Correcting Astigmatism

Some of the wisest words
I ever heard
said:

--Never let your work interfere with your work.

Is it more appropriate to say job
instead of the initial work? Perhaps.
But the meaning remains equivalentish,
and I’m reminded of shadows of logic
—lying dormant in the matter of my mind—
about the separation that isn’t: between
the things I do for others or expedience,
and the things I do for personal growth
there is the reality, the universality
that says I’m still
doing.

To see things as they are requires:
bigness smallness foolishness happiness truthfulness honesty faithfulness indifference kindness love patience devotion anger fear pain joy ecstasy and a thorough adjective adverb experience.

But even then vision can’t be ensured:
the brain must evaluate the information that it has taken in via experience and test it against the theories of adjectives and adverbs to see if they manage to coordinate with each other.

Then and only then will our lens be accurate
--and it requires perpetual correction—
and our perpetual astigmatism momentarily corrected.

What’s important now?
What kind of work are you doing?
What’s your job?

I took a walk in the woods last week—soon the fall
will come—and I couldn't help noticing mama Nature
had managed to give her creatures, her life, a kind
of frosting: spectral colors seeping in from the tips.

Disappointment

Learn to bear the brunt of things graciously,
and rewards will be heaped up on you.
Okay, that’s more-than-likely a lie.

However, should you decide that your burden
ought to be borne with a certain pride,
you’ll find your days pass easier

because with the right state of mind you are
constantly learning to stay at your ease.
Don’t complain. It’s never before

had the soothing effect you think it’s going to
has it? What makes you think it’s going
to suddenly start now? Hope and

shit, my friend. Hope and shit. See which
fills up first. If you can put your five
fingers through it, it’s a gate. I

wish to see things as they really are. None
of your reflections for me good sir. If
I have to choose between seeing

what is there and seeing a shadow? I am
afraid I’ll have to go with there. If I
must choose between a blinding

light of knowledge and the softened glow of
refraction, then I choose to be reminded
about the physicality of my humanity.

Here, in the sanctified sanctuary of the printed word,
I hereby pledge allegiance to the questing toward and
the seeking of that which is what it claims to be, and
to do this by never accepting aught except what is in
full illumination in my eyes and the eye of my mind.

Haiku

Cursive pencil tone,
carving rain tint home maker,
we are all one hood.

Engagement

Language has a funny way of annexing.
This word or that word takes meaning
and bring it into itself. Then, for god-knows-what-reason
that meaning is emblazoned on that word for perpetuity.

God, Jesus
communism, anarchy
philosophy, truth
death, life

Imagine the baggage all these tidbits of language
are carrying. Imagine all the nuances and slight
differences of meaning they carry in every heart.
Imagine for a minute what they all mean to you.

Hobbes said that all words are simply names
which have been given to objects: whether it
be chair or djembe or book or pan or pocket
or Thurston or Mikhail or Evanston or parka.

I’d like to propose an engagement.
Is it possible to annex the meaning conflict
to the word engage?
By no means is this meant disparagingly.
Only think of the contexts in which it is used—
engage the enemy.
To become engaged is to enter into a particular
kind of conflict that will involve at least two people in
an attempt to come
to some kind of agreement about whatever it is they
have decided to become engaged about—note the italics.

Love is an engagement. You engage in love.
War is an engagement. You engage in war.
A conversation is an engagement. You engage in conversation.
Reading is an engagement. You engage in reading.
Writing is an engagement. You engage in writing.
Playing is an engagement. You engage in playing.
Music is an engagement. You engage in music.

In all of this there is an element of combat
between yourself and some seen or unseen
combatant.
Engaging Webster to think about it.

The Bus Trip

What is this new route?
Rivulets and amulets of public transport,
condition wrinkled rouges and rouses.
A sky broken by clouds,
a water wheel broken by time,
a spirit broken by complex reflection,
and existence broken by a heaved breath
contain self-sightings of impressions and reflections
unattended by traditionally bookish qualities of
separability. Morose cognitions travel quickly toward a
smoothness that ought not be.

Enflamed.
Be enflamed.
Fire can create and destroy.
Fire under control is a weapon unlike any other.
Contiguity, similarity, a cause and effect—
Combined with experience—is this all existence is?

Play a game of questions and you’ll soon find no answers
to anything. Play a game of experience and you’ll soon find pleasure.
Coagulated verdancy of expectation, doled out in inconvenient dosages,
your yellow-synonym of platitudes suffers from meaningful meaninglessness.

Maybe A Song:

What do you do when words fail you?
What do you do when you’re falling in love?
What do you do when every day
what you want is miles away?

