Today’s Notes

April is the cruelest month, but, generally,

the spring is usually the upheaval time for 

me, when there are changes and obstacles.

Separate times, I moved to a dharma center

on April first, to stay each time for four 

years. I moved to Medellin on April first last

year…a brief disaster. I was back in Mexico

by June. Why do I notice, does it matter? 

Just a pattern. 

Patterns become superstitions. If you listen 

to patterns in the MSM, you begin to believe

in whatever it is they’re saying. Goebbles’ 

trick. Black Lives Matter! Burn the witches!

Ladies and Gentlemen…use your heads!

I saw Paula Poundstone in concert once.

She gave 2 hours and was funny. Then, she

came back again and just kept talking and

talking. People started to leave. Bizarre.

The novelist, like the cinematographer, 

paints a picture…take you with them into it.

Joseph Conrad did that extremely well.

People even get worked up over soap 

operas, tele-novellas. People will believe 

anything. Absolutely anything. I mean, if 

a belief is benign and kinda fills or obscures

that empty center at the heart of us all, why

not, you might think, believe it? Maybe that

works most of the time.

Problem is, beliefs aren’t static. They accrue

over time, strengthen like the ornaments on

the shell of a hermit crab. Good thing they 

can also dissolve. “Belief in anything is 

simply a way of labeling the mystery.” 

Chogyam Trungpa. 

You can’t question a belief. That part is 

abetting the fact that life is a bitch. 

Questioning, observation, are necessary

because things (the situation on the ground)

are always changing. So, in terms of 

confronting situations such as love making 

or war, beliefs are always an obstacle.

And that’s the way it is….Thhuuuulllllllllllpp!

It's All Good

“It’s all good.”

said Trump

said FDR

said Hitler

Mao

Stalin

Disney

Gates

Bush

Clinton

Obama

Mohammed

Christ

Buddha

Gandhi

King

Kennedy

Kennedy…

and it was,

for a moment.

Bucolic

We think we’re special

because we have a name

a nice car

a three piece suit …

meanwhile our molecules

are borrowed

from the corners of the universe.

The medium is the message.

We are part of nature.

That’s why we feel good in it.

What spectacle do you need 

besides a thunderstorm?

A plot twister?

We are but blades of grass

that fly in the face of death

like straw in the wind.

The Next Level

On the level

square one 

down to earth

wherever you go

there you are.

Old man on a porch with a shotgun…

young man in drag with torn stockings…

three piece button down defenestration…

slouching droopy pants street shuffle…

bag lady dragging a cart arguing with her 

dead husband …

smiling with promotional gleaming teeth…

kid eating stolen candy with a one eyed dog…

killer slip sliding through thankfully unnoticed…

hot dog vendor cart on fire.

How will you know when you get there?

How do you know you’re not there already?

If you can’t get there from here, how do you

know you’e anywhere at all in the first place?

Must be the signage.

Drinking Absolute

“What’ll it be?”

Kierkegaard was frozen for a second 

in mid sit. He eased himself onto the

bar stool.

He had just come in for a quiet drink.

His mind was full of the latest theories

and calculations. The last thing he 

expected was to be stunned by the most

profound philosophical question he had

ever heard.

“The usual?”

He had not yet even gotten his bearings

since the first question, and, here, a 

profound corollary assailed him again into

stupefaction. He felt he was waking into

Einstein’s dream.

Wordlessly, he got up and walked out of

the bar, the bartender, a quizzical expression

on his face, looked after him, wiping a glass.

In The Grey Light Apartment Morning

In the grey light apartment morning

grey because filtered through 

old smoke, dust and stale incense…

it’s almost all we can do to get ourselves 

together before the sun goes down…

prisoners of entropy and failed dreams.

It’s all we can do to make a cup of coffee,

watch the cigarette ash grow longer,

listen to music from a farther room,

imagining what we still might do, as the 

sun rises higher, turning up…everything.

Oh! Xanadu! Laurel Canyon! Fifth Musser!

…the eddies of paradise in the river of life 

that appear and disappear with the currents..

A Prague Spring, Woodstock, Monterey Pop,

flash mob flash society country of flashlights…

but then I digress…

In the grey light apartment morning, life leased

for the future, routine of getting there day after

day and so on, a break for a cigarette here and 

there ’til you can’t remember how you got here.

Come Along

Another thought

another life

another whatever

came along.

Another stray dog

another flower girl

another wino bro

came along.

Come along, come along,

come along for the ride

you didn’t know you bought

a ticket to. 

It might help if you looked around.

Thoughts are like busses, 

dinosaurs, mind balloons,

conversationalarialism,

mind stream whitewater,

a fishy hook, almost, but 

not quite, correlative.

A caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

You can’t even stop drinking.

The unhealthy ones always 

talking about health. 

Get a shovel.

Compassion means telling the truth,

whether you like it or not. It’s always

better than the alternative.

Meanwhile, we’re still going on.

And, thus far, you’ve come along.

That’s your trip, Bosco, 

hope it’s good for you.

Lumpy Gravy

There’s always something.

Sometimes it’s lumpy gravy.

Is it enough

to turn the table over in disgust?

Is it enough for a revolution?

Amazing the power of words or wind

if you get enough.

If you hear the same lies over and over

your mind will change 

in spite of what you think. 

Goebbles and Gates and the CIA 

know this very very well.

That’s why the gravy is lumpy.

That’s why the rain falls up.

That’s why good is bad, day is night.

That’s why few can make sense 

of what’s going on.

The Transfiguration Of Joe Schmidt

He walked out the door

to go to the store

for a pack of cigarettes

and never came back.

Where did he go? 

What happened to him?

Nobody knows, or, why he left.

One thing’s for sure:

he had a. new life

however long it lasted

however long it stayed new

whatever happened to him

he was never again 

the same old Joe.

A New Day

They’re all new, aren’t they?

If not, they’re just another day,

which is sad. 

It all depends on the way it

looks at you.

I used to do work when I was

a plumber.

Now, all I can do is write, which

I don’t consider work;

I consider it joyful activity.

I may not be that good at it because

I don’t work at it.

All that happens is some words come

and I’m usually pleasantly surprised.

It’s sacred activity because the words

come from the universe through my mind.

I don’t vouch for the quality because 

I can’t guarantee the product

which is only as good as the receiver,

which is somewhat questionable.

This is all I can be.

I knew when to stop trying.

I stopped trying because I realized

I was already there, and relaxed.

Now, I don’t do much, I just be.

Trying to explain it seems useless.

But, the little children love my 

rainbow socks. 

What more can I give the world?

Everything Was Never The Same.

Everything was never the same,

always, every time;

after the Big Bang,

after the Cenozoic,

after man discovered fire,

after tools, 

bows and arrows, 

gunpowder,

hip flasks and cocaine,

rock and roll,

LSD,

the fire that burned my house, 

the tornado, 

the bad fall, 

Covid,

riots,

the lottery jackpot,

the promotion,

the letter,

the eye contact,

the song.

It’s funny like that.

Under The Toadstool

Poquito hongos

waiting for the electrician

clean fed and fluffy

it doesn’t get any more paradisiacal

how long will my luck hold out

how long before the winds of karma

sweep me away?

“Achievements are like blades of grass

that fly in the face of death

like straw in the wind” written in a dream.

Mexico is surreal…everyone agrees.

Kill or cure is just not sure here.

Better to be polite and friendly, of course,

everywhere, but especially here;

life on the edge is a hair trigger switchblade.

No one knows what’s going to happen.

We feel better when we think we do.

That’s why we cling to certainty like

 a life preserver…

even when it’s made of lead.