Gone

Gone like the jazz in dark nightclubs in the Forties.

Gone like the dog that lays on his side in the sun.

Gone like the philosophers that suddenly realize 

they have wasted their lives.

Gone just an old man waiting to not be here anymore.

Gone like a life that is just dim memories.

Gone like everything that ever was.

Looking out into the clear light of the gone world.

Looking out with gone mind simple crystal perception 

with no explanation.

A Coney Island of the gone.

The beginning and the end of everything is already gone…

….the perfect view of all the Buddhas.

Game Of Thrones

A play within a play….aren’t they all?

It’s hard to tell the actors from the real

people anymore.

This is part of the chaos manifesting.

It’s the same story that was told before.

Only the names and places have changed.

We heard the word “freedom” and that

got our hopes up, as it has for others before.

We can see how that turned out.

But, still we play the game of thrones,

the only game in town.

Spellbound

Under a spell

in a trance

fooled by a mirage

hypnotized by symbols 

on pieces of paper.

The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

(we ate the fruit which turned to shit in

which sprouted the stick that’s up our ass.)

words,

symbols,

caused us to be banished from Paradise,

which humanity has failed to find again

in any of its books or experiments.

That’s why Buddhists sit in meditation.

It’s the only way back to the Garden.

Noir Ice Cream

An acquired taste of sweet darkness

like bitter chocolate so delicious 

sweet dark music you can almost taste 

richness of dark smoky gloom

dark smoky understandings machine

their way to oily clarity in the poignancy 

only to dissolve into chocolate quanta 

until the next ripe flavor wafts its way in.

Not Far From Home

They say the home is where the heart is.

If you don’t know where your heart is,

that seems to be a problem.

Feel your heart: that’s where your home is.

If it’s so protected it’s not felt, it’s imprisoned.

We have a choice, if we’re smart. But even

those that aren’t smart find their heart’s home.

So what?

What does any of this mean?

Meaning is just another word for something 

we can’t find.

Luckily, we never lose our hearts.

Hollow Man

3D living color shadow of a man.

A history with no mystery…we know 

how this story ends.

Denouement is no big deal, just bleeding

out like the rest of the victims of lives they

never asked for and never really knew 

what to do with.

What’s It Gonna Take?

(HAL from 2001 movie in New York City):

“I can feel it, Dave.

I’m afraid.”

“Everybody has a plan until you punch them

in the face.” Mike Tyson

I’ll keep that in mind.

It’s a good idea to be polite.

You never know who’s ready to snap.

They feel it, even if they don’t know

what it is. 

They see the times changing all around.

We are all part of it, like it or not.

Our plans might not figure in.

The future may not be what we hoped for.

The world may not be as we thought it was.

What do you think about that?

What’s it gonna take?

Morning View

I’m empty streets are empty.

Take it easy no worries right now.

Might as well forget the whole thing 

start again where you are, look around,

it can’t be that bad, could be worse, it is.

Tomorrow is another day until time runs

out running out of time running with the

pack I got where I was going where here

there is no other there here because right 

now, or did someone forget to mention that?

Food will be eaten today…if anything, they’ll 

remember the food,

a pretty girl,

old man with a dog,

slap in the face,

not very much

faces in the crowd,

a goofy face, a dorky face,

what if it was you?

It is.

Boomer

Boomer glam time gone now

doom and gloom boom ditty boom ditty

boom boom boom. We thought it might work,

the Sixties, it didn’t, ditty boom. Now we’re the

elders no one listens to. But what if we’d 

never have happened?

The Tender Heart Of Sadness

Just look at the world….sheesh…

anybody alive feels something.

We all want to save the world,

or we just want to save ourselves,

or we want to destroy the world.

Every manifestation of mind is 

represented, now on display 

everywhere at once. It’s quite a show

and the truth is stranger than fiction.

We haven’t seen most of it, but we will.

Meanwhile, my coffee tastes great today.

Feeling chipper, sparse people, the 

kaleidoscope moves the colors, the portly

old ladies gossiping along, beautiful moms

and kids. That’s what I see, that’s my 

manifestation you silly hopium salesmen.

This is real, not that dream. The only sure 

thing is the money you steal…but there I go,

besides myself again. Don’t cry, Grasshopper,

we all go this way.

Word Is A Virus

If you take NPR seriously,

it’s the same as using a mask

to stop a virus.

