Sister Infinite
This story
Has no end
And no beginning
Somewhere it starts
And somewhere it ends
Between those two points
Infinity.
I saw her eyes like they were pools of light
Not pools of darkness
She reached over and held a candle in her hands
The candle flickered and shed millions of little facets
Down on the earth
Her hands held a mirror which reflected the candle light
The earth is a ball of mud
From tide to tide
From head to head
The ocean is a drop from a muddy pool
He eyes beam at us from space
Beautiful and full of darkness
Infinity stops and starts
With no beginning and no end
From here to here
Is the length of a piece of yarn
For her the sun is merely a candle
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
LSG 4/15/2010 a poem
Tonight the music is real
Beautiful
I sit in a composed position
Like Buddha
Folded like a flower
Trying to discover the
Open face of the moon
All I see through the window
Are city lights
And the sounds
They speak through the walls
Only they are the language of silent
Prayers
I say with my body and my soul
The kittens in the alleys
The soulless ones who prey
All fall under Buddha’s
Trumpet
And the gaze of the lights from the streetlamps
And the round sudden moon.
Beautiful
I sit in a composed position
Like Buddha
Folded like a flower
Trying to discover the
Open face of the moon
All I see through the window
Are city lights
And the sounds
They speak through the walls
Only they are the language of silent
Prayers
I say with my body and my soul
The kittens in the alleys
The soulless ones who prey
All fall under Buddha’s
Trumpet
And the gaze of the lights from the streetlamps
And the round sudden moon.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Meditations on trash
I had a nice day today dropping pieces of old fence off down at the dump.
The smell at the dump was bad, not as bad as I expected. The gulls seemed not to care as they were engaged in eating garbage.
I feel inclined to state that I’ve thrown away a lot of stuff in my time. But don’t often dwell on the fact that garbage does not, in fact, disappear into a void but that it actually goes to a landfill, where men work tirelessly to sort and organize it, where birds and vermin pick and nibble at it and where the stench is at least somewhat bearable, at least for that instance.
What does it mean to throw something away? People throw away half eaten food and old medicine and Styrofoam, they toss out cans and bottles they put baby diapers in the trash bin along with everything disposable, unwanted and unused. But where are we “throwing” things away too? And what is “away”?. Away is not in your house or dwelling. But away is not gone or forgotten. Your trash ceases to be your problem and thus becomes someone else’s.
Can people be trash?
In my travels to San Francisco I’ve noticed many people on the streets who seem to be “thrown away”, much like the dirty diapers and apple cores in peoples garbage cans.
People seem to resent these folks much like they resent un-properly disposed of garbage.
After all, all that other refuse goes to the dump! And yet there is no dump for people who simply cannot support themselves. So they filter out onto the streets.
I notice the discomfort of people having to deal with both human and inanimate “trash”
There is the sense that in American society we pay for the privilege of not living in the dump or with the homeless on the streets. By working we signify our right to dispose of…indeed to “throw away”…to the next town the next block the next rock in the sky, anything that we don’t know how to deal with. It’s human nature to fear the ugly smelly dump and the dirty, mean streets of SF. Why should we keep what we can’t repair?
It’s only trash after all
I had a nice day today dropping pieces of old fence off down at the dump.
The smell at the dump was bad, not as bad as I expected. The gulls seemed not to care as they were engaged in eating garbage.
I feel inclined to state that I’ve thrown away a lot of stuff in my time. But don’t often dwell on the fact that garbage does not, in fact, disappear into a void but that it actually goes to a landfill, where men work tirelessly to sort and organize it, where birds and vermin pick and nibble at it and where the stench is at least somewhat bearable, at least for that instance.
What does it mean to throw something away? People throw away half eaten food and old medicine and Styrofoam, they toss out cans and bottles they put baby diapers in the trash bin along with everything disposable, unwanted and unused. But where are we “throwing” things away too? And what is “away”?. Away is not in your house or dwelling. But away is not gone or forgotten. Your trash ceases to be your problem and thus becomes someone else’s.
Can people be trash?
In my travels to San Francisco I’ve noticed many people on the streets who seem to be “thrown away”, much like the dirty diapers and apple cores in peoples garbage cans.
People seem to resent these folks much like they resent un-properly disposed of garbage.
After all, all that other refuse goes to the dump! And yet there is no dump for people who simply cannot support themselves. So they filter out onto the streets.
I notice the discomfort of people having to deal with both human and inanimate “trash”
There is the sense that in American society we pay for the privilege of not living in the dump or with the homeless on the streets. By working we signify our right to dispose of…indeed to “throw away”…to the next town the next block the next rock in the sky, anything that we don’t know how to deal with. It’s human nature to fear the ugly smelly dump and the dirty, mean streets of SF. Why should we keep what we can’t repair?
