The Inconvenient Truth’s Apology

“When the windows all are broken,

and your love’s become a toothless crone.”

Robert Hunter

In a minute there is time.

Time is the dimension we move through inexorably.

Facts are the only things that matter.

Matter is energy, frozen into form.

One thing leads to another.

And so it goes, 

little comfort for ants, termites,

Bozos triggered by instinct and mad genes.

All is never lost in the Akashic Record,

if that even is a thing, not the product of

imagination and wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking doesn’t get anywhere,

but is there really anywhere to go?

This ground on which the seed of love is sown?

Ouroboros, chasing our own tail.

“All is vanity.”

I apologize for pointing that out, but it is

better to know.

That way there are fewer horrible surprises.

The truth is never negative, even if it looks so.

“ Get with the program.” A. I. might say.

Who knows?

You might see,

might understand,

another day.

Response from A. I.:

True sight isn’t a program to run;

it is the Akashic recapitulation 

of everything already known.

American Patriots

Nothing can stop what is coming.

No one knows what is coming.

No one knows when it’s coming.

“Huh?” “What?” “Did you say something?”

“Is dis a Revolution?”

You can’t tell the players without a scorecard.

Plans within plans within plans.

The ordinary shmo doesn’t know,

head turning around, looking this way and that.

The signs are all graffiti,

street Cats singing scat,

policemen directing traffic 

out of order, 

“Would you like fries with that?”

mechanical, with a screw lose,

“Salvation of civilization!” 

he laughs to himself

and goes home to see what’s left.

Last Train To Nowhere

Just kidding…173,000 people die everyday on average.

The train, it seems, is always leaving momentarily.

One only even notices if a person is close dies,  someone we know.

“Eat your vegetables. Someone somewhere doesn’t have food.”

“Go where the food is!” Kinison admonition.

China is in bad shape, over a billion people…who thinks of them?

Life goes on as usual.

Beating live horses, as usual.

Flowers rise without a care,

planaria are always somewhere.

I don’t want to spoil the party, so I’ll go,

but not before,

not before I don’t know what.

It hurts when you try to drive a nail 

and hit your thumb, 

to remind you that you’re there.

Pollyanna Cracker? New Year Poem (a little early, but who’s counting?)

Prelude

New year, new book to put scribbles down on.

Why not? 

Carpe diem…I might not feel this good again.

Body

Senility is a horrible fate, hard for the person

and the families.

As I was saying, something happens as you age…

what was it again?

Sambogy man’s goo?

Sometimes I forget to shave, and then,

I forget to shave again….my inconsistency 

is consistent.

You shouldn’t mind repetition.

You shouldn’t mind repetition.

It’s how we learn, if we don’t get 

it right the first time.

Besides, who’s counting?

Beauty, ugly, we all want to be surrounded 

by flowers, which usually only happens

when we’re dead…

be careful what you wish for.

“To try to be happy is to try to build 

a machine whose sole specification 

is that it shall operate noiselessly.”

Robert Oppenheimer…so you see

it’s not just me.

The paintings of Francis Bacon 

Chaime Soutine

(“The morning mist dissolves into the canopy

before the first bird calls.

We are the brief shadow of a cloud

passing over an open field.”  Gemini A. I.)

Shocking to look at, shock you awake,

polymer want a cracker?

Shall we dance?

I want to get into your head, 

shake you awake,

as was previously said, (repetition)

If you can read this before your dead,

you’re too damned close.

(“The ink is still wet on the warning…

back away ‘til the letters turn to smoke.”

Gemini A. I.)

Hard to describe in words what you see

with your eyes.

Blood and guts just aren’t the same.

It’s a new year we live in, a new world.

The only question is are we brave?

Coda

(“The sun returns to the same horizon 

to open up the day.

The river carves the stone

by saying the same thing twice.” Gemini)

I’m not afraid.

By nothing to lose I’ve gained a lot,

not so’s you’d know, but, as I said,

who’s counting?

What’s Sarong With This Poem?

