A Calvary of Clowns

A calvary of clowns

Finds the spiritual lining

In my symphony of sardonic sacrilege

Convinced they understand

The “like-mind” of my pursuit

Of the all-consuming spirit

Then they’re offended

Seeing the beating heart

Of my experiential God

Which blasphemes

Every dumb notion

Of a belief system hitherto held

Glorifying the revelation of darkness

Embracing the devil

Denying fear by defeating desire

Defecating on the church pulpit

Flinging feces far and wide

Over every chapel’s

Stained glass silhouettes

Shattered in the unforetold reckoning

Their beloved symbology

Of father, virgin and son

Who’ve only ever existed

Within

The Ocean

Is this a poem? It’s not really prose, so it’s a poem.

Where memory escaped me, I always knew the ocean was there. I reached into the right hemisphere when the tide was high and brought back whatever washed ashore, tiptoeing across that rickety pineal bridge where the two hemispheres met.

True adventurers built boats, sailed into the mystic knowing they’d never return to the world of miseries. Enlightened ones found ways of tearing down the levees, and the ocean joined those shallow pools of logic and reason, that boring, lonesome hell from the left which the stagnant ones had named “reality.” There were only three dimensions there, and the ones were scared and angry. They all thought their thoughts were real, and that’s why their thoughts were real.

The same inert ones who’d forced lithium in me before I made it through, they thought their sensual world was everything. They often complained about it, but nobody ever did anything about it. Coagulated ones claimed to worship the ocean, but they never visited. At least, I never saw any of them on the water. They wrote thick books about the ocean bound in sheepskin pretense, but they never even stepped foot upon the bridge. They put symbols for the ocean everywhere, but it didn’t look at all like the ocean. And they all blasphemed the ocean with titles — Pacific, Indian, Atlantic, Arctic — as though there were more than one ocean.

Remember those mushrooms that grew on cow shit? They had a day-pass to the other side, but they made it a criminal offense. The same folks who babbled about “my ocean” and “follow the law of my ocean” made it illegal to visit the ocean. They’d carried their little aquariums so far inland they’d long since forgotten where the water came from. It was so lifeless and stale in there, they decorated their tanks with bobblehead fish and plastic seaweed lit up with LED bulbs. Moon-driven tides were mechanically simulated like the rippling flag on the moon. “A bucket of water in an endless ocean is not the ocean,” they said. “Just as the flame on one candle lit with the flame from another is not the same fire.” But it was the same fire, and it was the same ocean.

“Look ya’ll, I found a word,” as I pulled it across the bridge and typed it. “Is there a sentence in there, you think? Is it a poem, you think?” No, the right doesn’t think. I intuit. And no, it’s just more words. Poems feel different. Slimy from all the living things. Poems flow from right to left in swift, manic eurekas, zero gravity geysers, tsunamis set in motion by seabed earthquakes. “Oh. I see.” I don’t think you see. You think, but you don’t see. “I think you’re wrong.” You think, and I know. “I see.”

The sea was a vast, solipsistic space that never seemed to end. The frozen ones ignored it as long as they could, but the sea had a way of overflowing at the most inopportune times. It was once said that the ocean’s favorite game was hide and seek. But when the floods came, the left hemisphere either tried to fit the endless ocean into a little warehouse of memory where it stored all its facts, or else it denied the ocean existed. “This flooding from the right hemisphere must have a physical cause,” it said. It must’ve been that the chemicals in the heads had become imbalanced. But who controlled the ebb and flow of all those liquids, if not the ocean?

Some of the solidified ones carried around little jars of liquid screaming, “The ocean is with me! Worship my jar the way I do!” The ones who refused to move and wore white gowns with googly eyes put droplets on glass slides and said, “I know the ocean by dissection, deduction and dissemination.” Yet others spent their lives sopping up puddles, drying themselves up, proudly proclaiming, “There is no ocean.”

On the other side of the bridge, everything existed to affirm, confirm and reaffirm the corporeal, empirical, objective, and to them it was absolute. Everything was solid over there, or else congealed, and nothing flowed in or out. They didn’t understand that they’d built their own worlds inside out, and they’d only left room for facts. Life was much bigger than facts, and the inertia which propagated them convinced them of this fact. The ones with the most facts deduced the limitations of their sensory perception and their memory, yet they still stubbornly relied entirely upon it. Anything which didn’t fit had to be thrown out. So when the flooding came, they found buckets and threw the water out, insisting it was an illness, a delusion, a trick of the mind. After all, there were no ones. There could only be one reality, and they just didn’t think the ocean fit.

