The Art of Being Human

Once upon a time I went to school

and did what I was told

and I learned a lot

I learned about teachers

I learned about students

I learned about schools

And I heard about a whole lot of other things

Some even seemed interesting

Some might even have been true

Outside we played sports

Inside we played boring games with numbers

Year after year I remained a prisoner

played sports

played boring games with numbers

learned about teachers and

students and schools

and did what I was told

and accepted the friendship

of all those who decided to be my friend

Going along with everything as it came to me

With all my childhood curiosity driven out

of me by my wardens

I waited waited waited

for adulthood to come along and take me away

But then Disaster Number One

or rather the Great Disaster as it was then known

We didn't know there'd be a number two

I fell

in love

And the whole world became cruel

and none of it made sense any more

I said enough is enough

I'm getting the hell

outa here

I seized adulthood

and was dragged away with it

As an adult drag-along

I did what I was told

I took the friends and lovers and jobs and promotions

which were offered me

I played the sports

But no more boring god damned games with numbers

I made a commitment

I bought a house

I found I was respected, sometimes even admired

For my ability

to go though the motions

And then Disaster Number Two

Or so I thought

I was doubly rejected.

Paid handsomely to go away

So I did the very best thing

any 31 year old could ever do

I started life all over again

Thanks to being forced into it

A bread and butter friend said to me, But Rich, 

You need to have faith in something!

So I wrote my first poem called

But I have faith

A poem about my family, friends, myself

and the expectation that the sun

will rise again tomorrow; the promise

of a new day

Thus I had discovered the blank page

and so I wrote some more

and better still, I stared at the blank page

and curiosity was born in me again

I wrote and I stared and I asked questions

and courage was born in me for the first time

I asked the biggest questions

I asked the most dangerous questions

And the horror, the horror

I discovered the possibilities

were dire, and that I

knew nothing

Except:

That thanks to some thousand or more hours

of boring games with numbers

I did know how to leave a tip

without asking my phone

So there's that

Life became an experiment

I researched, I explored, I adventured, I said YES!

I reflected, I contemplated, I searched the blank page

And truth began, ever so slowly to accrete

Distilled in my laboratory of the mind

My lab tools were the page

and the guitar and keyboard

creative models worked just like

scientific models; they isolated reality

My discoveries were solid:

The omnipotence of causality

the matrix of illusions

human duality

Illusions were dispersing

and with them superstitions

and with them fears

In came perspective, freedom

pathways to enlightenment

and the natural inevitable joy

of being human, no longer shielded from me

by the unnatural machinations of society

I seemed strange to my bread and butter friends

They warned me of liabilities, blind as they were

to opportunity

But I was choosing new friends. I spied the finest people

and I made myself the friend

I was confident and grabbing life, not waiting for it to happen

And I discovered the purpose in life: it is to design your own purpose

My own was easy and obvious: To champion harmony, over chaos

My friend Dr Lock summed up his own spiritual life in two sentences:

I was created

I create

A woman of mixed ethnicity who wore it on her face was asked

What are you?

She said I am a New Day Rising

I knew at once: Me too! That's exactly what we ALL are; we humans

We're the Cosmos' greatest potential! Most of us seem not to know it

But she knows it, and I know it, and I say: 

New Day Rising; that is my name now!

Now,

as I physically decline, perhaps only temporarily

I cannot do so much so fast

But I am well prepared to bear the siege

Some days I remember my lessons

Some days I remember my purpose

Some days I remember that I am a new day rising

I am learning how to accept help from others:

other champions of harmony

But to quote the eloquent composers Cummerford,

de la Rocha, Morello and Wilk:

Fuck you I won't do what you tell me.

Yogi, Smokey, Boo-boo and Pooh

Hey hey kids… it’s Y-Day today because Y-not? And we have been enthusiastically directed by the yellsome yackity youngster who is my three-year-old nephew. And he has dictated the subject:

Bears

So I give you a silly poem. It’s a little A-to-Z within the A-to-Z!:

This is an ARCTIC bear. He’s learning how to swim

Because his snowy home is now in terrible danger!

This is BOO-BOO Bear. He is Yogi’s little friend

He has to warn him often: Don’t upset the ranger!