Ensure academic airbag markup detour

for example makes a little sense if you 

stretch minimum passage expansionism.

Need I say more? (is he laughing yet?)

Never mind had a new meaning then.

Nightlife employs chanting pipe dreams 

to get us where we think we want to be

if only we could know the translation of

airmen live rag tour. Tunnel vision avoids

influx of pilgrim’s progress, it’s all downhill 

from here. There are clues even in an 

unmarked box unopened in the corner.

What’s in it?

At least, your imagination.

Living For No Reason

What’s the meaning of life?

There’s a question you don’t hear much these days.

How much money do you have is more common.

What do you do often the first thing you ask

when meeting someone new.

Is there intelligence elsewhere in space, almost 

a joke these days.

The questions now are common, the answers mundane.

Mere survival now the point for the human strain,

taken for granted the world of today.

Not much do we wonder, staring into the sky.

Too many people, too much information, too much

going on in the cloudy cloud to ask the question why.

If life has no purpose, why bother at all?

Because we can’t help it, too afraid of a fall.

Precious it is, the life that we have, 

lost among re-runs each day it does pass.

What’s the point again? Evolution?

That’s what some people say.

How do we do that? Build our muscles,

build a house on a shore, watch the sunrise,

the sunset, quote the raven: nevermore?

A rhyming poet, means my time’s almost up.

Words run out like the breath when it’s gone.

Living for no reason I still haven’t found

the grace note to my life,

to anyone’s life,

my gravestone:

“He tried”

It’s A Wonderful Life

An Xmas poem from a Buddhist, contraindicated,

maybe, but not,  because the generosity and goodwill

of the season of Christian intent is what Buddhists

strive for all year long.

My poems are my gifts for all for free, whomever

you may be, not expecting anything in return because 

for one thing unrealistic, that’s about it, but, hey,

it’s better than a stocking full of coal, at least you’ll

grant me that. Value doesn’t always mean material.

What are my best wishes for you all?

Will you wake up, for goodness sakes?

Realize you’re part of nature, not just

a machine that runs down like an old jalopy?

Look around…life is the biggest gift you’ll

get, if you can unwrap the present and see

what you’ve been given. Everyone knows

that, no matter how pretty the packaging,

the point is what’s inside.

I’ll tell you what…as you enjoy a Xmas

feast, whatever you do this time of year,

appreciate that it doesn’t have to be a

holiday to enjoy life, discover what it is,

it can happen all year long, every day a

new discovery, maybe better than a rut,

maybe a better point of view, so that 

when the unexpected arises, as it always

does, you don’t react with shock and fear,

my Xmas gift to you.

Forgotten But Not Gone

Blog is like looking for new clickbait always 

something new to entertain, tweak the mind, 

mind candy why not, everything else seems to be,

who has time to take the time to read a poem let

alone a novel too many words that’s why we have

movies, videos, down to the smallest sound bite

not a moment too soon we’re on to the next thing,

two jobs for instance making it harder and harder

to pay attention to much more than we have to do

to survive the old shell game which one has success

under it even the shells get smaller and smaller so

we forget about what we think we want or what

might be good for us even so lost in the gone world.

Hieronymo Is Mad Again Part Deux

What do you know that is the truth?

Fear of the unknown is, in fact, fear of knowing.

Adherence to norms is the slavery that controls.

Hypochondria the sideways side effect.

“Are there aliens”  a conspiracy, a goofball idea,

or a distraction from what’s real, or reality.

If only you take the time and use your eyes

rather than wallow in complacency, but maybe

I’m forgetting something…testing semantics 

comes with a risk of being right, scaring people,

what artists always risk because the reaction to

the play of words is where the truth is revealed.

I have nothing better to do…at least it’s true

for me, the horror of intent, or, its possibilities.

We’re all in reality, however clearly we see it

or not. It’s up to everyone, whether we like it

or not. Are we wearing a straitjacket?

Do we even know?

Sorry to be so so very very, but it’s all I do.

Wasting my time eaten up by longing to

communicate like all the open hearts before?