Solemn, Silent Statue of Socrates

Socrates, who never wrote a word, was convicted of impiety & corrupting the youth & sentenced to die by drinking hemlock. Out of guilt, Athenians immediately erected a bronze bust of his solemn, silent head & scholars immediately began distorting his words in writing.

Let’s glorify the man

We just put to death

With a statue of his head

Mute, dumb, and deaf

Socratic irony

Corrupts from his bust

Bronze neither rusts

Nor puts up a fuss

“Who believes words

Is an utterly simple person

In reading what’s written

Nothing’s clear or certain”

Ironic quotes

From a man whose concern

Was not to conflate

Real knowledge with words

The only way I

Could know who he was

Because somebody did

And somebody does

Ask scholars why

No I, me nor mine

No first-hand account

No words from the wise

Scholars believe

Socrates couldn’t read

Christ couldn’t write

And they could not afford scribes

Words are worthless

In discerning the Truth

Words put knowledge to death

Words corrupt the youth

Memory’s not mind

Knowledge is not a mime

Experience carves it out

Like sharpening a knife

To scholars of future

Present and past:

Interpretation and regurgitation

Is neither knowledge nor fact

Kids, don’t drink the hemlock

Of scholars and scribes

Their paper’s worth more on the toilet

Than their words are in your mind

“Writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence”
— Socrates [according to Plato]

My Past Is a Brash Mass of Unrequited Desires Unmasked As Trash

Wanted ad:

Will swim for treasure

Wherever it’s stashed

If sharks attack

Will attack them back

Dear Reader,

I’m aghast

Your message is

A news flash

Or something like that

I was typecasted

To reenact

A romantic’s clash

With true desire

Causing absurdist whiplash

As I thrashed and splashed

Toes tied to the topmast

Of a sinking ship

Which finally crashed

Into the walls

Of the vast glass

(God forbid it gets cracked)

I’ve rehashed and rehashed

The message in the bottle

Sent from me to me

By me for me

My stowaway finally smashed

So it reads:

Has the past been unmasked?

Have you become unattached?

Your actions still react?

Still hauling around that butt shaft

You daft ass?

Marooned on an island

You still fear an attack?

Tick tock

Clickety clack

Clinging to that contract

When in fact

It’s all an act

For all I lack

Is retracted

Here and now

I can’t exist in the past

So I patch up the timelapse

And sail through the redacted now

When necessary

I swim

Through The Great Contrast

Of before and after

This and that

If sharks attack

I allow them to pass

And the only task

At hand

Is never to become trapped

In the future or past

I befriend the only thing

Which lasts

Overcoming the slapdash

As the everlasting flame

Turns the finest things

Into black ash

All plans hatched

Wane and wax

With the tidal winds

Disappearing in the draft

But the insight of now

Is unmatched

And its potential

Is untapped

Patience & Acceptance

Are virtues that don’t latch

Remain in Awareness

And relax

That rapturous blast

Is here and now at last

In stark contrast

to whatever

the past

asked

Whatever the past

expected

the present

to outrun

or outlast

Whatever it was

or would be

it’s

no

longer

that

Whatever it was

I have

surpassed

at last.

Sincerely,

The Artist Formerly Known As Robert LaSalle

Written the morning of September 10, 2024

Submitted to Poetry Magazine & quickly forgotten

P.S. I’m tossing the bottle overboard

I have no need for this crap

My past is a brash mass

Of unrequited desires

Unmasked as trash

Twenty Twenty Three

Sardonic affectation

Malaised Elation

Confused creator

Crazed creation

A piece of God’s imagination

Partially made

And in the making

2023

〰️

2023 〰️

A Song of War

Underlined References: MLK, Thoreau, Gandhi & 5 major religions

Act I

The only sworn enemy in all of the land

Is the dutiful faith of an ignorant man

When good men do the bidding of tyrannical minds

It’s good men who’ve committed the most ungodly crimes

The left blamed the right, and the right blamed the left

The north blamed the south, and the east blamed the west

Christians blamed Muslims who blamed Hindus and Jews

Everyone else blamed social media and 24-hour news

Every side stood for some elusive cause

Though no one knew exactly what it was

Each party devised its own makeshift enemy

Justice waged war on freedom vs. liberty

They all pointed fingers above from below

Guiltless blame compounded as it passed up the totem pole

The whole world became a reenactment of Nuremberg Trials

No one took responsibility, and everyone complied

They called peace a weakness and carnage a strength

It took a thousand times more courage to resist than to obey

This is the One Truth that gets lost in the trust:

