Only More Questions/ I Still Dream of Books

I miss wondering about things for years, and never being sure if I'd ever have the answer to what I was wondering about. Those were the days of 'pre-internet' -- where to find out about something you had to go to a library, and dig through microfilm, or old back issues of technical journals, periodicals, or newspapers. There was an element of chance, availability, of luck --you'd have to scour the shelves, or probably you'd heard of a book that enlarged in great detail what you wanted to know, but it was out of print, but someone saw it on a bookshelf in an apartment in San Francisco in 1966. Or if they had the book, you could only borrow it for an hour.

Before the WWW, I had dreams about books! Mysterious books. Elusive ones. A book seen out of the corner of the eye, a book that was supposed to be hidden. Books that were out of print, or lost, or ones that I saw once and never again. Now I can find out about anything, right away. But despite all the information, there are only more questions. I still dream of books.

Crows in the Trees

I move through the night in dreams. In there, everything is strange, yet perfect, if you accept what is going on. In the morning, I awake to a world that I wanted to fix, but it is broken, it cannot be fixed. I have so many things I wanted to be different, it wouldn't be that hard to have them be different, or people to be just a bit different? How could it hurt someone to change just a fraction, from their locked-in anger and hurt?

But I see. Out here, everything is strange, yet perfect, if I accept what is going on. I think in the dark. I turn on an electric candle.

**

Bang! Daytime. I see crows in the trees.


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Irvine
Mid February
2013

(No Title)

the moon shone on the ocean
like a cheap thrill

that is what i can do and ruin
all is see




.

Poem - OK

He is sick again.
The cat crosses his path, boom! Trip.

He sleeps.
He dreams all of Italy is plaid.

He dreams.
Christopher Columbus invented the ball-point pen.

He wakes up.
What is the difference of history here, or there?

What things appear double, triple, multiple, but are just funny reflections of an ideal that does not exist, beyond just being an ideal?

But then loving, truly, because it is a good thing to do.

Because stars don't. They just exist.

Because money does not. It just is here.

Because the sea does not.

Because there is no outward reward.

Doing the right thing, and never having it tracked or recorded.

Doing the kind thing, even if it heads you into oblivion

Right motivation, wherever it takes you.

OK

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

I go to the dentist and I get my front teeth fixed. They are astonishingly beautiful. It is like having Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, my birthday, and the 4th of July attached to my gums. I smile at the receptionists on the way out, they cheer. I smile at the birds, the sky, the buildings, the road, the cars, people on bicycles, the clock, telephone poles, streetlamps, parks, trees, and semi-trucks, all the way home. Some folks stop and wave at me, I am sure of it! Hurrah! Back at the apartment, I smile at the cat, he does not seem to notice. I give him extra food, he rejoices as much as I rejoice. Hurrah! Hurrah! Fixed teeth!

Waking Up

My son is sleeping, I am silent as if in a silent movie. I make exaggerated movements to be quiet, and I wake him up. "Go to sleep!" I order. He rubs his eyes, then agrees, and goes back to sleep. The covers are heaped up, looking like a crumpled animal. I think about the dream I had, how the Earth was invaded, and extraterrestrial were milking humanity for grease. I wonder if my son will ever have the strange dreams I have.

All is Well

I wake up at 5.20 AM, in the dark -- I turn on an electric candle. The light flickers over Buddha's face, looking at me serenely, with a secret smile. Meditatively, I sit on the cushion for a few minutes, then I get up with inspiration and calm. All is well. Then I bang my foot on a toy truck and fall to the carpet, grasping my foot in agony. I take a shower in a seething disgusted mood.

*

After the shower I have calm again. I go outside on the balcony, the sky has a hint of the rose dawn, increasing. I feel, and then the sleeping dog on the balcony above me, unseen, begins to retch. He retches and retches, and then vomits a long glistening stalactite of snot and bubbles, that hangs gossamer-like in the clear dawn air. All is well.

----

Quail Meadow
02.03.12

Hole in One

I had a dream that God and Buddha were playing golf at Pelican Hill. They played with one bag, and I was the caddy.

Every time Buddha hit the ball, it would go where Buddha wanted it to go. Whenever God would hit the ball, he'd slice or get in a rough lie. God was very upset.

This kept on going for some time. God kept getting more and more upset.

"Why are you so much better than God at golf?" I asked Buddha.

Buddha looked at me, and smiled. "There is  no difference."

"So why is God not playing as well as you?"

"It is your impure vision."

Just then, God made a hole-in-one.

To Get There

He read and wrote challenging poetry as a young man, when he got out of college he didn't change the world with a bohemian free-as-air lifestyle -- he became a stock broker sometimes making 250,000 a month, putting most of it up his nose, with 4 kids and a beautiful wife. Then he burned all his bridges systematically ricocheting down through rehab, each one less nice than the last, divorced from the wife and her new boyfriends, and he missed his kids that he didn't know. Later he was a night clerk in a 7-11 in Laguna Beach, wearing an ugly second-hand Hawaiian shirt. He was looking at his reflection in the glass doors while it was still pitch black outside at about 4 AM, when a drunk came in and he confused the drunk for his reflection, but he was sober.

He knew he was sober then. He felt glad. He had nothing and he was so glad. He also knew he had become one of the epic inexcusable fuckups he always despised, and more. He was a piece of shit; by his hand he had ruined everything. He had no more game. He put his hands on the top of the glass counter and looked out.

Some words came into his head like they did all those years ago, but these were different words, not to impress or change him or anybody anymore. He wrote them down on a paper bag. The writing was terrible.

He could never write. But he could laugh about it. He had arrived in the present moment after taking about 35 years to get there.

"What you laughin about? " asked the drunk bum.

"Thinking." he said.

The sun came up over top-of-the-world.

Dreaming About a Flood in the Thai Jungle in 1975

I has a dream last night, I remember it because it was immediately before the alarm went off. In my dream I was in Thailand, back in about 1975, deep in the bush. It was early in the morning and it had just rained, the river had flooded its banks. There was not a dry place to stand on for miles and miles under swaying trees and deathless jungle. Nearby was some kind of trading post on stilts, blaring out American disco. When I heard that, I turned and saw Andy Gibb wading through the tea colored water with a pretty guide. He was wearing a loose grey scarf and khaki adventure shorts, and he was frankly amazed & amused at the same time, hearing his music being played in the middle of the Thai jungle right after the river had flooded.


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Irvine
5.30 AM PST
02.01.13