It’s only trash after all
Monday, April 12, 2010
Wednesday
The veil closes, the veil opens. We see...a little bit of the truth with each passing day....The window of our eyes beholds a landscape of jeweled sky and bitter darkness. Passing with each unequal breath I lie in bed too tired to sleep. La Koro Sutro plays in the background and my mind falls into a blissful numb quiet. The veil closes, the veil opens. I saw death as a background to all the music I've listened too, in life the most lively moments, death haunts us like a wicked man in a dark suit who refuses to pay admission. The veil was once a shaft of light that came like a sad drop of something perfectly ordinary
and yet totally magnificent. It came to me through the glass doors of my studio, the one in Santa Cruz where I wasted my childhood trying to survive among trees that strained to see more of the sky. In that time childhood was perfect, undamaged. Blissful and devastating. I lived on tea and watched television dreaming of travel. In some of my fantasies there is a man in a tall dark hat, he is coming for my dreams. He is between the frames. He comes to smoke and drink in my shadow. There are many ways to slip beyond the veil. I dreamt that the house I used to live in was like a prison for my soul and that I could never escape the specter of my mother, her dark eyes full of hate in my waking dreams. That dream haunts me still in this the 30th year of my living....here in my home in Richmond, I think that the veil closes for us when we try to see through it to the other side. My ancestors came to me one day and said nothing. Dark shadows they were, lords of the deep other side. They came and I went into the kitchen and made a sandwich. Never know the last meal you might have. I suppose all darkness comes from within the part of space we can't see. The veil closes. The veil opens.
Thursday
Here at Luggage Store I sit in the house of the veil, life continues a slow rumble of cars and foot traffic.
The hookers and pimps and drug fiends alternate with wayward tourists. I live between the road and the sky. She is blue today. People live here. I live here only on Thursday, the rest of the week I live in Richmond. Between here and Richmond is a bridge across the eternal landscape of my dreams.
I wait. Between the lines of the roads. I breath air and smog and think of nothing but the man in the hat who haunts me. Across the street is a polish sausage place. Next store is taqueria can cun…Musicians drag their stuff upstairs. Magicians all…against the backdrop of the city, screams and howls and sirens, they make sounds that defy explanation. The brutal, the magnificent and the despairing all have a home here in the Luggage Store.
The man in the hat offends me. He talks to me in the bleary sounds of SF in the evening. The stalking specter of his memory overwhelms me as I sit here listening to yet another musical cacophony. Who is he? My fear, my terror and my anger. I named him the nameless one, He is my rage and fear of death.
On my travels through the city I have found many roads I was too afraid to take.
Sometimes the gargoyles that guard the gates to hell are human.
A light shines through the window.
On the other side
Of the glass.
Brightness appears
And disappears
I feel like a moth
My soul burning in flame .
Friday
“God does not place dice with the universe…” Albert Einstein
This is a different Friday…one of those slipstream days that falls between events of note.
I am encouraged by the sight of the sun and the stars being in the right places in the sky.
Today the stalking darkness is filled with the aroma of fresh flowers and
Cut grass. I long to stretch my fingers between the sheets of light and touch the reflections of God’s angels. Life is sweet and dark, like rye bread.
Inside this house I feel at peace. My wounded soul flew away and came back an warbling jay of joy.
The man in the hat is far away he is making war for somebody else. His significance dwindles as a metaphor. What does he mean anyways?
This is Spring, death haunts us in the fall not the spring. The Easter eggs are still livid with paint.
My cottage will stand. The cruel dark prison is forgotten.
The new homestead is solid.
Love lives inside the potentiality of soil and the earth reclaims my sadness. The man in the black hat goes to ground and rot, fertilizing the soil with his image.
He is not death, he is fear. All fear must subside and die. All illusion passes into other illusion. Such is the dance of existence. This mortal soul loves and loves the Earth well.
The veil closes, the veil opens. We see...a little bit of the truth with each passing day....The window of our eyes beholds a landscape of jeweled sky and bitter darkness. Passing with each unequal breath I lie in bed too tired to sleep. La Koro Sutro plays in the background and my mind falls into a blissful numb quiet. The veil closes, the veil opens. I saw death as a background to all the music I've listened too, in life the most lively moments, death haunts us like a wicked man in a dark suit who refuses to pay admission. The veil was once a shaft of light that came like a sad drop of something perfectly ordinary
and yet totally magnificent. It came to me through the glass doors of my studio, the one in Santa Cruz where I wasted my childhood trying to survive among trees that strained to see more of the sky. In that time childhood was perfect, undamaged. Blissful and devastating. I lived on tea and watched television dreaming of travel. In some of my fantasies there is a man in a tall dark hat, he is coming for my dreams. He is between the frames. He comes to smoke and drink in my shadow. There are many ways to slip beyond the veil. I dreamt that the house I used to live in was like a prison for my soul and that I could never escape the specter of my mother, her dark eyes full of hate in my waking dreams. That dream haunts me still in this the 30th year of my living....here in my home in Richmond, I think that the veil closes for us when we try to see through it to the other side. My ancestors came to me one day and said nothing. Dark shadows they were, lords of the deep other side. They came and I went into the kitchen and made a sandwich. Never know the last meal you might have. I suppose all darkness comes from within the part of space we can't see. The veil closes. The veil opens.