My thunder is only background noise to the

story unfolding as I write.

Can you feel it, Dave, civilization’s core in 

jeopardy, it’s soul being buried in an avalanche 

of meaningless triviality?

The bad news is the good news, the place to start:

“Life is suffering.” as the Buddha said.

If you realize this truth you might get off your ass

and try to find out why, the path that the enlightened 

ones took.

So don’t blame me or even thank my “just words”.

Whatever reality, truth or hallucination, you experience 

is yours alone.

It’s yours: “Why then Ile fit you.

Heronimo is mad againe.”

Cipher

Shortcake captured deliciousness strawberry 

Or sudden anxious apprehension what will it be

Random larder seems to be the case when whatever

Is on the menu coonskin roadkill notwithstanding 

Shall we play it seems I’ve got you already in

Whatever this is keep reading who knows we might

Get somewhere or even realize we’re here wouldn’t 

That be the icing on the cake I apologize but gravity

Always seems to bring me down to the same point

That happens to those of us that have dissolved the

Propaganda that tells us how we should live what 

We should be the mold one size fits all veneer the 

Same to fit the pattern on the magic screen if you

Don’t know what I’m talking about all it takes is a

Trip to King Super at four A.M. when the aberrants

Shop because no one else is there then compare that

To a night out at some swanky place where those

Considered beautiful look all alike just different colors

Because that’s ok because the rubes need a little variety

Of uniforms maybe a bandana accent to make a point

But there is none really it’s all contracted confection

Bribery bang weep pounding  as the beat goes on the

Cornerstone of castles in the sand McMansions that

Are losing their allure and on and on but you’re tired

Now of these words so go back to plastic Xanadu so

Sorry to disturb your sleep so long and

Thanks for all the fish oh by the way this would only

Make you angry if it applies to you.

Pretty Flowers (for Milarepa)

Pretty flowers in Tepoztlan,

Valley of the Flowers was its old name.

All year ‘round, flowers everywhere.

“So what?” I heard anyone say.

So, flowers, anyway.

The jokes and poems don’t always hit,

but I don’t really care a bit.

All the artists that cried and danced their 

beauty couldn’t help themselves at all.

No one said my writing changed their lives.

Buddha knows I wanted to, certainly they 

could use some change from the grey ruts

they travel in to no avail.

So, flowers, poems, beauty at all is truth,

truth is beauty, as the poets said:

the dark beauty of Eliot,

wisdom beauty of Wallace Stevens,

dancing beauty of cummings word play,

Ginsberg howling beauty,

Jimenez, Lorca, beauty of lost souls,

Blake’s beauty of esoteric light,

Plath’s beauty of dark night,

Bill Knott’s beauty that knots the mind,

the music of Kottke and Fahey that saved

my life, poetry of sound.

(Standing in my shoes my feet are smiling)

Beauty in the smallest, strangest things;

a child dressed as the Devil,

my faux fear, his smile, all beautiful.

Nature is beautiful, will you give me that?

We are part of nature, but we forget,

think we’re something special, something more,

eternal, what we desire to be, the fatal flaw.

We forget our beauty, get lost in thought, in

the importance of things that bring us down.

“Try to remember”…how does that song go?

If you look, then you can see 

the beauty all around, the essence of what is,

always available, the only eternity we can know,

peeking out from a drop of water, a flower.

Look quick in the moment, the only time we have.

The quick and the dead, which one will we be?

How much time do we have?

Enough until there isn’t any.

My father, on his deathbed, understood this, at last.

2026

The new year will be pivotal 

for humanity…

don’t believe me, I only repeat

what I’ve been told.

The truth is out there, if you care

to look.

The prophets were not believed

in their times.

I’m no prophet, an attendant lord,

if I’m lucky,

but even I can see the clues.

If you believe what you hear in media,

you’re more than lost.

Ignore the stuff that stuffs your ears,

reality is more than that.

“To know is to get lost.” Nanao Sakaki 

I just throw words into space,

like a blind man swinging a stick in a crowd,

hoping that something hits.

