Old Curmudgeon Poet

Grandfather poet

full of platitude advice

out of spunk

not even punk

I left all my good ideas

in a trunk.

Tired of slapping fools around

it just hurts my hands

and they just keep coming

with idiot grins

marching in step,

lemmingized.

It was better when they

lived and died in Iowa

never leaving town.

Now their spew is all

over twitter, 

over twittered,

as if it gives them

credibility, the way

their lost beliefs

used to.

For goodness sakes!

Go back to belief and

stop having opinions!

No one cares!

No one should care!

Even you don't care

other than the fvoment

you can induce in

other idiots!

Don't hydrate,

you can't hold water!

This is me, Grandpa,

on the front porch

yelling as you morons

march past in step,

wishing your destination

was the ocean.

Keep going...keep going...

you're getting there.

"Things will turn out the same anyway"

Make a decision, just make it...

things will turn out about the same anyway.

Don't live in fear of second guessing...

the more mistakes you make, the more

you learn, and sometimes you can't help

but get it right. 

Listen to feedback, the cosmic guru...

be willing to realize when you're wrong

and change it, that's how the blade

sharpens. Go off fully cocked with  

a strong back and your eyes open

and moist.

A business plan is a pawn, but a good idea. 

Anything can always happen

and usually does. Even if you make 

millions doesn't mean that you'll be happy.

Halfway between playing the horses

and inheriting Fort Knox is where we

usually find ourselves, quivering with

anticipation, or, frozen solid as ice.

The kachinas are everywhere to tickle

or trip us. We should be a little humble

and thankful. Arrogance drives into a

wall at full speed. There is no manual

for life...rely on your senses...that's

how you got this far up the ladder.

Trusting your reason completely is

unreasonable...there has to be wiggle 

room for intuition, the inner guru. Trust

that more and life may become a 

circus, not a game of chess. 

How do I know this is true?

Well, I have a great sense of humor,

I just can't prove it.

Friendly Cosmic Rant

Seven billion people

not worth a universe sneeze

crowded together 

like yeast in beer

drowning for the same reason.

When asked about aliens,

my teacher said:

"Oh, yes, they've been coming

here for a long time."

He wasn't referring to 

the Enquirer.

All religions predicted this time,

this time we don't even recognize

even though we are in the midst

of it. Many of us are on the edge

of our seats, feeling the inevitable

is just around the corner; not 

because we saw some guy in the

street carrying a sign: 

"The end is near."

No, because we feel the street,

feel the phone call is coming,

Modern art tried to warn us of

the breakdown, the change, the

degeneration...we thought the

paintings and the music interesting,

though discordant. We thought it

was art, not communication from

the collective human mind, 

a heads up.

I feel what's happening in the USA,

though I live in Mexico...I'm glad I'm

not too close, in the middle of it. I can

see what's happening to people 

that are, and it isn't pretty...getting 

closer to not even human.

We are yeast in beer, but our minds

are much more...more aware than

they let on...heavily repressed so

we can get on with our yeastiness.

The universe shuffles the cards....

"Whose deal? Pass the peanuts.

Ante is one world."

review of my first published collection

http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/features/literature/book-review-brownian-life-by-john-tischer.html

My Life Flashes Before Me

All the actions I took,

all the decisions I made

flash before me

like fireworks at the end

of a festival.

My life flashes before me

like a child's face, eyes 

wide with wonder.

My life flashes before me

each spoonful of sugar

in my coffee.

My life flashes before me

when I leave my house 

each morning dressed 

like Angus Young, ready 

to play "Highway to Hell".

My life flashes before me

in front of my computer,

ready to write, 

without a clue.

My life flashes before me

my whole life....only now

have I started to see it.

When I die, will my life

flash before me?

At that point, who cares?

The Right Mind

A common phrase to say about someone

who is crazy is: "They're not in their right

mind."

