Minimalism in social survival

September 30, 1977  (I was 32)

Minimalism in social survival keeps me on the edge

and sometimes just over.

Transportation breaks down and I’m a hermit.

The only fear in solitary existence

is its lack of creative responsibility.

Metaphor loses its amusement.

Personally, I am as fond of cliché,

and I soon take to drinking soup from the bowl.

Near the end of LIFE

from this week in September, 1972  (I was 27)

         Near the end of LIFE

I’m flipping through the pages of LIFE

listening to a recording of Woody Guthrie

and wondering at the circumstantial evidence

that he fathered Bob Dylan.

Bobby was born at the age of twenty-one

(a conception right out of the New Testament)

That leaves Woody in one place only

(amazing the way the metaphor leads one away…)

Anyway, I’m flipping the pages pf LIFE

must have been back in September of ’72,

maybe October, there is a P.O.W.

and his liberated wife.

It’s the kind of article I can’t read

I already believe everything I’ve ever heard

about the War.  The War.

The concept is incredible, the War,

There are other things in it too,

a European starlet and great ads.

It all sells to the great camping American

and it’s the best satirical review around.

Gas may kill me yet

September 28, 1970  (I was 25)

Gas may kill me yet

Isn’t this the 20^th century?

Where the hell are the robots?

I know it’s the old joke

“We are the robots”

I don’t feel like a robot

At least I do not think I do

I do write these robotic messages

Street Incident

from this week in September, 1970  (I was 25)

        Street Incident

Once I met a pedestrian moth,

a strolling man of the cloth-

had winged his way into the flame

long ago.  Like this, hobbled and lame

I could tell he wasn’t the same.

I asked his mission,

he couldn’t claim one

but said he had begun

exploring terrestrial concepts.

more slogans from the 8th Grade Bulletin Board

September 26 –posted over teaching years

    more slogans from the 8^th Grade Bulletin Board

Hafa bubble off plumb

When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional

Reality is the refuge of those who lack imagination.

One man’s karma runs over another man’s dogma.

Eat all that you kill.  Love all that you eat.

It is not possible to step into the same river twice.

Water is stationary; earth flows uphill.

That’ll be the day I’ll be skating with the devil!

Never try to teach a pig to sing;

      it wastes your time and frustrates the pig.

Slogans from the 8th Grade Bulletin Board

September 25, –posted over teaching years

    Slogans from the 8^th Grade Bulletin Board

Brother, can you paradigm?

If you don’t execute ideas, they die.

Only the ephemeral is of lasting value.

Ignorance is the mother of admiration.

Insanity is hereditary.  You can get it from your kids.

Does war determine who is right or who is left?

Media…sounds like a convention of spiritualists.

That was Zen, this is Tao.

Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis, Spiritual Exercises

September 24, 1968  (I was 23)

         Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis, Spiritual Exercises

         “I do not know whether behind appearances there lives and moves a secret essence superior to me.  Nor do I ask; I do not care.  I create phenomena in swarms, and paint with a full palette a gigantic and gaudy curtain before the abyss.  Do not say, ‘Draw the curtain that I may see the painting.”  The curtain is the painting.”

         “I have one longing only:  to grasp what is hidden behind appearances, to ferret out that mystery which brings me to birth and then kills me, to discover if behind the visible and unceasing stream of the world an invisible and immutable presence is hiding.”

         “In sudden dreadful moments a thought flashes through me:  ‘This is all a cruel and futile game, without beginning, without end, without meaning.’ But again I yoke myself swiftly to the wheels of necessity, and all the universe begins to revolve around me once more.” 

This Junior High School

from this week in September, 1979  (I was 34)

         This Junior High School

Affluence swings around the parking lot

and rocks to a halt in the circular drive

Her brow is wrinkled in the sun

Her head is balanced in one hand

whose arm angles at the elbow

to rest upon the window edge

She opens a door across the car lane

Books and kids spill over plush upholstery

They slam the door and she beeps impatience

at the pedestrians and their children

Occurrence at Sea

from this week in September, 1976  (I was 31)

               Occurrence at Sea

The Titanic has gone down in the waterbed

You made waves and there were no survivors this time

Cliffton Webb and Debby Reynolds straight to the vinyl liner

No more to sing about there

I was too far gone to observe the individual rituals

Each water logged page of every sunken story print dissolving

Me clinging prone to a rubber raft in another ocean

The warm Mediterranean enclosed by continents

Away from tempestuous North Atlantic whitewater ocean storms

Icebergs with their cold asses beneath the sheet

Cabin 89 Sunol

September21, 1971  (I was 26)

         Cabin 89 Sunol

There’s something about wood

that makes me feel good

Walls stained only with age

ceiling and beams

exchanging breaths with me

open and receptive

rather than painted reflective

I believe they release energy

to make room for mine

and what I breathe of them is fine

old images mellowed myths

fit for ballads sung with lutes

secure fables from the past

Truths lived here seem to last

Life is sacred only in expression

September 20, 1972  (I was 27)