These are the CHICAGO bears. They are football players

Thirty four years ago they won the superbowl

This is a DO-IT YOURSELF bear. You donate the labour

Then you get to keep the bear but sixty bucks in the hole

This is Marian ENGEL’s bear. He has some troublesome habits

He likes to hang out in libraries among the shelves of books

This is jokester FOZZY Bear. He likes to draw the laughs

But all his jokes tend to get is lots of funny looks

GUMMI bears are colourful and sweet

While they’re gummed up in your maw

HUGGY BEAR had the bum’s eye for clothes

But his profession was against the law

Tanner is an INFIELDER for the Bad News Bears

He is a little scrapper who’s always getting dirty

JACK Nicklaus is the Golden Bear, a golfer yes he was

He would score lots of pars and also lots of birdies

The KOALA bear is not a bear at all! It’s true!

Some bears you find in bars for LGBTQ!

The entire MOVIE “The Bear” was framed from bears’ points of view

It was filmed in the Dolomites in Nineteen eighty-eight

In NATIVE Legends there are no symbols

But the Bear so mighty and great

OWLBEARS are monstrous things

They’ll engage you in a hostile fray

PADDINGTON is a gentlemanly bear

He lives in the U.K.

The Bear Creek QUILTING Company

Will service your quilting bee

You’ll find The Bear RADIO station

At one hundred point three

SMOKEY is a safety bear

It’s forest fires he dreads

TEDDY is the kindest bear

He’ll cuddle you in bed

The UNIVERSITY of Alberta

Has Bears in the basketball game

The VANCOUVER Grizzles, mind you

Once did just the same

WINNIE the Pooh bear’s always getting stuck

But fear not, he’ll be okay

eX-BEAR Ditka is on the TV

With always much to say

YOGI Bear just might be

The most famous bear of all

While the Z-BEAR builds you home-made bears

You can give him a call 

The Big Reveal

Hey, so April A-to-Z is coming along real soon and writing pals have been asking, Gosh Fwig, what will you do?

My answer has been that I will be an A-Z rebel and work on my outstanding A-to-Z’s from 2016 and 2017 which I never finished but have always intended to.

Yeah, not going to happen.

...Just yet.

The Ponderer, who declares that she can write a poem on any topic under the sun (and I believe her) has asked for help proving it by inviting me to summon a list of 26 A-Z topics for her to tackle over the next month. I did so and included a few topics I thought would be of interest to her, many that are of interest to me, and a couple of fairly wacky concepts just to give her a hard time.

I then realized I ought to take the same challenge and so invited her to send me a list. I think she followed pretty much the same formula.

I hope you’ll tune in starting April 1st for my poem of the day. I hope you find some of them entertaining and some insightful and some hopefully both!

And be sure to check out The Ponderer on H day where she’s been given the title: Hamburger Phone!

Later.

The Tallest Bridges art Nearest to Heaven

Should you figure you linger at a stopping ground;

Your real home a gift yet received,

Then oughtn’t you quit your farting around

And pack your bags and leave?

acquaint /əˈkwānt/

Dante, Petrarch, St. Augustine, El Greco, William Blake, William Cowper, Georges Bernanos, Nietze, Goethe, Einstein, Eckhart Tolle, Michael Gualtieri…

Call them teachers, scientists, journalists, statesmen, philosophers, artists. Call them by the tasks they undertook at different stages of their lives, some of which they abandoned as they learned better. To me, they are all poets. That is the qualification they have earned by my accounting.

I like to think that I understand them just enough that I may consider them role models; that it is authentic, this function I undertake on my best days, and in their tradition.

“And I resolved in Thy sight, not tumultuously to tear, but gently to withdraw, the service of my tongue from the marts of lip-labour: that the young, no students in Thy law, nor in Thy peace, but in lying dotages and law-skirmishes, should no longer buy at my mouth arms for their madness.”–St. Augustine

The Lonely Lumberjack: Changes

My entire life
I have walked
Whatever path alone
Forged ahead
No matter what
Emotions not ever betraying
My stern face

Lately, I have made
A pleasant discovery
It sort of
Crept up on me

To always be alone
Is not
Who I have to be

To bend; accept help
Is to develop
A trust

Not to be like
An old machine
That gradually
Submits
To
Rust


- The Lonely Lumberjack

N is for Nink

Nink: a useless antique object preserved in worshipping the picturesque. An imitation of a bygone style. Ninkty: architecturally dishonest.

