Ever at Rest

_ Did you realize that there are people among us who are looking for the one grain of sand upon which this, and all worlds, are built?

_ No,I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t in my stack of ‘things to realize’. 

_ They exist, right here in our midst.

_ For a while, I suppose.

_ Finer and finer particles of sand...

_ Perhaps it all came from a breadcrumb.

_ Impossible. There’s more than one crumb in a breadcrumb.

_ There’s more than one grain of sand in a grain of sand.

_ The ultimate cause...

_ I guess that would make us the ultimate effect.

_ Cynic.

_ Perhaps, but whatever ‘they’ find will end up on the scrap-heap of time. Start with a mountain and end up with a mountain.

_ The elusive mountain contained within a sandbox.

_ Illusive. Chai?

_ With an extra mug of steam.

                                      <><><>

     ... Look around, see yourself.

     ... Mountains... hobos moving through time. Give freely.


photo credit

'Em

_ It'd'em.
_ Say what?
_ It had them.
_ That's close to 'what'.
_ He'd'em.
_ The king.
_ That's why he's king.
_ No argument here. Chai?
_ Absolutely, old bean.

                                                                           <><><>

     ... James Joyce and George Harrison swinging from my ears. The bell rings long after the mallet has rested.

     ... " The breath of life moves through a deathless valley of mysterious motherhood." Lao Tzu translated by Witter Bynner.

photocredit

Food Or Thought?

_ Rational or irrational?
_ Change changing change.
_ Sun showers or moonbeams?
_ The desert is leaking.
_ Plain or fancy?
_ The return of items borrowed.
_ White or rice?
_ Know it, no it. It's a gas.
_ What color is red?
_ Endless vistas; the horizon is behind you.
_ Chai?
_ Sky wine.
_ How many crumbs are in a breadcrumb?
_ Bombs away.
_ Later.

     ... The pursuit of anything, much less 'happiness', is insane.

     ... The ultimate 'French leaving': To participate fully.

photo credit  

Headphones

_ We've reduced the wind to a breeze.
_ Slightly less than a 'whoosh'. It's like when the crowd thins out.
_ No it's not.
_ I can live with that. I'm perforated; the breeze passes right through. I can live with anything.
_ As if we have a choice.
_ Choices, like baseball, exist only to break your heart. We get deeper and deeper in the yucky stuff - shit - and continue to make choices. Menu, please!
_ Slow day; people going nowhere. The sky sails on; someone cut the bowline. We've reduced the wind to a breeze. I've headphones on my mind; my ears are ringing.
_ Do you cook?
_ I started out at zero and somehow made it to one. Is that cooking?
_ With gas, brother. Chai?
_ With whitecaps.

                                                                 <><><>

     ... I read a newspaper yesterday; I feel sullied.

     ... A semi-permeable perforation allowing the wind to blow the whole show into the next county; no one sees the wind, yet it's the every in everywhere. Though it blows no one knows the wind.

photo credit

Things Thunk

_ Do you find me annoying?
_ I generally, General Robert E. Lee, find you here.
_ I worry about what people think of me.
_ That's using your time constructively. In fact I can't think of a better way to spend one's time than in worrying about what people think of you. I oughta smack you in the head with a lump hammer.
_ What's a lump hammer?
_ A two-pound sledgehammer with a short handle.
_ What's a sledge?
_ Something you use to bash something else with.
_ Technically I could bash that sledgehammer with my head, at which point my head becomes the sledge, and the sledge the item bashed.
_ Interesting concept. What do you think the people will think about you when they see you bashing a two-pound lump of steel affixed to a short handle with your head? Do you think that they'll realize your head is the sledge and the sledge is the item bashed when your head is a bloody mess and the lump of steel is relatively unscathed?
_ I've better things to do with my time than to worry about what people think. Chai?
_ Chai.

                                                                    <><><>

     ... Ever never full; never never empty. How big is the glass of your life?

     ... Buttons seeking holes in order to be buttons.

photo credit

Heh, heh, heh. . . Who?

_ Howdy-do.
_ Who?
_ You.
_ Who? What? Where? When? Why? I laugh at the ‘why?’
_ Why not?
_ Why not? Right? Why the hell not? Who’s to say?
_ You?
_ What can possibly stop it?
_ Another question, perhaps? Another well thought-out  question might stop it; I just don't know what 'it' is.
_ Where is the place that is safe from change?
_ Here?
_ When did we come up with these strange assumptions/demands on a forever unknowable issuance - life?
_ Today?
_ We don’t know shit; we don’t know our name. Someone gave us some odd collection of syllables and called it ‘our name’...
_ Happy birthday.
_ ... Oh really? That’s my fucking name? That’s me? Like a dog, right? Rover, Champ, Spot... a name; something to distinguish me from the ‘couch’. Laddie Boy...
_ Howsaboy?
_ To each their own... their own world; their own time; their own birth and death... It's all much ado about nothing.
_ Howsaboy?
_ I sit here the culmination and conception of all that has ever been; of all that is yet to be. Seeing things for what they are and not for what I want them to be, I sit here. I sit here understanding the emotional carnage implicit in the continual fixing of ever-passing, ever-elusive phenomena into a static self ever in search of lasting satisfaction; ever in search of meaning. I'm filling sandbags with butterfly shit, fashioning a buffer against the rising tide of time, and yet I wonder why they just float away; far, far away... Does that answer your query ‘Howsaboy?’?
_ Oooo... the old double question mark. Somebody’s having a day...
_ How did we ever fashion such rigid, ill-fitting raiment out of nothing? It’s like an angry man laughing - heh, heh, heh - all the time. Yes... it’s like that.
_ Is the angry man old?
_ No.
_ Young? He must be young if he’s not old.
_ No.
_ Much ado about nothing...
_ Much.
_ Funny... not ‘heh, heh, heh’ funny, but funny nonetheless. Why no ‘How?’?
_ Bingo... the old double question mark. Wooo-hoooo! There’s no ‘W’ in how. That's why.
_ And how! Ring-a-ding-dang-do! Did you meditate this here morning?
_ Yeah. I cramped up pretty bad and focused on the ongoing implosion in the back of my thigh until it felt like the world was shattering.
_ Old school... Howsaboy?
_ Fine as frog hair... and you?
_ I’m here, ain’t I?
_ Beautiful... We are bountiful; we are beautiful; and the jewels we fetch, each their own, from the measureless depths of an unsounded ocean are worthy of a strong string, perhaps even a shiny chain.
_ Ever-passing, ever-elusive, ever in search of... much ado about nothing. Chai?
_ Chai. Chai?
_ Chai.