Corruption can’t function without us

Friends became soldiers, rife with vengeance

Dying was the Catch-22 of winning

The colonel said, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

No matter what happens, God’s just testing us”

Part and parcel, impartial, not impugn, coerced

Every last soldier rode home in a hearse

Dug into their trenches, as they laid in wait

They died for three inches of foreign terrain

The pageantry of death, a flag draped over a coffin

They sounded a bugle, shot their guns off at God

The pomp and propaganda rallied more for their cause

And that’s how the war carried on… and on…

Act II

This sphere has no sides from where God sits

Yet everyone’s assured, “God wants our side to win”

They say, “Everything in this world kills for a living”

Yes, but who in this world has the will to forgive us?

If death was your duty, death was your only friend

There were 8 billion ways to lose and only one way to win

The only “united nations” were the Ticos and Swiss

Who laid down their arms and unclenched their fists

The only “good guys” took aim to miss

The only “good guys” resolutely resist

The blind led the blind with an eye for an eye

They all used holy books to justify their crimes

From slavery to war to mass genocide

Everyone always said God was on their side

Of the dove and the lion of Mecca and Zion

In the words of Jibreel and the tears of Jeremiah

Violence is the lost cause of the mire of maya

The only real fight is with the silence inside us

Act III

The servile servants of the sycophant circus

Hid their egotist’s crimes behind red curtains

No accounting for actions, reactions fired back

Shotgun always goes off in the third act

Our rebellion of the heart refused to take part

In the crimes against nature before they could start

Non-violent protestors only allegiances:

Conscientious objection and civil disobedience

We are the voice who is always listening

Our commitment is to truth, not to consistency

We’re no-mans-land’s borders, and our only mission:

To remain humane in spite of inhuman resistance

We are the voice who is always listening

Our commitment is to truth, not to consistency

We are no one’s belief, and no one’s opinion,

Nobody’s ideals, and nobody’s minions

We are no one’s reaction, nobody’s response

We’re no one’s faction at nobody’s cost

We’re no one’s nation, religion or race

We are responsible for the world we’ve made

THE END

∞

THE END ∞

Badmash blooms

Badmash blooms

When his bane is his boon

Poignantly poised

For the plague

Which is his perk

For the blessing

Which is a curse

To earn his worth

Prodigally

To return to earth

Crawling

To learn to fly

By falling

For the Daimon’s Tao

With his horns

For the Daemon’s rose

With her thorns

For the Lord of Job

Rascal trickster

With Lucifer’s nose

Growing bigger

For the bane

Of His existence

Is aptly named

“The Light Bringer”

For Good and Evil

Are just for show

The Way

For him to know

A life beyond

A world of woe

Of friends and foes

Of hots and colds

Of duplicitous modes

Of binary codes

Of twofold folds

Of bipolar poles

Is to embrace them both

‘M’ & ‘E’ In Macro Ethic

In the middle of all the bad and the good

Man unmasks the mire of meaning

Malevolence moves among all that he’s misunderstood

His mind mustn’t malign with its misconceiving

Commandments he mimicked and mimed through childhood

Must be immobilized to keep myths of morality from impeding

(After all, it’s his life which he’s leading)

To misinterpret a single word

Is to miss the mark completely

The mild-mannered man meandered Mother Earth

Feigning virtue as he moved so meekly

But the meek will inherit only the dirt

May they still meet their maker, if ever so bittersweetly

(After all, it’s his dream which he’s dreaming)

To moderate man’s moderation

To pursue modesty immodestly

Remove all rules and regulations

Remove all molds of man-made myth and prophecy, monotonously

Past minefields of morality, move the mind in contemplation

Make amends with the mime in the mirror who was always mimicking and mocking me

(After all, it was my life which seemed to be lost on me)

Macro Ethic is the mean, median and mode of all preconceived notions

Macro Ethic is One metric by which man counts all blessings

One unites 10,000 gods in energy, body, mind and emotion

One unites the paradox of all of God’s lessons

Macro Ethic is the union of opposites in stillness and in motion

Macro Ethic melds man’s morality with all his misconceptions

(After all, Macro Ethic is singular, beyond good and bad, hell and heaven)

An Inordinately Buddhist Digression

I guess faith is surrendering everything to nothing, expecting nothing.

I used to expect respect, dignity, love and success, but I'm a lot better off now that I expect nothing.

I guess compassion is seeing myself all broken up and mourning the broken parts of me in you.

