STILL I RISE

 

 

 

 

As the vivid splendour of the sun beneath my mortal gaze

Sets,

Its brilliance & grandeur set my mind ablaze

Whets,

My appetance for Life's grand prize-

Glee!

Rattles & torments my Psyche

Effervescence,

I now gloriously perceive within my Essence-

See!

Now I do the luminosity within all & within myself.

My dawning arrives,

And still I rise,

Yes!

Still I rise.







HOMONOIA: THE MIND UNIVERSAL - Our Salon

HOMONOIA: THE MIND UNIVERSAL - Our Salon

BETWEEN THE PRIMORDIAL & THE NEOTERIC - Our Salon

BETWEEN THE PRIMORDIAL & THE NEOTERIC - Our Salon

BETWEEN MIND & HEART - Our Salon

BETWEEN MIND & HEART - Our Salon

THE LAWS OF INTEGRATION - Our Salon

THE LAWS OF INTEGRATION - Our Salon

ORDINARY HEROES - Our Salon

ORDINARY HEROES - Our Salon

REALITY AS MYTH: A NEW PARADIGM - Our Salon

REALITY AS MYTH: A NEW PARADIGM - Our Salon

STALEMATE

The ever-present feat of losing the Soul-
Of becoming beyond our control.
Oh we of little faith,
In others' inept hands we have placed-
Far too much.
For when they run out of Love to give,
And Truth to show,
We will wish we didn't now know what we know.
Will God be soon exiled from the dysphoric halls,
Of this Devil-Mind?
Oh Lord, teach me how to live as One and one.

ON AI (Artificial Intelligence)



     Can the created ever surpass that of its Creator? It seems self-evident to me, from a strictly logistical-and indeed, even from a philosophical/existential standpoint, that AI ever dominating intellectually or even functionally over human beings is perhaps possible, but highly unlikely. And as first posited by Ada Lovelace, who is credited in the realm of Computer Science as being the first computer programmer, human beings are the ideologues over such inventions and thereby must also be the immediately assumed lords over them. Furthermore, much like many believe that humankind was fashioned in the image of a sovereign Deity, computers and the technological accoutrements which both encompass & aid them were fashioned of course in our human likeness. However, the ontological limit & antinomy of the latter statement is this: We may have been fashioned in the image of a transcendent Creator, but we could never fully become this Deity itself lest the very actualization of such a verity of ontological equality completely negate the concept of such a Being in and of itself. Nevertheless, AI will continue to be made in the human image, however I do not believe it rational to assume that they could ever insidiously or maliciously dominate over humankind, as any invention by natural extension must possess the limitations inherent in that of its Creator. And yet the enquiries will persist: Can a human being manufacture or implant a living "soul" into a machine? What is the soul or a soul if it even exists at all? And most of all: What is the essence of that which makes our species human and could an electronic/mechanical entity ever become incarnate with such essence? For if a human being could create a cyborg completely in that of its own image-a perfect facsimile-then wouldn't that automatically change the ontological status of such "electronic-mechanical" being possessed of "artificial intelligence" to that of a "human being" possessing now, authentic & complete human sentience & intelligence? And last but certainly not least, from an epistemological standpoint, is there an inherent demarcation built into the design of things which limits human creative & industrious potential & knowledgeability? And if there is not such an event horizon of human endeavor, perhaps someday, according to Judeo-Christian eschatology, we will be changed "in the twinkling of an eye" into a full incarnation of a Divine Creator? These of course are all very valid, relevant enquiries, which may or may not reach their fruition of edification someday. In the meantime, it is essential that we keep an open-ended discussion & flexible margin for imagination on all of the major issues concerning our human species & condition so that we may continue along the path of our intellectual, industrious & psycho-spiritual evolution & actualization, both individually & collectively.

OH DARKNESS DESCENDING (Penned in my 20's)



Night falls over me again,
Creeping its way into my head,
And past any hope for better days.

Oh darkness descending,
Oh darkness descending,
Why upon me?
Why upon me?

I have known you for long,
This is so true,
Yet no matter how much I hate, loving you,
We still, bedfellows estranged do make.

Oh darkness descending,
Oh darkness descending,
Why over me?
Why over me?

Something won't let me smile,
For when a faint Joy in my heart begins to bloom,
Some abstract Fear steals it away-
Yet even if I knew the Thief,
I would have to let him go,
For as much as I long to feel the sun again:

Oh darkness descending,
Oh darkness descending,
Why not over me?
Why not over me?
Let it be.
Just let it be.

Darkness falls inside my head,
And it begins to storm,
I let it rage in the name of its Cause,
For there is plenty of sunshine where I don't dwell these days-
But this is said as if Sorrow is a choice,
Dwelling within a land where Despair is an autonomic reflex of the Soul
than it is Artifice or Vice.

Oh darkness descending,
Oh darkness descending,
Why upon me?
Why upon me?
When there are so many other places where you could be.

I wretch and I heave,
For in Hope I do believe,
And therefore also grieve, also seethe.
Yet perhaps this is why the darkness is more sought,
For caring hurts too much in a world which could care less-
And it's us against the world,
It's us against ourselves,
And thus we grieve.
It is neverending.

But my affliction is not nearly as deft,
As my line of defense, masterfully erected within the Realm
of Ideas, Thoughts, Emotions and Words:
The Poet's Atonement.

A MIND UNIVERSAL

Overwhelmed by Joy's sanguine mass,
knowing all is well that begins well-
yet the peevish prospect of Joy's inevitable annihilation
time & again, throttles the Mind full-force-forth
unto the cold, void cosmos
of Pessimistic Ponderance,
this rocket-tank always either full-full or full-on-empty,
as the discontinuity yet uniformity of time-space happenings
bids to keep the Universe ever so slightly yet intractably titled
at an adjacent angle to Fate, Infinity,
the centrifuge of Reason holding the innards intact,
Time bidding to keep secret the outcome of Felicity,
whirling within its own realm,
inviting all who care & all who dare,
to embrace its yellow-hole pull
with expansive Soul & Arms,
as its Quantum mass plunders all within its enthrall,
into the divinely deviant depths of Oblivion-
Until the time has come again to bid reverence
to that universal constant Melancholia:
The voyage is complete.
We have landed from infinite light years away,
to kiss the terra firma of Mortality & its lachrymose constancies,
bidding the cycle of Life keep turning,
so that one day, all may be brought, to Eternal Transcendence.

COMMUNION

The choicest wafer of his flesh, crumbles & dissolves
beneath my hands & upon my tongue,
as I revel in the salty, sweet salinity of such earthly divinity.

Such unabashedly sappy & sanguine sensations stirred by this tryst-
very much nigh to Theophany I surmise,
yet those quaintly probing questions still arise-
Is this a communion led by the Spirit or the flesh, or by Spirit and flesh?

I conclude that whatever it may seem to be, according to the dictates
of all legalistic theological debate, the celestial body politic, if you will
the thing-in-itself still sustains, essence always preceding existence,
for what is a human soul without its corporeality anyway?
We are all both psyche and soma, and this is the highest dwelling for us,
here on low, being as it is our truest denomination.

So come, & take communion with thyself.

AWOKEN BY SLUMBER (Published in Dream International Quarterly)

Dreamtime is when
the conscience screams
asserts its need & right to be heard-
our dreams, our ally
keeping us straight,
never sparing our Soul their introspective rod,
bringing us up in the admonition of inner Truth & outer Justice.