                                       <><><>

     ... Diamonds turn back to coal when the black cat strolls.

     ... George Harrison: Living In The Material World, a documentary by Martin Scorcese, premieres in two parts, on HBO, Oct.5 & 6. Can you take me there?

photo credit

Give The Living Room

_ Glom...
_ Glomus...
_ ...To steal; to become attached to.
_ ...The patron saint of those who’ve glommed - through no fault of their own, mind you. He - Glomus - was roly-poly round, like a nutty-buddy.
_ The other night I thought that ‘body’ wasn’t a word so I looked it up and came up with ‘glom’.
_ Random House’s Random Dictionary - make up your own alphabet.
_ Whaddya say? Howsaboy?
_ Simple... in order to facilitate the return to forever.
_ The girls in here love eavesdropping on our repartee; they think we were educated by Jesuits.
_ Crazed flowers rock the rock garden; satori so still.
_ French - Irish; be kindly wanderer through this garden’s ways.
_ English - scouse; Harry’s son.
_ Some fish swim through or around the net; others remain. How many numbers are one?
_ I think I drink too much coffee.
_ What you’re saying is that you don’t drink enough.
_ Couldn’t have said it better myself.
_ Nothing is ever full. It is either desirous or overflowing.
_ Yes. I don’t drink enough coffee. Two chais, please!
_ I’ll have two, too.

                                       <><><>

     ... Peace, like a river, flows underground; war rages above.

     ... Please advise: simple, simpler or simplest? Give no reason.

photo credit

One Step Two

_ Your man over there...
_ Wait a second, here. What do you mean, “ Your man over there.”?
_ It’s all you, babe; this whole menagerie, cacophony, insanity... it’s all you. Me? I’m you. Sly and the Family Stone, “ Thank you for letting me be myself.”
_ Whatever.
_ Anyway, he has the ‘Sweater by Darwin’ thing going, quite nicely, I might add, with the hair growing out of the top of his shirt.
_ Sweater by Darwin?
_ Yeah... the missing link. He could be it, bridging the gap between primate and human. Someone had too. I bet if you give him a piece of aluminum foil he’ll be quite fascinated with it.
_ Evolution hinges upon the systematic progression of life forms; a posited beginning moving ever-onward toward a finality; it’s the same shit we’ve been fed a million times over, only in reverse.
_ By disproving the theory of evolution you’ve proven it - knowledge dispelling ignorance; disillusionment.
_ Go stare at a wall.
_ I am.
_ Gruel... I want some gruel.
_ Gruel... the food of the thrice born. And then to stare wall-ward, never quite getting there... fucking fabulous. Garson! Gruel! Now! Some form of broth! Now! An unbroken vista of blankness; a wall unpainted! Now! And a piece of shiny tin foil, please.
_ Somewhere along the long line of time, of evolution,  a name was plucked out of the strangeness and it is applicable to you. Some kind of hole... yes, it was some kind of hole.

                                                                       <><><>

     ... When cancer research delves into the realm of thought, and the uncontrolled burgeoning of repetitive mind, there may be some questions raised regarding what is ‘controlled’ growth. Cancer... the name is fascinatingly frightful. My father died of cancer... he’s with me all the time.

     ... Joy is the uncontrolled burgeoning of a flower in bloom. Beware of doctors who shave; they haven’t come to grips with their own burgeoning chaos; or perhaps they have and just enjoy a fairly hairless situation. Whatever.

photo credit

Who Are You?

_ Pictures... everybody's taking pictures...
_ Mugging for ze camaawwa, in francais.
_ Mugging for the camera?... Howsaboy?
_ Why you say that? Why do you say, " Howsaboy"?
_ It's what two guys, who’ve aged, say to each other after they’ve run out of shit to say.
_ Two guys?
_ White guys.
_ White? I've never seen anyone who is white. I think that would scare the shit out of me.
_ Well... let's say they've gone from little pink babies to somewhat gray around the gills.
_ Pink to Crayola gray; white.
_ It is breathing. Howsaboy?
_ If blowing up a little not knowing into a strangely arranged chaos is good, then I'm good.
_ We're beautiful, with or without the alphabet.
_ You're a comfort.
_ It is breathing. The sky... aloof; eyes gather it in.
_ It is breathing?
_ The funneling, indeed... from the imaginary to the mystery - life; all the while, through every conceivable nuance, it is breathing. Shall we?
_ Breathe?
_ Chai. Foamy; slightly sweet - not too; contingent.
_ Contingent?
_ Contingent... Howsaboy?