Elon, Elon, Where Art Thou?

Many people are having love/hate affairs 

with Elon Musk. I don’t blame them. Any 

famous person that can go on a podcast and act

like a real human being is someone I admire, 

let alone the richest man in the world who looks 

like he’s in his late thirties. He said he was an 

outer space alien, and I believe him completely.

I created something once, a play, and the way it 

came together, manifest, I know is similar to the

process Mr. Musk utilizes, though on 1/10000 the

same level. The fact is, this process is scalable.

If I’m close, as in horseshoes, he gives his 

engineers freedom and space to create. Hence 

“Space X”. The same thing happened when I did

the play. Students would watch rehearsals, then,

one by one they’d ask if they could do sound, 

set, lights. They asked what I wanted, I told them,

and they did it. Simple as that. I really didn’t even 

know what was happening exactly. We all saw at 

same time as the different aspects came together 

and coordinated, synchronized. I acted and directed.

There were two other actors. I realized through the 

process that I could do it, I was actually doing

something new. When our performances were through,

it took a while to realize what had happened. 

Did Mr. Musk feel that way when the tower grabbed

the rocket? Might as well could have felt that way.

But, there’s more. He’s an alien or an Icarus. 

Dionysus. Already mythological. You don’t even 

have to believe. I’ve seen this kind of thing before.

Captain Hopium

New true super hero Musk appeared out

of nowhere like everything does the Great

White Hope (wasn’t that Jesus for eons?)

doing things no one else has bravo for 

letting peoples intelligence creativity be free

not controlled and governed by little minds

sure that’s good but where are we going and

does getting there mean we’ll finally understand 

anything more know anything more than we’ve

already learned and stored away somewhere I

guess we’ll find out soon enough pass the hopium.

Tool Man Mind

The whole Musk thing, 

making cars, going to Mars,

is just an extension of tool man mind.

Fantastic, science fiction, yes…watching 

the rocket booster captured was cool.

But it’s not evolution.

Buddha showed the path to self evolve mind.

A rocket ship is just extrapolation of the stick

homosap used to capture prey.

Although brilliant, that knowledge doesn’t 

make one more sane, in fact, that degree of

intelligence doesn’t mean that one is more evolved.

In fact, highly intelligent humans that run things;

corporations, governments, large parts of the world,

are often psychopaths that are known for being skilled.

What good does it do to expand the human race into

the universe if those humans are still controlled by

passions, aggression and ignorant instincts?

Maybe this is the reason the aliens don’t want us to

leave the earth. Maybe they’re afraid of human mind 

pollution.

No, Mr. Musk, building a better mousetrap, or trap for

a rocket booster is no different than what came before.

Populating anywhere with unevolved humans you wind

with societies that still have the same problems.

Tool man mind is the modern religion that began with

the Industrial Revolution and became scientific

materialism, which simply is the hope that if we had

the right tools, all of man’s problems would be solved.

Haven’t we noticed by now that that is not the case?

Buddha showed mankind how to self evolve, and many

have done so since then.

So the unrealized world looks to daddy Musk to make

things better even as his lithium batteries continue to

make things worse. Even though his concepts are 

magnificent, he still has tool man mind, unevolved,

looking for a better stick, governed by the hope of

finding Heaven somewhere else, when, really, it’s 

right here, but his mind is not trained to see it.

That’s his tragic flaw.

You can’t lie your way into Heaven

Assuming that’s where you want to go.

Heaven, Paradise, Eden, a comfortable 

pair of shoes. You can’t even lie your way

into a pair of shoes. No money, no shoes…

that’s the way it goes, let alone Heaven.

How does one get to Heaven?

If you’re not there already, there is a problem.

What’s the problem?

You have to look into it, find out what it is,

no one can tell you.

Many say that they can; religions, politicians,

gurus, life coaches. None of their words matter

if you don’t take action.

Learn how to be.

You’d think that would be the easiest 

thing to learn, since you already are, but how’s 

that working out for you?

“To be without description of to be.”  

That constant thought disaster in your head

is the problem, takes up all your time, gets

in the way, keeps you from simply seeing.

Until you dissolve that mess into nothing

you never can just be.

I didn’t make the rules.

I just followed a path that’s been around

for thousands of years that thousands of

people have followed successfully.