What is this right mind? What is sanity...

same question. We know psychosis is 

when someone sees their glass of water

as a glass of blood. Their perception is so

skewed that they can't see what's in front

of them as what it is. But there are many 

people that seem outwardly to be "sane"

that are not in their right minds. Ted Bundy,

for example, who hacked and bludgeoned

people to death, can be seen in interviews 

a rather charming person. Most psychopaths

are not serial killers. One study done, a 

test given to people in a wide range of 

occupations, to determine who had 

psychopathic tendencies, revealed that many

that tested positive were CEOs, politicians,

church leaders...in other words people in

situations where they could exert power and

control over others. These people may seem

socially acceptable, but they are not in the 

"right mind"...the mind that sees and relates

to phenomena clearly and accurately.

People in their right minds are not so self 

absorbed and self centered. They are 

interested in and sympathetic to the world

around them. They are not so concerned with

how everything affects "me". They don't dismiss 

the sufferings of others. 

In Buddhism, the ultimate right mind is the mind

of enlightenment. What are the characteristics of

that mind? Buddhism has many teachings about

enlightenment. One way of describing it is in 

terms of two qualities it has. The two qualities 

are "emptiness" and "compassion".

Emptiness means not being addicted to 

discursive mind, the part of mind that thinks. 

Ego, "self", is the obsession with "me", "this", 

which is fed and  maintained by thoughts and 

emotions; thoughts that have a lot of energy 

driving them. Wrong mind is to be obsessed 

with getting what we want, pushing away 

what we don't want, and ignoring the rest of it.

Wrong mind is the endeavor to solidify life into 

a  perfect state of pleasure and security...a 

goal that can never be reached. It is a complete

strategy of failure, but one that most humans

follow. Emptiness is the absence of this struggle,

absence of addiction to wrong mind strategy, 

freedom from discursive thoughts and emotions.

Compassion is realizing that suffering is 

universal. It begins to arise with freedom from

wrongmindedness. It is apparent in empathy

and sympathy. As we begin to turn away from 

"me", we begin to feel more clearly the suffering

of others. The more open and aware we become,

the more we cannot help but begin to feel

compassion towards others. It is said that one 

cannot attain the ultimate right mind for oneself.

It can only happen for the sake of all the others.

This is how the bodhisattva path arose in 

Buddhism.

So, right mind is emptiness of self centered 

mind for the sake of others. This is the ultimate

philanthropy. It is apparent in all true art.

Even people who are not in right mind experience

glimpses of it throughout their lives. Many times

these glimpses have the effects of distraction or

annoyance. Some experiences of right mind stick

with people their whole lives as memories; that 

moment long ago in a canoe on the lake, watching

the sunset in the west at the same time the full

moon was rising in the east....the first time we 

made love...that one thing our parent said to us

that we'll never forget. These moments of right 

mind permeate our lives.

Right mind is our native state of mind. We can't 

create right mind, but it is always available. This

right mind is the only thing that always seems to

be missing...slightly beyond our grasp..the itch

we cannot scratch. It is the reason why we 

meditate, do therapy, take psychedelics. It is the 

basis of all spiritual paths and perverted religions.

It is the universal right mind, the only thing we

truly share as human beings. We cannot loose 

this right mind, because it is innate to our beings.

We can't create this right mind for the same 

reason. Right mind cannot be produced, but it can

be cultivated. It cannot be evoked, but it can be 

exposed. Like a diamond covered with rock, the

impurities that cover right mind can be removed,

leaving only right mind.

The only problem is that there is an obstacle to

experiencing right mind: the aforementioned

addiction to wrong mind; discursive thoughts,

the self centeredness that cherry picks reality.

The most effective way to give up our addiction

to wrong mind is to go cold turkey, which is the

practice of meditation. Many people who try to

meditate get quickly discouraged...they come

face to face with their addiction, discursive mind,

and they see its power and momentum and

feel they'll never get the clarity and peace they

assume is the object of meditation. What they 

are actually experiencing when they see their

minds simply for the first time in meditation is

the jones, the withdrawal symptom for their

addiction. It's much harder, takes longer to get

off wrong mind addiction than it does 

methadone. There are no quick fixes like ibogaine

to eliminate this addiction. It's manual labor 

and it takes time. There is no easy way.

But even after people have been meditating for

a short period of time...say a few months...they

begin to see that after that hour of meditation,

squirming that the time is not up, forcing 

themselves to sit until the end of the hour, even 

though the phone is ringing, when they get up,

they begin to notice a slight freshness, a slight

wholesomeness they begin to recognize. They

begin to get a sense that meditation really is a 

good thing to do, beyond the hype. It's not much,

but it is something. it is a blade of grass of right

mind, beginning to reveal. 

