Starting with haiku

I look at me as

I geriatrophy out 

of this existence

visualizer:

you mesmerangue me with your

tasty hypno-pie

If you have to talk,

start laughing with your mouth full...

that ought to do it

I had emotions

'til one day I realized

I was castrated

It's not all that bad

living in the dreamy world...

except for the pain.

I lost at poker...

I played a free game on line.

I was still upset.

Afternoon In Mexico

Carnival is in town,

a week of drunken orgy...

being Catholic is at least

good for something.

Singing wafts through the air...

warm lazy stillness before

revelers rise to the task.

I don't go down at night during

Carnival...the fun is too dangerous..

Nothing new about it...they've

been doing it this way for 

hundreds of years. It's something

that happens and disappears...

...like life itself. Why not sing and

dance if you can? It's better to

take life in stride, rather than 

stumble through it.

Life, love, birth, death, infinity...

boil it down to simplicity.

Sing and dance and move about...

you're fucked if you can't take a joke.

Bucket List

Bucket list:

1. vomit

2. keep on 'til nothing comes out

3.relax

4.smile

...into the space machine

the mind, don't ya know?

look into it, then, from in,

look out...the you, you see,

is only that non-existent 

razor edge in between...

Feral

I'm feral, gone to seed, over civilizations

wonders, back to the senses, reduced

to fecund minimum, out of the box.

I tamed my own mind, thank you, with the

help of wise people you trivialized and

ignored; blinded by blood sport and bad

chemicals.

Fantastic culture I witnessed...the art of

howling wolves...twittering birds in Miro

bodies...hard driven prose of exploding

mind bombs...rivers of description of

eternal nature...hearts on sleeves of

wonder.

The Underground will always be over the

top, too much for cowards. It takes guts

to live and get what you need out of it.

You folks who middle-manage your fake

selves just trying to avoid the pain that 

comes from knowing life will never grasp

the golden eternal ring on the merry-go-

round. Burroughs plowed through that

middlemind like the cosmic Jim Brown 

half back he was, spectral in physical

being because one foot in the dream 

world.

That Underground is Well's Time Machine

world reversed: the Morloks are the ones

that roam the status caveman veld, while

Eloi hide in plane sight, invisible to grasping

claws of primitive belief-ers.

Speaking freely is the greatest gift of man,

singing, dancing in the face of streets of

Moloch intimidation and slaughter, running

circles around head trips of concrete insanity,

laughing at the firing squad.

I'm invisible...fame didn't catch me in it's 

gluey trap. And, telling the truth, I lost 

many friends, or, were they?

Sad, for my family even, still in Amerika,

bombarded constantly by evil, controlling

machineries of engineered social 

enslavement. Eliot framed the hollow men,

Ginsberg howled at the loss of his fellow

angels, and now even some intellectuals

have come around to understanding. But

it's always the poets that are the canaries in 

the coal mine, slaughtered by apes like 

Lorca.

The truth will set you free, even if you sing

in your chains like the sea. Your mind can 

fly and soar: that's what it's there for.

Back in the saddle

Out of my old friend, Mr. Green, for 

a few days, and it's good to take a break

from him...but he's my old friend and I

don't like living as much without him. I

graduated from alcoholism with honors,

so now I'm just a pot head Buddhist.

Sobriety is vastly overrated. It's good for

fixing a tire or sending  a man to the moon,

but it doesn't allow natural organic genius

to arise, muse like, from seeming nowhere.

Not that there aren't extraordinary humans

that shunned intoxicants....Buddha and

Trump are two of them. But humans have 

been trying to alter their consciousnesses

since the days all they could do is hit them-

selves in the heads with rocks. They found 

the good stuff long ago and have been 

using it wisely ever since.

I'm not stupid, but I'm not a goddamned

genius like at least four of the Beats. They

managed to develop a literary movement in

the streets of New York...scrapping by, in and

out of prisons and asylums, but never trapped

in Whitey World. What they did and how it's

genius is, it's a mixture of American City 

street  smarts, and neolithic sabian crypto-

shamanic poetic sybarite thuggishness.

So what I've written just there is my prayer,

if you so call it one, to those not of the beaten

track, the derailers and deregulators, because

humans are able to thrive in true anarchy, and

their true religion is to not have one, rather to 

use the senses as the true gates of knowledge, 

and wisdom and joy, which, indeed, they are.