My teacher complained to his students that

he had to say the same things over and over 

again, and he was a patient man.

That’s the truth for you.

It’s difficult to hear even a word of it,

let alone to understand.

Two For Tuesday #2

Stuff     (for George Carlin)

I did the usual stuff growing up,

then the usual stuff in an unusual way,

also then unusual stuff.

I accumulated some stuff, and gave most

of it away.

I got rid of all the stuff roiling in my mind.

All the stuff I have now I can stuff into a

couple of suitcases.

Advertising creates the need for stuff we

didn’t know we even wanted.

I don’t see stuff on the internet I really want,

though that was not always the case.

I knew an Italian guy, who told me that when

the first refrigerator came to their rural village,

everyone else in the village got depressed.

Thanks, Buddha, for showing the path to 

stufflessness!!

Tic Tok Tick Tock

What The…..??  WOW!

Did you see that??

That was amazing!!

I’ve never seen anything 

like that before!!

Are there any more potato chips?

No More No Less

“It’s only love and that is all.

Why do I feel the way I do?”

We all go that way, as Issa said 

to the grasshopper. No more

no less. We’re only human, some

say. No more no less. 

All philosophy could end right there.

We wish we could figure it all out,

achieve certainty. It never seems to

go that way…except for the Buddhas,

which you know nothing about, or why

the sky is blue. It’s hard to grok what 

the seers see. They tell us, make 

analogies, write stanzas. If we’re lucky,

sometimes they show us miracles, which

are, simply, seeing what’s there with our

eyes finally open. Sometimes we don’t 

see things until we almost bump into them.

That’s what we’re up against, whether we

know it or like it or not. Just being realistic.

The music here now is dark jazz. Imagine

a room, dim light, old furniture, smells of 

oak, roses and death. Perfect at least for 

what I just wrote. Face it: it’s all right here;

in the three books on the desk you never 

open but always want to, the doors leading

to other rooms, a man cave, to be crass. But,

more than that why not? A miniature Xanadu,

a mini time warp to when, though there were

problems, you didn’t watch the world go crazy 

in front of you. Did I just bring you down? Or,

did I just bring you back to the present, because

you know, we’re all experiencing the same world.

No more, no less, always comes back around, so

my only advice is, for now, try to remain human.

Charnel Ground

The world right now is a charnel ground.

Jackals and scavengers are everywhere 

revealing themselves. You may have thought

mass murder was a thing of the 20th century,

but right now it’s happening. 

This time the whole world is at stake.

Bill Gates, for example, works to depopulate 

the world. He’s an embodiment of evil, but

he’s not the only one.

Possessed with rabid appetites for wrongdoing,

hoping to achieve power and control, the

miscreants of self aggrandizement attack 

goodness and decency at every turn.

This is the Dark Age, the Kali Yuga, not a pretty

picture, but one predicted by all religions and

prophets. How long will it last? If Trump wins

and common sense is restored, there may be 

hope for the future. If not, brace yourself for

a thousand years of darkness, when good people

are eliminated until all that’s left will be monsters

eating each other until they destroy even 

themselves. 

If evil can be purged, it has to happen now.

If not, forget about humanity because the

homosap failed to evolve.

Ni Moto

In Mexico it means: “It’s nothing.”

They say that a lot around here.

One would think they’re Buddhists,

they say it so often. At least, they’ve 

got the right idea.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff” 

is what the sweaters say, the ones

that don’t know ni moto

look in their eyes…there’s nothing there,

not the same as no one’s home. They’re 

home but nothing’s there. It’s why some

places don’t change over hundreds of 

years, just life after life ni moto.

Sometimes much seems to be happening,

like now in the world. More people die

than is usual for a while. After the carnage,

it goes back to ni moto…

always has, always will.

That’s why it’s nice to be in a place that

doesn’t know what’s going on elsewhere.

That’s why I came here.

The mountains are always there ni moto.

People walk in the streets ni moto.

Some days the coffee’s made better ni moto.

Nothing to lose sleep over. 

Meanwhile, I write words few people read.

It’s all that I can say that I do. Ni moto.

Quantum Symmetry

A phrase that translates to “karma” in Buddhism.

Karma means cause and effect. 

One’s karma manifests over the course of one’s 

existence, more than one measly life.

As the plumber’s saying goes: pay me now or

pay me later. Nobody gets away with anything.