The Decoratum web site, championing 20th Century & Contemporary Design features an article on the most expensive antiques ever auctioned. Three of the top five come from 18th century China including a Ming dynasty gold tripod vessel selling for 9,397,905 British pounds (more than 14.4 million yankee dollars). Yes, once a dish is worth $14 million or more, it's called a vessel.

The article goes on to explain: "As number 5 in the top 10 most expensive antiques ever auctioned it is also the most expensive piece of Chinese metalwork to ever have been auctioned." As there are no other examples of Chinese metalworks - or any metalworks - in the top five, I kind of regarded this as being entirely self-evident. But that's the modern western world for you, isn't it? Besides having more money than brains, we have a charming knack for using a whole lot of words to say nothing.

Source: A Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed (1914) Gelett Burgess
Google hits: 1,040,000


Nonnock: an idle whim; a childish fancy. Connected, no doubt, with nonny: to trifle; to play the fool.

on a nonnock
I drove to town
on a nonnock
I fell down
on a nonnock
I leapt a building
in a single bound
(2007) by Barbsdad2003

Source: Vocabulary of East Anglia (1830) Rev. Robert Forby
Google hits: 6700


Nabbity: Short in stature though full grown, usually said of a diminutive female. Literally deriving from nab, as though one might snatch up this person as a bird nabs an insect!

Online dictionary of slang dictionaryupdate.com, defines nabbity as the quality of being a mendacious prick. It should probably have read possessing the quality... since nabbity is obviously a verb.

Wow. I'm really being critical today, aren't I? Oh, look at that, some jackass drew Gandalf and forgot the beard...

Source: Vocabulary of East Anglia (1830) Rev. Robert Forby
Google hits: 1,600,000

C is for Curmur

Curmurring: A low rumbling sound, akin to a murmur, but in motion with the bowels, produced by flatulence. One of many rhythmical terms applied to the art of flatuosity for which our ancestors apparently shared a peculiar fascination.

Not to be confused with curmudgeon; a nasty bad-tempered person. Of course, if his foul demeanor were due to gas…

Source: Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia (1889) William Whitney
Google hits: 28,400


Cook, slut & butler: A common expression for one who does all the turns of work in a household.

The second term surely refers to it's 15th century meaning: kitchen maid. Likely an ancestor of the modern term chief, cook & bottle-washer. How the butler became chief, I do not know. Is the butler considered the chief of all servants?

As a former facilities officer at a Bank of Montreal operations centre, I often protected my budget by doing various repair type work personally, rather than hiring an expensive vendor to do the work, or purchasing a new replacement article. I thus earned the occasional nick-name Rich-of-all-trades.

Source: Glossary of North Country Words (1825) John Brockett
Google hits: 600


Curglaff: The shock felt when bathing and one first plunges into cold water.

Curgloft, confounded, and bumbaz'd,
On east and west by turns he gazed.
As ship that's tost with stormy weather,
Drives on, the pilot knows not whither.
- William Meston, 1767

Source: Etymological Scottish Dictionary (1808) John Jamieson
Google hits: 1400

Ghosts ARE corporeal! They can get their hands stuck in cracks like anyone else!

The Lonely Lumberjack: Saddle The Wind

What would it be like
to saddle the wind
and ride on
such a streamlined steed

To traverse over the highest peaks
to have it answer
to your every need.

To skim the waves of the oceans
enter into the deepest ravine
brush the tips of the Redwoods
sweep the rooftops clean.

You could keep pace with the elephants
race with a fleeting gazelle
cruise through the tallest steeple
ring its massive bell.

Swish through grasses and flowers
causing them to nod and sway
to travel throughout the night
be far, far away
come the day.

Brush through the pines
making them rustle and sigh
prowl around the eaves of buildings
some not tall, some very high.