Thursday
Here at Luggage Store I sit in the house of the veil, life continues a slow rumble of cars and foot traffic.
The hookers and pimps and drug fiends alternate with wayward tourists. I live between the road and the sky. She is blue today. People live here. I live here only on Thursday, the rest of the week I live in Richmond. Between here and Richmond is a bridge across the eternal landscape of my dreams.
I wait. Between the lines of the roads. I breath air and smog and think of nothing but the man in the hat who haunts me. Across the street is a polish sausage place. Next store is taqueria can cun…Musicians drag their stuff upstairs. Magicians all…against the backdrop of the city, screams and howls and sirens, they make sounds that defy explanation. The brutal, the magnificent and the despairing all have a home here in the Luggage Store.
The man in the hat offends me. He talks to me in the bleary sounds of SF in the evening. The stalking specter of his memory overwhelms me as I sit here listening to yet another musical cacophony. Who is he? My fear, my terror and my anger. I named him the nameless one, He is my rage and fear of death.
On my travels through the city I have found many roads I was too afraid to take.
Sometimes the gargoyles that guard the gates to hell are human.
A light shines through the window.
On the other side
Of the glass.
Brightness appears
And disappears
I feel like a moth
My soul burning in flame .
Friday
“God does not place dice with the universe…” Albert Einstein
This is a different Friday…one of those slipstream days that falls between events of note.
I am encouraged by the sight of the sun and the stars being in the right places in the sky.
Today the stalking darkness is filled with the aroma of fresh flowers and
Cut grass. I long to stretch my fingers between the sheets of light and touch the reflections of God’s angels. Life is sweet and dark, like rye bread.
Inside this house I feel at peace. My wounded soul flew away and came back an warbling jay of joy.
The man in the hat is far away he is making war for somebody else. His significance dwindles as a metaphor. What does he mean anyways?
This is Spring, death haunts us in the fall not the spring. The Easter eggs are still livid with paint.
My cottage will stand. The cruel dark prison is forgotten.
The new homestead is solid.
Love lives inside the potentiality of soil and the earth reclaims my sadness. The man in the black hat goes to ground and rot, fertilizing the soil with his image.
He is not death, he is fear. All fear must subside and die. All illusion passes into other illusion. Such is the dance of existence. This mortal soul loves and loves the Earth well.
Friday, April 9, 2010
OCEAN
...On the sandy shores of another world. The Ocean rises and falls. I breathe in the soft, sea air.
My father sleeps on the shore.
I tumble in the Ocean. She envelopes me and pulls me, tossing and turning.
In the bliss of childhood, I do not fear death.....instead contemplate my own oblivion as the water turns and bubbles. I approach an oncoming wave and sail over it's crest. Body board floating at my side. The warm sun beats down upon my face. Salt stings my eyes. My toes are close to blue, stiff and numb.
I fall through water and air. and land face first in sand. Ocean waves fall on my head and body, pummelling me.
Seagulls raise a chant. Dive for food. Crashing into the water in a certain rhythm. It is inside me the pulse of wave and moon. The sky overhead reels. turning, turning, I am always turning in circles. Crash. Swash. Oblivion. Sweet surrender.
The sea takes no prisoners.
Surfers all swim in a line and ride the waves deep into the shore line.
i sleep on my board. Dozing in the hot sun. The sea brings life.
I watch the birds. They sit peaceably on the glassy surface of the water, eyeing the hot sun.
Ocean accepts flame and they become one. The horizon glows with red tendrils. I die in the water with the flame, and come burning to the shore. Night falls on the town.
-end-
My father sleeps on the shore.
I tumble in the Ocean. She envelopes me and pulls me, tossing and turning.
In the bliss of childhood, I do not fear death.....instead contemplate my own oblivion as the water turns and bubbles. I approach an oncoming wave and sail over it's crest. Body board floating at my side. The warm sun beats down upon my face. Salt stings my eyes. My toes are close to blue, stiff and numb.
I fall through water and air. and land face first in sand. Ocean waves fall on my head and body, pummelling me.
Seagulls raise a chant. Dive for food. Crashing into the water in a certain rhythm. It is inside me the pulse of wave and moon. The sky overhead reels. turning, turning, I am always turning in circles. Crash. Swash. Oblivion. Sweet surrender.
The sea takes no prisoners.
Surfers all swim in a line and ride the waves deep into the shore line.
i sleep on my board. Dozing in the hot sun. The sea brings life.
I watch the birds. They sit peaceably on the glassy surface of the water, eyeing the hot sun.
Ocean accepts flame and they become one. The horizon glows with red tendrils. I die in the water with the flame, and come burning to the shore. Night falls on the town.
-end-
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