2024

In the Age of Myth
Fabulists, Fools
Poets, Shamans
Goddesses and Tricksters
Ruled in Merry Synchronicity.

Oft’ times in such
Estates of Feral Anarchy
A polity was established
That served the many
And favored but a few.

Poetry and Song enshrined
The Rites that did decree
A Seasonal Withering
Of its oak wreathed Kings
In Sweetness and Decay.

For to Rule was to invite
A Reckoning with Death
In Summer’s offering
Of Ceremony and Sacrifice
To Arcady’s White Goddess.

Thus a Joyous Chaos Reigned
As Above so Below
And such Poetry and Song
Became the Essential Mark
Of its Unfolding and of its Futurity.

Whilst we, in Quadrennial Farce
Reconfirm one Usurpation of note:
All Rites of Nature and of Myth
Banished, in soulless celebration
Of a Trinket - our worthless Vote.

BURDEN

Is Charisma
The Power
To project Love?
To Connect?

Our Hearts mostly
Remain cocooned.
If we are lucky
They emerge Once or twice.

To Compel us
To say, ‘I Love You’.
A connection made
Straight from The Heart.

But there are some
Amongst us
Who Radiate
Heartfelt Empathy.

From whom
Consciousness
Extends to engage
Us and Everything.

It is a natural part
Of their Being.
External evidence
Of their Soul. 

They are exemplars
Perhaps, of what we
Might all Be:
Radiant and effusive.

Too much for the
World to bear
You say?
The Burden of Connection.

THE TRUTH

The Truth
Will always hover there
Just beyond the reach
Of our Comprehension
Because it exists on the Horizon
Of the Absolute.

But we try
I try
To understand the Past
And Parse the Present:
To sift through the consequential
Minutiae of Space, Time, and Agency.

For there is a feeling of
Great Satisfaction
When the Truth is approached
A proximity is established
That settles
The Mind.

Perhaps it is the Absolute
Nature of Truth
That gives comfort -
It echoes the Foundational
Substance
Of Our Lives.

IN THE LAND OF SMOKES

When the Tongva lived
‘Neath bent willow and tule
Their wood fires smudging
The wide Blue Skies.

Where Coastal sage scrub
Edged Marshy wetlands
Springs flushed
And creeks meandered.

When Oaks stood
For food and shade
And on-shore winds
Whipped across the Dunes.

Where the Ocean
Was Raddled with schools
Of fish and mollusks
Crowded on the beach…

This is the swell of an Ancient
Yet Abiding Consciousness that
Still stirs within the deep pools
Of our Pride and Pretension.

THINKS:

Hollywood screen writers
Won a skirmish
Against A.I.
In the spirit of Ned Ludd.

The young lad
From Nottingham
Who smashed the
Stocking Frame.

The Impulsive Destruction
Of machines
Employed
To Marginalize our Skills.

Laying waste
To dubious Devices
That Diminish
Our Humanity.

JUST LIKE: The Urge
To Deconstruct the Persona
We Erect
To Smother Our True Selves.

THE BIRTH OF A STATE

In 1846, Genocidal Pale-Faces
Founded
The Republic of California -
A Rebel State within
The Spanish Empire.

Their Sanguinary Lust
Was eagerly co-opted
By America
And Safely Harbored
Within its Rapacious Union.

Then all Races Heard
The cry of ‘Gold!’
Resound from Sutter’s Creek
A call to Populate and Predate
The Foothills of the Sierras.

In Rough Camps
Soon was Established
A Hierarchy that privileged
The White American
As God’s own Plunderers.

Their Souls Eviscerated
As Killers of the Red-man
Enslavers of the Chinese
Destroyers of the Land:
These Men made California Modern.

THE WORLD-SOUL

It was 1944
In the White Mountains
Of New Hampshire.
The U.S. Dollar
Was Confirmed as the Planet’s
Reserve Currency.

WWII was Ending
Empires were in disarray
While their Colonies
Demanded Independence -
America’s domination ever assured
By the World Bank and the IMF.

Much of the World was indebted
To the USA; Japan and Germany
Were soon Occupied
Little England Emasculated
And only Russia Remained
To Threaten U.S. hegemony.

Oil
The World’s Essential commodity
Denominated
In the Almighty Dollar
Ensured that Nations invested
In the U.S. Piggy Bank.

750 Global Military Bases
Funded by Foreign purchase
Of U.S. Treasuries
Maintains Our Dominion still
While Globalization Impresses
The Market’s Logic on alien Lands.

But The End of History
Is not the Triumph of the West.
Instead, the World will soon be
Purged of the Yankee Dollar
And the U.S. Impaled
On the Central Asian Axis.