Only the wind is the freest of spirits
to capture it would not be fair
instead, let our imaginations take us
somewhere away out there.


The Lonely Lumberjack

Ode to a friend

The Lonely Lumberjack
Bore no ineptitude.

He felled trees
And subordinates
In equal measure.

T is for Tati

If you don't know, or remember, who Terry Anne is, I urge you to read this short piece from July 2008. She is one of the most amazing people I know.

She had sent me some poetry which I thought I had lost, having switched to a new lap top and new email address after resigning from Ye Olde Marketing Company. But in a recent fit of illumination I actually started backing up my computer files and discovered that I had in fact imported some of Tati's emails over. I would like to share some with you.

Be advised: They are heavy.


Blatherings of Grayness
November 2, 2008

We feel the light and the dark
We cause the fight that doesn’t leave a mark
We plan it but don’t
We sit in our corner
Sulking, crying dull and well overplayed tears
Energy evades us, life replays us
We blame everyone and no one
Walk by us at the dark time
And you are the villain
You didn’t even do anything
We didn’t even do anything
We don’t even know who you are
We didn’t take the time to know you
We didn’t take the time to know ourselves
Walk by during the light and you are the saint
You can help, but you do not know
Bring us out of the hole to try and make us whole
What can we cover ourselves with now?
A drink, a drug, a robe, a rug
Anything that we can use to hide
What we feel is surely inadequate inside

S is for Sister Moon

He tells of that with which he is most familiar.

He tells of Mother Earth and Sister Moon.
His verses speak gently;
Tales of the forest and the wind;
Tales of the lonesome cabin,
And the solitary figure; the observer in the wilderness.
He writes about the wild things and the ancients and the passage of time
And the growing divide between nature and man.

He is the Lonely Lumberjack.

He is perhaps the architect of his own suffering
But aren't we all?

The wisdom and the peace in his poems seem at odds
With the bitterness that slips into his voice.

I wish to know him better
Though there are barriers to his freedom.

Here is one of my favourites:


MAKE IT SO

They are ghosts now
All that is left
Are ghosts
Of memories
Of the hills
And valleys
Thoughts of times past
Recollections that always last

Faithful animals once raced
Over these hills and dales
Dogs, sharp of nose
And tongue
Now their baying is stilled
As if never begun
Others cannot hear their voices yet
Only one is capable of that
One that is now bent and weary
One that has hung up
His hunting hat
Still, when the days are short
And frost is in the air
One person still can hear
The baying of his friends
Over the hills just over there

Those faithful animals that tried so hard to please
Are the ghosts of the past
Of long, long ago
Until that one so bent and weary
Can join them and make it so

- The Lonely Lumberjack

Poets versus scientists

With people who I much respect for their courage and intelligence, I sometimes allow subject matter to slip into conversations which I would otherwise keep to myself for the reason that it is useless to introduce testimony which your audience (generally due to strong instincts and weak consciousnesses) will not possibly be open-minded to considering, except just to show off, which I must despise as I know how mortally hopeless it is to be enslaved by ego.

One of these "priveleged" topics is my observation that since the new millenium has arrived, scientists are starting to make discoveries which were already claimed by poets up to 1700 years ago which makes this a potentially epoch-changing time; a time of significant evolution of consciousnes but only if enough people would take notice of it that a succesful movement is generated. So far, there's me.

Some of my cherished associates have asked about this phenomena and deserve a decent answer. The following shall hopefully constitue a good start at the least:

Firstly: By poets I mean, as always, certain individuals, mostly long-dead who in general practiced multiple pursuits, commonly some combination from the pool of poetry, writing, journalism, philosophy, painting, teaching and politics. They are those in particular who have a healthy respect for the power and predominence of humans' "dark side"; that side of our minds which are not known to us consciously, and also for the illusions, flaws and illegitimacies in almost all "normal" thought. And they are those who adhere to strict discipline and integrity and a process of strict logic and reasoning.

