Poem - Cocktail

we took ourselves
to the performance
and saw the latest band

their singer was paranoid
and everyone was drunk

we waded across the room
we moved across the place
a sea of powdered faces
in the dark

there were punks in pink laces
and black leather dominating submissives
and snake skin fellers
who wore their hats on backwards

gesticulating fucks
salivating savants

they were all here
we were all here
in this cocktail

and did you know
the world ended 30 years ago
after this the stage is dark

trouble is god never
told us we were fired
and to pack up and go

but what to do with those
empty pauses and
blank spaces that pass for eyes

guess if were were all smart
there'd be no room for freedom
if it fits
wear it like a shoe

they were all here
we were all here
in this cocktail

the last thing i remember
before we were arrested

i kept on thinking of
corporate art and the cop looked
like my neighbor
who is building high-explosives
in a shed

oh want to do
we were all here
in this cocktail

Here You Go: Try This

a. Superlife Intelligence keeps us alive because we are funny. Multidimensional timeless beings watch us intact with finite time, and a finely previewed Universe like you or I would observe a video game, a show in the theater, or set up a model train set.

b. We are dirt, and we go back to dirt. That is all.

c. Thank you, more please.

d. Let me tell you a joke about an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a 12 foot tall Rabbit.

A Doodler and a Writer of Things Like This

It is getting darker early, and I feel the dark. Like a child, I have to turn on the lights. I hear from my eighty-three year old father in-law that he's got ten more years -- and that is it! He told me, when he was in his forties, he had all the time in the world!

   a. I told him my great-grandfather died when he was 98, but I don't remember exactly how old he was when he died.

   b. I know he was almost 100 when he died.

   c. I know he died alone, of starvation, because he wouldn't eat enough and he lived alone.

Exchanging those for more cheerful thoughts, I look out the window and I think about having fun doing something like playing minecraft with my son. Christ this is what I've become. A doodler and a writer of things like this.

But on the other hand, I've always have been writing about a stray raindrop on the window, how it has a million universes in it. Ten years or forty more is a deathless eternity, for the mind that can make the jump from fear to hope, as free as a funny bug or a twirly snowflake.


* *
*

BLESS US ALL

Cherry Trees and Blossoms in my Heart Will Never Cease

There's a thousand reasons to appreciate the cherry blossoms, but none of them make the blossoms bloom. I can't tell one thought from one single blossom petal. Like love or imagination, the numbers of thoughts and cherry trees and blossoms in my heart will never cease.

__

Blue Evening

The weather people know it will be raining. Coming night is blue -- I've written the twilight is blue before, and it is again. If you write about one particular time of evening enough, you'll use the same words, eventually. It might be raining now, I'll have to go look.

Moon like a yellow ball of cotton, the sky hazy and awakening to stars. I hear the metal fabricators, a half block away. The light from there is white, big warehouse doors open to keep cool, almost all year round.

Then suddenly the ordinary parking-lot could be anywhere -- a field in Napa, or out in the desert by Stovepipe Wells or by a meadow next to redwoods in Northern California. Memory raises the tent of perception and the fence is a hedge and the bare earth planters are full of roses or mint that grew like crazy by the stream.

Faces come and go, like lanterns, or a flash of the beam from a lighthouse. I go back in, the warehouse is larger on the inside, larger and larger until it rains.

----

HB
12.1.14

Today Today

I was in love with you. I think you loved me too, you acted funny, like you loved me when we were together. We may have been so young, we didn't fully comprehend what this connection meant. Or it was just a passing fancy. We are doomed to be separated.

When I first met you, you were driving a old beat-up convertible Porsche. The headlights didn't work, so we couldn't drive around a lot when it got dark. We both lived in the dorms, at the community college.

Now I've looked away, and about 35 years have gone effortlessly by. Well, not completely effortlessly. But you can imagine it was quick, like riding on a Mardi Gras float. Possibly 25 years have gone by. Now I remember the toil. It wasn't all suffering. Life is hilarious.

We've all had relationships like this. They are like fairy tales. Then in the now, today today it might finally rain. And that is good too.



----

It Was Raining in Napa

Before I woke up, it was raining in the morning, in Napa. I could hear it raining in my half sleep, and when I opened my eyes it was blue outside, with mist between the house and the mountain. Whenever it rains and I am waking up in a room, I think about the story Richard Brautigan wrote about the rain, a small room, and a phone. I think he was lonely.

My son was still sleeping under a pile of blankets. I watched my son sleep, like you might watch water run under a bridge, or a watch hand tick. Every parent has done this. The kid wasn't doing much, but it was interesting to look at him.

Then I saw someone in the reflection of the mirror at the foot of the bed, and though I wasn't surprised to see someone looking at me, I had forgotten who I was, how old I was, and that I had a body. Then Danny woke up and we talked about video games, dinosaurs, and Star Wars.


-----

Napa
Day after Thanksgiving 2014

I Am the One That You Left Behind

I am the one you left behind
I am the one you're not thinking of
People think they know the answers
 Because they come to mind
But I am the one that you left behind

I am the one that is deep inside
A measureless truth beyond all size
Journey more than 10,000 miles,
  I'll still be at your side
For I am the one that you left behind

Living through this world of death and lies
You summon up the strength to meet the tide
But the strength it comes from within
 It comes before your pride
I am the one that you left behind

*

The Definition of "Hypocrisy"

So I hear someone claim that the definition of "Hypocrisy" literally means "being of two minds" -- and I liked that -- it was enlightening, it was original. Often we misuse words, we don't honor the shades of meaning they can represent. One should understand the meaning of a word, and this person was helping me.