I rise, kiss & embrace
the newfound consciousness of this day-
Will I stray?
When again, down I lay
Dreamtime will tell,
as I attend the nightly Mass of sweet Somnolence,
confessing it all to the Subliminal Priest,
who keeps vigilant watch
deep down within the Mind's abysmal well,
where the water is so bitter & cold,
Lucidity grips me time & again,
and I always discover the absurdity
inherent within concepts such as unconsciousness-
and find the so-called fully conscious world
to seem evermore surreal & illusory,
for only when we sleep, are we truly fully awake.

LEPT

Hope & Love are symptoms of the same wellness.
Slowly, we remember our deficiency.
It is very soon felt, not so benign, idiopathic.
Slowly, we begin to feel again-hence, to be, & hence, to live.

We all wish a gentle, gradual coaxing to bloom,
like that of a Rose which knows only of its own splendid Design,
and how it is best nurtured within Sunlight.

Yet we, too, no matter how rough-hewn our Journey may be,
are always a part of that Rose,
which has so patiently slept by the nearness of that endless reservoir
of the tears
the fears
& so many years
no longer wept,
for we had always already, learned to accept. 

WALKING DOWN THE DARK, MISTY ALLEY OF APATHY

Death is light on her feet again tonight, and so is God,
as I am irretrievably seduced & lured down the dark, misty alley of Apathy,
which is littered with teeming possibilities for Illusion-fix.

My senses are wonderfully assaulted with the mingling scent-sations
of fresh, crisp bills, patchouli incense, vinyl shower-liners, lilac fields, fringed suede jackets, Snuggle fabric softener ( Original scent), gasoline (courtesy of Xelco), and the light, musky emmolience which earth & air lovingly emanate after a fresh summer rain.

Yet these olfactory titillations, with melancholic bliss will soon altogether elude me,
for soon enough, the only thing left to intuit will be the seething envy of the Devil as his obsession becomes my bribe.

I am a being likened to sentience & skin, but these roots run much deeper than old money or any anti-enviro-bureaucracy.
I am an anachronism-out of my time, going out of my mind-so much for the dwindling of adolescent Rage & Angst, huh?
For if there is one thing I have learned it is the indisputable fact that there is Angst & Rage, at any age.
Ha! I know-such Outrage! you cry! But what else is Rage supposed to be-Inrage?
For here, is where it becomes something totally estranged from its former purity-and even innocence of incarnation.
Yes, here is where Rage Kafka-esquely transmogrifies into slow & measured, but nevertheless insidious self-annihilation.
And worse yet, it is also reduced to a corny spin-off of its former glory-for Rage is & forevermore will be, a Classic, baby.
And Blake was right on the mark when he realized imitation to be not one of the sincerest forms of flattery, but to be an insult.
For it seems to get to the point in this human existence, where even what we think of as "me" begins to feel contrived, as the inevitability of cognitive sophistication goads us ever nearer the rough-shodden tombs of its Indignities.
For we all may indeed be seekers of Truth, but the part of ourselves we seem to lose grasp of first, feeds most nourishingly upon the manna of Oblivion-of which, by a rather tender age, there is, a famine-legitimate lack.

Yes, I know my consciousness of all of this in a very tangible, real sense is that which condemns me to my own slow but sure demise, but as I cry out to the Fate which mocks me with both Despair & Hope, my voice echoesechoesechoes-Yessss! It echoes! Only to find my ears all-too-eagerly upturned to merely loathe & cringe at what I hear.

And so here I have let myself be led down this Alley of Apathy, over which lurks the air-
"To care or not to care?"

Neither is a piteous state nor is it a question, for there is only one thing:
The Answer there, so tightly ensconced within The Choice.
And, my fellow Melancholic friends, that is all that there is.

KING OF THE THINK TANK

Extreme conservative goldfish faking left-
then looping right,
to feed on stale flakes of stodgy logic
as they swim in a breeding tank
of libertarian piranhas,
now eating the goldfish alive-
soon to excrete the constipated matter of them both
in one volcanic dysentery of shallow sophistry,
as the muddied aquariums of public debate
fill to overflowing with polluted politics
and the bloated, rotting remnants
of toxic rhetoric & staid conviction.

The piranhas open up now once more
to consume their own shit,
a last tank effort at survival,
before those red-mutant-far-right-finned sharks,
smelling the foul air & bleeding hearts of them all,
move in for the love of blue blood-
led by the instinct of pure polemic predation-
blind obedience to the thought-for-food chain.

APERTURE

I remember when I would sit down by Lake Erie,
another photo-op for Father,
who hid behind his metal, plastic & glass face
which shot rays of light towards us, trying to capture our truest essences
with its cold, round, 4-dimensional eye,
as it winked mere pseudo-adulation.
I would often wonder aloud what Father was really seeking to capture,
although he only casually replied- "Negatives."
Father rarely let me touch his face,
which he kept locked away within a metal, silver flip-top case,
where he also sometimes stored away his "recreational smoke."

Sometimes Father would suspend his mechanical face
from a sturdily woven Southwestern-motifed strap, to play upon his chest.
And, after while, I could recognize no other face in relation to Father,
and would find my melancholic little self peering longingly into the eye
of this reliably attentive machine whereever it prevailed,
perhaps never quite receiving the mirroring which I truly sought thereupon its other side,
yet with the keen, inherent Intuition of a Child,
would always find Father's third eye quite revealing of him, nevertheless.

BROTHER OF SLEEP

An alarm screams out a warning, but it is too late.
I am reluctantly stolen from my slumber,
Body & Mind heavy-laden already from the insurmountable weight
of wakeful consciousness, as, brooding, groggy & sullen,
I am hurled back unto the barren, unmerciful landscape
of that world which insidiously creeps, & toxically seeps beneath the thickened skin
and its many dark, hidden crevices, an all-too-deluminant light
of encumbrant expediency & sense-ability.

And who is the keeper of this House?
Neither Mother, Father nor Lover nor any of our earth-woed kin,
but the Brother of Sleep, avaricious & ever-omnipresent,
as we weigh the costs of Survival while Life itself extorts without us.

The work gets neglected & we soon come to see,
that there is no tenable way to stop the accounting without expending all
of the red ink to remind us our debits.
Yet the Overseer has still kept us intact, and we are at least reassured
that as long as there is blood running hot & quick beneath the skin,
the books shall remain in balance, & we, fatally noble & upright in our figurings,
until the costs of Survival reach their final recompense,
and the keeper of the House decides that he can live in indigence with us no longer,
sending the Brother of Sleep to keep us-
that mortal friend, enemy & forbidden lover of the Life we had so carelessly spent,
trying to preserve.

PRAYER FOR THE POET

God, do you forgive even the heart of a Poet in all of its eccentricities & excess?
Do you forgive even the mind of a Poet despite all of the endless torment & internal questioning in which they often luxuriate?
Do you forgive them their covetousness of the black of night, preferring as they often do, to roam the bleakest, most desolate landscape of the Peripatetic, as they tending each succint & absolute answer granted by Thee, with yet another slew of questioning?
Do you forgive the Poet their inherently ravenous inquisitiveness, their restless heart, and their endless, ruminant mind?
Are these sins for which they should continually repent, or perhaps virtues in disguise which they should deem just as sacred as Thee & thus honour so?

Yet most of all God, do You forgive the Poet, the Artiste & the natural-born Philosophers their high-mindedness, hyper-sensitivity & self-righteousness?
Do You forgive them their bristle & woe at every low-minded offense to their high-minded Ideals?
Do You, Oh Lord, forgive them their preference for Lamentation & Complexity over that of Sanguinity & Simplicity?
Do You forgive us also, most of all, our transgressions of Apodicticism & Agnostic preference, as we seek to honour Thee more with what we do not know than what we can have faith in?
Do You forgive the The Deep One their complacency in an acute sense of Solipsism & for how they remain ever convicted, often over that of Thine holy Doctrine, that there must for this human condition, never be fully embraced, a cure, transcendence, absolution?
For, Oh Lord, it is in our inconsistency, that we do most humbly bow before Thee.