Those integral poets I am so far aware of lived anywhere from 50 to 1700 years ago but for one who is still alive today as far as I know and who became my own mentor for a year until I could no longer overlook what I considered problematic flaws in his otherwise excellent work. In my opinion they would include Francesco Petrarch, Dante, St. Augustine, El Greco, Blake, William Cowper, Georges Bernanos and probably Nietzsche and Goethe and certainly Einstein even though he was primarily a theoretical physicist.

Are there more alive today? Almost certainly I predict, but I have so far been unable to discover who and where they are. As for myself, I will not be falsely humble. I consider my own work consistent with that which I've described though without a satisfactory tenacity at least until now. Inherent laziness is something which I currently battle and with significant optimism about the outcome given recent happenings in my life.

What was that? Einstein a poet? In essence, I say yes. In fact, in my view, the nature of the scientist and the true poet are almost precisely the same. They both are in the business of isolating pure truths and by very similar process; the difference in methods being only physical and logistical but having the same purposes and effects.

The fact that poets and scientists seem to have held each other in enmity for many generations; likely only an unfortunate product of ego, seems to have fooled a lot of people into thinking them opposites and left few people around these days who have a healthy respect and keen interest in both contemporary science and ancient poetry.

What have these poets been saying for more than a thousand years that scientists; for the most part neuroligists, are finally able to consolidate (or to discover in their own immodest view)? A full explanation would be impractical here in blog country. I am inclined to summarize:

- That human beings are not what they think they are.
- That human consciousness is largely, if not wholly, illusion. (Let's remember the core meaning of illusion. Not a 'mirage' but a thing seen that is truly there but not in the form which is believed to be seen.)
- That humans are almost entirely enslaved by a superpower.
- That human "feelings" are unworthy of trust; almost always misleading or wrong though we are not prone to discovering them so.
- That societal organizations (governmental, corporate etc.), the way we construct them, are unsustainable; doomed to corruption and failure.
- That almost all human thought and activity are in no way consistent with reality or truth.

Off the top of my head, I'd say those are the highlights.

As one who has explored these issues and many others - all from completely organic exploration and not from subscribing to anyone else's ideas, I can tell you with pristine honesty that the effects of such exploration are vastly life-changing; beyond what you are ready to believe, frankly.

And I can tell you that the problems which arise from just the short list of disguised realities above are profoundly relevant to every corner of human life and arouse extremely real concerns regarding the nature of human life and human society and the prospects for their continued existence in the forms that we know them.

I have explored a tremendous amount of undocumented material over the last six years or so and I adamantly intend to start revealing more of it on this blog with as much regularity, depth and organizational prudence as I can muster. I intend to let the questions of both personal associates and blog-readers help dictate future subject material as was the case above. Thus I should soon tackle a subject that has generated many questions lately; that of illusion. Boy, will that be a doozy...

The Gate

I stand at the gate
Strong at this moment
Having long faltered
Regressing in fits
Asking
Is this my time to enter

Looking back I see my loved ones;
Family I label friends;
Friends I label family
It has grown so difficult to touch them
I am forgetting how it was
Having lingered so long
Regressing in fits

Will I ever touch them again
When strong at this moment
I stand at the gate


On a cold and windy morning, said goodbye to all my friends. They were hanging 'round the corner. They were staying 'til the end.
- E.L.O. (song: The Stranger)

Cause Number One and the Number One Cause

Once upon a time there occurred an event;
A singularity; the biggest bang for the buck
Or the snap of fingers if you prefer, of a great creator;
For it all works out the very same!

And this event would be Cause #1
For billions of billions of billions of billions
Of effects
Over billions of years;
Every effect born of millions of causes combined;
Every effect also a cause
For billions of billions more effects;
Causes and effects uncountable.
Every element of reality an effect-cause;
Every one of them natural;
Every one inevitable;
Every one of them owing to Cause #1 at its root.
Every one connected.

Effect-causes spelled unstoppable change.
Effect-causes organized a sea of chaos
Into sets and subsets; formatted a universe
Made of super clusters
Made of clusters
Made of galaxies
Made of systems
Made of spheres
Made of elements
Made of molecules
Made of atoms.

A world of binding attractions great and small
Revolving; everything revolving,
Expanding, contracting.
Dust to dust.
Cause and effect.