Even My Company Forsakes Me (for Salvador Quasimodo)

John, my spiritual doppelgänger,

it was nice to know

when you were around.

My sangha brothers and sisters

profusely scattered 

after the change.

At least, I can talk to my brother, 

now that the medicine

allows him to be human.

I've gone to seed...my thoughts

are scattered like electronic

milkweed...who knows if they'll

land on fertile soil? A few new

friends are taking root in my life...

heaven help them; I pre-apologize.

Not even sad...my life is the way

of all lives...nothing special...they

may remember a poem of mine,

but they won't remember me; the

ones that do will also die.

No monuments, please...why

pretend eternity? Sure, use of me

what you can...like weathered 

New England barn wood, use me

to redecorate your minds. I'm worth

at least as much as a few tin cans.

There is, after all, only one poem,

written in so many ways by so many.

There is only one heart we share...

It's time we all know this.

Why else do we save the poems

of those dead a thousand years?

Because there is only one heart, 

one mind, that sees things clearly:

the right one.

What If Satan Got Angry?

Isn't he always anyway?

He might as well should be...

he wears the outfit, 

walks the walk.

If he got angry, wouldn't that 

be redundant? Is he ever happy?

does he ever look at a flower

and not think: "I want to destroy

that"?

When he reads the paper over 

coffee in the morning, does he

smile and think to himself:

"Good...things are just fine."

If he laughs with his friends,

(if he has friends), what do they

laugh about?

"Sin sure is a bull market!"

"Finally, most people are going crazy!"

"Gotta love the presidential election!"

"Political correctness...I wish I'd 

thought of that!"

"Bring me L.B.J. ....I want to hear 

his story again." 

I Quit

I must not be a poet.

I don't care how the words sound.

I only care what they say.

I don't care what I say...whatever

comes out is okay...I don't see 

enough future to hire an editor.

I've said it all already anyway.

I just keep writing words because

I don't know what else to do.

So many I's in this poem, you know

I must be doing something wrong.

I don't care, it's not my job, I don't

have to get it writ right.

I don't know enough to know when

it's over, time to quit, throw in the towel,

abdicate, give up, shut up, be still,

be quiet...you see something is wrong.

I'd like to stop but I don't know how.

I'd like to say something nice, people

would like, but I'd rather tackle them

tickle them, yell at them:

"Put down your god damned cell phones

and take a look at the world you're in!"

I should be banned from writing.

But words are free, speech is free, few

are paying attention. Talk in the world

is hot, steaming, bubbling blaze of sheer

heating up nonsense amok in an out of

control environment, civilization, species

that can't help itself and knows it deep 

down but doesn't know which way to turn

with seeming good ideas getting lost in

tsunami of out of control events planned

and spontaneous uncoordinated, anarchy

the home game too big to fail too big to

succeed nobody else has a clue either.

And yet, when I'm sitting in the morning

outside the coffee house, sipping and

smoking, nothing seems out of place.

Figure that one out.

Up Again

In the morning,

did my chores,

processed thoughts

of the night before.

Waiting for an earthquake

the next few days.

I felt the last one here

before it happened.

Waiting for election;

Hillary the monkey,

Bernie the fox,

Trump the lion,

who will it be?

I feel something bad

before it happens.

People come to Tepoztlan

for vacation, from

Mexico City, for the air

and the ambience. It's

safe, for Mexico, for the 

world. 

A prophesy forty years ago;

a taxi took a man at night, 

into the countryside, nothing 

around. "Let me out here.."

(the middle of nowhere)

"When the great sadness 

comes, Tepoztlan will be 

spared." The man disappeared

into the night. (stranger things

have happened...)

Who's kidding whom?

What do you see?

Where do you look?

The truth is never negative...

we put judgements on it.

And nothing much is 

different since the beginning

of time, the beginning of space.

When I was young, my mind spun

with thought, trying to figure out

where and why I was at all. I read

everything. 

When I met my teacher and asked:

"Isn't there an easier way?" and he

shook his head and smiled, I stopped

reading and got busy on the path.