WHERE IS MY SOUL, WHERE HAS IT GONE? (Originally published in Dream International Quarterly)

Where is my Soul, where has it gone?
Hyper-vigilance daily premeditating its vexatious slaughter of visceral acuity-
Psyche & Soma to soon no longer pulsate to the indefatigable rhythms of Unsubstantiated Fate.
Dreams haunt me with their cruel evasion during my somnolent stupor-
Where is my Soul, where has it gone?

Politics & practical persuasion probe & invade my Mind, abducting Essence-
for I am out-of-their-world, to be studied & examined endlessly as Insurance meets his quota,
the Mother Ship taking me on a round-trip to Mundanity-
of such banal profanity are such fruitless searches-
Where is my Soul, where has it gone?
Or, better still: What is my Soul, and where does it belong?

Internal conceptions collide catastrophically with external projections,
birthing a Big Bang of Perplexity and a black hole with infinite density-the lost light of Reason.
I open my mouth once more to emit the sound frequencies of this mortal human pining:
Where is my Soul, where has it gone?
yet instead what resonates is this: What is Reality?
And I come face to face with the insurmountable gravity of the matter of Metaphysics,
the low ground of common-sense splitting wide open-
I, now falling into a great chasm of rapturous agony, my Soul fleeing me, leaving me behind-
Cruel to be kind?
Now: Who am I?
For although I know by now where my Soul is and where it has gone-
and even what my Soul is and where it belongs, I still cannot help but think to myself
that I was perhaps better off, in question.

THE SPEAR & THE WARHEAD (Penned in my 20's)

     I, with Primal Intuition declare myself definitively sane, in the face of all salacious intensity & licentious delirium which this flesh may visit upon me, discharging my wanton Shadow from its ghost asylum of Doubt, the puritanical tyranny of such lilbidinous restraint & the false pretenses of all forms of austere "nobility". For we are all achingly aware of the true apostasy which we all must commit daily beneath the ecumenical altars of Social Order & Industry. Yet not unlike the true nature which we must shun, nothing truly is just either-or, but is always all of the above and at the same time. It is the Infinite Quantum Void, ever teeming with mere probability, possibility, and until we decide & act, thereby "collapsing the wave function", as quantum physicists call it, all remains in mere ontological suspension.

     Furthermore, one individual's "Civility & Order", is another's utter Savagery & Chaos, just as the depraved Anarchy & portentous Damnation often smugly & sententiously predicted by the former kind, is actually experienced by this latter "other", as their only true Reason & Redemption. It is often touted that resistance of that which is natural is, more often than not, rewarding in its preventive effects. But, we must examine, preventive of what, exactly? All was created to possess a particular perfection of design & nature, and perhaps Essence should always be honoured as preceding Existence, even in the face of those dictates of revision so militantly urged by that of each "thing's" Architect. Now, I  merely refer to those Architects of the earthly & substitutionary kind, and not to The Ultimate Architect. Yet still, so many pay heed only to the stifling dogmas of Doctrine & Denomination, merely seeking to bring about a diffusion of Ipseity & Integrity, thus furthermore reducing the Human Essence to gross & unorthodox uniformity. For to become "One" in a grander sense of communal altruism & goodwill, we must first cultivate a sense of "oneness" & wholeness within each ourselves. For we are only as "divinely human" or "evolved" as we are so thought of by others, but mostly, as we are so sincerely felt to be within ourselves. We become that which we believe that we are, to a large extent. I think, therefore I am, whatever I think that I am.

     Percipience & the monitoring thereof could be the most adept & powerful tool which the human species has always had at our employ. And in a sense, how we think, is a life force in & of itself, as it seems to determine so much. Hence, perhaps the most pertinent question to ask of each ourselves is not the age old: How should I live? but How should I think? The verdict is in. How we think or that which we believe determines in the most tantamount of cases how we will then live & even how we will die. And this then begs the issue that perhaps we should first seek a cultivation or refinement of Mind, in order that we may best cultivate the fruits of The Spirit. And indeed, most major world religions embrace this philosophy of Mind including what ultimately matters, rather than that of the Western model which usually dictates a kind of Mind over all-even & often especially at the expense of what ultimately matters. Most notably of these major world religions, is of course most of those of The East, namely that of Buddhism & Hinduism, which place meditation & contemplation tantamount to the primary means towards achieving true spiritual enlightenment & personal enrichment. As many Eastern mystics have been touted as saying: "Consciousness is the ground of all Being."

      Moreover, within much of the orthodox Judaist tradition, intellectuality as the means towards deeper & higher spiritual understanding is also adhered to as a long-standing tradition. The most commonly alluded to adage embraced by most Judaist scholars is best embodied by the latin: Amor intellectualis Dei. To translate roughly, using a quote by yet another Rabbinic scholar & theologian, "A truly devout man cannot be ignorant." I would translate, using my own words, that this concept means that to love God, is to love the mind of God and to seek to cultivate this same mind within oneself. Also, this concept extends even to Judeo-Christianity, in the doctrine that an individual is saved not by works, but by faith. Or, to use a more politically neutral term, a person is saved through belief, or by their attitudes. For the mind is the genesis of all subsequent action, i.e. : I think & believe & therefore this is how I end up living & being.

     In finale, as has been the custom in much of Western thought, a rigid Cartesian duality is often blindly embraced at the expense of The Ultimates. Rene Descartes, the philosopher & mathematician credited with the doctrine of Mind/Body Duality, to paraphrase, posited that "the mind cannot live without the body, and the body cannot live without a/or the mind." However, some would add to this, that neither the mind nor the body can truly or most fully live or have existence or substance without the inhabitancy of a Soul or a Spirit. This is, however, fodder for an even more extensive essay to be explored at length later.  Yet sometimes it is hard to tell which we should place more emphasis upon. But perhaps if we continue that noblest of human quest's to mold & shape our intellects into that which we envisage our inmost personages to become, then perhaps we will reach our goal nevertheless, despite all human folly & fumblings to get there. If indeed the nouminous substance of Idea molds each Actuality of whatever any individual destiny is to become, then perhaps it begins more in the mind than we can fully imagine. In the end, there is no difference between war with a spear & war with a nuclear warhead. Evil is evil or havoc & destruction are havoc & destruction no matter what clever guises or intelligence of form they manifest themselves with. If any true "civility" is to be breached, it must first be Talmudically-schooled within the sacred inner sactum of every individual's Mind & Spirit, before it can be manifest properly & effectively through each individual's outward actions. Again, everything begins with one seed within the inmost core of the fruit. We all must take heed of which seeds we cultivate & nourish, for not all kinds of fruit both nourish and sustain.

THE WRITING'S ON THE CEILING

Wasteland of bodies strewn & writhing
upon shag-carpeted plains
of shattered & splattered Vice-
beer, sweat, semen, blood & tears, unassuaged fears
misread in the screaming head as blurred words
once so clear, now absurd.

Ashtrays are overrun with lipstick-kissed remnants
of cigarettes & roaches,
butts once aflame with the frenzied zeal
of surrogate Motherhood/Fatherhood,
now burnt clean down to each grubby stub.

The Godfather of Reason stands idly by,
bemusing in all of this-
although his seed is no longer in season,
given way to Malcontent-
his Heaven-sent so Hell-bent on eluding the grasp
as the mundane senses taunt & mock
stopping at the drop of anything, everything & nothing all at once.

Hope lounges lackadaisically upon the divan,
dreaming of a world where everything is as it seems.
A world where everyone's drug of choice is the Rolls Royce
of True Freedom's voice,
which always inquires of each its own:
Why seek to atone merely through more of the same sin Thou hast known?

