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

Personal Physics

 

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

 

         Personal Physics

Knowing the importance of will and the force of control

Believing the strength of self-induced motor stress

Understanding the absorption of focused orientation and

Having the basic food-security relationship criteria

Has not broken the material reality anchor chain from me.

My escapes are without reform, my recidivism chronic.

I’ve created then ignored the crises which momentarily

Made my impoverished view of reality whole.

 

The paraphernalia of pharmacology and hypnotism work for me

But in the end I do not seem to work for me.

In the natural awakening state I do not awake awake enough.

Each day’s attempt to learn addiction to will sinks in addiction to non-will.

My little misery is so precious I cannot let it be.

This is the Night

 

February 8, 1991  (I wa46)

 

         This is the Night

This is the night long into the drought winter

I knew would give truth to summer’s lie

Goodness continues in a life too possessed to love it

It is the goodness of an un-chosen regimen

the discipline we have sold for the use of others

(however noble that use may be)

This is the night of cold fog and no moon

a dark draining of the California earth

in another year the sky refused to give the blood back

in another war of screaming allegiance and holy alliance

This is the night without evocative fragrance in the air

nor peaceful surf breaking its long warm heartbeat

beneath our bed in the moonlight of a summer

made eternal because we knew it would end

Art Work

 

November 22, 1991  (I was 47)

 

                             Art Work

Twenty-eight years after that gray day in Minnesota

(That thankless November began the coldest of winters.)

I’m in Washington D.C. ignoring gray rain,

avoiding wet turf at Arlington Cemetery, and its flame,

standing in the Hirshhorn Gallery, second floor near the escalator.

 

A Robert Motherwell collage done in November of ‘73

looks at first flippant- a crude presidential portrait

torn from packaging cardboard with two labels attached-

a baggage sticker from JFK airport

and directly above it an inverted mailing lablel

addressed to Motherwell in N.Y. from a California company

called Gemini.

 

A seam of packing tape bisects the two labels.

The mailing label is part of the right temple of the President’s profile.

The JFK sticker is on his right cheek.

(If the taped seam were folded upon itself,

the label and the sticker would meet face to face.)

 

The shoulders and the chest of the forward leaning figure

are formed entirely as a larged painted red heart

beneath the cardboard head.

The figure is surrounded by rough-brushed yellow-brown.

Dry brushstrokes in the background color imply the Kennedy hair

around the pasteboard face.

His corrugated eye was meticulously torn,

 

and then I notice the horrible familiarity

of that forward leaning pose.

And isn’t that a big D brushed in behind the President’s head?

And those spatters of darker brown in front of the throat,

and that faintly indicated right arm reaching

with the hand to the throat.

 

And the packing tape seam is at the flap

of the awful grassy knoll wound.

And Motherwell’s name is above the seam

though it is still,

at this moment, attached, and the piece

is called Gemini.

Another from the Dream Records

 

September 6, 1991  (I was 46)

 

             Another from the Dream Records

         Nathan, Lauren Cheryl and I have an apartment on

the second floor mezzanine level of Space Mountain in

Disneyland.  It’s small and rather old, but we think it’s

perfect enough to be wondering if it will be available for

our vacation next year.  The line for the attraction passes
in front of the living room windows and our front door. 

Park visitors comment in surprise that the apartment

exists, and “Wow, people live right here!”  Cheryl and I

obviously teach in Disneyland, perhaps at a school for

employee’s kids.  I take Nate and Lauren to a library

located near the Main Street hub.  I do some research,

and students are studying there as Nathan and Lauren

browse for books.  I wake up.

from the dream records

 

August 26, 1991  (I was 46)

 

from the dream records

         In the side yard of my mother’s house in Keewatin I sit on the simple wood-frame of a go-cart made by my young son Nathan.  I position myself in balance, then I fly it over the fence and across the sidewalk in front of the house. The town looks rejuvenated.  The Itasca Theater is back, merchants are flourishing, a street sale is on with goods displayed.  I’m at an altitude of six feet and run into Elizabeth Michelich and her daughter, Betty looking as they did thirty years ago.  They are amazed, as are others on the street, to see the bare frame fly.  Elizabeth says, “You should make more of those.  You could sell them easily.”  I know that she doesn’t understand, and I don’t explain, that the vehicle flies by will, not by any source of power.  It is actually I that is flying.  I take it to about fifteen feet and soar down the street.

