Sunday, January 31, 2016

House on Plumber's Street (for Daniel)

Beautiful colorful shabby...
you are welcome if you dare to enter...
but;  leave your ideas outside.

Reunion

Institutions are for the institutionalized.
Forty fifth college reunion this summer.

I had an idea, with my dear friend, A.,
who matriculated with me but took three
years to write his senior paper, to give
something back...not to the school, rather
to our class...to create an event, a mini 
reliving of that open and wonderful time
of our lives that changed us all forever in
such a diversity of ways. We thought we
could get some like mindeds together,
play music, read poetry, perform 
spontaneous theatre, give lectures on
Buddhism and plumbing, in short, show
how we have contributed to the world 
beyond money, beyond another bench
somewhere in the Arb dedicated to the
class of such and so.

A. looked at the reunion page of the 
website and saw that everything had
been carefully planned. There would be
no surprises...no one would raise their
hippie flag atop the student union this
time. Even the past had been sanitized
to reflect an ideal of cultural sameness
that cannot be a living thing. 

I wrote half my senior paper on mescaline.
I wrote the other half the way I knew they'd
want it...I knew the gauntlet well by then, and
all I really wanted to do was get out of there 
and into the real world that I was not prepared 
for, except to the extent that I knew that it too 
was a game with rules. When I got my paper
back, the comments reflected this exact point
of view. The rest of my life I learned to follow 
my heart, not my rational mind; that tool good
for grocery lists or sending a man to the moon,
but useless either to experience the world or
understand the experience.

So, no letters after my name. I had some
professional licenses, some good theatrical 
reviews, a book of poems published in an
obscure country on the other side of the world.
Some might have said I taught meditation well.
I like the epitaph on a tombstone that Vonnegut
coined:     "He tried."













Phlegmatic Immunity

I'm too old for this.
My first book of poems
was just published in
Romania. The chances 
of anyone outside that 
country seeing it are as
good as if it were published
by Hillbilly Press in 
Arkansas.

It was nice to see my words
in print. That lasted a day or
two. 

I wrote this in a dream:
"Achievements are blades
of grass that fly in the face
of death like straw in the wind."

I think I was trying to tell myself
something.

I'm enjoying my cranky, creaky
life too much anymore to try 
very hard to do anything.

Anyway, my poems are like a
message from a bottle, unlikely
to be found except on some
distant shore.

Dig me now, or, dig me up...
later. 

Look! I'm a time Capulet!
Too lazy even to commit
suicide...not even enough
intention for that. Just
another forgotten Yorick:

"He had a great sense of 
humor, although I can't
prove that."













Saturday, January 30, 2016

Need To Know

I know I don't know
all that I knew.
I know I only know
what I need to know 
now.
Much of what I knew 
I didn't need to know.
I'm glad I know that 
now.
I knew so much I didn't
know what I really knew.
It took a lot of unknowing
to know what I really 
needed to know, 
which I do 
now.
I'm on a basis of need to
know now.

That's all you need to know.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

New Day

Rise up into new day.
If you have freedom,
use it to help others.
In this degenerate age
true rulers, the ones 
with the biggest hearts

the ones with the 
clearest minds

the ones who fought
for the benefit of all

the heros you only see
now in cartoons

the sages, the wise men
you could trust with your
children

are as rare as stars in
the daytime.

Trust your own heart
and what it tells your mind.

Don't listen to the white noise
the tsunami of nonsense
the mental chains forged
to imprison beyond bars.

Understand that there is a thing
called common sense
basic goodness
that we know instinctively
when we see it

in the policeman
in the stranger
in the doctor
in the grocery clerk.

Wake up to what's been lost
in the industrial revolution
industrial war
industrial social engineering
industrial education.

Moloch...the embodyment
of corporations as people...
how much do you need to 
know in order to see?

First you have to look,
then you can see.

If you don't look you'll fall
into a manhole with your ipod.

Don't hide from the madness.
If there's an obstacle, go around.
Open your eyes,
it's a new day.

"Everybody's got a Big 'But....'."