Intuition hovers above, waxing & waning in ghastly, glassy whisper:
Be ever Maternal to that which lies Internal.
For it is Intuition which sings most clearly in Morse code pitch & meter,
of the body's impending inferno,
and the Mind's perpetual betrayal,
wrought of that harrowing narrowing to get straight,
in the name of the safeguarding of all Pandoraean floodgates.

A hot eclipse of desperation descends like a depraved moon
in slicing, adept, devious crescent,
burning out the eyes of the all-too-eagerly effervescent-
those who mock with subtle yet smug, squinty grin,
others not so akin to more than Despair & Chagrin,
whose hearts are ever on gross display-
ever shifting, disassembling in kaleidoscopic disarray-
the role of Scapegoat they must master to play.

Raw nakedness dances with maladroit front upon the sleeves of these.
And what is the reward for such stoic exposure
to be granted these out-of-their-elements devotees?
Perhaps, they console themselves, it lies within the unacknowledged protection
which such ontological congruency & lucidity of clairvoyance can offer-
Their societally-condemned weaknesses mercifully revealing their greatest strengths.
For those of the "sui generis" breed read the writing on the ceiling
like the thunder reads the storm ever nigh,
with such sure, scientific measures of displeasure-
as yet another kind of that "knowledge best forgotten" stacks up
like fool's treasure.

A young girl slowly stirs herself into noncommittant motion,
rambling about in fumbling, mumbling, quizzical gait towards the bathroom door-
as if this affectation of "holding it all in",
was not twin brother to her sin.
She claps her hand to her head, which glows red, still unfed.
In feigned, strained sing-songy cadence she speaks her thoughts aloud:
"Now what is it I'm looooking foooooooor?"
as if anyone but she has the Answer.
She lights up a Salem menthol, breathing hungrily in again,
this living-life-for-death-supporting poison with the classic Cheshire grin,
of one who only knows how to lose to win.

The young girl now throws herself with willful abandon
into the ever-open yet rigid arms of the Arabesque chair,
peering out over the others now who lie so toilsomely inert,
as they are heavy with the blasphemous irreverence of such casual prayer-
spawned by a Despair which has also grown lukewarm-
another misplacement of care.

The young girl now sighs a sigh of labored indifference.
convincing herself that she is "out of her element"-
even here, where it is most assured that noone cares whom or what
one is trying to be or not to be.
She rises up from her abstract yet very well-delineated position in space-time,
a raging tiger in her own Rorshach blot,
leaving the others to find their own way back to the sanctified insanity
of the so-called "real world",
as one by one, they will lose Truth again within the dazzling psychonography
of star-spangled banners yet waving against the grimly prim backdrop
of ostentatiously understated suburban landscapes.

She walks on, the flags lining this particular North American street
unfurling & contracting like the eloquent yet livid tongue of God,
as the Sons & Daughters of the so-called "bourgeoisie"
go on regaling their tall tales of worldy conquest,
always seeming to fall so short of the mark of their proclaimed Cause.
For this is that green-backed kind of venom for the masses,
so bumptiously hissed in keeping with the lower art of Projection-
so seemingly well-conditioned within most of their "high-class",
as they come to hate themselves for sins which never were sins to begin with-
namely, the natural need & birthright for & of freedom from such subversive conformity-
which is then projected onto those which they see not so finely-dressed-
nor as nearly stressed, repressed & underly confessed.
Yet these mocked & sneered at by most of society,
are most secretly envied & idolized for their redeeming insight
into how to really bleed, gathering at the feet of the Ultimate
like the soporific, intoxicating sweetness of agape Love given & returned
with unsurpassed, unfettered Joy.

For this destitute life has bestowed upon those of this so-called "lower" class,
an endless wealth of that true, deep & abiding enrichment
which is wrought only by what can be gotten out of that which has been denied.
The writing may be "on the ceiling" & not "on the chalkboard" for some,
but how it has schooled so many so well, nevertheless,
in the priceless wisdom that it is always better to be declared eternally indigent
for voluntary Truth, than to become filthy rich from the pandering & pushing of Lies.

And we all would be wise to judge not so hastily or haughtily-
take a deep look around you:

Heroes come in many 'a guise.

THE LOST BOYS (Penned in 20's)

Asleep in clouds of smoke
& mellifluous jazz,
the sweet vices that bind all
in free-spirited Unity,
and that frenzied zeal
which could be borne only from the fecund Womb
of Melancholia & Regret,
thundering from the saxophones
and the mouths of Poets,
swimming their way back to sanctified Insanity,
seeking prodigal return to the earthen churches
of sanctified Insanity,
as they gather upon these shores night after night,
like the zealous disciples of the last saving Religion.

Their heads hang and sway like sinking suns,
and their faces glow like many majestic moons-
soon to eclipse each wayward son,
as they spew forth their own redemption,
broken but sharp attempts at some kind of re-deification
through street talk and rough ostentation.

Bound together by the gravitas
of ordained and prolonged Grief, they sing,
to fool themselves that their kind could also be saved
through the feigning of those lies which spare some from Truth-
but Truths which they know all too well and nobly accept-
And this is where the losers dwell?

For they are found in this so-called "lost" world,
vice guys finishing first,
by way of nothing more than an infinite thirst
to just stay "good and high",
'til the end draws nigh,
recognizing their truest reflection only within
the glistening, winking spirits which haunt their glasses,
as their gazes lingering longingly into them-
these, corners they can navigate, circles they can join-
without compromise.

PSALMS FROM HELL (In the works...)

Store up your treasure here in Hell
where neither moth nor rust can destroy,
for the Soul has grown comfortably numb
and the Mind lethargic & dumb
from the copious anasthetic of Nihilistic Indulgence.

Blessed is the man here in Hell
who walks in the counsel of the Disconsolate,
where the fires burn only so hot and for so long
before the flesh learns to admit defeat.

Cursed is the man here in Hell
who continues to seek The Light,
shunning the dark Eternity which he has inherited,
as Hope, once his greatest comfort & salvation,
now, his intractable torment & damnation.

The fool sayeth in his heart here in Hell:
There is a God, benevolent, absolving, full of grace
and sufficient for Thee.

Weeping endures for the night here in Hell,
and woeful gnashing of the teeth for all Eternity,
where all dwellers receive plentiful malnourishment
from the choicest morsels of alibis faithfully inflicting,
the lifeblood of God running viscous & cold beneath the skin,
as the shivering upset of the animus finds consolation only
within the promise of infernal Eternality.

Who may gaze upon the Dark Master's presence here in Hell?
Who may stand in his unholy place?
He who has unnclean hands and an impure heart,
who lifted up his Soul while on earth to idols
of mere stone, metal, parchment and bone,
and swore only by that which is false, facile and empty.

The Lord is not the Light or the Salvation of dwellers here in Hell,
yet these no longer need concern themselves with whom they should fear,
for Terror is all that reigns, is all that these have inherited,
for the Lord offered Himself, a stronghold of their earthly life,
yet they abdicated, allowing evil men to advance against them
and to seduce, ply and devour their own flesh
at the eventual exploitative causatum of the Innocent & Righteous.

Unblessed are those here in Hell
whose trangressions are not forgiven, whose sins, not covered
and in whose spirits lies Deceit,
for when they did not keep silent & still to the call of Evil,
their bones quickly wasted away & their spirits groaned all day long,
for day & night the Lord's hand was heavy upon them,
but their strength was sapped as in the heat of summer,
as they could find no absolution in the obstinancy of their self-deception.