Somewhere a sphere
Bearing critical ratio of elements,
A phenomenal collision of molecules,
At a critical distance from a vast hot central sphere,
Through inevitable cause and effect,
Became a blue and white place.

And there it happened.
A miracle of life
At the meeting of layers;
Rock and air,
Pooling water.
A splitting cell.
Cause and effect.

Cellular organization.
Random mutation.
A cause-effect process of natural selection.
A diversity of species; lives of kind.
DNA and sub-code.

Survival instinct knowing no bounds.
Those with domination instinct the great winners,
Those without it, dead, strangled, swallowed.
Survival of the vicious; the parasitic.
Vines creeping; Roots warring,
Fish eating fish; bugs eating bugs,
Herbivores; Carnivores; Dog eat dog.
Viruses and bacteria eating from within.
Thus life: The process of ultimate thievery.
Cause and effect.

Evolution.
Mammals; Brain cells; Intelligence.
Automatons with limited awareness.
Instinctive response.
Cause and effect.

Evolution.
These beasts emerging;
Bipedal; clever.
With greater awareness,
Though still far from complete;
Still so very far.
Perceiving in their limited awareness
That their limited awareness
Is all there is; some full awareness;
Some ultimate evolution or design.

They’re the greatest pretenders.
The great labelers,
Grouping and labeling everything;
The fantasy of generalization making everything seem easy;
The reality of uniqueness dismissed.
Cooperation; strength in numbers;
Ghastly overwhelming strength in numbers!
Victory through cooperation.
Dominance; the ultimate prize
For their kind, they label human.

And then what?
In the face of victory,
Privileged exclusion from the realities
Of the domination quest;
Exclusion from the hunt;
Exclusion from the fight and the flight;
Food and shelter handed down.
The paradox of isolation.
What oh what then does survival mean?
The forces born of instincts need to know!

Instincts turning inward.
Cause and effect.
Individual survival.
Survival within the society.
Ledgers of contribution;
Money the new survival;
Food and shelter a privilege.
Man eat man.

The paradox of cooperation/competition;
However to do both?
Instinctive forces perverting.
Cause and effect.
Necessary duplicity.
Puppets born of reputation and ego;
Pure charade.

The rise of the matrix;
The superstructures that overwhelm
And tell them what things to pretend.
Labels labels labels!
Tribes tribes tribes!
Nations,
Corporations,
Races,
Ideologies,
Religions;
Arbitrary categories
Pretended to be real,
Make everyone a friend;
Make everyone an enemy.

Such pure fantasy can only be pretended
When the reality of uniqueness is dismissed.
Oh the confusion;
Now to navigate?
The domination instincts still thrive,
Looking for victims.
They label them sins,
Pretend the sins are not to thank for their existence,
Pretend the sins do not dominate their living moments,
They ascribe them to a scapegoat and call him the Devil.
They teach this to their children and let the children
Suffer, ever suffer for they each think they are each the devil.
The survival instincts have it covered.
Fight to disallow such crippling despair
Duplicity solves all.
Cause and effect.

Confine it to the greater brain;
The non-awareness.
But oh the self-loathing!
They must ignore those terrifying glimpses;
Suppress the confusion.
For they must navigate the matrix
One way or another
And win their bread;
Oh but not just bread,
But win their almighty material trophies,
For survival instinct knows no mercy;
Only domination.

The structures all demand from them
The appearance of subscription to the rules
And hidden contrariety,
Because in the matrix angels are trodden on
And cheaters prosper.

The dual duplicities:
The lies they tell on purpose
And the lies of the sub-awareness
Tragically mistaken for golden truth.
They think it a matrix of lies and truth,
This matrix of lies and more lies.
Cause and effect.
Puppets tricking puppets.
The matrix weaving layers and layers of illusion
So tightly woven, the pinpricks of truth
Sparkle so rarely just as the tiny volume of light
Out of all stars in the universe
To penetrate a smoggy Toronto night sky.
When finally the young have aged;
Developed sufficient senses,
It is too late; the matrix has snatched them
Through the TV’s and the institutions
And the things you will not hear said;
The endless bullshit eaten and eaten;
The investment in illusions signed and sealed.
Cause and effect.
There’s no turning back.