Pee Wee Herman






















































Friday, January 22, 2016

Just A Hunch

Poems about getting old are getting old.
Besides, it's about starting over, getting
young again in different form. How do I
know? Just a lucky guess that I followed
the life I did in the first place. How did I 
know to take the road I took...just a hunch
I guess, but, it worked for me. Those that
take chances in this life must have lived 
before....will again 'till they get it right.
Replay is not a thing of the past. 

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Fiesta

It's here
a new Fiesta again
like waking when I was ten
walking outside to oak trees
fresh grassy air so present
there was no other time
at that time.

No future now that I'm old,
ten again, walking out onto 
the dirt and the street, another
now again in the momentary
fiesta, vendors setting up tents,
air perfumed with sweat and
lack of pretense, seeing and
nodding to each other as if 
we were never ever anywhere 
else. Simple as it could be...
simple as it was before caught
in the trap of believing in a 
future that never could be but
suddenly rushing forward for
years to some idea of destination
caught up in the human waterfall
of shouldn't we, not knowing what
we had forgotten in the swirl of 
events that seemed like a good 
idea at the time, but led to nothing
more than missing the point of why
we were there in the first place,
where we first were when we did
smell the air. felt the space, saw
what was here, when we were alive
for the first time. 

Back to that, the same as when 
I left it, and where have I been all 
this time? In someone else's dream?
It couldn't have been mine. 












Monday, January 18, 2016

What's God Got To Do With It?

I live behind a Mexican Catholic church.
Their patron Saint is Saint Sebastian....
depicted as a guy tied up on a pole, 
pierced by a dozen or so arrows. It would
seem he had it even worse than Jesus,
though, I don't know if he gets more points
for that. 

They're having a benefit concert for the 
church, a kind of dance party, charging
a decent fee. It's preceded, like everything
Mexican church, with lots of loud explosions,
ariel bombs. They placed fifteen feet high
slats in front of the iron fence, so that folks
couldn't watch the show from the street.
Why, I have no idea. If they'd blocked out 
the sound, that would have been great, 
because that would mean I'd be able to get
some sleep tonight. As long as I can hear 
the music, I'll be dancing in the street, 
because, unless they have strippers, I don't
really care what the band looks like. I really
don't understand how having the slats up is
going to entice more people to pay the fee
and come into the church grounds. Maybe
they reason, like all things church, that, if it
seems somehow forbidden, more people
will be tempted to do it...which, to me, seems
to go against the basic principles of church,
but also means that they are fully aware of 
the business that they are in. And what any 
of this has has to do with God in the first
place is beyond me. 





Friday, January 15, 2016

Star Wars

Went to the movie with my two Jew Buds
B. and L., I Max theatre in Cuernavaca.
After we bought tickets for the next show 
in two hours, we took a chance and walked
into the first restaurant we came to, Chinese
in menu, and had a really nice meal. Before
I ate, I took some Ecstasy, and had some 
quite decent ribs...L. too...B went for the 
chicken. B. and I went outside before the 
movie, where he got stoned and I was just
coming on after the ribs. L. was the straight
man. We sat down for the movie and had to 
endure damned commercials too long...but
B. dug them. Then there were four previews
of new movies, all based on comic books. 
I kept leaning over to B. with the comment 
"small screen", because they were just too 
much. The movie started and then I'm not 
sure what happened. I have lazy eye and 
am used to seeing reality in 2-D, but we had
these 3-D glasses, which I put over my glasses,
which were a little difficult to manipulate, and,
because the action was so fast and furious
and f'ing HUGE, it was all a bit overwhelming.
The film was well wrought, with usual plot
predictability, but seeing some of the original
characters back in action after 30 years was
entertaining. It seems like ecstasy is not a
great drug to watch a movie on. I felt mellow
for sure...but B. was giggling his ass off in
stoned goofiness, so, he seemed to have the
best time  L. kept nudging me from time to time
to accent the action, but I never could be sure 
what he was referring to. For me, the drug was 
somewhat wasted in the context. But we all felt 
very amenable, and got home just fine, but I 
probably would have had a much better time just
sitting around with the dudes and talking. It was 
the first movie I'd seen on the big screen in a long 
time and I  Max, no less. I know the movies these 
days just seem to get intenser and intenser and 
have to be, I guess, for the public's jadedness 
factor, but, for me, it was just a bit too much.