Life is sacred only in expression

The artist loves his paint

only as the paint worships the artist

On the palette self-contained thick hues

On the canvas the art runs off

or is caught and carried by the brush

The paint reacts

It would color the floor

The artist has other ideas

smaller in dimension larger in concept

The theory may be shaky

but the execution deft

People will say

Who did this

you goddamn right I’ve got questions

from this week in September, 1973  (I was 28)

you goddamn right I’ve got questions

I got a hell of a lot of questions

I collected so many

I don’t need answers any more

I just gotta learn to weave baskets

be concerned with dying cane

meshing those fibers into self-container

a gift made to be placed upon a shelf

a quiet duck upon a still pond

If he flashes white under wing

he will rise and be gone

the reeds lean together

the rhythmic quilt of intersecting ripples

reflects the image of a dissolving cloud

emigration

September 18, 1999  (I was 54)

         emigration

The borderline is unmarked, non-linear, invisible

First crossing finds confusions

also present in the homeland

familiar feelings of minor disorientation

escalate immediately beyond manageability

swallowed to the burning neck

in a quick sucking quagmire

that allows incoherent ranting

but pins limbs too fatigued to flail

then and most cruelly refuses

to finish the job

Reduction to hopeless despair

belches release upon the new shore

in a state of redefined nothingness

I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

September 17, 2001  (I was 56)

 I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

the airplane drone was gone from aum,

a profound absence in a brief lifetime.

I took undistracted notice of the birds.

I was occupied by the silence.

It has long been my habit to send

a prayer of simple recognition to souls

I happen to notice in aircraft overhead.

This sky was a pure blue of emptiness.

It was not the sky of the new world,

it was the heaven between worlds.

Again we lost an innocence

we did not know we had;

something we’ve done many times.

Tomorrow would be the first sky

to dawn upon an unfortunate century

where warring gods prove their fallibility,

or where man reflects the gold of daylight.

That man is gone

September 16, 1971  (I was 26)

       That man is gone

Yesterday I wrote about that man

and visions in the mountains

Then I bought leather boots

to wear with pride and other fancy clothes

That man is gone

I shouldna let him go

He always talked of leaving

but he always walked so slow

Today I pace the chamber

never say his name

afraid that if he comes back

he’ll find me just the same

I don’t have time to live another life

September 15, 2010  (I was 65)

I don’t have time to live another life

where things don’t change

I did it once myself

and am not going to do it again with you

You need more from me

than I have to offer

The tank is empty or nearly so

and only the fumes of wishes are left

Buddha Masque #1

from this week in September, 1991  (I was 46)

Buddha Masque #1

It was for him intense incomparable struggle

filled with desperate confusing thoughts

and shadows overhanging his beleaguered spirit

He has no set form

yet can manifest all forms with any attributes

The moon appears over the city the village the mountain the river

He sometimes appears the incarnation of evil

may be woman god king or statesman

The fourfold noble truth opens the eye

the Truth the Cause the Cessation the Path

Beyond suffering are the eight Rights

Ignorance and greed are desires of blindness

Impermanent ego, nothing is thine

My generation gave the country away

September 13, 2010  (I was 65)

My generation gave the country away

We sent the work to India and Brazil

at handsome profit for some

Expecting what?

All our kids to be off-shore managers?

We put our parents’ bombs in the basement

and only used the littler ones

Allowed deception to be our business

and took greed as our birthright

Allowed myths to be our faith

Though there is but one god

we each have one

Slow erosion has a polishing effect

September 12, 2010  (I was 65)

Slow erosion has a polishing effect

flowing water sliding snow and ice

tumbling stones wind blown dust

scraping branch of adjacent tree

metal sliding across metal

bones in dirt

Friction smoothes the differences

when there is no consciousness of time

no desperation of a single passing life

Getting even can take centuries

mountain to molehill

glacial stare to tepid contentment

retribution of ancestral wrongs

Wise pearls begin in irritation

swimming in gall

most often never recognized

nor appreciated by the carrier

Acquainted With The Night

September 11, 2003  (I was 58)

Acquainted With The Night

Note from Jay Parini,

Robert Frost: A Life, Henry Holt 1999, p. 246

Acquainted With The Night:   “The poem was, Frost later

suggested, ‘written for the tune.’  Although a sonnet by

form, with a closing couplet, the poem has the fluid

repetitive aspect of a villanelle with the three line stanzas

mimicking the terza rima of Danté –appropriate for a

poem about the descent into darkness.”

I always read the poem to students mimicking the voice

of Bela Lugosi in Dracula.  It puts an appropriate spin to

the narration.  The movie and the poem are of a common

era.  The poem is circa 1927 and the film was released in

the U.S. on Jan. 1, 1930.  When I discovered the voice for

my interpretation, I wished the poem came after the movie,

hoping Frost too, had heard the voice and realized how

well it fit.  (JK)

Bob Dylan’s biography

September 10, 1973  (I was 28)

Bob Dylan’s biography

props open the hinged window,

fights the wind,

is a little too thin to be tight

and may fall off the ledge.