Labyrinth (for William Burroughs)

There are no mirrors in the labyrinth,

you have to bring your own... but there

are bus stops. One thing you notice in

the labyrinth is that many in there seem

to think they know where they are, when,

in fact, they're lost. It's probably the 

repetitious posters on the walls that give

them a sense of familiarity and stability.

Everyone knows the labyrinth has a center,

a goal, a source. That's why they're in it 

in the first place. In fact, they intuitively

have a sense of where it is...but the twists

and turns, the fascinating alcoves, the

surprise of finding oneself at a dead end,

all contribute to forgetting the point of being

there in the first place: to find the center.

The labyrinth began as someone's good 

intention...the intention turned into an idea

and the idea into a plan.Somewhere along 

the line, the intention got lost in translation

to action. Compromises were made to

accommodate practicality, but the intention,

the center, the starting point, always 

remained where it was. 

It wasn't enough to have a center...not

entertaining enough. So walls were built,

mazes made, out of sheer nervous 

boredom. Then, when the labyrinth was 

well along in construction, some individuals

took the job as guides....sold pamphlets and

tracts that claimed to explain the labyrinth,

handing them out at the entrance knowing

they wouldn't have to worry about 

dissatisfied customers...once they entered

they would never leave.

One trouble maker tried to warn people that 

were about to enter it. He told them that the 

center they were looking for was not just in 

labyrinth...it was outside of it too, in fact, it

was everywhere. Some listened. Others 

were too jived by the hucksters to pay much

attention. Finally, the man was taken away 

by the soldiers, hired by the vendors, that guard 
the labyrinth.

The Golden Age Of Man

The golden age of man was about 2500

years ago. At that time, some of the 

greatest minds in human history existed

around the world: Buddha, the founder of 

Jainism, Zoroaster, Archimedes, Confucius,

were all of this era. Buddha said that after

his death, his teachings would survive, but

gradually decline. He said that every five 

hundred years after his death, his teachings 

would be twice as hard to hear and practice.

The notion that science, through A.I. 

interfacing with humans, is the next step in

evolution, is merely another form of spiritual

materialism. It's not enough for intelligence

to advance in order for humans to evolve.

The unfathomable mind itself, synonymous

to the universe, has to be trained to it's full 

potential. The path to do this has been

practiced and authentically maintained

for the past 2500 years.

The Paradox of Meditation

Meditation is a discipline, and,

like all disciplines, it's most

difficult in the beginning. Many

people who try to meditate get

discouraged quickly. They have 

heard of the benefits of meditation,

peace of mind, calmness, whatever

positive beneficial potential it might

have. But the fact of meditation, 

which is basically doing nothing with

bare attention, at first, causes a freak

out of the mind that is constantly active

and trying to sort out experience through

thinking. The boredom of simply

acknowledging the thinking process

and coming back to awareness of the 

breath can't hold a candle to the 

entertainment that the mind can provide,

as it is programmed to be busy and 

constantly distracted. This is why you 

hear many people say: "Oh, I can't 

meditate...I have too many thoughts."

These folks don't realize that seeing that

the mind is constantly churning is the

first great revelation of meditation! If one

continues with the practice of mediation,

as the discipline begins to sink in, one

begins to discover that there is relief and

a feeling of wholesomeness when one

comes back from the reactionary mind

and finds oneself simply there.

For K.D.

For Keith Dowman

Even when you yell at me,

I have to smile.

Realizing your bodhicitta heart,

how could your wrath 

not be compassion?

You must be enlightened 

because I have no idea

where you're coming from...

each moment as if you had

just arrived. 

You're friendly, and I like to

think you're my friend, but I'll

never know because you don't

have an agenda...that might

sound a little starry eyed of me,

but there's plenty of room in space

for a few stars.

Power Of Mind

The halls of fame and

the library walls ooze

tears of irrelevance as

what went up starts to

come down...

the power of the mind

is not affected by the

baiting of Death.