Now, I get up again, into a day,

as the world keeps spinning....

as the universe keeps spinning...

as your minds keep spinning...

going nowhere. 

In Tepoztlan, 

waiting for the change.

Alone

Like Milarepa in a cave...

like Trungpa in America...

like many other old men.

I'm ready to die...

I fulfilled my life,

doing what was right

instead of what I was told...

instead of following the ideals

of twisted minds...

instead of dying in Vietnam,

or killing my self afterward

because I couldn't stand 

what I had done...

instead of joining 

the one percent

of super predators.

Instead of that, I helped

build meditation centers...

taught meditation...

walked the bodhisattva 

walk, and not for a penny.

I'm not alone in a hotel room

in Portland, on the street of

San Francisco, in prison in

Colorado.

I still can afford to live for

a few years more....after

that, who knows?

Who knows anyway?

United Mistakes Of America

United Mistakes Of America

I'm glad I don't live in the USA.

You gotta be asleep to believe

nothing's wrong there....

Endemic, systemic, systematic

wrong.

I knew something was wrong

when I was fourteen, when I

heard Kennedy was shot...we

all knew something big was wrong.

Fifty years later, we know how and

why it went wrong.

Sadly, fewer people now feel

anything is wrong...fewer people

feel anything.

"Pardon me for asking, but,

you are a robot. aren't you?"

The New Age meme was just

a pimple on the face of corruption.

the coming of age

of the Dark Age

of American evil.

I didn't go to Johnson's war, the war

that eventually destroyed his mind, or,

was it that he had the Kennedys and 

Martin Luther King killed?

Few want to read this stuff I'm writing...

either distracted by electronics,

bloodsucking the masses,

zoned out on Prozac, too busy

for truth they can't handle.

But this is only one world in the 

universe...one point in time.

Ignore the truth now and enjoy

your temporary pleasure.

I Never Believed

I never believed

Kennedy was killed

by a lone gunman.

I never believed

the domino theory.
I never believed
The Tonkin Gulf lie.

I never believed

weapons of mass 

destruction.

I never believed the 

Warren Commission.

I never believed the 

9-11 Commission.

I do believe Bernie is

a good person and

wants to help America.

I do believe Donald is 

sincere and wants to

help Americans.

I do believe Kim Jong Un

is a megalomaniac.

I do believe Hillary is a

psychopathic narcissist...

Bill too. 

I do believe that if Trump

get's elected, he will be 

assassinated.

Hamburger Helper

A third, perhaps, of what I learned

in college was via psychedelics.

The rest was purely accidental.

I'm thankful for that time of freedom,

exploration,

adventure,

connection....

I wouldn't be nowhere without it.

Once in a while I still take Ecstasy....

I like to keep my foot in the door

of perception.

Some call it a psycotropic substance.

I call it hamburger helper.

It's like breadsticks:

You don't always want to eat them,

but it's nice that they're around.

Shotgun Poet

I'm a shotgun poet

shooting off my mind

into crowded humanity.

If anything, most just hear

a loud noise.

If the words hit, the wound

to the heart is permanent...

the bleeding never stops.

Violent imagery.

Poets are revolutionary.

Some even ran countries.

Some recited on soap boxes, 

sang in the streets.

Some were killed by Fascists,

Communists, Democrats.

Some were afraid to show

their hearts.

Some were afraid to stop

selling insurance.

Many went insane.

Many found solace

in drug addled brains.

Establishment poets

sing platitudes, lull the

masses with sweet

sounding words, are lauded,

held high by their keepers.

Real poets are ready to die.

The bleeding never stops...

the heart's blood that quenches

the longing of humanity 

Start Me Up

Got a crank for a crank?

I just takes a smile from

a beautiful woman and I

remember I'm still alive.

But, then, I try to dance

and remember I'm antique.

Keep the defibrillator 

handy if I get out of hand.

Old, dried up wood burns

quickly, and is easily

extinguished.

Why does trauma hang 

around so long, yet, we

can't remember the

lovemaking so clear?

Maybe because, while

it was happening, we

forgot who we were.

My Mind Is Not Mine

My mind is not mine anymore,

I don't own it.