                                                                            <><><>

     ... A great vortex pulls us through countless lives, never moving.

     ... The impossibility of mathematics lies in the divisibility of the number one; countless lives, never moving - what he thunk.

photo credit

The Real Deal

_ Que pasa?
_ Everything and nothing; beauty and the beast; the seismic and the placid. What’s happening is what’s not happening.
_ You speak Spanish? Muy bueno... Did you walk here today?
_ Yeah. Walking is the only way I can relate to this world on a somewhat human level. Cars bring out the worst in us. I saw an Official Vehicle cruising the strip today.
_ What makes a vehicle an ‘‘Official Vehicle’?
_ License plates.
_ Maybe it was me...
_ Do your license plates say ‘Official Vehicle’?
_ No. They sport a random grouping of letters and numbers, along with a ridiculous image of something; I think it might be Elvis.
_ That is not an Official Vehicle.
_ I wasn’t on the strip anyway; I kept to the blue highways today - my inspection has expired.
_ I hate lemon meringue pie.
_ Talking with you is like waltzing on salt pork.
_ Raw eggs, rendered horse hooves, inflatable yellow number 5... a very painful situation.
_ What about banana cream pie?
_ Get me a bucket.
_ Garson... Two chais, one banana cream pie, a bucket and a quart of your best whiskey.
_ Whiskey? I thought you don’t drink.
_ I cry when people puke.

                                       <><><>

... I find it electrifying to steal a glance at a beautiful woman; and get caught.

... The 'untimely deaths' of noted figures over the course of history is history - actions don’t alter history, they are history. How is it we regard changes to an imagined future as being altering of the course of history? Reign in the wild child of mind through focused attentiveness upon what is; our stories are enslaving us. Rinse and repeat.

photo credit

Vexed

_ Are you going to stir something with that spoon, or just look at it?
_ Your mind... stirred; your world... stirred.
_ Your beverage... unstirred.
_ A spoon, when it's not holding all of existence within its huddle and atop its dome, is a personal security device second to none. If you hold one in front of you and look at its convex form you can see someone coming up behind you with a blunt object - a large, heavy, blunt object - from twenty feet away.
_ You have people after you?
_ We all do. The trick is to find that person and take the bull by the horns; wrestle them to the ground...  all while seeing the action in inaction, and the inaction in action. We do what can be done and don't do what can't be undone.
_ You're sweating profusely.
_ The profuselage shows that I'm ready.
_ You've curly hair... with what goes on in your head I'm surprised you have any at all; I'd have left a long time ago.
_ Curly hair is a lot like life: The longer it gets, the shorter it gets. Curly hair has curly roots, which tickle the brain, enlivening a most receptive organ.
_ I'm not so sure that I wouldn't mind someone massaging my cranium with a large, blunt, heavy object after this conversation... I'm going to stir my beverage with a fork.
_ Up periscope.

                                                                    <><><>

     ... The uniqueness of our lives is the only door to sameness that we have access to. Speak, and hear the words tinkle through unbounded silence. Sing the long song silent.

     ... Take two and swing away. Batter up!

photo credit

Furthermore

_ Still, it breathes; still, it darts through, without moving, the shards of your thoughts; your life.
_ My life?
_ It's all you, babe.
_ Babe? Who the hell do you think you're calling babe?
_ You, babe.
       The men tussle briefly, throwing haymakers and invectives. The owner looks on with disinterested fascination; he, too, understands the dynamic futility of all endeavor. He turns away as a table is overturned; someone has ordered a velour, the smoothest drink on the menu. As he grasps the handle on the machine, he thinks,
       " To our actions fully; as for the fruits... let them fall where they may."
       A saucer goes flying, crashing against the tile wall. It is neither saucer, nor flying, any longer. The men dust themselves off after their little dust-up.
_ Chai?
_ I think I'll have a velour.
_ Make it two.

                                                                   <><><>

     ... Every action is both an expression and a question.
 
     ... Old man, pink gone Crayola gray, rustily blinks his eyes; it makes no sense to cry any more.

photo credit

Elusive

_ Hummina, hummina, hummina.
_ Bow-bow-bow.
_ Fabulous, babe.
_ Absolutely...
_ It is breathing.
_ It, like you, is fabulous in its elusiveness; it is not breathing.
_ Faith is essential doubt, and should you have a grain of faith the proverbial size of a mustard seed - as spoken to by the Nazarene - certainty vanishes and life burgeons. It is breathing.
_ It is not breathing... shhh... it is breathing; essential doubt proven in its never to be doubted elusiveness. Faith breathes, never is it snared; the dark horse chasing the closed eyes of night.
_ Faith...
_ Faith.
_ Chai?
_ Bingo!

                                                                      <><><>

     ... Love-struck, without a clue as to what it is.