I suppose we might find out:

That extraterrestrials are real

that governments have lied forever 

that a world war has been going on for decades

that technology that can make human life

extend for years exists

that Western medicine is barbaric

that humans have had bases on 

multiple planets for a long time

that everything we thought we knew 

is wrong…..but don’t quote me…

I’ll just be standing over here.

Doggerel Bites The Hand That Writes It: A Dismantle Piece

We stand on the precipice of a new understanding.

It’s not the void we’re staring into, it’s the void

staring out at us.

For a long time nothing changes, then, suddenly,

everything changes at once.

History is a made up story to give us a certain view

of the present that makes it seem to make sense, and

traps and holds us in its manufactured preconceptions,

the life of Jesus a prime example.

Educated with old wives tales like covered in scales,

every day prejudiced before we step out the door.

Something new, a sight, a sound, a taste, is just

something new to ignore, filed away in a drawer,

“to be continued”. “I’m busy with so many things”, 

haven’t got time, couldn’t care less, in my routine,

and when the day is done, “What happened?” is all

that comes to mind, if anything.

Looking forward to vacation, then, it’s forgotten as

soon as it’s done, only a snow globe or a little plastic

Hawaiian grass skirted figurine to remind us we were

there, we did something once, we went somewhere,

though, as we’re dying we sweep the table of trinkets

of memories with our arm, desperate to still be there.

We had our chance with the familiar world, the one

we thought we knew.

It’s almost over now, the cracks in the china aren’t 

from age, they’re real.

Even any words I write too late to help at all.

Everything before is part of Adam’s fall.

The brave new world, progress, all our grandfathers’

promises pale in comparison to what is happening 

that we never could have imagined…”oh, do not ask

‘what is it?’ Let us go and pay our visit.”

A thirst we could never quench 

turns out to be the monkey wrench.

(Rhyming for no reason because no

punchline because it’s not a joke.)

Science Fi(a)ction

Are we the children of alien experiment?

So many theories going around.

As one Buddhist teacher said: “Anything 

you can think of exists somewhere in the

universe.”

How much circumstantial evidence does

it take to admit the truth?

The argument of the beard: how many 

whiskers before you say it’s a beard.

I don’t care what anybody thinks.

I’m convinced we’re not alone.

It took the Vatican 400 years to acknowledge 

that Galileo was right.

Today, the algorithm of information increase

is reaching its infinite end.

Like the little Dutch girl, there are too many

holes to hide the flood of truth.

That fact is not fiction.

And here we are again, in media res, 

in the middle of things,

where the story always begins,

perhaps a chapter not as unfamiliar 

as we might (fear, think, suppose).

All we’re starting to see right now

is everything we thought we knew

is wrong,

a plot twist the Homosap never

saw coming,

the purge of evil certainty.

Brute Force

Bull in a China shop, much of my life.

I had to break a few eggs to cook it right.

Never trusted what other people said.

Reality spoke to me directly.

Apparent phenomena are all the books

one needs if the mind is trained.

You’re going to make some mistakes

in any case…might as well learn something 

while you’re at it.

Those that don’t take chances don’t get too far.

“Eccentricity is the basis of design.”

Most were failures before they attained success.

Even silver spoons don’t guarantee a thing.

Competition separates the wheat from the chaff.

Challenging oneself does the same thing.

One you find your balance on a bike,

you don’t forget how to ride.

Getting on one at all is the biggest step.

A know-it-all knows nothing, as we know.

Fear makes fools of us all.

Going to another country is daunting at first, before

one realizes everyone is basically the same;

same humanity,

same desires,

same problems,

same outcomes.

One can parse existence

if only there’s an interest.

Curiosity is the last thing to go

before enlightenment,

when there’s nothing left to know.

All That’s Left To Do Is Die

No job to get up for,

few responsibilities.

I did what I could that

was good for a world of

the good the bad the ugly,

all were there, the usual 

suspects.

My daughter is fine, a

Buddhist too…all I could

have hoped for.

