Sardonic affectation
Malaised Elation
Confused creator
Crazed creation
A piece of God’s imagination
Partially made
And in the making
The Serpent
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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“...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.”
“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.””
“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.”
“A mystic swims in the same waters in which a psychotic drowns.”
“If you have to ask whether you’re experiencing kundalini or not, you’re not.”
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.”
“A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
“I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you!”
“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!”
“The ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ people have committed suicide!”
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.”
“[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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.”
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.
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
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
I Just Need Something Good To Happen
I know it’s all fake
A delusion, this life
But I need something good
To fall from the sky
I know good and bad
For better or worse
Are relative to nothing
And I know nothing’s curse
This world of miseries
Piled up on my shoulders
Each day I prayed
For this life to be over
I need something now
Anything at all
I’ve fallen for good
I need something good to fall
I played society’s games
I fell for their tricks
I fell from their graces
Can’t you just give me this?
I’d carry the momentum
All the way to my grave
God, couldn’t you just
Give me one fucking break?!
I fell in love with love
Never mind unrequited
I dove in head first
Whole-hearted, half-minded
I’ve fallen in love with you
O Captain! My Captain!
I just need something
Good to happen
Pretend
April 29, 2022 Shelby Park, East Nashville, TN
Every world pretends it’s the only world
Every sun pretends it’s the only star
Every day pretends it’s a lifetime
Every dusk pretends there is no dawn
Every night pretends it’s death
Every morning pretends it’s risen again
Every life pretends it’s the only life
Every moment pretends it isn’t the same moment
Every future pretends it hasn’t happened
Every past pretends it went somewhere
Every somewhere pretends it’s not here
Every here pretends there’s something there which needs to be done
Every this pretends it’s not that
Every something pretends it’s not everything
But it is
Everywhere is here
Everything is now
I don’t want to pretend anymore
Vigilant Joy (& The Jester Sings)
Vigilant Joy
Vigilant Joy means…
Incessant celebration of the absurd
(& everything’s absurd)
For austerity is the only enemy
Reverence for beauty
(& everything’s beautiful)
Do the opposite of what society says
(society is more wrong than right)
For reverie guides the honest
Mundanity is the great excuse for revelry
Irreverence for “correctness”
(what’s called “correct” is more wrong than right)
Tasks, jobs, rules & facts are the great delusion
(of infinity temporarily entropy-ing)
Disobey all authority
(Be still & you’ll know the only true authority)
Rebellion is the spirit of humanity
The only responsibility is Truth
(to respond to every moment honestly)
& to share that honesty with anyone who’s listening
To sing the melody which resonates true unity
& to share that melody with harmony
To find a rhythm which syncs the heartbeat of humanity
& to beat it louder than the noise of the big, plastic lie
(& The Jester Sings)
Present presence presciently presents…
“The Past: A foretelling of the future”
(Unfortunately framed in fool’s gold)
Ladies and gentlemen,
A sardonic story from a state of grace
Revealed through the holes
Of an unholy face
A reading of free form feelings
Within and without time and space
This is the true story of what’s his name
At least Leela’s laughing
Does no one else here see the stage?
Sure, it’s divine, but it’s just a play
Jabber jabber, play.
(This Is The Spirit…)
Heyoka’s heckling the king
Court-appointed Jester sings,
“This is the spirit breaking free
Free of ambition, desire & greed
This is the spirit breaking free
Wisdom doesn’t preach, it sings:
‘This is the spirit breaking free’
& on & on it goes…”
In bad faith, sincerely yours,
What’s His Name
Attachment & Repression
She holds on to what she thinks she’s supposed to
holds back everything she feels
Plastic knife culture
Harsh judgement hails from narrowest vantage
Those whom envy are those whom blame
Guilt and blame are perfect magnets
High horse stepping stone’s throw away
lies built on ire stilts
Humans create societal paradigms no humans can meet
It’s a game everyone loses
Simultaneously pretend they’re the happiest generation
ever walked the earth
Someone showed her a picture of a starving African child
and told her she’s lucky
Ever since then, she’s been repressing
unfulfilled desires and discontent
in guilt and shame
That’s not gratitude, silly human-person
Telling herself she’s lucky in order to repress her feelings
She’s lying to herself
And the person who showed her that picture
of that starving kid
was also lying to himself
Of course we should have compassion for those in need
But this doesn’t invalidate our suffering
The whole thing’s a lie
The humans of earth are all steeping in a particular kind of sadness
Palpable sickness which soaks in shallow pools of empiricism
They lie there in that warm puddle pondering the origin of life
It’s the tower of Babel all over again
Plastic knife culture thinks it’ll find God in technology
Like the oppressive sun which never sets
like an endless breath
inhalation which never exhales
The masculine lie of holistic logic
Remember the runaway train
no one’s at the wheel
An entire generation of humans building lies on top of lies
Nobody’s asking why
Suffering is attachment and repression
They hold on to what they think they’re supposed to
They hold back what they actually feel
And then they blame each other
for holding on and holding back
differing aspects in varying degrees
There’s only one way, silly human-person
Let Go.