The End Of The World

The world was supposed to
end yesterday, but they're always

saying that....bunch of wishful

thinkers if you ask me. It's not

that that's a bad idea....we're 

due for a reset, and humans 

have proven, so far, that if a

meteor or asteroid doesn't do us

in, we'll probably do it to 

ourselves. A world slip-sliding 

into chaos doesn't seem to be

a bad thing to be rid of...think 

of all the human suffering that 

would be avoided. Our world is

a small world in the backwater

of one galaxy...insignificant if it

wasn't for some of it's art. This

time has been predicted by all

religions and all cultures. They

can't all be wrong. No escaping 

fate, so, if you're one of those 

that believes we only live one 

life, you'd better get busy while 

there's still time. 

God And Linearity

God and linearity are active concepts 

that impose a structure of imprisonment

on rationality. Presupposing a supreme

authority of existence is a naturally 

limiting mental construct that ignores

experience that can't be explained

rationally, and lumps such experience

into the basket of unknowns that is 

touted as "God's will'. Similarly, the 

concept of the linearity of time imposes

a stricture on experience that asserts

that you have one shot at life, and you'd 

better be on the right side of whatever 

because eternity, which, for some reason,

only starts after death, is based on this

pitifully short accident of existence and

the future quality of our eternity is based

on our actions and beliefs of the blip in

time called our lives.

The concept of "progress" is the belief

that growth is scaleable. The USA, when

I was growing up, was imbedded in this

concept. It was a national anthem, a myth

that was a common belief and theme that

drove America for most of it's history, 

showing itself in concepts such as "manifest

destiny" and, recently in "American 

exceptionalism".  As such, it is a linear 

concept not based in reality...progress is not 

scaleable...circumstances wax and wane,

and the debt crisis will eventually be proof

that the concept of progress is just another

artifact of the hubris of rational mind.

Now What?

Touching down from cloud like

afternoon better living through

chemistry and the treat goes

on with Beethoven pulling his

weight this evening thanks we

couldn't have done western

civilization without you sorry

about the lead poisoning.

This makes no sense...but then,

who asked it to? Ah, yes, we 

want to know, don't we, who's

responsible for it all. as if there

could possibly be an answer.

The fact is that no one ever told

us that the doubt in our minds

is the first next step on the ladder

of evolution, so, as Naruda said

we wander looking for the wrong

things in the wrong places.

That's what.

MDMA

The Shadows on the floor

and the brilliance of the sun...

Friendship shines inexplicably

I squint as the warmth 

envelopes my heart

High, how am I?

cloudless sky

staying afloat

watching the waves

perceiving the depth

Basho would be proud!

The Only Time Was Now

the moon got me..

my only time was now

only "what's next?" and

"what's left?" in front of me

having fallen, Gump-like

into America-no-thanks-

Ginsberg-pre-post-

apocalypse, but now it all

sorted itself out like a snake

uncoiling in mid air, so, float

in marvelous life dream mirage

immanent moment, say, as when

she lays her arm on the back

of the couch and 

the whole room leans in.

My Generation

That's what I'm talking about.

Turn on, tune in, drop out still

rings true. All you have to do

is look around. We're still hip

to the trip...you ought to check

us out before we're dead. Jack,

Allen, Gregory, William....all of

them, couldn't hold a job...lived

as urban aboriginals, original,

living blues in the face of America

Daddy vision. Money killed the

musicians...the poets flourished

in blissful squalor, raw meat streets

deranged, angelic, prophetic. These

are the heroes whose lives sang

for themselves

Note To A Friend

"Free yourself from chains of thought."....

that just popped up in the old cabesa....

love the way Celine punctuated with 

dot dot dot and exclamation points...

full stop only at the end of time...ah, yes, 

time and travel...time travel it all is, Yoda.

The fourth dimension...antithesis of ever 

finding a home that stays in one place or 

always the same and secure. As Jack said: 

"we just numbly don't get there." So, Beats 

in the streets living their lives everywhere. 

Of course, somebody's got to keep flipping 

burgers or the house of cards comes down...

couldn't we all just take turns so that everyone 

can experience a hint of freedom? Indians 

have vision quest: "Get the hell out and go 

find yourself." and they did and do. We hit 

the ground running in media res and there's 

barely enough time to tie our shoes before 

we start tripping over our own feet. There's 

gotta be a better way, and is, we know. 

That's where the buck stops for now.