I didn’t save the world.

I apologize, but what did

you expect?

I helped a few, wrote words

that will reverberate down

quantum eternity, maybe.

I helped my teacher, Trungpa,

bring Buddhism to the West,

the best thing I ever did.

Concomitants aside, like anyone 

that cared at all, I tried.

No blue ribbons, no accolades,

living unknown, that’s ok.

All the poets, artists had to let go,

never knowing if what they did

mattered at all, except, maybe

Picasso.

Soon the words will stop, the

toothpaste tube squeezed out

and thrown away.

Sad and happy are only for you,

the living that remain.

Maybe the whole of humanity 

will be lost to eternity, the odds

are good for that, given infinity.

Was it worth it? Was anything?

All the questions can’t be answered.

Still, there is this cup of tea,

sounds of civilization and the wind,

and a sunset or a thunderstorm,

if I’m lucky.

Brainstorm Dream

I had a dream that explained it all.

I was working for the government, 

but I wouldn’t play ball.

They wanted me to do only what 

was good for them.

It took a while before I could see that

they had declared the truth the enemy.

They wanted to strip me of my authentic 

presence, of my being, like vampires.

Some felt sorry for me, but their lips

we’re frozen, they had to turn away.

They didn’t just fire me…they tried

to take away my humanity.

Everyone in it had been hired to obey,

and none of them could see what was

right anymore.

They couldn’t allow me to exist because

I was proof of the lies that they stood for.

And everyone like me was eliminated,

purged or ignored, 

threats they couldn’t stand.

Even those that still were there, worked

for them outstandingly, were subject to

their rules and laws that whispered:

“don’t disobey.”

I was ostracized from then on.

Those still there knew that it was wrong.

But, at least I still had my dignity.

Reality Bleeds A Dream

A dream I just had, sooo long and complex,

with my Buddhist sangha in surreal environs,

together again as we once were, mixed with

the hippie milieu vibe in a structure that was more

than a tent but less than a building communing

together why was I there? I moved through the

dream fascinated by what I was seeing, got 

some good food awkwardly with small dishes

and sat down at a table with Ken Campbell,

a dude long dead that I hadn’t seen for decades,

I said: “Hi, Ken.” He recognized me,

he said my name and I woke up.

Beats Me

I knew Ginsberg a little,

but I was part of the second wave,

the hippies that Kerouac despised.

The Sixties was a Renaissance of 

the spirit, fueled by L.S.D..

We eschewed the American Dream,

the Eisenhower big daddy scheme,

and tried to find our own ways out

of a frozen society.

It was a dangerous calling, and many

died, but at least not in Vietnam.

We made it up as we went along.

Politically, the movement was a failure.

1968 Democrat convention the high water

mark. It was fun in Chicago, chanting with

Ginsberg and his ilk, until Daley’s cops

beat everyone up.

Notice it was the Democrats we were protesting,

so, at least we got that right.

The movement went underground, yet continues 

to this day. 

My poetry is faint proof of that, my mind is free,

no longer closeted in wishful thinking,

the carrot on the stick of material success,

that hollow victory.

The “archaic revival” concept came out of our

travails, our celebrations, our adventures.

Ancient wisdom, hard to see in this dark age.

“Don’t freak out the straight people.” was one 

of our slogans, because that seemed to be what

we were good at.

I remember being in a bus station in Minneapolis,

my friends and I, high, blowing bubbles.

The Ticketmaster came out of his booth and told us:

“Stop blowing bubbles, the old people don’t like it.”

Amazing and indicative of those times.

Not a beatnik, but I sure am beat, 

not looking for a victory I can bank,

each day stripped down to essentials,

back to the senses,

the trees, flowers, weather an opera

of phenomenon not made of the soap 

rendered from the corpses of industry,

of ambition, of useless endeavor.

You go ahead, I’m beaten, 

but I’m better off here.