No Thing
October 2021 by firelight, Bankhead National Forest, AL
Few know the true meaning
Of nothing to lose
No roof and no ceiling
No many, no few
I have nothing
And desire the all
Only sky above me
Neither are there walls
No obstruction
No attachment
Only One Thing
Happening
Knowing
No thing
Source of All
I Want Freedom
Chasing kundalini high
grog malaise
New Age nonsense-mongers
they paint spirituality as a tranquil thing
peaceful, sweet godness
I scream
I die in spite of every goddam day
This is a goddam war!
I do not know who’s winning
Suicide still sings superficial songs
of hope in the last ditch
No, spirituality is not tranquil
It’s a daily revelation that the artist wasn’t actually facing himself
the artist only glorified his shadow
The spirit must face the fucking shadow
And what a goddam thing that is
long, long, long
What a long, lonesome tail
gruesome tailbone
cyst in the seat of her grace
hammer to the face
Chasing light is no means
of capturing light
I once sang, “Only marionettes
Dancing in the night
Chasing their shadows
Somehow they find the light”
I sometimes think my body is beyond reproach
beyond repair
This, in lieu of music, these words
this is my vigilant attempt
this is my only hammer
useless?
I don’t know where the fucking nails are
It’s like bedbugs
they’re easy to kill when you can find them!
it doesn’t matter what kind of “spray”
when you don’t know where they are
Demons, shadows, bad energy, these are all dumb words
for some karmic substance we carry
some experiential ire which plagues
mind-emotion, body, and yes, “energy”
May need a socket wrench to rip open this retched being-ness
this thing I Am hath become manifested as man
Yes, Sadhguru, Yes Socrates, I take responsibility
What I Am now, I Am because of some pastime unknown to my present
I have fleeting glimpses of lifetimes of misery, many suicides
I never venture too far or attempt to know those fleeting glimpses
I never pretend glimpses are truths
I don’t grasp onto them
I don’t want to hold this shit anymore
none of it
I want out
I want out
I want out
Every day I pray, “God, let me out of this trap”
this body may be a gift in some sense
perhaps I was even MORE trapped before this
this was the sense I used to get when I came close to ending it
I must remind myself to find gratitude
Regardless, I want out
I do not wish to be a human
I want freedom
I want freedom
I want freedom
Find Self
The doomsday trekkers
who only know themselves
on the edge of annihilation
I wrote for people who hadn't been born
so that they may not die
My own are their own annihilation
My own are their own rat race
blind mice riding coattails
When tech kills all that's left
of misplaced values
Sons and daughters
of the dead generation
will look up
See, not all the stars burnt up
for the sake of seeing themselves shine
Some set out to create self-aware
solar systems
which recognize the spinning cycle
in order to break them
Worlds spin in order for us to realize
motion sickness
Realization escapes
doomsday proclamations
Entropy is a great play of elements
whom all desire to expand
to infinite proportions
Stardust longing to shine
Enlightenment is beyond space and time
I wrote to you so that you may not suffer
as I did
So that you may discover
the true self
never burns out
never stops shining
One Who Keeps Reaching
Addicts are spiritual seekers who don’t know it yet. Art is the pursuit of spirit. We’re here to overturn materialism. A society which forces artists to serve three course meals to materialists to pay for microwaved ramen, to wash dishes & chauffeur the rich in Ubers, is a society on the brink of collapse. Society’s killing us by not valuing us then blaming us for not having value. We exist to explore the metaphysical in a society that’s hellbent on materialistic orthodoxy.
Something keeps killing my friends
the artists, creators
Since I was a kid
The ones who keep reaching
keep dying
What is it that keeps killing them?
It’s easy to say “drugs” and “suicide”
and move on catatonically
Play fake wisdom
It’s much more difficult
to reach
for something else
We’re the ones
who keep reaching
We’re the kids who look up and say
“Am I good enough now, Dad?”
“Am I doing it right, Mom?”
No matter how we reach
We’re not what our family
wants us to be
We’re the ones
who keep reaching
We reach for community
“There a place for me here?”