But when I look it up I see "Hypocrisy" comes from Middle English: from Old French "ypocrisie", via ecclesiastical Latin, from Greek "hupokrisis" ‘acting of a theatrical part,’ from "hupokrinesthai" ‘play a part, pretend,’ from hupo ‘under’ + krinein ‘decide, judge.’ Did you get all that?

Then I wonder if the person who made the statement about "Hypocrisy" is an idiot, like nobody would actually check to see if they are right about what they said. Or possibly they have made up the meaning of this word in their head.

It could be they were acting as a hypocrite, fulfilled literally the definition of the word they claimed they were defining in error.

But mostly I was pissed at the fucking nonsense I head people spout off, and it sounds good, but it is stupid and untrue.



*

Aaron Bur Kills George Washington's Clone

Waking up, I kept thinking about the bizarre situation where a historical institution in the far future has to keep euthanizing the clone of Arron Bur, when Aaron Bur kills George Washington's clone. Because for some reason, the clone of Arron Bur does not get along with the the clone of George Washington.

I thought about this for about an hour, I think.

*

Poem - i'm starting to avert my eyes / i never did that before

i'm starting to avert my eyes
i never did that before

up till now
i'd look at anything
with the idea i could take it

i'd look at anything
with the concept if it seemed wrong
i could fix it or i could conquer it

everything i let in i imagined somehow
i could get to the point
where i could control whatever it was
in my mind

but now i have a feeling
not to turn away
always be there to help

but i don't need to lock it up
in my head with my eyes



*

Poem - past even memory

      for R, V, J, S, M, etc.

it seems to be a lot of trouble to remember
how this imaginary me got hurt

and what this phantom wanted
or how this dream was going to be satiated

i saw flowers and ladders and tears
i tried to hold onto people

now here i am looking at a white wall
on a bright day in november

all those fellow talkers grabbers
wigglers and strives are off somewhere else

it is amazing how impermanent
struggle and suffering with others are

because one moment they're here forever
next moment they were never here at all

i've decided all you can do is be kind
and not hope at all

filling in holes other people
dug into the ground

or climbing higher not staying
at any summit of any desire

so
if you are reading this and you
are higher up on the path

and
i did anything for you once
that was kind

if
i forget the right way to go
or confuse down with up

shine
a light or make a loud yell
even make me think you're god

.

.

anything to get me to want
to keep going past the summit
of whatever i think

we were all born
to climb

past even memory



*

Poem - i think if i saw a real don quixote

i think if i saw a real don quixote
i'd cry and i would marvel at anyone
who would follow him

as it is i have a paper sculpture
of the man astride his steed
forcefully twisted and upright

vision has a certain glory
and naiveté considerable wisdom
excommunicated from this world


**

Poem - it is hard to remember anyways

if I feel wounded
i have everything
to do with feeling hurt

i arrived to the point
where the pain was beyond
anything you could say or do

with actions or words
you don't bother to remember
living in fragments

if you make a comment
and someone is happy or sad
well there you go that is life

possibly someone is angry
and they think ill of you
it is all just the same

you don't worry
it is hard to remember anyways

this sunk in
and i felt bad at being hurt
and i began to show you charity

by treating everyone
with respect with gentleness
and not asking so much from them

seeing what i can do
for them first and me second
then cruel thoughts have gone away

my suffering i laughed
it is hard to remember anyways


__



For R

Poem - between earth and the sky

if you are filled with thoughts
more thought will not still mentality

as if to douse or smother fire
one adds more kindling and logs

then cut to the root of the matter
whatever you occupy yourself with
dreaming like a sillyheart

it is all and fine but we are kinder
moons in the water or rainbows
between earth and the sky


*

to Dudjom Lingpa

Poem - they know my name

they know my name
i don't know theirs
people have been talking

i never know
what the gossip is about

my fly is undone
my clothes are the same
i write all the time




*

Poem - i don't know if we are we sinners or are just lost / but i know that the path goes on and i'll walk it

i'm searching for something outside of myself
that can only be found on the inside

i am searching for it because i don't trust in god
or whatever i am supposed to trust in

i look of what cannot be found due to faithlessness
in the unfolding process that denies no one

so in writing this i am getting over myself
hopefully helping you if you've been where i am

but if i get stuck and you know what i mean
reaching out to a friend or acquaintance certainly helps

i don't know if we are we sinners or are just lost
but i know that the path goes on and i'll walk it

i'll say in the end it does not matter what we thought
only what we did in devotion towards each other


*

Poem - i laugh at my own jokes

i laugh at my own jokes
i even laugh when i write these lines

i'm not lonely but i'm sitting alone
with a window on the right

i have bookcases and my favorite books
that i can see by the window and i laugh
when i read the books

i have a perfect view
the outside world and the inner one

i should remember to let people in
so we can laugh together



*

Quote: Lenny Bruce - The Role of a Comedian

"The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds."

-- Lenny Bruce

Poem - I Know You Can Hear Me

-- to HFC

kitty i know you can hear me
even though you pretend i don't exist

as if you were in deep cosmic meditation
looking down at your curled paws
beyond all concern for food or petting
the clue that betrays your facade:

wherever i move in the room
your ears follow me
never stop tracking me

so i'll give you a can
of food and then a good scratch


---

10.13.14