The eyes of the blessed Lord no longer gaze upon those here in Hell
& His ears turn no longer attentively to their cry,
for the face of the Lord is against those who did Evil,
He hath cut the memory of them off from the earth,
for although the unrighteous still cry out, He does not hear them,
no longer offers them deliverance from their troubles,
for Evil hath slain the wicked,
& the foes of the Righteous are forevermore slain.

Still in the works...more to come...

BETWEEN THE PRIMORDIAL AND THE NEOTERIC

                                    





 Wildness is not an inciting or an invocation of applied will or force. It is a giving in, a surrender to. For we are, wild by nature. And an embrace of primitivity, contrary to common wisdom, is not what turns us into savages. What transforms us into savages is a denial of our raw, pure naturality. We so smugly assume the methodologies of communal refinement and cosmopolitan acculturation to be the sole genesis of humankind's sense of morality, but in this case, the cure is indeed, the cancer. For, delightfully contrary to what the majority otherwise believes and socially engineers its inhabitants to become, the neglect of the primeval self through such spurious and overzealous attempts at fanatical homogenization is perhaps at the root of every single societal ill. Yet we still project all of our failings upon some inferior, "pre-historic" entity, causing only more estrangement from ourselves as a species, thus allowing evil to further root itself in every de-humanist endeavor.

     We can transcend our destructive nature only insofar as we can fully integrate and own it as merely a natural and otherwise in its inert form, benign aspect of our human condition and experience. Furthermore, over the years, countless scientists from all disciplines have attempted to elucidate upon this very truth. Yet we, as a species, still believe that we cannot maintain our so-called dominion, efficiency and sufficieny over the earth and all upon it and within it, while also kneeling before the shrine of our primodial leanings. And it is not so much a case whereby one must serve two masters, but it is a case whereby one must learn to appease both.

     All of existence, mundane and transcendental, teems with enough esteem to be gleaned by all willing to pay proper homage and reverence to their own humanity and to the humanity of others. For the glaring, superficial lights beneath which modern man gleans his esteem are not only harsh and deceptive, but are very unflattering to his image as a whole. Yet perhaps this is why we, as a species, continue to remain prodigally adrift from out true imago and home. For it is at least assured that while man basks in the sickly pallor of this spotlight, he still has an easily accessible mirror that is more than willing to reflect back to him only that which he wishes to see. For in this light, he can sneer with smug, pitying contempt upon his so-called "inferior" former incarnation, and congratulate his more "evolved" self with impugnity.

     Yet, when this light turns away from him, another light altogether may now reveal him in his true form. And only then, can he fully step into the light, unabashed in his totality of Being. And he soon slowly realizes that the self which he had been attempting to murder through fragmentation all of these years, merely lent more lucidity to his third eye, and is the one Journey which has enabled him to find Wholeness again. For this self was not the self he needed take heed of or feel ashamed of. No, the self which he has been truly fighting to preserve is the one that dreams, the one that feels deeply and sentiently, the one that thinks boldly. So, you want to evolve? Then, continue being that which you already are.

LAMENTATION

Depth is the soul
trembling are the loins
blood fills the glass bowl
disassembling where the mind conjoins.

Flighty is the Spirit
futile the Heart's retreat
for in the disquietude of felicity we fear it
will drown out Melancholia's constant beat.

Finity is our quest
conceit is our bane
so we battle for humility lest
we come to know insane.

Fear is our loathing
faith is our lack
so we grievously sieze no thing
as we covet that night of black.

Bitterness we taste upon our mortal tongue
as we see others' faces cringe
our song of love yet still unsung
an inner Hell and corrosive singe.

Meager is the cost
mediocrity, the petty profit
what Passion born at rebirth is lost
the still womb of Apathy to scoff it.

Unity is the Cause
yet Alienation, the effect
upon the edges we pregnantly pause
the fragility of Courage we accept to reject.

Serpentine is the Mind's curve
vicious is the Vein
judicious is the gavel of the Nerve
ever pernicious, the bane.

Symphonic is the Longing's song
genius prone the 'Have Nots' phrasing
erratic pulsates the Heart's Hand's grasp so strong
yet all-too subtle is Nature's phasing.

Chilling is the fever
brittle is the bone
arthritic is the Weaver
as the noose is sown.

Vacuous is the Void
raging, the inner scream
elusive is the inscience of the Embryoid
faithfully evasive, the Cathartic Dream.

PATENT (Penned in 20's)

Well, hello there, feel free, come on in!
God's upstairs making popcorn-
The Devil's in the basement makin' gin,
And although this testament hasn't yet been sworn-
The kernels, by Jove! are being born again!
But watch your step 'cause the National Atheists With Rifles Association is strewn about here too,
Snap! Crackle! Bop! Bang! Boom!
A new seasoning for popcorn-
I'm gonna be rich-who knew!

ANTITHESIS CRUCIFIX: JOURNAL OF AN AMERICAN MELANCHOLIC (Penned in my 20's)

     My dreams are steeped in prophetic doom. I rise from them, doused in pensive lucidity, to beach the ghost shores of shame and nameless indignation, having long ago learned to fear the inevitability of others' wrathful reciprocity. I must change or perish. My armour has become too conspicuous, too heavy to bear. We are the slow death of ourselves, forgetting all too easily and eagerly how to garner our Courage instead from the tender, reverent hands of Virtue and our true Valiance from Heart-Tenderness. Have I the strength to be kind in a world so quick to turn vicious and cruel at the slightest gesture of self-defense? For when everyone bears Sword & Shield, the defiant act of self-preservation becomes a death-wish, the Stoicism of only Cowards & Fools. It seems no longer to be, that the only way to truly survive is by turning the other cheek.

     What have I become? Where has my faith in the saving graces of Discretion & Humility gone? To forget the self used to be the basic tenet of saving the self, yet now seems the stuff of Delusion & Tomfoolery, creating within the human will, an even more toxic core than ever before. In the Herculean grip of Loss, Alienation, Disillusionment & Loneliness have I still the will to kill this sickly beast? Have I still the strength to stand apart, with purity of heart? Just how far have I slipped? Have I slipped enough that this devil-mind could never again bid adieu to irreconcilable Rage & Disgust, however righteously spawned they might be? Will I settle for the cathartic yet disastrous camaraderie of Fear & Loathing, only to return, a prodigal orphan to the Hell I have bore, into the arms of my true blood-father, Lucifer. Or shall I return to the merciful arms of my soul-father, God and give into sweet simplicity, to be loved merely as I am in His eyes, a humble newborn babe?

     I must die to all of this. Oh, Heavenly Father, if You can bear any more kin, I wish, to be born again.



                                                                        *



     I feel Time, even at this tender age of youth to be on my side yet a thorn in my side. I feel each minute as if it were an hour, each second, an eternity. And as I recount all of the years I have thus lived and reach a mere sum of 21, I feel within my soul, a cry of deep Despair. I feel I have already lived far too long, and have come to know both too much and too little. When will I be granted relief? Father Time, as far as I'm concerned does not know best and has grown quite exploitive and abusive to this Temporal Child, shattering his hourglass against my world weary cheek letting it be known just who's in charge and just how quickly Time might be running out. He then positions a scythe down low to let me know just how many more fields of time-grain I have through which to sift before I am released unto a much more tolerable Guardian & Eternity. I realize that I have a limited time here upon these earthly plains, yet my threshold of bearing this agony seems almost breached. For I gain and yet all at once, lose all concept of Time when I remain stuck and sinking fast, within the muck and mire of the Past.

STILLBORN TO LIFE: a Novel by Valerie Stephens (Prologue)

     The infant's cries rang silent throughout the dark, misty alleyway. The woman lay huddled, quivering and broken as her contractions slowly increased in duration and intensity. Her cries for help echoed with more morbid reverberation than the infant's non-responsive birthing as the blood on her hands glowed with the red siren pallor of a death, still undeclared. The woman, fumbling, took the infant by the heels, vigorously smacking its backside with the force of a mother's instinct-but still, no sound.