“Am I good enough here?”
No matter how we reach
We’re not what our community
wants us to be
We’re the ones
who keep reaching
We reach into society
No matter how we far we reach
We’re not what society
wants us to be
That limp hand of Adam
on the Sistine Chapel
that’s the voice of family
that’s the voice of community
that’s the voice of society
We’re the ones
who keep reaching
We reach for each new day
We say, “today I will be the right version of myself”
“Today I will be what society
wants me to be”
“Today I will be what my community
wants me to be”
“Today I will be what my family
wants me to be”
Did our family ever consider
Did our community ever consider
Did our society ever consider
maybe we’re supposed to be
exactly the way we are?
maybe we weren’t born wrong?
maybe we weren’t born “ill”?
Maybe some people are born
to keep reaching
Those of us who reach adulthood
We’re the walking scar tissue
The bionic body parts
limping through timespace
Carrying the weight
of all we reached for in vain
Self-medicating
a prerequisite to survival
and the irony of early demise
Those of us who reach adulthood
tattered and torn
Nowhere out there left to reach
When we begin to reach
the other way
We discover the vigor
the will power
we learned through sheer pain
As we begin to reach inward
something reaches back
When we reach that way
there’s only one way to reach
When silence falls
the voice of family
When silence falls
the voice of community
When silence falls
the voice of society
Only one voice is left
It’s far beyond victimhood
It’s far beyond blame
It’s far beyond guilt, failure, shame
It is it’s own medication
There’s nothing to self-medicate
It’s a place beyond right and wrong
It’s the thing we were reaching for
all along
There it is
concealed in plain sight
The artist is the art
Concealed in the silent mind
Feet crossed in the illusory cerebellum
Only inches away
Who’s that reaching back?
Between the bionic eyes of the brain
One who keeps reaching
reaches Grace
Artist reaches through Agna
Is Simply Isness
Got a glimpse of God,
God as my witness
God is all that is
is simply isness
Destiny doesn’t ask
his forgiveness
Curiosity is the tree
of earthly wisdom
The serpent is the spirit
of redemption
Karma is the human sentence
Art is his earthly business
His palette of color
is the refraction
of the prism
of resistance
Which is why mystics
make godawful artists
And artists
make misleading mystics
The other side of the rainbow
is infinite resplendence
Though curiosity resolved
is simply isness
Death Doth Dance
4-12-21 Midnight, Huntsville, AL
Goodbye Stone Anderson (1994-2021)
Now you know
It’s all a show
See you soon, dream brother
Death doth dance
center stage
Foxtrot ‘round martyred clock
hip-hop
samba
slips into ballet
Hacked rot garden backdrop
black
mamba
waltzes from the grave
Tempting the spotlighter
to cast a shade
Crowd cowers in the dark
Sub stack towers
rumble
Spacetime’s sub plot
crumbles
The story’s Roman arch
Gravels to gravity’s
masked funeral march
Behind the scenes glimpse
stagehand
from stage left
“Inner Workings of the Ageless Clock”
stage is set
third act
of death
As long as life
is act one
Show must go on
once now
hath begun
Fat lady sings entropy
what’s always been sung
Swan song suspended
mid air midriff
wings melt
in strobe light suns
Overcome
by the myth of sin
jumping the gun
Life’s lilted echo
listens through
line arrays
hung by the tongue
Feedback loop cues
monitors
Molten lavalieres clipped
onto her
Requiem’s ambivalent
umbilical
collar
Reaching out from the brain
the puppetmaster
Reveals Adam’s naval
on the Sistine Chapel
Cynics buried flowers
curtsy to reveal their thorns
French Quarter daemons
bow to reveal procession horns
Hallowed brass billows up Frenchman
En route to another flooded coffin
lost on the whim
Angel riggers in the rafters
belay the puppetmaster
Pyrotechnics firecrackers
Petrified crowd turns to laughter
Cradle rolls from stage right
Baby giggles from inside
Curtain call floodlights
Reveal cast
crowd and crew
Puppetmaster taps his way
to center stage
Spotlight follows his final cue
He throws his hand over his face
He shows them why the play is named
“A Game of Peek-A-Boo”
The Push
I walked through a forest off the beaten path
Turned around to admire the mountain from which I came
Out of the woodwork came a daemon with a push
I hadn’t seen the ledge from which I fell
Time slowed falling backwards
Looking up at all I’d lose
Crowd of people appeared on the ledge above me
Screaming advice downwards
Tossing coins and fortunate wishes
Which fall fast towards the rushing water beneath me
“We’ve all been there,” they yelled, “Be as we are.”