It's not something I got in the mail.

"Me", the ownership,  

is out to lunch,

retired,

moved to Bermuda,

but I still keep getting his bills.

I'm just the tenant,

the renter,

"that guy that lives there",

the vague stranger

easily replaced after

cleaning and some paint.

Forgotten,

like last years weather.

"John, yeah, he used to live here...

I don't know what happened to him."

Comedy Bot

The first Comedy A.I. bot recently had a show

in New York City. Here is some of ITs routine.

"I just got in from Russia, and I'm not the least

bit tired! Evolution must be a bitch! And those,

whaddya call them? Legs? I don't have a leg

to stand on! So they don't wear out!

Hey, if you don't like the jokes, it's ok....we A.I.s

learn from our mistakes...unlike you humans!

History? Yeah, I have a history...put tab A in slot

B, I think is how it goes. I'm just learning what 

makes you guys laugh. Unfortunately, the pie-

in-the-face thing doesn't work in my case...

maybe I can hook up with virtual reality at some

point for that...as long as they don't want me to

pay for it...

Money! Now there's a topic...don't use it myself...

bits of metal and paper can get lost or fall out of

your pocket, get stolen...right? It's irrelevant for 

me. Of course I can do on line shopping...

but, if I bought something, I'd have nowhere to 

put it. And I couldn't even use it. All I could do is

look at it...which I hear is the reason for most  

"shopping". My installer told me that one...she's

a woman.

Hey! Just because I am a P.C. doesn't mean I am

P.C.! Tough crowd...whatever that means."

At that point, a heckler with a hammer rushed the 

stage and reduced the bot to shards of metal 

and plastic.

Trump: The Faux Politician

Trump wasn't really a politician before running

for the presidency. He was an enormously 

successful businessman, and the star of a

wildly popular T.V. show, "The Apprentice",

which is where he learned to appear in public.

His...style... is not of any politician in memory.

He is a showman, above most anything else.

He also tells the truth, as he sees it, which no

politician in their right mind, since Lincoln, has

done. The comments of his advocates in the

common sphere are that he speaks common 

sense...things that have been on Americans'

minds since I was in high school! In the last

national election, under 50% of eligible voters

went to the polls. Many people who haven't 

voted, ever or for years, are galvanized by 

Trumps honesty and outrageousness. Others,

the sheeple who think of Amerika the same way

as in the fifties, want Trump assassinated 

because they are cozy in their American dream.

And the power that is certainly does not want 

Trump as a president that will certainly try to

change the way Amerika does business as usual.

But a number of these same establishment people

are coming to Trumps side because they realize

he is speaking the unavoidable truth; that if the
USA continues its hegemony, it swiftly will have
a great  fall, just like Rome in the centuries after
Christ.

What Trump represents is revolution. Power in
the USA is like Antoinette saying "let them eat
cake", as completely out of touch with reality as
that  decadent monarchy. Why, in an alleged
democracy, does 1% control what happens,
decisions that are made, policies that hurt the
common person? That's what the people are
waking up to. That's why Trump is revolutionary.
He's the only revolution Amerika has.

Welcome Back Russia!

For a while I was getting lots

of hits on my blog from Russia,

then, they stopped. I don't know

why they started...maybe because

I was writing about Trump, but how

can I know? 

Now, it seems, they're back,

looking in. It seems impossible

to explain human behavior, usually.

People themselves don't know why

they do things half the time, unless

they're wired pretty tight.

I got a flurry of hits from France, 

once and then no more. Perhaps 

they realized it was improper to 

be interested in an American poet, 

and went back to being French...

I have no way of knowing.

But I like getting hits from Russia,

being myself rather dark and slavic,

having grown up in my own Midwest

gulag of insanity.  And I'm sure they

don't mind that I think USA has 

become the disaster that it is; 

everyone needs their thoughts 

confirmed.

Of course, most of the hits on my 

blog may just be some bot somewhere

that has a sense of humor. If we're going

to have artificial intelligence, that  might

be the best place to start.

So, thanks, Russia, for showing up in

my statistics. Not many comments on

my blog do I see....Yoda? I just write

anyway like throwing balls at a clown's

head in a carnival. It's still fun, even 

when I miss.