become human themselves.

Some places are haunted in a good way…

like a bouillabaisse whose broth has

continued it’s flavor for generations.

It’s also a business, so, ah, there’s the rub.

And, Mexico as a whole stands to lose flavor

because of international homogenization.

But Mexico’s magic was not destroyed, the

way Manifest Destiny steamrolled indigenous

culture “El Norde`”, the birthplace of McDonalds,

and the Mac Trumps that followed. That’s why 

I’ve lived here for so long. That’s why I can….live…

here.

Castaneda wrote  about “finding one’s spot”.

Hey!   I found one!  Hotel Geneve!

Tepoztan,  8/7/2014 (Hotel Geneve  Mexico City)

Mexico Needs A Gardenia

Like any big city, sitting at he

Argentinian cafe, watching the

waves of people, their tales

worn in the clothes on their bodies,

each person their own ambient 

semaphore.

I can read them better now that I’m

over myself. Businessmen in nice

suits. I look at their serious faces

and all I think to say to them in my

mind is  “Whatever it is, 

it ain’t gonna work.”

People talking to themselves….“You

can’t get here from there.”

A huge woman in some kind of uniform.

She was smiling as she passed me, and

we smiled at each other…handsome men

and women, well dressed and obviously

going somewhere fun….the costumes with

the pins and steel ornaments…either black

and white, or rainbow-ed. 

Most hypnotized by purpose of one thing

or another. I saw them see me in passing,

in the split second….few reactions….too

little time, that they didn’t have time to take.

There are plenty of flowers in Mexico….the

Nahuatl’s name for Tepoztlan translated as

“Valley of the flowers.” 

But several people I did talk to…a man that

wanted to show me around in his taxi…some

beautiful old women in a huge shop, desperately

trying to sell me something… told me that the

Americans are more afraid of Mexico, and it hurts

them, economically of course..but it also hurts 

their hearts. These people need a gardenia, that

strong perfume of natural love, to remind them

of themselves….which they haven’t really lost.

Written in Hotel Geneve, Mexico City August 6, 2014

.

Death Of Bill Knott

Was not surprising

was not an accident

he just became Bill Not

lost a couple of letters

I imagine he’s fine with that.

Baton Rouge

Never been there.

But, now I’m in a strange

place I’ve never been…got 

to call it something…

at my age I need all the

whatevers I can get.

So, it may be Mexico City,

but Baton Rouge it is.

I may get to the point in the

next stanza, or, not, because

I’m in Baton Rouge….which, in

essence means not getting to the

point. Which is a point where I 

could stop.

Sure, but, you know, what do you

want to call it? A religion? A belief

in anything?    Yes. That’s why I call

it Baton Rouge…a place I’ve never 

been.

Written at Hotel Geneve, Mexico City

     8/5/2014

Poem On Demand

To soothe the savage beats

that hound us through our lives

these days of traumatic uncertainty.

You’ll find them now more frequently

in unexpected places most likely,

because the fabric of what we assume 

is reality is so frayed that the flesh begins

to show through…embarrassing for some…

delightful for others.

You make the artists create, you do, we

are the ones that try to get you back on track

through hyperbole….you get so off the path

we try to point you in the right direction.

No wonder you love/hate us.

Artists are free..no wonder they have such

problems. They’re not like pop singers that

cost you a lot to get you to where you think

you want to be. No, they tell you where they

are, which is where you are. Take it or leave it.

Sweet Spot

I was born in a sweet spot of time,

when the earth, man, stood still in

the glow of the atomic bomb, and,

couldn’t get back into self destruction

for a time….the time of my life.

We could just do stuff…didn’t have to

think about the future, or, so we thought.

But even having that much freedom was

a taste of the good cook…we were hooked,

and, you can be hooked in a good way, like,

meditation…oops. Finding that anywhere 

else, out of that time, proved for many to be

impassable. At the same time, for many, it 

awakened the karma from previous lives that

connected them to their path…Zen, Tibetan, 

Hindu…political correctness requires I say

that now. It’s a natural organic process, like 

when you, say, pour nutrients into a pond.

As long as there’s sugar, there’s gonna be 

yeast. As long as humans believe themselves

as individuated entities, they’ll continue to 

slaughter each other. My teacher called it

P.O.O.   power over others. Everything

you know is wrong. Start over before over

starts you.