     ... The diff between belief and faith is the same as the diff between the news and the weather.

photo credit

Irish Slide

_ The difficulty in life lies in what is not life.
_ The difficulties in here in what is not here.
_ Now in what is not now.
_ Howsaboy?
_ Fanfuckingtastic.
_ The infinite body has no body.
_ No no body.
_ No nuffin'...
_ I'll have a no nuffin' muffin with an essential dark roast. Eating at night, in no light, is the only known way to lose weight.
_ Providing it's dark enough that no one can see.
_ The essential dark roast of night, sipped in silence; the pupil of the madman's unblinking eye.
_ Really?
_ I tell no lies...
_ And Jim? James? Seamus?
_ A raving fucking lunatic who out-thunk the thinkers, out-stunk the stinking bastards who tried to poison our forever free-boy minds; they failed, and he impaled them on a sword of their own fashioning.
_ Joyce?
_ Is there another Jim worth mentioning?
_ Nope. They're all fucking crazy.
_ Tea?
_ Irish... the radiant mind of a mystic gathering sunshine at the tip of the Dingle peninsula.
_ George Harrison, had he been Jewish, would have been Irish.
_ To tea; to George; to the radiant love of the Self living in the heart of all.
_ Tea?
_ Irish?
_ English?
_ Jewish?
_ Indian?
_ Iced?
_ Chai?
_ Chai.

                                                                 <><><>

     ... The mind stands as a shadow-crafter; the Sun shines.

     ... Water - cool, not cold - mingles, and enlivens a weary spirit. Feel it feel its way home.

photo credit  

The Weight of Rain

_ Where?
_ What?
_ Why?
_ Who?
_ Where. You speak of things never to be known.
_ Like what?
_ Yes, like what. We must rest.
_ Rest... you gotta rest.
_ The it’s back at it, to it...
_ It.
_ Go get ‘em.
_ Not while I’m listening.
_ That’s like resting.
_ Yes, only completely different.
_ Not in service... like a taxicab.
_ In service... like a bodhisattva.
_ Inhale serving exhale.
_ Fuck all in between.
_ Nothing.
_ Nada.
_ Chai?
_ Madam labors under the weight of the rain; bones fragile; safe to sail away. Twig tea.
_ Eddying.
_ Effortless.


                                      <><><>

     ... I wear earrings - one is Irish; the other is everything else including.

     ... Rain running, grimacing under its weight; she was over-dressed for one running in the rain.

photo credit

The Paper Boy

_ Funny thing happened this here morning. Out of the blue I had a flashback to a conversation I had with a friend of mine over twenty-five years ago. He was telling me that there were times when he was so hungry as a boy that he would eat paper just to have something in his stomach.
_ It's a lot like falling in love.
_ In what way?
_ The love of one person for another temporarily fills the yawning chasm of a meaningless, solitary existence; it occupies the mind until such time as it doesn't - the paper works in the same way, temporarily filling a void.
_ You're out of line with that one.
_ Dream on. In fact the paper boy is in better shape than the lover because eventually he is going to get some real food. What happens when love runs its course? What goes on the plate then? Anger? Heartache? Isolation? To whom do you turn?
_ Some love lasts forever.
_ Nothing lasts forever.
_ Trust me, I take great solace in that every time I enter into a conversation with you.
_ Paper napkins; paper plates; paper cups... paper boys.
_ Eating paper, just to have something in the belly... Can you imagine?
_ Wake up... it's time.
_ It's time? Time for what? I'm stunned by your remarks.
_ It's a dream; it's all a dream. We need to wake up. Once, twice, a million times; continually. We need to wake up. People are crying out the world over; they're eating paper, for goodness sake!
_ This has to be a dream.
_ Chai?
_ Whatever.

                                                                  <><><>

     ... We, to a large extent, are uncomfortable around opinions that stand in opposition to our own; a pond not liking rain.

     ... There are horrors ongoing in this life. Where?

photo credit

Sweet Nothings

_ That was a good hearty blast. No sooner had you entered through the door - and I was watching - then you let loose with a massive blast. Sure, it’s a wonderful thing to sneeze; nothing timid about you.
_ Watch out for number nine; number nine.
_ Turn me on, dead man.
_ Howsaboy?
_ Shaken. I ran into my only love last night; I had long thought she was dead.
_ Kept alive in the closet of your mind, she arose and stirred your embers.
_ Joyce.
_ Strange name.
_ A strange world; the comings and goings; deeply attached to ghosts; the bad language of living and dying.
_ Faith is born of uncertainty. Look to the elder.
_ I have chosen to enter the silence.
_ Chai?
_ Chai.

                                                                             <><><>

     ... One, two, three, four, five; one, two, three; one, as in none. Ghosts... all is a ghost.

     ... We shake and shimmy; burp and fart; sneeze till our knees knock. No way of knowing who, or what, is on the other side of any door. Remember, then forget.

photo credit

Why Tea Leaves?

_ Perhaps I'll try tea today.
_ Give the old bean a break, eh?
_ No. I want something to read.
_ Tea leaves?
_ Everything leaves.
_ I like to read the swirl of marinara upon a just-mopped plate.
_ Something brisk...
_ An ice cube down your shorts; chai in the moonlight whilst the moon-dogs howl; eleven fingers full of nothing; the breath blending day to night; the Sun bathing in the rain; a vulnerable child smiling; a funeral in the cold drizzle of a waning day.
_ Tea... it's like watching T.V. without the T.V.
_ Steam fogging; wisps laying low.
_ Perhaps I'll try tea today.