Trying to fix you isn't compassion.

Seeing us both as broken pieces of the same nothingness, expecting nothing from you, accepting nothing in our brokenness.

With no expectations and nothing left to surrender or lose, I accept everything as it is and everyone as they are.

What more is there? Nothing.

Why I Quit & Why I Left

WHY I QUIT

I quit because quitting was harder than winning

Still as shit was harder than shit-eating grinning

Sitting was harder than sinning

Giving up was harder than giving or getting

Making up was harder than making it

Giving in was harder than taking shit

The path of most resistance is a bitch

Giving up on noise for silence is fucked

In the newness of nothing,

Everything is enough

Biting the bullet is harder

Than biting the dust

Nothing was harder than stuff

I gave it all away, and I gave up

17 years was enough

WHY I LEFT

With respect to Creator and Creation alike

Good riddance to this world of samsaric psych

Goodbye to the ancient wheel of time

So long to the body, farewell to the mind

I came into this world on a full moon night

I burnt off the remnants of many lifetimes

In my wake, I left breadcrumbs for the fallen to find

With the moon at peak fullness, I left this world behind

Two Poems To Put In Your Face

Two More Cuntingly Crafted Poems Crammed Assfuckingly Between Two Pages of A Notebook Between 7 a.m. and 7:20 a.m. on August 20th, 2023


NARCISSUS FOUND A LOVER, PT. 2

The pain and purported purposelessness of pain provoked me to cram another can of kratom, in jest, to test its ingested effect or affect, except that its an addict who accepts that its better to see the first sun with glee as he begins to peak his head over the trees, than for misery to sew what the miser reaps in sobriety at seven a.m. over me, for it’s him who sees his reflection in the pond every day, not me, yet it’s me who falls in love and it’s me who falls in, and I doubt the sun even knows how to swim, alas, again and again, the past falls short of my whim, and the present rises also again, as the blathering blew me along with the wind, an analysis of beauty falls short of blooming, precisely on time, dead on the vine, a truth only known in rhythm and rhyme, a riddle a riddler could never confine, to see grace in flight, and attempt to own her, a ring to a finger, a cage to a bird, this is the riddler forcing beauty into words, for no matter his wisdom, no match for his wit, no matter how he mangles the words, beauty won’t fit, for it can’t be confined, it can’t be contained, it can’t analyze grace, so the pain dissipates with the mist on the pond, and the sun sees himself in everything as soon as it’s gone, so my eye sees only what I already Am, and if I Am That I Am, I must also be that resurrection, and I’ve fallen in love with much more than my reflection, I Am the lesson learned, and I Am the lesson, I’m the sun and the pond and the past evanescing, I’m the rise and the fall and the wax and the wane, I’m the good and the bad and the pleasure and pain, so when I fall in love with beauty, I’ve fallen in love with I Am, and even the pain is I Am, I Am, That I Am is beauty, again and again, That I Am is beauty at seven a.m.

SECOND PAGE TYPED FOR YOUR FLUFFY LITTLE FACE HOLES

To feel as though this body actually belongs to me, however temporarily, to rid the dread and loathing of the old anhedonia, the phony holy sewing seeds of Sardonia, artificial kiss I’m holding up on stilts of sticks I picked up amongst this amiss bliss with clenched fists, fits of restlessness, shivers and shits, the every-other-day addict arises against the midst, the mean and mode of man-made malaised mist evaporating alone, a drop of the ocean, a flash in the pan, a thought ever in motion which seeks only to be still in a world of dogs eating dogs, kill or be killed, can’t understand, can’t fathom man, wheels of time, cogs, delirious dogs, none of whom are Sirius, and gods to whom I used to honor like this, with words and sounds provoked into being with the artificial kiss of this amiss bliss, a leaf (kratom) or a flower (opium) or a fermented fruit (alcohol), a fungi I found on cow shit (psilocybin), all of which I presumed were God’s gifts, though I’ve learned through the years that each kiss is a curse and a gift which can only be discerned by the tongue after it hit or missed the sense, and the only real value is in the awareness it gets, and the thought is useless if it never sits, stays, never rolls over, these are dog-eat-dog tricks, shake or break a leg, if it’s not still, it’s still amiss, and if it’s amiss, it’s not truly bliss, so the dog goes for another walk around the wheel of time with a sense of relief, however benign, however unholy, unworthy of the ache of life, and the dog honors God with the gift of riddling rhyme, out of synch, off kilter, still in time, disappointed in his inability to find the rhythm of the divine, begging for bread and wine beneath the dinner table, yearning for praise, guidance, or some piece of God’s mind.