 

 

August 8, 1991  (I was 46)

 

from the Dream Records

         Before an upcoming performance of OLIVER at the Amador High Theater, an announcement is made saying the audience will be treated to a short set of solo work by drummer Mickey Hart.  Having attended the World Drum Festival in S.F. shortly before, I was elated.  The theater was open-air, covered with tent-like banners (more similar to the Disneyland Videopolis than the Amador Theater).  Hart performed both on trap drums and some more exotic ones.  I felt it was a fitting encore to the Drum Festival.  The audience dispersed quickly and Hart was standing alone in front of the stage.  I spoke to him and he seemed genuinely pleased when I mentioned his friends at the festival and how impressed I was with the event.  I spoke of Seiichi Tanaka, and momentarily mind-blocked, had to ask about the huge drum he played.  Hart reminded me that it was a Taiko drum.  I also told him I had seen a news spot where he had spoken before a congressional committee with Dr. Oliver Sacks on the benefits of music for the ailing and the aged.  He was a bit surprised that the news reached California.  I shook his hand and the dream ended. 

Buddha Masque #3

 

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

 

         Buddha Masque #3

Right observation of cause and effect

disciplines the five senses to the power of will

Action moves in the direction of thought

Wisdom appears from the pure and peaceful mind

Sympathetic mind resists the evil heard

Wild words controlled arouse no hatred or anger

Impurity of thought is but a laugh to the old

The idea of fire is not a match for the will of the cold

Old snakes climb mountains the young would not try

If a bird has two heads one eats sweet fruit

The jealous other eats the bitter fruit of spite

To choose between demons is to trade the self for a corpse

Peace and harmony reside in the internal struggle of the mind

My answers to literary questions

 

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

 

         My answers to literary questions*

 

Tobias Wolfe:  Do I get a kiss?   

     Sure, the kiss means so much less than a negative response

Harper Lee :  Can you get it all in?       

     I don’t know, it’s a very small mind

William Saroyan:  What do you intend to do, escape?

     Escape is the artistry of necessity

Mark Twain:  What did you find?

     Something you would never look for

Greg Sarris:  Do you want me to sing?

     Yes if you know that song I wrote

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.:  What will the right time look like?

     It will look like inevitability

W.P. Kinsella:  You don’t even know what you done back there do you?

     I may not know what I done, but I knew enough to leave

Nikos Kazantzakis:  Why so tight-fisted?

     Don’t want anyone to read my palm

Robert S. DeRopp:  What is the greatest thing you can experience?

     I’ll let you know when it happens

Jonathan Winters:  What are you afraid of Johnny?

     If she goes I’ll never figure any of it out

Greek Mythology:  Why not fly near the sun?

     It’s Icky.

                  *All questions taken from text by the authors

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

Personal Physics

 

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

 

         Personal Physics

Knowing the importance of will and the force of control

Believing the strength of self-induced motor stress

Understanding the absorption of focused orientation and

Having the basic food-security relationship criteria

Has not broken the material reality anchor chain from me.

My escapes are without reform, my recidivism chronic.

I’ve created then ignored the crises which momentarily

Made my impoverished view of reality whole.

 

The paraphernalia of pharmacology and hypnotism work for me

But in the end I do not seem to work for me.

In the natural awakening state I do not awake awake enough.

Each day’s attempt to learn addiction to will sinks in addiction to non-will.

My little misery is so precious I cannot let it be.

This is the Night

February 8, 1991  (I wa46)

         This is the Night

This is the night long into the drought winter

I knew would give truth to summer’s lie

Goodness continues in a life too possessed to love it

It is the goodness of an un-chosen regimen

the discipline we have sold for the use of others

(however noble that use may be)

This is the night of cold fog and no moon

a dark draining of the California earth

in another year the sky refused to give the blood back

in another war of screaming allegiance and holy alliance

This is the night without evocative fragrance in the air

nor peaceful surf breaking its long warm heartbeat

beneath our bed in the moonlight of a summer

made eternal because we knew it would end

Art Work

November 22, 1991  (I was 47)

                             Art Work

Twenty-eight years after that gray day in Minnesota

(That thankless November began the coldest of winters.)

I’m in Washington D.C. ignoring gray rain,

avoiding wet turf at Arlington Cemetery, and its flame,

standing in the Hirshhorn Gallery, second floor near the escalator.

A Robert Motherwell collage done in November of ‘73

looks at first flippant- a crude presidential portrait

torn from packaging cardboard with two labels attached-

a baggage sticker from JFK airport

and directly above it an inverted mailing lablel

addressed to Motherwell in N.Y. from a California company

called Gemini.

A seam of packing tape bisects the two labels.

The mailing label is part of the right temple of the President’s profile.

The JFK sticker is on his right cheek.

(If the taped seam were folded upon itself,

the label and the sticker would meet face to face.)