                                                                         <><><>

     ... Thoughts collide; we bruise easily.

     ... Little birds walking; the baby smiles; worlds sans words. Can we love each other, or are we too far gone?

photo credit

Mid-summer Sun

_ The love of a man for a woman; a boy for a dog; a flower for the sun, or rain... It comes from somewhere.

_ Well at least you’ve narrowed it down to somewhere. Maybe it’s the same somewhere where my sandals are; I can’t find them anywhere.

_ You’re not very deep.

_ Perhaps not, but, in saving the gravediggers a couple of shovel loads, I am compassionate.

_ Howsaboy?

_ Perpendicular.

_ Chai?

_ Absolutely, old bean.

                                                           <><><>

     ... The body, in the heat of the solstice, participates in limitless fashion; and such fashion is never out of style.

     ... Much in the way that the halcyon days mitigate the depth of winter, the passing of time, silent and so strange, tempers the height of summer. All is as it should be. Peace and high sanity to all. 


photo credit

Bop-a-cat-bop

_ The quiet sky abiding peacefully with the sweet rain... Have you noticed?
_ I have. And for a man who is a million miles from nowhere it is a comfort.
_ The colors... so many shades of green.
_ Why do you suppose money is green?
_ I'd rather talk of colors; of the sky; of the sweet, sweet rain.
_ To hide; to die; to stop getting mail. I see.
_ To eat simply, saving room for life.
_ Rice and lentils; yogurt and fruit; greens.
_ Colors dripping through the sieve of mind. All else is but a story.
_ Bop-a-cat-bop.
_ A nice organic coffee. That's what I'm talking about.
_ Fairly traded and freshly roasted; served in a white porcelain mug.
_ Bop-a-cat-bop.

                                                                 <><><>

     ... The move from one to many is confounding.

     ... A million miles from nowhere is a thrice tied shoe.

photo credit

Dishwashing... Liquid

_ The unknowability of the breath is the source of all seduction. It’s  the motion of all things, places and people; without it we are - how would you say? - dead. Would you say dead?

_ Dead.

_ There you go.

_ Anything else you want me to say?

_ The ‘dead thing’... it has a bit of a ring-a-ding-ding to it. We don’t know it’s over until it’s over; and then it will be as though it never was. Being and non-being; such and thus. It neither is, nor isn’t. What just happened? I don’t know.

_ Though the skies are blue, and the sun doth shine, you somehow find a cloud, gray and nasty.

_ I know this dude who won twenty five hundred dollars. He went straight home, and as he was sitting at the dinner table with his wife and three kids he reached into his pocket. He gave one hundred dollars to each of his kids; into his wife’s hand, which he was wont to hold, time and again, he placed the remaining twenty-two hundred. She was bewildered. She asked him, “ What are you doing?” He got up from the table and said, “ The dishes”.

_ It’s got a ring-a-ding-dang-do to it.

_ Chai?

_ As I breathe.  


                                                                <><><>


     ... The traffic jam of self allows for neither life to flow in, nor flow out. We, instead, idly sit by, becoming more and more frustrated.


     ... Surfactants, mendicants, lubricants and gnomes: Please report to the 'You Are Here' sign.


photo credit 

Silky Silhouettes

_ I hear something... someone is near. Is that you? I can barely make out your silhouette. My eyes are stinging; vision blurred. Light has faded to light.

_ I didn’t know that you spoke French. Silhouette... very impressive. The girls go crazy for that kind of stuff: Debris; silhouette; baquette; per chance... As far as your eyes are concerned, I recommend bathing them in a sluice of ketchup and water at least twice a day. The lycopene in the ketchup invigorates the ocular bones; the vinegar contained therein provides a vigorous cleansing to the ‘windows of the soul’; and the water is water.

_ I’ll tell you what is good for the eyes: naked women.

_ There’s a woman in my town who has no soul. And, beneath all her finery, she is naked.

_ No soul? What holds her together?

_ Random thought processes and copious amounts of alcohol.

_ Naked under her finery? No soul? She sounds like quite a catch. Is she single?

_ Once you’ve run the ketchup through your eyes she should be. If your vision is still blurred and you’re seeing silhouettes, repeat and rinse. Would you like me to give her your phone number? I can leave it in the knot-hole in the tree outside of her house. I’ll wrap it in something shiny and throw pebbles at her window.

_ I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just head home and pick up the lawn sausages left by the neighbors dog. Tidy up a bit and call it a day.

_ Her finery portends of delights, the likes of which may result in the clearing of your vision. All of her former beaus spit feathers when her name is mentioned.

_ She responds to shiny objects left in the knot-hole of a tree under her window? What is her name?

_ Pfffft.

                                       <><><>

     ... For lack of a better way, we call it a flower; for lack of a better way, we call it a rose. What it is, nobody knows.

     .... What is a river? The ink in a pen.


photo credit

The Infinite Sky

_ I'm going to a concert tonight.
_ Do-re-mi... Who's performing?
_ The Howlin' Shaolins.
_ The Howlin' Shaolins?
_ Have you never?
_ Have I never what? Have I never?... What the hell is that supposed to mean? You have to be a little more specific. Have I never? You have to tie a string to a kite in order for it to be meaningful.
_ Have you ever heard of them? That's all. You've never heard of them?
_ No.
_ They're a bunch of monks from Dengfeng, China, who can each sing five notes at the same time, and blow three more out of their keisters.
_ You have erased the last smudge of residual mind-stuff from the infinite sky of my being. You have set me free, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
_ No problema. My treat today.