China and the Russian Bear
Have arisen
To rival the Hegemon
And the Global South is
At last Restored
As the World-Soul.

SHOWING THE WAY

Chuang Tzu
Wandered dusty
Roads in Ancient
China.

Debating his fellow
Poets
In alfresco meetings
Of Pugnacious Dialogue.

He lived
During the Classical era
Of One Hundred Schools
Of Thought.

In a Society Where
Philosophy was Revered
He introduced a form
Of Buddhism we call Zen.

Along those dusty Roads
Chuang Tzu Wrestled
With the Tao, others, and himself
In the Shadow of Confucius. 

Now, we read Chuang Tzu
Seeking Lucidity
Under the Ominous Pall
Of 21st Century Western Culture.

Trusting in the Guttering
Light of an Ancient Spiritual
Mystical, and Aesthetic Tradition
To Show the Way.

KENOSIS

Kenosis
Is the act
Of Self Emptying -
The Purpose
Of Meditation.

What is
Atrophied
Is one’s overblown ego
Encrusted
With hubris and aggrandizement.

A self, inflated by Puffery
Tended and cared for
Over the years
Like an exotic
Hot-house Flower.

Kenosis is a necessary step
Towards Individuation -
That Jungian notion
Which provides the text
For the second half of Life.

The deflation of the ego
The abandonment of
That Carefully cultivated Persona
And its substitution with Heart.

The cutting of the Flower.
The opening to Spirit
And the Reconnecting
To the Great Rhythm
Of the Universe.

FIELDS OF WHEAT - History Foretold

Once Rulers
Ruled from 
Citadels deep within
The Countryside.

Their Seats of Power
Secure amongst
The people of the
Land.

Beyond, Towns grew
Rich by trading
Harvests Unearthed
By sweat of Peasant’s brow.

Princely Nodes of Capital
Then became Established
Linked in Traceries
Of Global Connectivity
Whilst Peoples of the Earth
And of its seasons, vainly orbited
Sequestered Courts
That Rotted from within.

Abundant in Information
And Worldly Wealth
Great Cities then arose
In Concrete, Steel and Glass.

Inviolable to 
The Vagaries of the Weather
And Disdainful of
The Natural World
These Hives of Virtuality
Thrived until
Destroyed by storms born
Of Earth’s Malignant Shroud.

Yet out of the Dross
New societies Grew
Informed by the simple
Lessons of Agronomics.

The Treasures of the Land
And of its People
Regnant again, amidst
Battered Fields of Wheat.

INHERITED TRAUMA

In Europe’s New World
Its Indigenous Peoples
Were Decimated
By Disease and War.

They Raged, raged Against
The dying of their World
And Mourned 
Their broken Lives.

In acts of Restitution
They Fought
So called
Mourning Wars.

Against Neighbors
And long time enemies 
Alike, they made War
To restore a Balance. 

They Fought 
To capture slaves
Hostages and the Young
To Replace their Dead.

The worst of Societal Decay 
Was thus brutally Staunched
And Bereft Nations gathered 
Strength to Live another Day.

        * * *

Now, after the Collapse
Of its Hegemony, America
Fights its Mourning Wars:
Wars to Kill and Torture. 

Wars that feed
The Corruption of the State
And Exacerbate
Its Impotence and Decay.

Hollow Military Rituals 
Or Shock and Awe 
That Fail, and fail again
To Restore our broken Nation.

We Rage, rage Against
The dying of our World
And gather round us
The Ghosts of Olden Days.

OUR SPECIAL POWER

When Science
Was Invented
Early in the 17th Century
And the West
Became Enlightened
Life’s Mystery dimmed. 

In the Long Before
There were arguments
Over the precise Liturgy
 With which to pierce
The Transcendent Realm
But none to its Existence.

This Great schism
Between Science and the Soul
Developed over five Centuries
And formed an Abyssal Rift
Into which, we are told
A.I. is now to be implanted…

One hope remains
Now all but forgot
Not demigods
But minions are we
Our Special Power:
Humility. 

DEVOLUTION

I grow nothing but
These piles of Words
Only weeding weeds
And trimming thoughts.

Which, in this moment
Sounds Thoreauvian.
But I do not Aspire to
Profundity.

I simply let grow what grows
In the Native plant community
And write home-grown thoughts
In these short stacks.

Content to be, like Thoreau
A Collaborator
In the Devolution
Of Modernity.

NOT YET

It is very Simple:
We are Conscious Beings
Embedded in a World
Of Consciousness.

Humankind
Has understood its
Elemental condition
Since Time began.