     She cradled the babe in her trembling arms, praying but if even for a faint wisp of breath to be suspired onto her mascara-streaked and rouge-mussed face. As she attempted for a second time to grant animation to this ill-fated child, a voice, disembodied and strangely androgynous rumbled and sizzled through the alleyway like hot, molten lava: "Is anybody alive in here?" it inquired, just as quickly retreating. And it was only then that the stillborn child stirred, still for the time being mute, but forevermore crowned very much bright and alive. Yet despite the answer to her heavenly supplication having been made manifest through the child's fruition of bearing, would both Mother and Child would henceforth be left, in question.


www.open.salon.com/blog/sphinx365 for complete novel...

METAPHYSIC IV

I could get lost in a eagle's eye,
for the reflection of his mastery and divinity
lulls me into a blissful slumber
of selflessness.

He seduces me with his majestic wiles
and the image
of beauty, grace and superiority
henceforth eludes any congruency with my being
and I weep for the promises I have spoken, then broken,
for the eagle always feeds their young,
always finds a home.

And so have I, within the eagle's eye,
as it now soars down
to the jagged ranges,
carrying aloft,
a lone tear.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

We all long to get lost within sanctified Madness,
loosening our Mind's tenacious grip upon the world.
For it is only through what the world deems 'insanity' that we are truly free.
Our senses are weary from the constant barrage of the profane from day to day.
We see everything yet feel nothing.
We taste everything, yet the Soul's tongue has grown coarse and numb.
We hear everything, yet do not get its meaning.
We smell everything yet still remain insensate to all but the malodorous.
We feel the sun upon our flesh and the wind, gently caressing our skin, yet remain emptied of all Sentience.
Where is our Soul, where has it gone?
The pain is so constant that it has become all-too-familiar.
Yet we are no more stirred by it than by anything else.
We no longer glimpse of God's face.
We are no longer imbued with His spirit.
We have grown lukewarm and He has spat us out of His mouth.
We long to feel the fiery tongue of the Holy Spirit-and this alone, is our only redemption.
For we belong to Him and will never grow cold beyond thawing, hardened beyond malleabiliy.
Somewhere along the way, we lose sight of ourselves as He has fashioned us.
And it all begins when we turn our backs upon the worlds which we have created for ourselves-
the worlds which seek to preserve us from the snares of The Devil.
For the world outside of God's love and grace have nothing to offer of true sustenance or lasting value.
Yet that private inner sanctuary within every human soul fighting The Good Fight is special.
Yes, it must remain undesecrated, for it is the Kingdom of Heaven within us.
Yet until we regain our sight and our agility to surrender & blind Faith, we will dwell only in this Hell.
Perhaps we often just fall asleep and forget how to awaken.
We are still asleep and dreaming upon the crude laps of Indigence & Insolence.
And our Treasures, once abundantly and generously shared with all,
must strive only to stay hidden away for safekeeping.
Yet we know we must give anyway-this is why we suffer as we do.
We can bear the weight of our own private worlds, but of the other world?
We must weigh the costs and decide which world to commit to.
Until we commit, our infidelity will run amok and we will bear the consequences of our sins of omission.
We are wedded to God's world, yet will always lust in our hearts after the other.
So, shall we just give in and consummate this lust for the other world?
In this matter, must one serve both masters?

THE ELEGY HAS BEEN SUNG

How does one fight an enemy that is oneself,
without incurring any casualties?
But perhaps all things must die in that they may live.
For truly, there is no creation,
only annihilation assuming many forms-
Life is Death as Death is Rebirth,
a continual requiem.

The elegy has been sung,
we merely lie await within the desanctified Tomb
of this earthen expanse.

What will we call The Awakening?
Or will we never know, that we have been sleeping?

WINGS OF DESIRE

They say that angels gather on the shores at sunrise,
and that they hear music we cannot,
and that they dress in flowing robes of black or white,
and that only they know distinctly what's "wrong" and what's "right."

They say that the only thing angels cannot understand
is how mortalkind often seeks as much solace in hate as in love.
They say that angels can walk the earth but seldom "feel" it
beneath their feet, cool, firm and inviting,
feeling instead the "gravitas" of the world within their hearts.

They say that when angels are near, we rarely know it.

It has also been said that there are, as we speak,
angels among us secretly wishing they were us.

THE FRUIT OF THY TOMB (Originally published in Dream International Quarterly)

An overripe fruit falls to the ground
as rusted pages of coffee-stained Sanskrit
loosened from a fig tree,
whirl wild, reckless, shimmying and free
up to the blackening skies
after knocking the fallen fruit into a barren cave
a snake pit
that long ago served as a tomb
where only the living dwelt,
waiting to give death to birth.

A black crow nearby with a broken wing
descends upon the tiny, broken carcass
of a decomposing dove
as lightning flashes above,
frightening the crow away
where it seeks shelter beneath a weather-beaten bench
that was crafted by the callused hands
of a bearded man
with the flogged flesh of an ancient tree which stood,
bleeding sap near a plantation
many storms ago.

Another rancid fruit falls to the ground
as a peal of thunder shakes the earth
and the dove, unravaged by the crow
suddenly trembles and composes back to its former state
of animation
while a rattlesnake winds its scaly body against a mossy rock
outside of the barren cave,
shedding its skin in one shiver.

Suddenly, the rusted pages of the coffee-stained Sanskrit
emerge from the pit in the beak of the dove
as the snake, now strangulating the branch of the fig tree
hisses and strikes at the wind
which has taken the form of a woman,
welded into the air by the smoking ashes of now incinerated pages,
feathers of a crow, and resurrected seeds
swirling up now to the haloed sky, wild, joyous, shimmying and free.

The cores of the barren fruits hurl themselves
into the dark, moist womb of the tomb,
which still serves as a sanctuary where withering serpents gestate and dwell,
waiting to give birth to death.

THE LAWS OF INTEGRATION

To never allow life to dissect you is to risk never being put together just right. Integration thrives upon fleeting yet profound moments of disintegration. For what desires Unity must first allow fragmentation to assert its form and force so that Psyche, the Master Sculptor, may bring to fruition the realization of the Self it seeks to substantiate, the personage it envisages within the realm of Divine Projections.

TEMPUS ET AESTU (TIME & TIDE)

     Time weighs so heavily upon the mortal soul, cannot be transcended. But this is just it! It need not be transcended, just dwelt fully within. And God said "Just know that I AM." For this is the immutable, omnipresent essence infusing all life with hylozoic, quantum consciousness. Consciousness is not only the ground of all being, but is being, is life itself, and is even perhaps the light of the "dark matter" which lies microcosmically at the Source of All That Is. I am alive. I am conscious that I am thinking, feeling, experiencing right now. Cogito ergo sum, indeed. The problem with our current cultural and societal paradigm and milieu is not with thinking but with a fluidity & integration of both thinking and feeling. In other words, the problem with most of this human existence is with not only with becoming, but most significantly with just being. We so easily end up becoming humans doing rather than humans being.

     In continuum, although the embrace of our freedom does create angst in the face of the weighty responsibility that it entails, it is also at the very soul of our greatest triumphs and ecstasies. And in the end, it is the key to our Ultimate Transcendence. Yet we ask: Can this state of consciousness be maintained whilst the task of survival remains ever so achingly imminent? But what we so often miss out on is that here is where the synthesis of "Survival vs. Thrivance" comes to its most beneficent fruition within the soul of every human entity. For we all must continually weigh the costs of this life of paradox, much like that ancient, mythical Sumerian jackal-headed imago called Anubis was assigned the task of determining every individual's eternal fate by the weighing of each human heart. Yet, the moral of this myth was that it was only those souls that weighed in the lightest-not the heaviest-that were granted entrance into heavenly realms. Yet in all truth, while we are in these current human incarnations, we will be required to keep weighing in, and very heavily indeed.