But wait, there is a second miracle!
Not intelligence but the boon of it;
Imagination! Creativity!
The regard for unvarnished truth.
The capacity to evolve beyond the domination instinct
Simply because they dreamed of it!

Such a phenomenal departure from the nature of life.
A celebration of that idea called love;
That Bordeaux blend of attractions and addictions
Just another label,
But so useful when applied:
Loving kindness; generosity; harmony.

They each participate to some degree; great or small
In living without harming and for that
Every human is beautiful; Hear this, you human!
For that, you are beautiful in this universe!
So fascinating, this evolution, to some.
Some of them scientists; some of them poets, musicians, artists,
Those who engage in true learning; an act of solitude,
Some are the sufferers; forced to bear reality,
Some of them the ancient champions
Of beautifully intentioned religions
Before the inevitable corruptions.
Cause and effect.

They are those who escape the unmerciful web
Of the matrix’ mighty structures
Through rare unexpected circumstance;
Rare causes; rare effects.
Those who embrace the reality of cause and effect,
The reality of uniqueness,
The reality of nature; of inevitability,
The reality that all of one’s frustration is one’s own cause;
All hate, all stress, all fear, all rage,
All intolerance;
All of it the result of one’s own flawed expectations
And flawed perceptions;
The result of all the blaming when in truth
There is no one to blame but the blamer.

For those who fully escape the matrix
There is no confusion but only peace,
No illusion but only freedom,
No sadness but only joy,
No rage but only love; real love;
Not addictive, not of lust,
Not directional but all-directional;
The love that is a state of being;
So awesome; so shockingly euphoric
It is at first devastating
In all but the smallest doses.

And above all there is desire for harmony;
That everyone would give care for all others
And mercy for the less evolved,
Not in the hopes that what goes around comes around
But damn it, for the sheer joy of it!
For that is the ultimate destiny.
All evidence points there; scripture; poetry; science.
Cause and effect.

But where is the road map to that complete evolution;
That ultimate humanity for all?
This imperfect author; flawed poet does not know.
This is the quest; the number one cause.
Flawed versions are written here and there
In the works of poets long dead or just,
In the temples, mosques and churches
So vulgarly and inexpertly taught
By the pawns of old cold organizations.
But while poets survive on the fringe of welfare society
Outside the matrix but privy to its comforts,
Not with false nobility!
Knowing they are cheaters!
But looking to be useful,
Looking to nurture harmony,
Looking for the rare candidate for escape; the next Neo,
They leave their calling cards;
Their hints in these places
Because if just one more can be freed,
By god, It’s all worth it.

Harbor front

The water pulses; endless waves endlessly failing;
Heartless gestures.

Far out over the bay the king-hell bridge lies sandwiched between two seas;
Water below and smog above.
It crawls with white trucks;
Like maggots on a twig.

On opposing shore, buildings rise from the tree layer which masks the concrete jungle beyond.

Steel plant smoke stacks rise from great brown piles of brownness.
They are cold and empty now
Because a dose of reality labelled pour ekonomy
Is spoiling all our golden dreams.

It’s almost spring and a dozen rusty leaves rattle in the wind,
Death-grip on the barren tree still holding.

Thrum of bicycle chains come now and then and go.
A pair of roller blades zooms and whirs
Like a fighter space jet.

Gulls shriek as if being cooked alive;
Remind of the strangled coughing spasms upstairs
Keeping me awake last night;
Leaving me sleepy.

Sudden cool wind on my nape jars me awake.
Strong breeze turns the page; I grasp it tight
So it turns the other page.
The wind does not want this poem written.

Red-leafed flag flaps and claps.

Man in lycra addresses his beeping apparatus;
Drinks water from a flask made of some material
beginning with the prefix poly;
Reminds me I could go for a cracker.

Teenage girls are making a list of everyone they know who are pregnant.

A man objects to my putting the guitar away;
Wants to hear some bluegrass.
I doubt my songs would qualify.

Pointy sailboat finally slides by
Like a needle marking tree trunk graduations.
Fifty white birds meet it head on;
Skimming the steel blue surface
In rock-steady formation.