He always knew it could happen,

was readily available for the job;

less vital volumes were not.

Random Notes

from this week in September, 1977  (I was 32)

         Random Notes

Hemingway, from “Indian Camp”:

“is Dying hard, Daddy?”

“No, I think it’s pretty easy, Nick.  It all depends.”

Wilde, “De Profundis”:

“It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much and live with her too little.”

Rimbaud, “Illuminations”  (at age twenty):

         “Perfect and unpredictable beings will offer themselves for your experiments.   Around you the curiosity of ancient crows and idle luxuries will move in dreamily.  Your memory and your senses will only serve to feed your creative urge.”

Huddie Leadbetter:

Take this hammer (wahh)

and carry it to the captain (wahh)

Wilde, “De Profundis”

“…there was nothing that either Plato or Christ had said that could not be transferred immediately into the sphere of Art and there find its complete fulfillment.”

“…Christ’s place indeed is with the poets.  His whole conception of humanity sprang right out of the imagination and can only be realized by it.”

Beatrice Beatrice

from this week in September, 1970  (I was 25)

Beatrice Beatrice

I’ve sunk to the depths

I’ve walked barefoot

through caves of hot gold

I’ve been to the markets

where men’s blood is sold

I’ve floated in chains

across seas of repentance

I’ve been there before

when Pilate passed sentence

and wherever your name

has escaped my breath

men have shrunk in terror

saying Silence

her name is death

mathematicians

from this week in September, 1970  (I was 25)

mathematicians

one two three four

five all in a row

like a garden they grow

into numerical eternities

following their ancestors

arguing the point moot

as to whose grandfather

was the greatest square root

Time is out of joint

from this week in September, 1972  (I was 27)

Time is out of joint

might as well anoint my head

as even try to lift me from this bed

there is no point

Let’s you and I take a joint time out

Hope to shout hope to shout

join my groin in a groan

screw the phone  Damn

I feel like a paper doll

that can’t get folded again

I tell you it’s out of joint

or I lost the point

You can’t put a cast on time

I tried that last time

Now I just run up the hill at night

(it’s outasight) broken back or not

I don’t know if there are more snakes out during the dark

but I sure as hell hear more, still I ain’t been bit yet.

I changed my opinion of you

from this week in September, 2015 (I was 70)

I changed my opinion of you

when you turned away from the ocean

You stood under the palm staring up the mountain

Such is the place with no third choice

I was there to see you begin the slow ascent

No one seemed to notice your discreet departure

You reached the shadows of the trees

without turning another head

You changed tack to come up the fall line

cast away the anchor catch the wind

I watched you breathe and imagined the scents

fragrant pine eucalyptus camphor and myrrh

I changed my opinion.

That Man’s Attitude

September 4, 1975  (I was 30)

         That Man’s Attitude

Frost’s person in the snow should

Have said to hell with keeping,

Caught there in impeccable mood

Between frozen promise and promising wood.

The dream called for sleeping,

The little horse made it clear-

Hard edge of light and shadow creeping,

Silent bell of awareness sweeping.

Better the seen than the seer,

said this looker through snow’s mirror

stretched at length to show what’s  near

Through the blizzard to warmer fear.

Sunol

September 3, 1977  (I was 32)

         Sunol

Some might say I’m living an escape.

They speak of a hideout in the woods

for a part time recluse.

To them, it is an amusement

quite romantic, naively idyllic,

a place of dreams in which to dream.

They intimate psychological retreat,

these worldly heroes who leave the room

to avoid a spider, who contract poison oak

thinking about trees, but this place is real.

The deer are feeding in the hills

the turkey vulture circles overhead

the raccoons come to the porch

the possums hang from the oaks

the snakes hide under rocks

tarantulas march across the road in September

The actuality of the place cannot be denied

It has not been created in search of ignorance

It creates itself in the image of its own truth

I think more shaping has happened to me

September 2, 1969  (I was 24)

         I think more shaping has happened to me

in the past year than I can really remember in any similar

time period.  Perhaps it is the journal recording the changes

usually unperceived or forgotten.  Shaping; maybe I’ll even

hold a conviction someday.  Stupid thing to say for one

considered by some to be a crass, opinionated, self-righteous,

belligerent, immature, adolescent, leftist infiltrator and

paranoid recruiter of innocent young minds.

I have not had abiding compassion

from this week in 2014  (I was 69)

I have not had abiding compassion

for animals.  It has been my culture

to eat them.  I do not care to

make the distinction between

food and pet, so I tend to avoid

the concept of pet when I can.

If I were even present at the

slaughtering, I would eat less flesh

or learn to respectfully participate in

the practice.  What is the stewardship

of the elect in the kingdom?  It has

been to eat without reproach or

consideration.  It is the consideration

creates the question.