We call it Animism.
The Primitive belief
That all the World
Is Alive.

It does not necessarily
Comport with our Present
Scientific Knowledge, but Still
We understand its Truth.

The Idea
That Sentience
Exists
In Everything.

Philosophers call it
Panpsychism.
It is not Religion
It is for now, Conjecture.

An old idea
Rooted in Philosophy
Not Physics.
Not Yet.

PASTORAL

Some things endure
Despite the Circumstance
Of a Civilization
That promotes their Destruction.

Common Verbain
Turkey Mullein
And Vinegar Weed remain.
Resolute, in the pasture.

Revived by August rain
They grow surrounded
By the sun-killed
Grasses of Summer.

These Plants amidst
The dead bric-a-brac
Of Europe: Secure
In their Indigeneity.

Grounded in their place.
Indigestible
To the four Reticulations
Of a Cow’s stomach. 

Surviving
In a fissured Landscape
Where their meadow
Borders a Ravine

On a mesa
Amidst rocks
Brush and barbed wire.
Their Redoubt.

DAY 555 09-01-2023

Men die
In Far-off Lands
To Defend the West’s
Imperium.

Mid-century
The Atom split
The world too - Between
Revolution and Stasis.

Decades
When Nothing changed
Except the growth of Militarism
Capitalism and Technology.

A Sundered World
Then put back together
By the Superglue of Globalism
The Neoliberal West Triumphant.

Now, Against the Inevitability
Of its Decay, this dying Empire
Sacrifices the Human Flesh
Of its European Borderlands.

Was Ever Thus:
Steel and Fire
Blood and Guts
For Empire.

DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY

When I was nine

I thought we all 

Possessed an equal share

Of Happiness.

How else to justify

The great disparities

Between myself and

The afflicted?

Afflicted 

By Poverty

Crippled by Polio

Or, suffering other impediments.

This youthful dictum

I now articulate 

As a world where Yin and Yang

May find a balance.

The Yang of Pleasure

And the Yin of Suffering.

Each enfolding the other

In an amoebic whole.

How do we Proceed 

Except by this Faith?

Embracing the Equilibrium

Of all things.

In every life

We have some trouble

But when you worry, 

You make it double.

LOTUSLAND

For Buddhists:

‘The Floating World’

Is our prosaic world  

Transformed by the Awareness

Of Being.

They Imagine:

Our divine selves

Emerging from its murky depths 

Like Lotus blossoms

From a Lake.

Such Imagery recalls

The Mystics notion of Reality

In which the prayerful

Are Pierced 

By an Elucidating Light.

It is not Necessary

To believe in either notion

But both are useful prompts:

All power lies within us

As we open our Hearts to Grace. 

It is then that

The Lotus Flower 

Engulfs us 

In the Divine Luminosity

Of its Unfolding.

L O T U S L A N D I I

A Void

Exists

Somewhere

Within the Abdomen.

It is the 

Phantasmagorical

Location

Of Our Being.

Of Our Presence

And of Our Attention.

Nested within 

The Lotus Blossom.

Our Consciousness

Rooted 

In the effulgent bowl

Of a Flower.

From this shallow declivity

Arise Mystical filaments

That Fly to 

Worlds beyond Worlds. 

To a Universe

Of All Things

Held In a web

Of their Consciousness. 

DARK SKY

The Green Revolution

Thrives in the Shadow

Of the Industrial:

Its righteous glow

Fueled by the Burning of Oil. 

The mining and manufacture

Necessary, for the Creation

Of Solar Energy Infrastructure

Requires Burning Fossil biomass.

It Is not Self-Replicating.

This then

Is no Revolution at all.

Just another way

To continue on the way

To our Demise.

Progress is 

Maintained, Growth

Assured, while the Future

Fades into the 

Approaching Storm.

Momentum Ever

Privileged over the Stilling

Of Our Rapacious Appetites, 

We Race Toward

The Darkening Of the Sky.

PROGRESS

Big Ideas

Were conjured

In the caves

Of the Neolithic.

Male egos were imposed

On the bodies

Of Woman, Beasts

And on the Land. 

The Wisdom of the Natural World

Was Forsaken

While Ideas were wrought

In Stone, Copper and Iron. 

The Familiar rise of Civilization

Followed

Until Science became 

The God of Man. 

Colonialism then Marked

The Triumph of the Male Ego

Celebrated in violent predation 

Upon Foreign Lands. 

Enlightenment Thinkers

Counted

This desecration

As Progress.

Now, after Long centuries 

Suffered under this Brutal scourge

We come at last to its Collapse

The Blessed End of Progress.