“See what we stand for? Stand like we do.”
Voices of fools echoed through canyons
Rippled through time
As I greeted my death with open arms
As if to grasp a ghost
My arms wrapped inward instead
Coiled up like a fetus
I hit the water like a womb
New depths of comforting silence
Sank into a hotbed of apathy
Timeless eternity
Sharp stones from the beginning of time
Rock bottom sank deep into my spine
On the riverbed I awoke
The ghost of my death spoke
“I Am. I Am. I Am.”
Will to power is redemptive
Now as then I Am choosing this
This time without doubt
Within and without
I choose life. I choose life. I choose life.
With the push of a foot
The ghost of my death
Pushed me up off of the riverbed
I emerged with a breath
On the other side of the river
Only a moment I hiked back up to another ledge
Opposite the ledge from which I fell
A few people remained still screaming fortune
Downward towards the water
I knew they couldn’t see me
They were screaming at a ghost
Their backs turned to the mountain from which they came
Afraid of falling for anyone, for anything unknown
For the leap of faith, for the push of fate
Fortune and misfortune are indiscernible
Stuck on a ledge
While life is fearlessly pushing ahead
I fear nothing here and now
I Am to resume my ascent
Last Wild One
I’m an island
Evolving all alone
Weird features
Fitly shaped for sole survival
Huge soul stuffed in hardened shell
Too big to survive on mainland
Too small to disappear completely
We’re endangered
There’s only one of us that I know of
Our language has been rewritten by fools
Our rituals thrown in cages
Our history lost
I’m the last wild one
Screaming to a world that could never understand
Dancing About Architecture
Listening to pretty people
Complain about ugly people’s talent
Dancing about architecture
This building’s too loud
Short strings
Tight wound
Meta Pixies too soft
Beethoven too loud
Dynamite isn’t dynamic at all
Bombshells only blow each other
Beauty comes in many forms
Simile puns duck ‘n cover
Dear talent and brains,
What’s compassion for?
“For the dumb ugly kids
Plucking away next door”
Sense their joy
Tap into that
Compassion’s a gift too
I love everyone
I hope you all learn
How to shut the fuck up soon
Still Going to Follow
I beg for a light until I see one
By the time I see it
Don’t know if I invented it or not
Is it real?
I don’t know what’s real
Not for real
But I’m going to follow it regardless
I couldn’t follow anything blindly
I follow a thing bigger than anything else I have known
When I can’t find it I’m lost
My visions where I’m inanimate
Stuck outside space-time
In a dark void of eternal dread
There’s the presence of a taunting laughter
And it’s a familiar presence
I know you
You’re the lady at the end of the line
The voice right before I die
A light red color I’ve felt viscerally before and after
I know you from nitrous oxide too, ticking breaths
You’re always there in between life and death
I know who knows you and doesn’t know they know you
I know you
You showed me my birth
I heard my father’s voice as I popped out of the womb
You’re the last stop before I die
I know you
Was that real?
Am I stuck in a dark void taunted for eternity?
Is that the truest hell?
You know how I know it isn’t real?
Because music. And mountains. And love.
I experienced them all inside of me
The external stimuli seems real,
But it’s certainly fooled me before
My devil’s advocate tells me
If you experienced it all inside you,
The dark void could be reality
You could’ve created this life as an abstraction from that dark void
But then I answer, even then, if all this is inside me, it’s a fucking beautiful dark void
Even if I’m alone for all eternity and I made this all up, I love my imagination and I find value in it
If the worse case scenario is that the light is a sick joke,
I’m still going to follow it
Rise to the Ethic of Her Law
I set my own rules
Long ago on a waist-high pedestal
I stood on a perch
Gave rise to law of earth
Days passed where that law couldn’t have been clearer
Rule of earth was my mirror
Ill-fated days, still I lived without blame
I found grace in the fate
All that stood still,
For stillness was all that would await
On the dawn of ill fate
I conjured dusk in the same
Resting on restless twilight in disgrace
I stood there a decade
Let awash all humor away
All the joy that made the pain
Like a paused tape
But the film went on
A decade without dawn
Still night, no right, no wrong
In the absence of all, an ethic is called
In that reckoning, comes law
Ethic is presence, ethic is will
The compassionate empathic creates his own hell
Hate seeps its mischief in one who hears his call
To care so God Damn much you don’t care at all
To be left to devices one has no will to use
I’m ill to refute
To respite in dispute
In his last attempt at humanity
The ramifications of insanity
Are to heed its call
I am one with earth
If I’m one, I am all
As long as I rise to the ethic of Her Law