You hang on tight,
You have a little faith
You start each day with a prayer.
Learn about courage.
Learn about soul.
Ball your fist at the air.
Finally, you take every minute to care.

The other day I met a friend
who lived with tears without end.
The other day that same friend
said, “Tears of joy are just different.”

I hang on tight,
I have a little faith
I start each day with a prayer.
I learn about courage,
learn about soul.
I Ball my fist at the air.
Finally, I take every minute to care.

The people who make kindness
are the people that rule the world.
The people that make love
are the people holding the power.
The peaceful people being good to others,
are those who’ll inherit the earth.
The people living for others, another
Are the ones out defining worth.

They hang on tight,
They have a little faith
They start each day with a prayer.
They learn about courage,
learn about soul.
They ball their fist at the air.
Finally, they take every minute to care.

Consequences

Spring into your existence.
Capable as you are of creation,
why not apply your highest faculties?
Make all haste
and expedience
toward that which can be uniquely
yours.
Push always ever onward,
an eye on greatness,
an eye on virtue,
an eye on the power of being human,
an eye on the uncompromising quest
to daily develop
the power to
strive.

It is unsettling that skyscrapers--
monuments to man's monumental power--
grow significantly faster than trees,
but I would wager
that when mother nature,
in her righteous anger,
decides to rid herself of man
and his troublesome presence,
the catastrophe
will find a way
to keep the trees
around
while useless scrap metal and concrete
will rust and erode,
eventually leaving no trace.

Anyone Can See

To find a place where the soul feels home,
that is pretty frequently the goal, hey?

Or maybe it should be.

Winds of swirling significance
seem to be able to only speak
your name.

Tides swelling and rushing toward
the shore creates a din screaming
your eyes.

Rains lashing my face in the midst
of monsoon season help to whisper
your face.

And what can be said of your body?
Useless words there.

It's a new world, comfortable in a world of meaningfully meaningless words.
Conspicuous by its absence is the notable agitation that tends to flow with angst and unaccomplished goals.
Time has come with reminders to not waste it on societal dins of what should be.
And this is the last song I'll write about how much pain you caused my soul.

It's time to get back to sub-dermal investigations into the truth of nature.
Huzzah!
I celebrate the quest for significance and its perpetual, infinite, assured failure.
When to seek is the goal, the only possible failure is lack of effort.

Seek ye out a challenge to be overcome.
Seek ye out anything you can't yet do.
Seek ye out the impossible.
Check your understanding
only at the infinite.
It IS worth trying.

Nothing matters,
which makes everything significant.

Grapple

I saw two magpies wrestling in Spring,
and watched my shadow lean into lengthening.
Marching in rhythm to cries of
"Fuck you I won't do what you told me!"
is bound to make a body
feel something--
especially if you're marching in step.

Consider, if you will, the noble path of enhancing the self.
Birds do not try to be better birds,
and a dog--left to his own devices--
will seek food and fucking
and deal with his lot.
Humanity has the unique quality
of being
able to develop its body,
its mind,
and its soul.

Call it the gift of reason.
Call it thinking about thinking.
Call it what you will.
It is our blessing and our challenge.
It is our gift and
the uncompromising call to make us better.

Accomplished through thoroughgoing
care and attention to growth in
appropriate directions.

Leave behind complacent natural examples.
Let them be content inside their being.
I am being something else.

Build an empire of signification.
You've already got all the tools.
And keep not stopping.

Titled

This is what I do:
walk, half-drunk,
in the middle of the night
to a house of ill repute
for the simple pleasure
of making music happen.

Cold as it is,
I’m comfortable.

Perfumed gloves is such an evocative
image, I wish I had written it.
There is always time for writing though,
and that’s the essential irony:
we cannot control time, but we can
certainly use it productively, hey?

Melting snow, falling from tree
branches extended over my walk,
falls on me to delight me and to
remind me of where I am: home.

The walkways are cleared for late night wanderers.
Conspicuous seekers of all that can’t be understood,
these lonely sentinels of need curve space and time
with primordial passion for unadulterated adventure.

Expel the gas of yesterday’s untoward
reflections,
the time has come for revolutionary
minds to
seek their satisfaction among the petty
thieves,
within and around the criminals who
would
make absolutely stunning generals of
chaos.

Complaints should be addressed to the home office:
666 Wedontgiveafuck Avenue,
Care of:
Mr. Somebodyshouldgiveyouarustyprincealbertagainstyourwill
In:
Takeyourspectacleladensocietyandshoveitsidewaysupyourgapingasshole.

The time has come, children of desperate need!
Let it begin!
Let it rain insight and wisdom!
Let it pour tolerance and understanding!
Let it storm lightning bolts of comprehension and tear through thunderclaps of cohesion.