     Moreover, most of what our current cultural milieu teaches us is quite toxic to the human spirit and mind. The truth underlying all things, natural and supra-natural is that we, as all else, are always evolving whether we blind ourselves to it or not, whether we resist it or not. And personally, I find this underlying reverse of so-called entropy to be quite comforting. Yet I do not think that we blind ourselves to this assurance of orderly perfection inherent within the design of all things out fear of the evolving but oftentimes in fear of the dissolving.  To clarify, all change of any kind is experienced by us as a loss-and indeed, perhaps change is loss. And we must then be faced with the Dantean task of grieving these losses and releasing them. But we must accomplish this for ourselves if we are to be brought to a gradual spiritual fruition and maturation, as this aspect of our experience is as much a part of our existential purpose-if it is not even more so. And, to coin a phrase, this can be called our metaphysical biology, if you will.

     In addition, even Darwin himself was very sentiently aware of the great numinosity and mystery behind all of nature's design, although he is often presumed, as many scientific-minded are, as being either a-spiritual or even anti-spiritual. Yet we all intuit that all just is as it was created to unfold and express itself. And indeed, as many ponder, perhaps Heaven and Hell are states of being, or consciousness, and evil is merely that force which seeks to blind us to this Truth and to convince us to resist our truest essence, which is wholeness, goodness, freedom of being-ness and love. Integration is key. We desperately cling to empty idols & fruitlessly search for a Saviour, completely forgetting that we are already saved. We are, in this very moment, free and loved by a Source unconditional and indestructible. And even though taking this all into ourselves feels overwhelming at times and we constrict to it, even then we remain whole and completely loved. In the beginning, God saw His creation and saw that it was good. And, so it was after and still continues to be. The rest is left up to us, inasfar as we are the co-creators of consciousness and thus, of many worlds. For although the power which works in us through God, if we are choosing to live in truth and love, is far more dynamic and vast than our finite human intellects can fathom, this is the very function and definition of "faith."

     In closing, we must let go, to hold on, surrendering ourselves, no matter how frightening, to a source more powerful than ourselves. We need containment. We need protection from our destructive potential as human beings. But our God is a God who does not see our worth as being strictly contingent upon either our "saintly" virtue or our turpitude. He is eternal, constant, ever faithful and ever eminent. For He, the One we cannot even fully fathom, cannot be anything else. It is we who are limited. Yet whatever we believe our higher power to be, belief is at the macrocosmic and microcosmic core of all things brought into being. Mind-stuff over matter. Mind-stuff as matter. We are not there yet, but we are, as a species gradually unfolding in our evolution and beginning how to see and how to think and how to live. Yet, at the same time, we just are and God's unconditional grace is sufficent for us. For there really is no such thing as "self-improvement", merely "self-actualization" or realization. This human experience is, in and of itself, a process of unfolding. Sometimes a blooming thing is hesitant in reaching towards full sustenance and light, yet when it finally allows for its truest nature to take course, is brought to fruition beyond anything it could ever dream.

PHILOSOPHICAL PARTHENOGENESIS (Penned in early 20's)

Personality is the offspring the parthenogenesis of the soul. Parthenogenesis is the production of offspring from unfertilized eggs. Hence, when the human Soul is unfertilized or barren, meaning that it is unfulfilled or longing, individuated personality becomes a product of that soul separation from the Whole. For we oftentimes feel the need to fill the void of our lack of deeper, truer connection with other human souls as coming from the source of one universally experienced spiritual being. Therefore, a sort of philosophical/existential parthenogenesis occurs, and thus is born, from this barren egg, The Separate Self, the miracle progeny of the Disunified Essence.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

Hoc est enim corpus meum.
I take of it and eat, every day.
It giveth me sustenance yet taketh away.
It granteth me Life yet plaques me with Death.
It is distinctly reflective of an individual entity,
yet also masks the true, unified Essence lying beneath it.

And so we all live our lives in subversive defiance
of the things which try to deny us what we know to be true
vs. that which we must believe to be true.
For who is to know of Transcendence,
as the very pursuit of it further entrenches and tethers us
with even more inertial forces than ever before
once we make the choice to alight from the infirm ground
of Mediocrity and Apathy.
Yet still, we must work for it, nonetheless.

But perhaps we are just miseducated.
Perhaps we have for too long been conditioned to see it all wrong.
Perhaps we should be seeking Transcendence within the gradual ascension itself
and not in some envisaged place of lofty finality and rest.
Transcendence has been and is being obtained within every precious moment
we find ourselves either bound or freed in on this earth,
in these human incarnations.
It just all takes place within the human Soul, a subtly forging phenomenon.
Ding-an-sich, the thing-in-itself as synonymous with noumenon.

Yes, Transcendence is being achieved every day.
Life is Beauty, take of it and eat and Beauty ye will be.
For Life is whatever we mean it to become.
It is all complete, all whole and yet still, amenable to our will.
This is the Body of our Salvation or our Damnation:
Life and Conscious Choice.
Take of them and eat yet be ever so selective and discreet,
and ye shall find nourishment and sustenance beyond all fleshly yearning and necessity.

BY ANY OTHER NAME (Penned in 20's)

He had to fall
to see the fallen.
His senses reeled,
and wind whipped and rain ripped
through an infinite field
where the fruits of man's labour and toil
hung high,
high low,
some yes,
some no-
yet all-neither friend nor foe.

He sensed the earth subtly twitch and turn
beneath his feet,
and for once wondered where
Heaven and Hell would meet
upon the dawning of the realization
that the Answer bore more weight than the question.
And he wondered how such gravitas had ever
been transcended by mortalkind
to alight upon any solution
by all who had held on and by those who still remained.

A celestial entity
in mortal's clothing
having a name-Cassiel-
by which to be called,
the only thing linking him to it all-
yet, the only thing in the way,
the missing link.

THE HONORABLE FAITH PRESIDING (Penned in my early twenties)

Shall Eternity be thicker than Time-
Why must we feel so betrayed?
Day by day the not quite moot,
Maternity/Paternity suit-
The Plaintiff-the materially evidenced abundantly presented-
The Defendant-the circumstantial theoreticals underrepresented.

Yet now the dire disunity of The Jury-
Faced with a higher impugnity-
The Verdict is in-no need for further fury-
The case is dismissed,
Gavel and wood colliding,
At the hand of the honorable Faith presiding.

A RIDDLE FOR THE SOUL

This is a riddle:
At first I scream.
Then I am reduced to a whisper.
Soon I bear but the faint echo of that whisper.
Furthermore, as you do not heed my call, I am reduced to the faintest echo of the faintest echo of a whisper, wrapping you in a warm, luxurious, satin sanguinity.

What am I in my three phases?
1.The conscience amour-propre.
2.The concscience vagabond.
3.The conscience lost...

TACHYON DREAM: ODE TO ALBERT (Penned in late twenties)

Stars appear to continue to burn brightly long after they have given of their last supernovae gasps.
Yet soon, even their light will leave our eyes,
to be replaced by new uncertain certainties,
as we try our damndest to reach superluminosity so that we might someday
catch up with it all.
Yet we will merely continue to fall pitifully by the wayside every time,
mere remnants of more lost momentum born from that search for the illusory Then, and When-
whose real name is "Never" for there is only "Now."
Now. The sweet loaf of Life to be spit from the lukewarm mouths of babes,
leaving only bitter crumbs of status quo dough to collapse into themselves
in seemingly infinite singularity and implosive concentricity,
until yet another hungry hand plunges into the teeming Void with such psuedo-scientific dexterity.

