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.