On Track

in the groove

in the pipeline

ticket to ride

on the gravy train

in the sweet spot

catching the draft

running the seam

on my way

here we go

boy oh boy

no turning back

one way ticket

suicide mission?

walk in the park?

piece of cake?

pointless journey?

path to the Grail?

I think I'll take a break,

sit on this bench...

look at that tree.

A hot dog would be nice.

The Man Who Had No Opinion

The man who had no opinion

also had no friends, because

discussion with him was like

watching paint dry. Children

loved just to be around him.

He used to say: "Unless you

have the mind of a child, you

probably won't notice me."

He reminded me of someone.

Letter to a new friend

Nice dharma. Yes, well, ahem, you been down here and 
met nice people so, you might think of escaping

the land of plenty (of stuff, good and bad) and 

live with us simple folk, more earthbound than 

Disney landed, where, just today, I just started 

to talk to an old lady and found her to be slightly 

fascinating, and the conversation ensued without 

least hesitation and that's what you get not 

around bubble people, hermetically sealed in their

hermit visions like unopened jelly. Ah, the South, 

still angry, still apartheid in spirit...I'm shocked as 

an old black man steps off the sidewalk because 

he doesn't want to get in my way. And the time in 

the supply house when I ran into the black muslim 

boxer plumber I knew and gave him a hug in front 

of the white man behind the counter and I didn't 

think he could look much whiter but he did when 

he saw that hug. Or, working in an old black man's 

trailer who had raised the children of a white family 

and the pride he took showing me the white children 

he had brought up, as if they were his own. But the 

moonshine was great, and the bbq was great...and...

and...that's about it. It can't be people in general, 

although, it could be if you're of my ilk, or my friend, 

Arn's. After all, misogyny is only about half the 

human race and we shouldn't forget that men are 

also stupid and  most of them could be part of the 

solution if they would be so kind as to walk

themselves into the ocean. I would gladly do that, 

if it was a thing..like a lottery for the human race to 

depopulate so humanity could survive and maybe 

we wouldn't have to throw out all the libraries as a 

waste of consciousness because humans, despite 

all their high thoughts, were too stupid to survive. 

I'm actually beginning to feel that the whole human 

race is just a batch of cookies that the aliens left in 

the oven too long because they were distract, and 

now they're trying to scrape off the burnt parts to 

see if they can salvage anything....but that's just me

You Got Me

You got me

when I saw your back

as you were walking up stairs

when I saw you in white

empire hippie dress

as we sat next to each other

silent, in the car, I was driving

in hot sweaty summer late night

apartment steaming street noise

when you rushed into the dining 

room and sat down next to me

real close and smiled

you really got me.

"Hand full of gimme, mouth full of much obliged"

For some poems

all you need is the title.

songs sing 

we hi fi them 

through ourselves

can't miss the point

with music

understanding with more

than simple words can do

(poetry music same)

a thousand words a picture

a million lives a song

Positively Tepoztlan

You've got a lot of nerve,

America,

to say you are my friend.

(and the rest of the song)

I'm looking at you,

America, from

outside your prudishdiction

not mesmerized by hamburger

not seduced by packaging

not enthralled by large men

bashing on a playing field

not super glued to pixels

not waking  

throbbing head wondering 

what happened ...last night/

for the last few generations. 

I know where I am, America,

and, from here, it seems

obvious you're starting to wake

up from your own reverie.

Let someone else

bring you coffee.

The Work

Burroughs wrote about the job,

which was to free oneself from

conditioning, however it had

come about. For me, work was

what I had to do, not what I loved.

For me, plumbing was work, and

the great thing about it was I knew

when it was over for the day. The

great thing about it was taking s

shower and putting on clean clothes

which automatically made me forget

about how the day had gone. And,

a great thing about it was I knew I

could make a living. Burroughs used

the word "job" as a euphemism for

what was the real "work", life's work,

the task at hand, self liberation from

the prison of one's thoughts and 

opinions, beliefs and fantasies, the only

real "work" that needs to be done.

Manifesto

Tranny

misogynistic

bi-polar

redneck

flaming

racist

cross-dressing

republican

earth-first

alien

white trash

man hating

clowny

vegan

survivalist

plumbers

with dementia

deserve a voice.

