Sometimes

Sometimes,
it is the the greatest joy to be included,
appreciated,
and celebrated by a throng
bonded by shared ideals,
who immerse you
in their mass joy of identity.

And sometimes,
it is the bitterest of disappointments
to realize nobody has any interest
in who you are,
what you think,
and what you say,
that you are simply disappeared
from all human fellowship.

And then sometimes,
it can be the most amazing revelation
to find that what seemed like a solitary confinement
within socially unanimous rejection
was actually the purest freedom anyone had ever known,
the most profound experience of affirmation
the universe could ever bestow on an individual.

13 October 2016

I Am Not Here

Poetry is the first hideout of a romantic,
and the last refuge of a socialist.
In between
is a lifetime of discovery and disillusion.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The Sunday afternoon sunlight
of a San Francisco Bay Indian Summer
illuminating the honeyed ruby sweetness
of a glass of port
in a near-empty bistro relaxing
with honeyed saxophone sounds
is the dynamic stillpoint of the All,
consciousness of which is entirely mine
in all of humanity.

With each passing day
I am increasingly cloud-hidden
on the upper slopes of the unseen mountain
at the threshold of the Western Desert.
The berries up here are sweet,
ripened with age,
except for the bitter young ones,
plump and green.
I am eye-to-eye with eternity
even as I am of vanishing consequence.
On descent into the daylight below the mists,
into the hurly-burly of the human ferment,
I am enveloped by a protective invisibility
because ignorance is fragile,
and like the first sprouts of a seedling
needs protective shade against the withering sun.

Soon enough the port is drunk,
dusk has passed,
and in the foggy night chill
I set off once again up the mountain
to catch the dawn rays above the mists,
in solitude,
cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.

9 October 2016

Civics 911

The election is a class war against the terror of democracy.
The people are the enemy of the state,
and corporate power is the state.
Hillary is the Joan-of-Arc of American parasites
(and foreign ones).
Trump is America’s response to being force-fed Hillary.
The American people are:
redundant labor,
a low-yield investment,
an inadequate market,
an impediment to economic efficiency.
It is true at least half of them are deplorable basket cases
of ignorance and bigotry,
while much of the other half are deplorable basket cases
of smugly hypocritical dishonesty and selfishness.
But, there it is,
the Janus faces of the American union.
The democratic socialist dreamers can fantasize
about truth and justice being the American way,
but there’s no money in that
so too few believe in it.
No, ours is an empire of stale bread crumbs
and grotesquely hokey circuses,
and every poor barely-working stiff is
monkey-in-the-middle
as well as a jeering lout in the encircling rabble,
shrieking in a delighted rage,
thumbing down on others
in a delusion of self-importance no one else ever notices.
Kill ‘em! Whoever they are.
Hail Caesar! Whoever you are.
You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

14 September 2016

Karma Is Good For Everyone

“Character is fate,”
we are as we do:
juggling karma: a comic gambler
dance with karma: an artist at living
wrestle with karma: an ordinary worker
fight with karma: an ignorant schemer
seduce karma: a clever schemer
abuse karma: a parasite
pimp karma: a heartless criminal
betray karma: amorally lucky
submit to karma: a broken spirit
love and hate karma: childishly immature
ignore karma: a proud fool
escape karma: a delusional mediocrity
embrace karma: an adventurer
transcend karma: hibernation of a recluse mind
contemplate karma: a poet.

8 September 2016

Survivor’s Luck

When I was a baby I had my mama,
and she was sweet and loves me still.
When I was a boy I had my toys
and I played with them till all were gone.
When I was a lad I had my dreams
of sleek cars and voluptuous girls.
When I was a young man
I worked to make the lad’s dreams real,
and though the cars were pudgy
and the women complicated,
moments of dreaming did become true.
When I was a working man I had pride in success
and fulfillment in shouldering society.
When I was a thinking man I knew
my only real successes were those nobody saw,
and that society is a boneyard of illusions
and an anthill of acquisition.
When I was a redundant man
I had irrelevant wisdom
and near perfect invisibility,
and, boy, was I ever stupid!
I was filled with memories
and occupied nearly none.
When they told me I was an old man:
I still felt like a working man
who wanted to save the world;
I still felt like a lad
who could delight in adventure and romance,
though now such dreams are only nostalgia
instead of heated anticipation;
I still felt like a boy
who wanted to play with intriguing toys;
And I have the luck of a baby
whose sweet mother loves him still.

30 August 2016