Thursday, January 14, 2016

Not Guilty

I'm old, so, I don't have
to feel guilty about not doing 
anything. For one thing, there
isn't much I'm able to do any
more. Also, I've done pretty
much what I wanted and or
intended to do, so my bucket
list is pretty empty. Who says
old age is a bad time? Sure,
there's death and all, but who
says death is the end of anything
more than whatever act of the
play we're in? I love getting up,
walking slowly to the coffee house
to see if anyone is there.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Two Buddhists Walk Into A Bar

Two old guys walk into a bar,
Rab, and Jirt. They sit at a table
and order drinks. Jirt says to Rab:
"What do you want to talk about?"
Rab replies: "Nothing." So they 
drink their drinks at slow normal 
speed, not speaking. Every few
minutes, one of them laughs, 
which provokes a laugh out of 
the other one. Neither of them
has spoken. They work their
way through two or three drinks 
like this. It's a quiet bar, so a few 
people notice this odd behavior.
The bartender, a gregarious sort,
finds it particularly unnerving. He 
goes over to them when he's 
having a lull in the serving. He 
speaks to them:

"I notice that you guys aren't 
talking to each other, but every
once in a while, one of you laughs, 
and then the other does. Do you 
mind if I ask, what's that all about?"

Jirt responds: "We're having a 
conversation about nothing."

The bartender, Bill, says: "But, 
neither of you has said a word."

Rab says: "What part of nothing
don't you understand?"






Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Two New York Jews Meet In Mexico For The First Time

I was in the coffee house with my 
friend, B., who grew up in Connecticut, 
and my friend, L., who grew up in Rhode
Island, joined us at the table. Ok, ok!
Neither was from New York, but they 
might as well could have been!
Anyway, when they recognized that they
were with each other, (they'd never met),
It was as if I had become a vague 
memory in front of them. They began 
talking to  each other intently, but I 
couldn't quite hear what they were 
saying...or, maybe it was that I couldn't 
understand what they were talking about,
as if they'd suddenly clicked into a secret 
genetic language, or, that they were 
reliving memories of the diaspora in code. 
They kind of melted into the same body
language: arms crossed on the table, 
slightly hunched, leaning a bit forward,
like gorillas that had been separated in 
the zoo at some point, but immediately
recognized each other after a separation
of ten years. They were catching up on 
experiences that they never had together,
but each, in their own lives, had had 
similar experiences. You could see the 
"oys" and the "veys" as invisible 
parentheses. I had the blood of a Jew, 
but not the culture. No wonder they were
called a "lost tribe", because it seemed
that they had recognized that they had
found each other. I couldn't join in, 
because I was no longer relevant. 








Quote

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”
– Terence McKenna



“If the words ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.”
-Terence McKenna

http://www.zengardner.com/73-mind-blowing-terence-mckenna-quotes/

Monday, January 11, 2016

Vote Trump!

He's an unknown...and that's
a good thing. The knowns are
the reasons why less than half
of Americans voted in the last
election! It's common sense.
Don't let another common
criminal with credentials get in
the White House! Wake up
America! You may not like 
some things Trump says...but,
at least he's not a liar as far
as we've seen. Get mad at
government as usual!

Vote for Trump

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Poem For Lee

Axioms:

1. It's better to get a little
of something good than
nothing at all.

2. It's better to get nothing
at all than something bad.

You didn't tell me the music
didn't start 'till nine thirty.
I got some peanut M&Ms
and went home.

All I got from the evening
was a nice walk, and this
lousy poem. (Oh, and the
M&Ms).

Friday, January 8, 2016

What Do I Have To Do To Get Your Attention?