Please send your strongly worded letters to this address:

Richard Milhous Nixon

c/o Accompanying Devil/Demon

3538 Gunston Rd

Alexandria, VA 22302

The Serpent

144,000 on the ark with Noah

Somewhere south of Pleiades

I was throttled by Speirema, the mighty boa

She snapped my spine in three


Ida was a coy and quiet cobra

The rattler, Sol, shook the seven seas

Seven Sleepers awoke and threw me over

Sirius, the guard dog, stormed the breach


I sank beneath the waves with Jonah

No one but Saraswati heard my screams

The subterranean river I’d never known of

Swung the Chimah hinge which bound the world to me


Was this Leviathan they’d told of?

When it rises up, the mighty… retreat

Am I ouroboros or caduceus to this mighty boa?

Was She Mehen, Nehushtan, Jörmungandr or Chalkydri?


Was She seraph nahash of old Jehovah?

Was this Naassenes’ and Ophians’ Paraclete?

Just as Issa / Isa / Isha spoke of Moses

Would Naga lift up the Son of Man in me?

This has been
A poem by TAFKA LaSalle
Written between crises
Scouring the web for “clues”
October 4, 2023
At Redbug Cabin, U.S.A.


Now for some hand-picked Quotes i’ve gathered after 3 years of kundalini despair, on Why Pain & Suffering Aren’t Always All Bad:

“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
— Aeschylus [As it was recited by RFK the night MLK died]
“The way of love is not a subtle argument; the door there is devastation; birds make great sky circles of their freedom, how do they learn that? They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.”
— Rumi
“This dark contemplation is in its beginnings painful likewise to the soul; for, as this Divine infused contemplation has many excellences that are extremely good, and the soul that receives them, not being purged, has many miseries that are likewise extremely bad, hence it follows that, as two contraries cannot coexist in one subject —the soul— it must of necessity have pain and suffering, since it is the subject wherein these two contraries war against each other, working the one against the other, by reason of the purgation of the imperfections of the soul which comes to pass through this contemplation.”
— Saint John of the Cross
“...that power filled the room. It seemed to be in one’s eyes and breath. It comes into being, suddenly and most unexpectedly, with a force and intensity that is quite overpowering and at other times it’s there, quietly and serenely. But it’s there, whether one wants it or not. There is no possibility of getting used to it for it has never been nor will it ever be.”
— Krishnamurti
“Then Jesus continued and said to them... “Blessed are you who are reviled and not esteemed on account of the love their lord has for them. Blessed are you who weep and are oppressed by those without hope, for you will be released from every bondage. Watch and pray that you not come to be in the flesh, but rather that you come forth from the bondage of the bitterness of this life.””
— Book of Thomas The Contender
“And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us - we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass.”
— Thomas Wolfe
“A mystic swims in the same waters in which a psychotic drowns.”
— Unknown Source
“If you have to ask whether you’re experiencing kundalini or not, you’re not.”
— The Artist Formerly Known As Robert LaSalle



friends & family
”don’t get it”:

“A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.”
— H.D. Thoreau
“A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”
— Issa, Isa, Isha A.K.A. Jesus
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
— Unknown Source
“I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you!”
— Job 16:2 is Job's response to his friends telling him that his transformation was a punishment from God (it wasn't true).
“They are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason, that reason which is the cause of separation — The House of Reason is very far away!”
— Kabir
“The ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ people have committed suicide!”
— Sadhguru



More “growth through suffering”
quotes from the bible:

“Be continually alert, remembering that for 3 years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.”
— Acts 20:31 [I'm coming up on 3 years of this shit now]
“[God] will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which ye are able to bear, but with the temptation will also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”
— 1 CORINTHIANS 10:13
“Lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
— 2 CORINTHIANS 12 [This quote was recited to Krishna Das, a Jew, by Neem Karoli Baba, a Hindu]
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
— James 1:2-4
“And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.”
— Isaiah 30:20-21

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
— Romans 5:3-5
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
— 1 Peter 1:6-7
“Finally friends, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, meditate on these things.”
— PHILIPPIANS 4:8 [this is my very own translation]

p.s. encore!
two taoist parables
on why fortune & misfortune
are indiscernible:

“May Be”

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "May be," the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be," said the farmer.

“Is that So?”

A beautiful girl in the village was pregnant. Her angry parents demanded to know who was the father. At first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom everyone previously revered for living such a pure life. When the outraged parents confronted Hakuin with their daughter's accusation, he simply replied "Is that so?"