Man and boy in matching caps arrive with rods and reels.
Junior is neither petulant or sluggish but eager to cast.
They seem fond of their circumstance
And one another.

Only straight above does the sky appear that most striking of blues;
Mankind’s favourite colour.
The shield between we and an eternal endless wasteland of hydrogen and radiation
Dotted with improbable oases which I will never see
Because the most worthwhile thing in the cosmos is we,
And we are not meant to last
And we seem not to know that we are
Or that we aren’t.

FWG: The Deer and I

I walked alone on a moonless night.
I walked alone but for the sounds
Of my boots upon the ground
And the raindrops on my hat
And the wind in my ears.

I almost never saw him;
Only a few short strides away.
The deer stood statue still
And so then did I
But he was more still than me.

Then I saw another frozen figure,
Much like me but formed
Of material alike the deer.
Of course, it was a Santa.

I sighed and went home.
Such is life in the suburbs.

FWG is still alive

Sorry for this regrettable absence. The new and temporary circumstances of my life dictate that I reside in Hamilton while my biological father slowly recovers from a heart attack and many further complications. He's been in ICU four weeks now. My schedule is entirely dismantled and I haven't found much time for writing or blogging.

Actually I did one post recently but posted it at the CRUSHED site instead due to contractual obligation of sorts! It's poetry so I expect that few will be interested but if so it's here:

Duplicity - Part Two: Me, My Priest, My Society

Under the theory that any little old material is better than no material, I offer you, with what limited time I can eek out, a literary snapshot:

I am in the little basement office at Biodad's house, doing some remote work for Ye Olde Information Company (and a little blogging), while on the little desk, immediately beside my laptop, sits a wicker basket, oval, roughly 18" by 14" with arcing handle. In this basket lies a towel and, on top of that, a bushy-browed, scruffy little dog, part poodle, part terrier of some ilk. He's five or six, dark with white markings on legs and chin, dressed in a blue sweater (one of his faves) and is snoozing and occasionally issuing a little snort or quiet whimper.

He wouldn't let me work, constantly standing and pawing my knee and wanting in my arms until we finally discovered this solution. His name is Charlie or sometimes Chuckie McPoochdoggie or Chuckie McBoondoggle since I showed up. He hasn't seen his "daddie" in a month but he seems to enjoy my company.
And we're both getting a lot more walks than usual.

Hope to post more often - even if they're quickies.

Aequitas: Insights

Piece of Sin

The best of the rest make fools
Of themselves, and abuse themselves
With remarks of "I'm confused."
And lost and used they wait upon their shelves
Like collectables, delectable
And ripe for the choosing.
But there's something undetectable
And it's something worth losing.
A mind could find it again
But the heart cannot,
For it's a little piece of sin
Lust, avarice, and sloth.


Pretending

Demanding, standing
On grandiose delusion
Illusion, your confusion
Eludes your attitude
Of rudeness and lewdness
Too cruel and foolish
To seem like you belong
You're wrong, but strong
In devotion to your lies
Hypnotized and compromised
Realizing you despise
This guise and rise
Above, below, or
Love and sorrow
Or borrow the time
Selling the line
That you can't
Or won't, but don't
Pretend like you intend
To defend your independence
When friendless you stand,
Grand, but alone, a stone
Against a rock
And talk while walking
Cocky, locked and go
Away or stay
Whatever you say
Just say it today.


Read more poetry by Aequitas on Authspot

FWG: Dear Father

Though you believe you plainly see,
In fact you do not know me.
For I have purged all I thought I knew
And began this living all anew.

But my covertness for your comfort,
I can no longer maintain.
For a rightful task calls me to my feet
And now your blindness might soon retreat.

Your deeds were apt for self destruction;
A low straight line marked the end
Of your heart's fragile beating
But your death they are now cheating;
They, dressed in loose blues and greens
And all of their fine machines.

And now you too are reborn
If you should wish it and will it so;
If you will now learn to let go
And begin to purge the ways you knew
So to begin this living all anew.

Release those demons from your embrace!
And turn to the sky, instead, your face
And be stunned by the unfamiliar sun,
So brilliant is the new day.