                                                                           <><><>

     ... I was waiting the prerequisite ten minutes in a Chinese take-out place when one of the owner's children walked up to me. She was a dainty little flower, and she had on a button which read, "We are all the Buddha."  She never said a word to me, nor I to her. I remember floating home.

     ... Fifty one percent air; forty nine percent something else. Seventy eight percent of the forty nine percent is wah-wah (tears); some are real, some just leaked out. That which remains will stay behind and provide food and lodging for the worms. The rest is free to go where the peaceful waters flow.

photo credit

A Steaming Whatever

_ At the end of the day, it is best to leave the kitchen work to the professionals, Bob; and give them plenty of room.
_ Bobby ain't here.
_ " Swan; diver-bird, surpassing bright..."* It all comes down to the basics: Change changing change.
_ What the hell are you talking about?
_I'm not talking about anything, simply talking. Nothing makes any sense, absolutely no sense at all. I woke up this here morning convinced, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I was never born. What does that imply about the notion of death?
_ Th...
_ Please, please, please... save it for the Boy Scouts. I was told I was born; I'm told that I am to die. Nobody knows. I have witnessed more than a couple of 'births', and no one will ever convince me that what I witnessed was 'birth' - a beginning.
_ Ice cubes rattling around in a glass glass is annoying. I'm going to the next table to ask that person to leave, or to go sit outside. I would, upon my return, like to reach down your throat and rip out a generous armload of you vitals and fling them, like snot off a finger, into the garbage.
_ Your clearly uncomfortable around opinions in conflict with your own.
_ I have a major jones - a Major Tom Jones - for a steaming whatever, otherwise you may rest assured that I would see to your demise.
_ A steaming whatever... Make it two.

                                                                           <><><>

     ... Many of us think in terms of fate, or consequence, perhaps destiny. We feel entitled to a vague certainty - an open road, a happy birthday, a nice day; we've earned it. It all, however, points to nothing... The desire for a man for a woman... the trappings: beauty, warmth, wetness... all culminating within the colossal void housed within the milking vagina. And the man? Mind-shattering nothingness upon ejaculation. I think I'm going to go down to the cafe and tell a few jokes.

     ... I haven't paid for a haircut in over thirty years, unless I consider the amount of money I've spent on gas for lawnmowers. The only reason I paid for a haircut, as an adult, was the beautiful airiness of the woman who cut my hair, descending around me, as would a gentle summer rain descend upon a flower. She died.

photo credit

* The Thirteen Principal Upanishads translated by Robert Ernest Hume

Fully Empty

_ May we...
_ French?
_ ... may we all attend to our meditations in the way misers attend to their money.
_ Ooo... money and meditation in the same sentence... I cringe.
_ I heard an advert today saying that a proper prostate screening could be the difference between life and death. What could possibly exist as the difference between life and death?
_ They - life and death - are the same; they're the same as cold soup and warm beer. A bowl of soup and a glass of beer, left unattended on the table, eventually assume the same temperature; however, the soup is cold and the beer is warm.
_ And chai?
_ Chai, when properly enjoyed, exists in the manner of wisteria and the pine, of existence and non-existence, with each utterly dependent upon the other; radiating the inexpressible joy ongoing; meditation sans money; the diff.
_ The diff?
_ The diff.

                                                                       <><><>

     ... Prano virat - life is immense.

     ... It is utterly impossible to adequately express the exquisite beauty and the soul-searing anguish of living, of life. Thank God for boredom.

photo credit

Raisin, Or Three

_ Howsaboy?
_ I need some de-caf; I need to get some sleep tonight. I was up all night following the story about the fish shortage in Japan.
_ There aren't any fish in Japan; they're in the ocean. Besides, de-caf doesn't help you sleep, it just doesn't keep you awake.
_ All this from not watching television and not reading newspapers?
_ All this and more.
_ You're like a cartoon character.
_ Oh really? With the masses intent on quantity, quality is reserved for the more refined tastes. I'm at my peak; I'm to be savored as one would a fine liqueur, or an organic flame-broiled raisin; I'm best enjoyed straight and unadorned.
_ Someone once told me that we're all different, therefore we are all the same. That fucked me up for a good, long while. If need be I'll move to another table.
_ Take 'em ease... Have some de-caf.

                                                                         <><><>
     ... Increments... nasty things... seconds, pennies, inches, whispers, hints, morsels, drops, gasps... nasty things... lifetimes, riches, separation, screams, memories, vomit, tears... to suffocate. Too little, or too much; too many, or too few. Bursting forth, or shriveling up... What's the diff? Who are you?

     ... The Walrus Factor, as previously mentioned, is locked, stocked and barreled in the understanding that everybody's fucked up. The 'Walrus Effect' is the subsequent change in our behavior, both as individuals and as members of society, once the aforementioned 'Factor' grabs hold of our biology. I recommend a meditative exploration into what makes us so certain of our continually re-emerging sense of self. It's not a matter of everybody else, it's a matter of 'Who are you?' Inhale and exhale... follow it home.