The shoulders and the chest of the forward leaning figure

are formed entirely as a larged painted red heart

beneath the cardboard head.

The figure is surrounded by rough-brushed yellow-brown.

Dry brushstrokes in the background color imply the Kennedy hair

around the pasteboard face.

His corrugated eye was meticulously torn,

and then I notice the horrible familiarity

of that forward leaning pose.

And isn’t that a big D brushed in behind the President’s head?

And those spatters of darker brown in front of the throat,

and that faintly indicated right arm reaching

with the hand to the throat.

And the packing tape seam is at the flap

of the awful grassy knoll wound.

And Motherwell’s name is above the seam

though it is still,

at this moment, attached, and the piece

is called Gemini.

Another from the Dream Records

September 6, 1991  (I was 46)

             Another from the Dream Records

         Nathan, Lauren Cheryl and I have an apartment on

the second floor mezzanine level of Space Mountain in

Disneyland.  It’s small and rather old, but we think it’s

perfect enough to be wondering if it will be available for

our vacation next year.  The line for the attraction passes
in front of the living room windows and our front door. 

Park visitors comment in surprise that the apartment

exists, and “Wow, people live right here!”  Cheryl and I

obviously teach in Disneyland, perhaps at a school for

employee’s kids.  I take Nate and Lauren to a library

located near the Main Street hub.  I do some research,

and students are studying there as Nathan and Lauren

browse for books.  I wake up.

from the dream records

August 26, 1991  (I was 46)

from the dream records

         In the side yard of my mother’s house in Keewatin I sit on the simple wood-frame of a go-cart made by my young son Nathan.  I position myself in balance, then I fly it over the fence and across the sidewalk in front of the house. The town looks rejuvenated.  The Itasca Theater is back, merchants are flourishing, a street sale is on with goods displayed.  I’m at an altitude of six feet and run into Elizabeth Michelich and her daughter, Betty looking as they did thirty years ago.  They are amazed, as are others on the street, to see the bare frame fly.  Elizabeth says, “You should make more of those.  You could sell them easily.”  I know that she doesn’t understand, and I don’t explain, that the vehicle flies by will, not by any source of power.  It is actually I that is flying.  I take it to about fifteen feet and soar down the street.

Buddha Masque #2

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

            Buddha Masque #2

Round water in a round receptacle, squared water in a cube

To discriminate existence and non-existence is to suffer entanglement

Buddha nature is not the soul nor the soul Buddha nature

Though body and mind will wear away Buddhahood will not

Gratified desire still leaves unrest and irritation un-allayed

Yet austerity and cruelty only cause suffering

Kindness and wisdom follow Bodhisattva

who does not give way to greed, anger and foolishness

The old bent with age are messengers of the self to come

Respect their goodness and sympathize in their difficulties

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

Personal Physics

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

            

                        Personal Physics

Knowing the importance of will and the force of control

Believing the strength of self-induced motor stress

Understanding the absorption of focused orientation and

Having the basic food-security relationship criteria

Has not broken the material reality anchor chain from me.

My escapes are without reform, my recidivism chronic.

I’ve created then ignored the crises which momentarily

Made my impoverished view of reality whole.

The paraphernalia of pharmacology and hypnotism work for me

But in the end I do not seem to work for me.

In the natural awakening state I do not awake awake enough.

Each day’s attempt to learn addiction to will sinks in addiction to non-will.

My little misery is so precious I cannot let it be.

from the Dream Records

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

                                    from the Dream Records

            I am at the Hopkins gym in Fremont California helping George

Taufer teach basketball before the start of the first day of school.  I

recognize only one boy, a former student, Phil Richards, a pain-in-the

butt, egotistical poor student. The basketball ends and George and I

herd milling students to class, when another boy sets of a sizeable

spark from a device resembling a wand or “magic flame” barbeque

lighter. 

            I approach the boy to discipline him with the intention of

letting him off with a warning not to bring the device to school.  When

he balks, I tell him he is now going to the principal, explaining that

Hopkins students followed teachers’ orders.  He remains mildly insolent

until separated from his peers.  Then he tried to get off by being

apologetic, but I say it’s too late for that. 

            We approach the office by crossing a street, which becomes

Howard Avenue in Hibbing, Minnesota, to the State Theater, where I

find Principal Tim Reichert in the lobby.  I hand the boy over with an

explanation of the situation.  Tim asks to see the device, then asks

the boy to demonstrate it.  The kid says he can’t because it needs to

be recharged, and it costs ten dollars.  Tim remarks that at least it no

longer presents a danger.

            I awoke and later realized the device seemed similar to a

description of a “laser ray” in a science catalog my son Nathan

received in the mail the day before.