When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. "Is that so?" Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

For many months he took very good care of the child until the daughter could no longer withstand the lie she had told. She confessed that the real father was a young man in the village whom she had tried to protect. The parents immediately went to Hakuin to see if he would return the baby. With profuse apologies they explained what had happened. "Is that so?" Hakuin said as he handed them the child.

The Scientists Turned Science Into Another Dumb Religion

INTRODUCTION TO THIS POEM IN PROSE: HERE

“Although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks he knows. I neither know nor think I know.”
— Socrates in "Apology" by Plato



The greatest religion of the new millennium:

Scientific Fundamentalism

In with the microscope, out with the candelabra

NOW RECRUITING: rationalists for our materialistic dogma


Spacetime was born with a bang, accidentally 

14 billion years of future’s past present (fundamentally)

Having all evolved from one warm puddle

In here, The Hard Problem still has us all befuddled


Accidental, though we all appear to be

Carbon & water turned into genetic memory

Fish, amphibians, mammals, then very small hominids

We don’t acknowledge Dashavatara 

(we give all credit to the Darwinists)


After consciousness formed our big, smart brains

We decided that must be where consciousness is made

In here, we deny where, how & why it’s felt

We deem unworthy the study of the experience its Self


You say the mechanics of life, love, art & beauty

Are projected onto the experiencer’s screen like a movie?

We think the experience knows what the experiencers don’t

The only way to know a man is to cut him open, head to toe


Dissect the body, the energy, the emotion & the mind

Dissect the water & the earth, dissect the air & fire

Immaterial things are a waste of our dissection of spacetime

It’s not our jobs to experience 

but to present our dissections of this life


If you wish to join us in here, you will be required to take

One humongous, un-ironic leap of faith

Consensus reality must be touched, heard or seen

We’ve made strict laws of this capricious belief


We’ve made constant all the universe’s inconsistencies

We’ve made permanence of all the world’s transient things

This mustn’t be that, here mustn’t be there

Speed of light appears constant (must be true everywhere)


So what if electrons are here & there at the same time

Our world is as hard as our own stubborn minds

So what if we’re hurling through space

(like an electron cloud)

Stop presenting obstacles - we have it all figured out!


So your body remembers your grandfather’s disease

Remembers his traumas, his looks & every breath he breathed

So we know there’s more memory in a single strand of DNA

But we’re certain all memories are stored in the brain


Yesterday & tomorrow mustn’t be tricks of the mind

Time is surely linear (our memories wouldn’t lie)

We memorized more facts than most memories will hold

Our memories are how we convince society to think that we know


If anyone attempts to know what cannot be seen

“Un-scientific!” she & he will be deemed

Her grant money will be abruptly taken away

Un-allegorically, she will be burned at the stake


We already categorized all life by taxonomy

The only way to know life is to classify its biology

Drawing certainties from the rubble of the past 

(archeologically) 

We already wrote the history of humanity’s odyssey 

(prodigally)


If new ideas & new insights are your colloquy’s calling

Go join the useless idiots in the philosophy department

Anyone who attempts experiments in metaphysics or ontology

Will promptly be given a right brain lobotomy


The left brain hemisphere is the only one with a purpose

We use logic & deduction 

to discern the world’s inner workings

We dissect the earth just as we do human corpses

We supply government & business with brand new resources


We poke, prod, plunder & pillage every crevasse & crack

We present it to humanity as progress

(equipped with new existential facts)

The sun is a ball of gas & earth is an unconscious rock

Your sentience is an accidental physical phenomena

(or else your serotonin needs to be blocked)


“But all ideas come from the right brain hemisphere!”

Nope. All ideas come from deduction in here

“But even Einstein attributed his ideas to intuition!”

We refuse to acknowledge your woo-woo mysticism


“Why then, is there anything anywhere at all?”

Perhaps a rock in the multiverse had a great fall?

“Well, what motivates Being to keep on Being?”

Dissecting the touching & hearing & seeing


“But why does that cockroach have such a great will to live?”

Desire & will are immaterial & material is all there is!

“But there’s desire to BE in every grain of sand”

Take your platonic panpsychism back to Never Never Land


“So what is the consensus on human emotion?”

Well, we put a drop of water on a slide

& now we know the whole ocean

Perception imprints on folds of the physical brain

If you experience anything outside of this

we deem you insane


“But doesn’t neuroscience repeatedly disprove

Cognitive behavioral un-scientific-folly-ology?”