Two Michaels And A Lemont

Three gentlemen, two Michaels and

a Lamont interviewed me recently for

a biography they are working on of Keith

Dowman, renown translator and teacher

of radical Dzogchen. Keith and I have 

gotten to know each other over the last 

few years, and they wanted to know how 

he became my teacher and friend.

I'm old now, and, like most older people,

getting more set in my ways. Getting 

even a corner of my house presentable 

for guests is somewhat a challenge. 

I'd never been interviewed before by 

strangers and been expected to tell them 

intimate details of my life...which was a

rather ticklish blind date. I'm notorious to

myself for making bad first impressions, 

so, after the interview, I had no idea how

it had gone. I felt like I had bonded with 

them from my side because I was open 

with them, but had no sense of how they

felt about it. I knew they were there solely

to get information, not to become friends, 

but the experience left me feeling a bit

whorish. 

Don't get me wrong, they were perfectly

nice gentlemen. One of the Michaels had

been a student of Tibetan Buddhism for

many years, and knew many of the people

I had known from Chogyam Trungpa's

sangha, as well as the poets and writers

that had been around at that time...so here

was a long lost brother, in a way, that I had

never met before. Maybe it was romantic

nostalgia I was feeling for a magical time

that was past and that I would never see

again.

The Worst Day Of My Life

How do I know it was the worst day

of my life? I'm not dead yet, and dying

certainly will be stressful. The answer

is that, at the time, I just knew...which

revelation was inspiring, to say the least.

Summer of '69, Chicago. I spent the first

month or so of that summer between my

sophomore and junior years in college

in my dad's law office trying to help out.

I couldn't stand it, and decided to live with

a high school friend in Chicago for the

remainder of the summer. He had a one 

room apartment and we shared the bed.

I had nothing to do, except read. I was 

reading Joyce's Ulysses at the time, 

which was part of the problem. Reading 

that tome, of which I understood nothing, 

exacerbated the claustrophobia. That and 

the heat, the constant noise of the city,

and being alone most of the time.

One afternoon, I decided to take LSD. I'd

discovered it and explored it that year at 

college. This time I did it because I was

bored...really the worst of reasons because

what LSD tends to do is heighten or intensify

whatever experience you're having. It started

to come on and I decided to take a bath.

I sat in the tepid water that sunny afternoon.

I realized that I had forgotten why I had 

decided to take a bath. I realized that the 

decision had been arbitrary....that any decision

I made seemed to be arbitrary...that I knew

nothing and whatever I did was random,

directionless, without purpose. Where I was,

that moment in Chicago, was not where 

I wanted to be, but only not where I didn't 

want to be. The feeling of being lost was

total. That's when I knew it was the worst day

of my life....that things could only get better.

It wasn't a hopeful thought. I knew it was true.

My friend came home and realized I was in a 

bad spot. He took me to a restaurant where I

burned my mouth on the pecan pie..which

didn't help. He decided to take me to a movie, 

hoping it would distract me. We went to an art 

cinema that was playing a double feature of

"No Exit", by Sartre, and "The Balcony", by 

Genet. Both movies were intense dramas, and

it might seem counterintuitive to take a guy

freaking out on acid to such movies, but the 

fascination of watching them did the trick for 

a while. After that we went to a burlesque 

theatre to watch some strippers and that 

proved to be rather hilarious. One stripper rubbed 

her crotch on the curtain and a wag shouted:

"You're going to have to burn that curtain!"

The ordeal ended with the sun coming up 

and me pissing against an  apartment building 

for what seemed to be an hour, loud sighs of 

relief while my friend urged me to hurry.

Am I Missing Something Here?

Was I sick the day in school when

they taught the meaning of life?

I remember when I was young, 

thinking everyone knew what was

going on except me; walking 

straight ahead with purposeful, 

intent looks on their faces, not

blinking. 

I hadn't heard about robots yet.

I didn't realize at the time that most

people do what they do just because

that's what they've always done, and

only scramble when it doesn't work,

like insects when the rock's removed.

That feeling; that something's slightly

off, that life is somehow incomplete,

that when we reach the goal we,

irritatingly, never get anywhere, that 

change happens  whether we like it

or not.

For me, the feeling led to inquiry...

for others, it led to sports, i.e.,

the cornucopia of distraction.

I wish I knew a punchline.