Brainwashed

_ Brainwashed and hung out to dry by a bunch of sheets masquerading as ghosts.
_ I say if you've it, flaunt it.
_ Imagine death being relegated to a less than godly throne.
_ Death does get a bad rap.
_ That's because it's not beholden to our misconceptions.
_ We've had our brains washed in dirty water.
_ Ever clear, ever here, babe.
_ Who the fuck do you think you're calling 'babe'?
_ You, babe.
_ Ever clear, ever here?... Order me a chai. I'm going out to gnaw on the brick building across the street.

                                                                       <><><>

     ... Constantly revisiting the sadness of my birth, I wander aimlessly, grief-stricken.

     ... Unbridled joy is the counterweight to gravity; heavy is the new light.

photo credit

Gentle Is The Breeze

_ Nice day.

_ Weather changes, we don’t.

_ Howsaboy?

_ We change, weather doesn’t.

_ Fine. Thanks for asking.

_ No weather; nothing to talk to; change changing change. Shoes once new, now gone; holes.

_ I balled a church lady last night.

_ Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

_ That’s exactly what I said to her after she finished reassembling herself.

_ I found no solutions to the myriad concerns of living as I washed the cup from which I had drank.

_ Are you even aware that there are other people in this world?

_ Then again, I found no problems. 

_ Did someone drop you on your head, repeatedly, as a child?

_ What’s a church lady?

_ A card carrying member of the world’s second oldest profession.

_ Second? They say the memory is the second thing to go.

_ What’s the first?

_ I forget.

                                      <><><>

     ... I’m very wary of people who don’t speak in riddles.

     ... Evolution; to disprove it is to prove it. Capiche?


photo credit 

Floon Me To The My

_ You seem to be in a rush today.
_ I wouldn't know a rush if I bumped into one. I'm here; I've always been here. Why rush to get where you are?
_ It's never too late to get an early start.
_ The procrastinator's maxim. I'm thinking about waxing my gonads.
_ Your socks don't match; nothing you say surprises me.
_ Back in the day, you'd be what was known as a bullshit artist; I, on the other hand, am a Manhattan sophisticado. I know tomorrow never knows.
_ Wrong.
_ The clap of one hand sounding?
_ The Chinaman bonged the wrong gong, and the straight line of time wrinkled.
_ He pressed the right shirt; it, too, is wrinkled.
_ Feet silently entwined while their owners slept - love under the sheets while the alphabet rested.
_ What color is red?
_ Yesterday pain; tomorrow the same, with golf balls the size of hailstones.
_ What color is red?
_ Floon me to the my.
_ One more time...
_ The silence of the only sound.
_ The hand of one sound clapping.
_ Floon me to the my. Dark; the stars are in search of their mother.
_ Here comes the moon.
_ And yet, the band played on.
_ It was a union gig.
_ 'Tis impossible for an it to be was.
_ 'Tis impossible for an it to be otherwise.
_ The what is. Who dat?
_ Who dat?
_ Chai?
_ Chai.

                                                                     <><><>

     ... Sunshine, then moonlight... we are as filling for a sandwich, with empty mirrors for the bread. Crunch! Life is a shattering experience. I need neither broom, nor glue.

     ... Hear tell of a place called Hariboo's Egg Farm. A place to rest your weary head after your mind explodes. A place where people are; they just are. Where when it rains, it rains; it doesn't pour. A place where breathing is king. Who are you?

photo credit

Lob Job

_ It’s hardball, Bob...

_ Bobby ain’t here.

_ Funny how the game changes as you get older.

_ The game, as you call it, is nothing but change.

_ You sound like a bitter man...

_ I wouldn’t know.

_ ... like life has passed you by.

_ There ain’t no life passing anyone by. I think you need your joint rubbed with some cayenne pepper paste.

_ It’s hardball, B.

_ My neighbor was on a diet. He could eat anything he wanted, provided he used this nineteen pound fork he got in the mail. He lost nineteen pounds the very first day when he threw the fucking fork out the fucking window.

_ Chai?

_ Chai.

                                         <><><>

     ... Remember me to Mnemosyne.

     ... Day, night, day... while no one watches. 


photo credit 

Heavy Vanilla

_ The greatest skill a person can develop is the ability to quiet the mind, and to listen.

_ That’s two.

_ The air takes on a certain viscosity. In putting on a shirt, one realizes that, as the arm slides through the sleeve, the body is all things. The fetters of conditioned living fall away as the inner voice participates in the long, sweet song. We, like heat off of tarmac, dissipate; shimmering and ascending, life flows into nothingness.

_ What about those of us left behind? What are we supposed to do?

_ You’ll manage... Bourbon and water, please...

_ The closest thing that they have to bourbon is vanilla extract.

_ That’ll do; go very light on the water.

                                     <><><>

     ... Thus, within the huddle of the spoon, this.

     ... I walked to the cafe today. Hi. I am at home among the sprigs of no meaning, which garnish the platter holding the world’s weary head.


photo credit 

The Clothes Have No Emperor

_ Yoooo-hooooo...
_ Over here, Gladys.
_ My, my, my...
_ I suppose you've heard the big news?
_ No.
_ Neither have I.
_ Hummina, hummina, hummina...
_ I'm becoming overly concerned regarding my ability to negotiate my way in the future; things aren't going well...
_ That, my friend, is because you are a horse's ass.
_ I knew you'd help.
_ Overly concerned with blah, blah, blah. Be done with such thinking.
_ I'm done! Let's have some chai.