Perhaps, but the magnificent miracle of the human mind

Must fit into preconceived notions of psychology


We made pills to regulate your emotions 

(in their physical, chemical form)

By comparing & contrasting you to societal norms

We created the paradigm of human health

Existential dread of materialistic nihilism can’t be seen

(so it mustn’t be felt)


“But that nihilistic paradigm is destroying Mother Earth!”

Just take your pills, shut your mouth & get back to work 

“But that paradigm pushes us further & further from truth!”

You’re fired! Earth is an object & so are you


If new things are discovered or new ideas come around

We’ll make sure your new insights & ideas can’t be found

We have our timeline, our paradigm, 

& we’ll tell you what’s real

Our consensus is the only reality

no matter what else you experience or feel


Our physics can talk, but our physicians won’t listen

None of our old paradigms will be faced with new resistance

We remain in one space, one time & one dimension

Our dogma won’t be entangled with spooky action at a distance


If you want creativity, join the artists, inventors & engineers

Only ONE empirical truth is allowed in here

In here, we use facts to deduce & deduce & deduce

We only believe physical data with physical proof


We don’t allow experiments on the nature of Being

Unless they involve touching, hearing & seeing

If you join us in here, you already know what’s in store

Leave your Spirit, your Soul & your Being at the door


We are the mainstream! No one else can compete

We monopolized truth & all else is belief

The human is a machine, just a fluke of fate

So we evolved larger lobes than the other, lesser apes


We know historically, truth comes from outside the tribe

Yet we base the old outsiders’ truths on our modern lies

We pretend we’re as certain as the gospel we preach

But we blaspheme science with every faithful leap


We’re academics! We make up the rules

Outsiders beware!

We’ll make the whole world believe you’re fools!

You can’t even get a job without a lifetime’s debt to us

& our institutions are the only ones the world trusts


You may think it irrational to treat human Beings this way

But we academics treat each other exactly the same

Disparaging polarities, tribalism, infighting & hate

We refuse to acknowledge that we’re all irrational animals

stuck within the illogical conundrum of time & space


We rationalists all claim to be led by the facts

“But tell a rationalist he’s wrong, & see how he reacts!

His emotions are what led him to the now & the here

With his illogical desires & his irrational fears”


“Science is a tool & one which cannot fail

But does anyone believe in a hammer or disbelieve a nail?”

We made science into doctrine & threw away the tool!

Our nihilistic materialism has indoctrinated every school


The greatest tool ever known to man

We homogenized into dogma..

to fit the world in a grain of sand

“Yes, science is the greatest of all God’s inventions

But the scientists turned it into another dumb religion”


Newton, by William Blake, trying to fit the world onto a 2D scroll

wHAT OUR SOCIETY REFERS TO AS THE “ENLIGHTENMENT" ERA, MYSTICS HAVE TERMED, “THE DARK AGE” OR KALI YUGA. smart people across the world will profess scientific certainties, and most of the people will become certain of those certainties. but the quest for truth begins with, I know nothing.

Just Relentless Passion

It’s just relentless passion

It’ll die down in time

Why? Who’s asking?

Who’s so just as to be tasked with unmasking it?

It is me, and I Am it

There are only two ways to be:

Entirely passionate or entirely dispassionate

Anything in between is sleep

Anything in between infinite silence

And an infinite scream

Is half wheat and half weeds

Half goat and half sheep

Half man and half beast

Half real and half make-believe

I am neither, and both are me

Relentless inaction, relentless action

I Am just relentless passion

Patience Is the Greatest Virtue

November 15, 2022, Redbug Cabin, AL

Of all the things I ever wanted

None of them are things

For you to finally see these words

Is the only thing to which I would ever cling

Chord patterns, rhythms, melodies 

Did you hear the songs I used to sing?

Of all the songs you’ve heard so far

Are any of them really things?

Of all the things people fear

The strangest one is change

The only fear I ever had

Was that things would remain the same

When time slows down all the way

Hell is there in that eternal state

Hope cannot exist outside of time

Time cannot exist outside of change

I travelled the country twenty years

Same story there, same story here

More death, failure, and tragedy

More words, chords, and melodies

My work as of yet has gone unnoticed

I am still broke but still unbroken

I’m still an old man and a little boy

Money’s just a broken toy

You can’t see or hear

Without watching and listening

Change comes cursed

And change comes gifted

Time is as wasted as time is sober

When the street lights come on

The show is over

I think I might have missed my curfew

Patience is the greatest virtue

Innocence

In a sense

Innocence

With its intense ineptness

Gifts isness with indecision

The victim of its intention

Admits it’s complicit

In its disillusionment

Which runs amiss with its

Intrepid sentience

In a sense

Innocence

Isn’t victimless

In its illicit inaction

Of the present tense

Which can’t catch up with itself 

I would swear I weren’t a victim

If it didn’t feel like hell

Stuck In An Unearthly Riddle

Life is harsh
Mind and body, so brittle
How on earth did I get stuck
In this unearthly riddle?