Surely, (don't call me that) it wouldn't 
last long...I mean, my God; twitter, 
tweet, boop bop beep. Politically
correct? You have to understand 
what some one's actually saying, 
which has nuance, slang, flavor, 
idiom, without which language 
just devolves into Newspeak...
no thank you!  Body language!
Yes! That includes the finger!
That's the only way I can tell if
a driver is from New York City!
When they execute me, I'm not
going to say: "Well, that's not what
I would have done..." No, baby,
they get the finger! It's so much more
susphincter! Wake up, ya morons!
You're not "mentally challenged"!
Saying that makes you look stupid!
No wonder comedians won't play at
colleges! No fucking sense of humor!
Maybe that goes along with not 
getting a real education! George
Carlin said he never got sick because
he swam in a polluted river!
You don't "evolve" into something
that's not real! Take the plastic off!
Pick your nose in front of a crowd!
The ones that don't turn away are
your friends! Real people! There!
I've said too much!







Haiku After Reading Issa

It's chilly tonight...
no fire warms my little room,
so, one more blanket.

Squirrels, dogs, on the roof
dancing over my ancient head,
not loud like fireworks.

I've juggled my life
between joys and tragedies...
"Good job", still, sadness.

No more drinking, no
more sake, I've had enough:
get high on what's here.

The church bells don't sound
as loud as they used to...my
hearing is fading.

Read Issa tonight...
his mind was part of nature...
dogs under the moon.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Wassa Matter, Ya Mary, No Sense Of Humor?

Got hit by the card info thieves,
the first time in ten years of living
in Mexico. 

My bank caught it, but now 
I need a new card...inconvenient
to say the least.

Little me, caught in the web of
worldwide corruption. I should have
prepared, if not for the worst, the
probable bad.

My landlord, my grocer, will give
me time and credit...they're still
good humans. I live in a place
where there still are some. They
live in Mexico, so, they know 
about suffering....

not just waiting for days in line
to see Star Wars...
not just feeling bad because
their cell phones are out of date...
not just because they broke a
fingernail.

They've seen dead people,
blood running in the streets
for generations.
Welcome to the Third World,
America.












Monday, January 4, 2016

A Brand New World Religion

A brand new world religion is just
coming into being!
It doesn't even have a name yet!
A contest will be forthcoming to 
give it one!

We do know many things about it 
already, however....
No cats (because no catechism)..
No dogs (because no dogmas)
and no tantrums (because no tantra)
will be allowed! 

We will be the First religion, because
we will have more beliefs than any other...
more than all combined!
We promise a new belief weekly!
A Lazy Susan of Symbolism!
Also, No Worries! We won't take any
of our beliefs seriously!

Our Leaders will pose to the congregation
a variety of confusing and unanswerable 
questions...No Worries! They won't be 
very interesting!

No guilt! No sin! No penance! No Heaven!
No Hell! No Worries!
When we pray, we find we are talking to
Ourselves!
Life after death is what you make of it!

Our Congregation is All of Humanity!
You can't be Excommunicated!
You can Unsubscribe, but you can't hide!

We bring the fun into Religfun!
Coming Soon!








Friday, January 1, 2016

Anti Holiday Rant

I'm glad the holidays are over.
Why do we have them?
"Well, it's a tradition, you know,
we've always done it..."
Christmas?
It's only been a tradition for no more
than a couple of hundred years...
that's not exactly always.
And, what's the point of it?
To have something at a certain time
of year that we always do?

Native cultures also had traditions:

"We've always planted corn this way.
at this time, because we know the corn
always grows then, and then we get food."

That's a tradition that makes sense.
Or, say, having a feast at a certain time 
of year to recognize the passing of season
and the start of a new cycle...
acknowledging a truth about time: that 
it's cyclical...that also makes sense.
The solstice makes more sense as the
beginning of the New Year, because
that's when the Sun cycle begins again.
Saying that the New Year begins on
midnight, December thirty first, is simply
arbitrary, unconnected with any real earthly
event.

I think that's why Santa Claus has become
prominent at Xmas, and why the 
Easter Bunny is as important as the 
resurrection: because someone, somehow,
couldn't stand the arbitrary disconnectedness
of the sanctioned events, and had to make 
fun of them. At least, that's what I would, 
and do, do.