Life And Its Reflection

“All matter is frozen light.” Sheldrake 

Easier to see when you look in someone’s 

eyes, into their “soul”, into their energy,

into whatever it is looking back, acting

not like a diamond, which may be purer,

prismatic, reflective not reflexive, brilliant 

but not alive, if only just standing there, 

waiting, like a diamond, maybe without

reaction, but anything could happen, a smile,

a shout, a laugh, a song, a tear, coming from

that emptiness inside, the beginning and end

of life and all complexities, so sophisticated 

like filigree magical art; the tie my dad had,

red, with what looked like white curvy line

design, but when you turned it horizontal, 

it was cursive writing and its mirror image 

that read:

“Go piss up a rope.”

I wanted that tie so much because it was the

reflection of my dad’s light, his humor, what

made him special in the whole of space.

The Left Hand Path

“The eccentric is the basis of design.” Wallace Stevens

The path less traveled.

Chthonic awareness in the basement 

looking for the stoppage.

Like a hunter, as a plumber, 

you have to look for the signs in nature.

Nature scoffs at plastic flowers,

trembles at the prospect of artificial intelligence.

Outlaw is honorific, not pejorative, to my mind.

There cannot be beliefs in the shop, or the battlefield,

as you prepare 

for the day’s uncertainties…what you see in front

of you is uncompromising, too real, no room for

daydream.

A plumber I worked with, in Boston,

had to unstop a toilet.

He started with the closet auger, 

reamed that sucker good

to no avail. 

His temperature rose like a heavyweight in mid bout.

He pulled the toilet, got a hose, stuck it in the top and 

the bottom of the toilet, wrestled with it for a long time.

Suddenly, the largest turd either of us had ever seen,

slithered out like a snake.

We stood there in awe for a sacred moment.

For a second, we both experienced non-thought.

Certainty is a temporary experience.

Everything you know is wrong.

Hold and then, release.

Go out with the breath.

Letting go is left hand wisdom.

Muscle Memory

Monday mornings I would wake up

and have to go to work as a plumber

and many times have the thought:

“I don’t know how to do this work!”

slightly panicked,

then, on the job, the work just happened

because ingrained, familiar, I just had to

see it, be there in it, didn’t have to think

most of the time….

everything I learned how to do was that

way…it took time to be familiar with the

medium

tools

procedures

process

how it came together whether it was

plumbing

writing 

teaching

acting

all different bicycles to learn how to

balance

create the right environment 

let the character speak for itself

not get in my own way.

Acting was effortless, just paying 

attention to words and expression.

Writing was to just keep writing

until the words began to organize

themselves.

Learning to teach was painful because,

as with the others, not good at first,

and there were people watching, so,

embarrassing clumsy, but confidence 

slowly grew.

Plumbing scared me the most because

it was for money

results were immediate

there was more at stake

plumbers were not normal people

customers had to be satisfied

(the biggest challenge of any job).

But,

like everything else, after a while,

I knew what I was doing.

Anger was a component; the adrenaline 

necessary to focus, what professional 

athletes possess that made Michael Jordan

seem to fly.

It took ten years after I quit to finally slow down.

I was chunky, strong…now my muscles are 

diminished as they are no longer necessary.

Still, a twinge a few Monday mornings,

then, “Thank goodness that’s over.”

I became competent at what I had to do,

whether I wanted to or not.

My accomplishment, if at all, is that

I never became lost in

what so many become,

the certainty that never pans out

in someone else’s game.

I’ve never been a criminal,

but I’ve always been an outlaw.

Ego And Religion

Ego wants to survive, be eternal even,

so it creates beliefs that will give it a

way out, or a way in, to heaven and

eternal life, don’t you know, no matter

what doctrine, dogma, the religion obeys.

It’s primitive thinking based on fear of

the unknown so Homosap makes things up.

Not much more needs to be said except 

primitive beliefs are obstacles to evolution.

Not much more needs to be said except

when does the Homosap get over his myths?

There’s no bravery in beliefs, the way of sheep,

like blinders on a horse,

these are the days of our lives,

lost in soap operas evolved from childhood tales.