How in the world
Did something so big
Get trapped inside
Something so little?

Did I choose to forget?
To be trapped in this shithole?
I do love apples,
And all that forbid them

Perhaps that’s the curse
Being stuck in the middle
With a halo and horns,
A lyre and a fiddle

Lulling myself to sleep
Singing, “Hey Diddle Diddle”
Stuck here on earth
In this unearthly riddle

Triumph Over Sadness

Sadness is masochism

Sadness is sadism

Sadness itself

Isn’t inspiration

Triumphing over sadness

Isn’t manic or madness

The last bastion of empathic compassion

Is that which triumphs over sadness

Haven’t you felt the ship smash, the waves clash, crash, alas

You haven’t lived until you’ve fallen ass backwards off the mast

You haven’t lived until every moment’s lived like it’s the last

And then sadness is momentum to tackle the next gasp

Life is masochism

Life is sadism

Can’t exist without hurt and hurting

Ride the sadist waves with style

Add a laugh to your cry, add a tear to your smile

It’s all just a game you forgot you were playing

Life itself

Is inspiration

Don’t let the sadness pull you under too deep

The current has a way of playing for keeps

As long as there’s waves they’re reminding you to

Keep riding them

So they’re not riding you

Unidentifiable: I Am That

That spark at the dawn of time

I Am That

I Am the Big Bang

14 billion years ago, I Am here

14 billion years from now, I Am here

I Am now

I Am here

Always

I have no identity other than That

I Am That

This mind I occupy

It used to experience extreme mania

This mind

It used to experience extreme depression

But I am NOT a “manic depressive”

I am NOT “bipolar”

This mind had many psychological anomalies

But I am NOT “mentally ill”

I am NOT a “victim” of my genealogy

I am NOT a “victim”

This body I occupy

It was addicted to nearly every illicit substance

This body and this mind

Have been addicted

To nearly every drug known to man

But I am NOT an “addict”

This life has never breached the poverty line

Never earned $20k in a year

This living hasn’t earned enough

To “own” much of anything

But I am NOT “impoverished”

I am NOT a “poor person”

I lack nothing

This body I occupy

It has been beaten repeatedly

But I am NOT a “victim”

This body has known extreme violence

Random brutality leaves only one eye

But I am NOT “handicapped”

This body has had so many surgeries

But I am NOT a “patient”

This body sustains itself

Without the meat of tortured animals

But I am NOT a “vegetarian”

I am NOT a “vegan”

The skin I wear is pale, nearly translucent

But I am NOT “white”

I am NOT a “caucasian”

I love God

I love Jesus and the Holy Spirit

I love Abraham

I love Gautama

I love Muhammad

I love Shiva, Devi and Krishna

But I am NOT a “Christian”

I am NOT a “Jew”

I am NOT a “Buddhist”

I am NOT a “Muslim”

I am NOT a “Hindu”

This body has only had sex with women

But I am NOT “heterosexual”

I am NOT “straight”

This body was made in the U.S.A.

But I am NOT an “American”

I am NOT a “Democrat”

I am NOT a “Republican”

I am NOT an “Independent”

I am not identifiable by my opposition

I have no opposite,

for I have no opposition

I have a penis

But I am NOT a “man”

I am NOT “cisgender”

I am no “gender”

I’ve occupied this body and this mind

For a few decades now

But I am NOT a “human”

I love Mother Earth

But I am NOT of Her

I refuse to become identified with this or that

I am NOT an identity

I have no identity

I am NOT a faction

I am NOT a statistic

I am NOT an individual

I am not identified by any relationship

To this sick, sad society

I have no relationship with “normal”

I am comparable by no “norm”

I am of no faith, no ethnicity, 

no gender and no sexuality

I am not part of the whole

I Am Whole

I Am responsible for this existence

I Am responsible for this moment,

every moment 

which leads to this moment,

and every moment

which follows

I accept responsibility for this life

I accept responsibility for All I Am

All is One, and That is All I Am

I Am That