                                                                    <><><>

     ... I'm not sure where the crayons in my box came from.

     ... I play softball. I work the count until I get two strikes on me, and then choke-up on the bat. I don't need to hit a home run, just a good, sharp rap where nobody is. Ideally, I purposefully foul off about sixteen pitches, to the opposite field, and then smoke one down the line. I want to get into the  pitcher's head and loosen some of the screws. Yoooo-hoooo...

photo credit

Lump

_ What the hell kind of shoes are you wearing?

_ Espadrilles. They are made out of rope. What’s his face wore them.

_ Fucking hell, Tony...

_ My name’s not Tony.

_ Neither is mine; small world. Who’s what’s his face?

_ Picasso. Espadrilles were worn by peasants. Unfortunately they can no longer afford them, stylish as they are. I’m trying to simplify my life.

_ Is it possible to try simplicity? Considering the universe is in reverse I would suggest that all we need do is to cease striving.

_ Picasso had a dog named Lump.

_ And Lump had a human named Picasso. These espadrilles you have on... What is the rope made out of?

_ Ask Tony.

                                       <><><>

     ... Imagine... as if we have a choice. Create; sustain; let go. Imagine time... imagine incense, reminding you of a life you don’t remember, but can’t forget. I’ve heard that we are born; I’ve heard that we die. Imagine not knowing.

     ... I once worked for a very special person. He never spoke, instead communicating in a silent manner; sometimes he would write a note. He referred to the infinite without of space as ‘Tony’. 


photo credit

                              

You Are Here?

_ Howsaboy? 

_ Consuming and being consumed. And you?

_ Present and clear.

_ Birds chirp and sing the day’s dawning but they’re really not very nice.

_ All birds are birds of prey; they are just like you - consuming and being consumed. As far as nice goes, they’re just like me - present and clear. Personally, I have no idea what nice is, or what it leads to; I’d just as soon live without it.

_ We can live without a lot of stuff, and, if you don’t mind the alienation from your brethren, be a lot better off because of it.

_ I often wonder if its a coincidence that we all want the same shit at the same time; and how it magically appears on the shelf, in the showroom, or in your grocer’s freezer.

_ Or why we all hate the same people.

_ I’m not very patriotic.

_ Patriotism is a flawed attempt at realizing the essential unity of all.

_ Flawed? If it is the cause of suffering it is not flawed.

_ Consuming and being consumed...

_ Nice.

                                        <><><>

... The numbing repetitiveness with which we go about living our lives  will ultimately be brought into question; unsought change will do so. And then what?

... I like to visit more than one cafe in a day’s time. Sometimes I even enter into conversations with somewhat rational people. For instance: Yesterday I was sitting in a cafe with my youngest daughter, enjoying the South American equivalent of Mayan chai - yerba mate; she contented herself with a steamed, mulled cider. I steered the conversation in the direction of the similarities existing between snorkeling and sitting on a stool sipping yerba. It’s all contingent on breathing... one wrong move and you’re dead. The young lady attending to our beverages agreed wholeheartedly. 


photo credit

The Jaded Dog

_ I have a bad case of the 'Ooo la-la's' today.
_ I know a lady who has no soul. She is held together by the synergistic glue produced when random thought processes are combined with copious amounts of alcohol. She lives on Hariboo's Egg Farm and is a very happy woman.
_ With thusness leading to such suchness, I find it necessary to drink my chai before I wake, whilst the Lord is deciding if my soul is ripe for the plucking.
_ You speak Spanish?
_ My dog speaks Japanese while humping the leg of the jade Buddha. He shits rice cakes; a raft in the swollen river.
_ Of course he does. He understands the ceremony.
_ Ooo la-la.

                                                                     <><><>

     ... Digression is an impossibility when one is firmly situated within the unity in which all things are possible. When such is not the case we live forever in digression.

     ... I'm going to break you into the 'Walrus Factor' very gently. The basic premise is that everybody's fucked up. The rest orbits around the artist's shattering of form via form, with the result being the wide-eyed smile at the broken pieces of what was. It - shit - just happened, and the lack of an echo means it was either duck-like, or it never really happened. What I mean is: The past... is the memory of it, it? If not, what is the past? More on this later.

photo credit

Kind of Rain

_ What would you say is the essence of kindness?

_ A particular ordering of the alphabet.

_ I don’t suppose it would be of any use for me to say ‘You know what I mean’.

_ My answer to your inquiry was kindly. Picture kindness as rain. It has a beginning; it has an end; different flowers do different things with it. The rain - kindness - is an expression. If I want it to be sunny, and it is raining, I am at a loss due to my desire. The kindness of rain is in its insistent vagueness; it allows me to suffer. Kindness is not shaving when the razor is dull, nor when the mirror is broken. Kindness is that which leads to the end of suffering; kindness is the shattering of the illusion of self. All acts are acts of kindness. It - kindness - is the stranger who appears in our time of greatest need, and disappears without a trace. Look over there.

_ Where? Hey... Where are you going?

                                         <><><>

     ... Have you heard? We are to die.

     ... Insistence and resistance... What is love?


photo credit