Yet now the Void is merely left rippling,
having been incited of that trusty old phenomenon of interference,
where the answers all lie hidden in proofs-universal & solipsistic.
So, we leave it all neglectfully propagating in isolation-
isolating with propagation-
to the quantum selection of where one is standing,
and how fast one is going,
and in what direction,
and why...ad infinitum...ad nauseum.

Perhaps only in our physical deaths will we feel the sweet, synchronous embrace of Time & Being.
Perhaps only then will we know the secret dance of each and every particle,
macrocosmic, microcosmic and beyond...
Death-this seemingly detrimental determination which we regard with so much Fear & Trembling-
there is only Freedom and true Life in it.

For now:
"These are my molecules, take of them and do whatever it is You do,
Oh Great Creator of Cosmos & Consciousness.
I donate body, mind and spirit to Science.
The Science of the search for the proof that can be seen only after it is no longer needed.
And then, the Light shall be unceasing."

DREAMCULT: ODE TO THE WORLD (Penned in my twenties)

Doubt is your religion.
Faith is merely your alibi.
You removed my heart to see if I had a soul.
You removed my larynx to see if I had a voice.
You tormented my mind to see if I could clearly perceive.
You burned and tweaked my flesh to see if I had a response to touch.
You severed my feet to see if I could fly.
You severed my hands to see just how much I had to give.
You removed my reproductive organs to see if I indeed had the powers of creation.
You plucked out mine eyes to see if I would recognize Truth.
You pulled all of my teeth to acquaint yourself with my bite.
You pulled each nail, one by one, to see if I could still hang on.
You stole my beauty to see just how much allure I really had.
You broke my bones to see if I did have it all together.
You drew my blood to see just what life force really animated me.
You ripped out my intestines to see if I had any true guts.
You removed my liver to expose me to your toxins.
You clipped my urinal tract and my bowels just to see how well I could hold it all in.
You severed all of my muscles to really test my coordination.
You removed both of my kidneys to test my endurance.
You severed my spinal cord to really get me movin'.
You beheaded me to see just how much I could really "lose my head."
And after all of this, you still knew not Whose breath truly sustains me.
Amen.

PAINT ROOFS BLACK, LET MOON SHINE (Penned in my twenties)

Perhaps if it is dark enough,
they won't see us here.

And how I long to tell them that we will all face the inevitable wrath
of our collective and individual sins,
without all of this hiding.

We used to have the company of our shadows
which lept and danced about the house
waltzing in perfect time to the symphonic cacophany
of our Fear.

Yet when at last we were forced to look-
the Cause of all of these epic struggles-
our shadows hung so pallid and so low.

For truly all wars are incited first from within
the compounds of every mortal human Soul-
from implosion to explosion,
a continually perverse reverse nuclear chain reaction
of Shame & Blame.

Yet silence and inertia only worsen the creeping agony
which clenches us further-
deeper into the Darkness,
which keeps us so, dead alive.

And oh, yes, how we are so conspicuously hidden-
but hidden from whom and from what?

And at last when our bodies are strong
and our minds and spirits no longer broken
and beyond waging, can we busy ourselves
with the incongruent, coarse and tedious tasks
of Mourning & Conciliation,
leaving us in the end with only the thought:
if only as many lives got to be fully lived as deaths died
in the name of "preservation"-
preservation of self,
preservation of country,
preservation of liberty,
preservation of family, honour, dignity...
then perhaps we would all finally come to know and grasp
the higher logic and purpose of all things-
the living to die, instead of all this
dying to live.

QUANTUM IV

Father forgive us, for we haven't yet recovered from the last fall.
There is a point where Hope & Exhultation
converge to a cruelly fixed and sharp point-
only to find their meeting place upon
the gothic architecture of all existential Despair, Ambivalence & Anguish.

And then Evil entered into the world,
and Good became something to kill for-
the hands of neither Warrior nor Martyr coming clean.

Father, forgive us, for we haven't yet recovered from that fall.
We confesseth ye with our mouth and Yea! We are saved!
But must we endure every moment as though we were damned?

We wish to no longer bear the weight of this faltering-
the shock of this trembling.

Nihilo sanctum estne?
Where is our Soul?
Where has it gone?

We are open vessels.
We only pray that the wrong spirit does not enter into us.
Fighting it has come to naught.

Must we lie with the Devil to bear the seeds of our own redemption?
Which came into being first-Heaven or Hell?
Or is there only The Void,
still teeming with infinite possibilities?

REVELATION I (Penned in early 20's)

Swaggering before the shrine,
Of the mortal subjective mind,
The gods come to know remorse,
For if only these humans would have been fashioned with no sight of mind,
Perhaps would they then,
Just begin trusting in,
The obsolescence of Sin,
Take gayly for granted, proof of The Divine.

THE LUCIDITY OF THE SOUL'S EYE

Just for once to throw caution to the wind,
to let the heart beat at its own true pace-
rumbling, thundering and allegro.

Just for once to cut myself open at the core,
letting the blood run out to every sea
and the Mind beyond all so-called reasonable bounds,
tamed not even by the snares I know to be lying in ravenous wait
within Fear's vast wilderness,
which clings with gripping, merciless tenacity
to the Achilles' heel of the Spirit.

If only Virtue and Joy could reign equally commensurate
to Fear and Despair, then perhaps would the human heart know
how to stay upon its truest path,
and the mortal human Soul could finally meet its noblest task and Cause,
that intangible, elusive thing that keeps it tied and bound to the earth,
while also taunting with promises of Transcendence.

Yet, this is just it-the secret:
Transcendence can only be attained in being, right here, right now.

THE DEVOLUTION (Penned in early 20's)

I walk with the manic pace of modernization,
footsteps thumping the cool Earth
in time to the flickering, hurried heat of the hell-bent Heart.
A crowd of festivity seekers weaves this way and that,
a mercurial mass of "I"-onized energy,
all becoming one amalgam of Form and Matter
not yet made realized by the Master Sculptor's hand,
as they wrestle with the Ultimate Question:
"Oh, how to live as one and One?"

Doomsday sayers exalt themselves upon rusted trashcan barrels,
providing ample opportunity for strict Unity,
as they hand out Salvation & Damnation in one heaping helping,
letting all whom, excluding themselves have sinned,
cast away their own stones of fire and brim.

The streets become a fatal sea of discarded Bible tracts,
blotted with tiny smudges of blood-
the papercuts of overcoercion to rebellion-
"Here is my blood, take of it and lick,"
the formulaic laws of Mortalkind's encumbrace,
a cup ever runneth over.

A young mother strains to the cumbersome gravity of Son & Self,
as she tries to defy her own Youth,
twisting and fidgeting in her own skin to pick up her boy who,
sensing Mother's anxiety through the telepathic tendencies of Mother & Child,
now reaches out a tiny hand, which is creased and lined already
with such Willful Dependence,
to seek out her warm, nourishing breast,
latching onto the cycle of redundant Instinct in a world
pulsating and aching from the perversions of Infancy-
the all-too-early sodomization of those things better left unknown,
morphed into Death's heyday at the first wailing breath.

I am still and silent as I ponder those who ravage themselves
with the ill-paradox of over-population, trial & tribulation,
as they bring life after death after life after death
into this new-old world only to find themselves submitting-
only to find themselves becoming the Scapegoats of all Dire Digression,
as their children grow up/down/every which way that is loose-
and they look on in abject terror,
as all the while, Fate stands by with a shit-eating grin.