Science Fi(a)ction

Are we the children of alien experiment?

So many theories going around.

If we can think of it, it probably exists, or,

as one Buddhist teacher said: “Anything 

you can think of exists somewhere in the

universe.”

How much circumstantial evidence does

it take to admit it’s the truth?

The argument of the beard: how many 

whiskers before you say it’s a beard.

I don’t care what anybody thinks.

I’m convinced we’re not alone.

It took the Vatican 400 years to acknowledge 

that Galileo was right.

Today, the algorithm of information increase

is reaching its infinite end.

Like the little Dutch girl, there are too many

holes to hide the flood of truth.

That fact is not fiction.

And here we are again, in media res, 

in the middle of things,

where the story always begins,

perhaps a chapter not as unfamiliar 

as we might (fear, think, suppose).

All we’re starting to see right now

is everything we thought we knew

is wrong,

a plot twist the Homosap never

saw coming.

Brute Force

Bull in a China shop, much of my life.

I had to break a few eggs to cook it right.

Never trusted what other people said.

Reality spoke to me directly.

Apparent phenomena are all the books

one needs if the mind is trained.

You’re going to make some mistakes

in any case…might as well learn something 

while you’re at it.

Those that don’t take chances don’t get too far.

“Eccentricity is the basis of design.”

Most were failures before they attained success.

Even silver spoons don’t guarantee a thing.

Competition separates the wheat from the chaff.

Challenging oneself does the same thing.

One you find your balance on a bike,

you don’t forget how to ride.

Getting on one at all is the biggest step.

A know-it-all knows nothing, as we know.

Fear makes fools of us all.

Going to another country is daunting at first, before

one realizes everyone is basically the same;

same humanity,

same desires,

same problems,

same outcomes.

One can parse existence

if only there’s an interest.

Curiosity is the last thing to go

before enlightenment,

when there’s nothing left to know.

All That’s Left To Do Is Die

No job to get up for,

few responsibilities.

I did what I could that

was good for a world of

the good the bad the ugly,

all were there, the usual 

suspects.

My daughter is fine, a

Buddhist too…all I could

have hoped for.

I didn’t save the world.

I apologize, but what did

you expect?

I helped a few, wrote words

that will reverberate down

quantum eternity, maybe.

I helped my teacher, Trungpa,

bring Buddhism to the West,

the best thing I ever did.

Concomitants aside, like anyone 

that cared at all, I tried.

No blue ribbons, no accolades,

living unknown, that’s ok.

All the poets, artists had to let go,

never knowing if what they did

mattered at all, except, maybe

Picasso.

Soon the words will stop, the

toothpaste tube squeezed out

and thrown away.

Sad and happy are only for you,

the living that remain.

Maybe the whole of humanity 

will be lost to eternity, the odds

are good for that, given infinity.

Was it worth it? Was anything?

All the questions can’t be answered.

Still, there is this cup of tea,

sounds of civilization and the wind,

and a sunset or a thunderstorm,

if I’m lucky.

Brainstorm Dream

I had a dream that explained it all.

I was working for the government, 

but I wouldn’t play ball.

They wanted me to do only what 

was good for them.

It took a while before I could see that

they had declared the truth the enemy.

They wanted to strip me of my authentic 

presence, of my being, like vampires.

Some felt sorry for me, but their lips

we’re frozen, they had to turn away.

They didn’t just fire me…they tried

to take away my humanity.

Everyone in it had been hired to obey,

and none of them could see what was

right anymore.

They couldn’t allow me to exist because

I was proof of the lies that they stood for.

And everyone like me was eliminated,

purged or ignored, 

threats they couldn’t stand.

Even those that still were there, worked

for them outstandingly, were subject to

their rules and laws that whispered:

“don’t disobey.”

I was ostracized from then on.

Those still there knew that it was wrong.

But, at least I still had my dignity.

Reality Bleeds A Dream

A dream I just had, sooo long and complex,

with my Buddhist sangha in surreal environs,

together again as we once were, mixed with

the hippie milieu vibe in a structure that was more

than a tent but less than a building communing

together why was I there? I moved through the

dream fascinated by what I was seeing, got 

some good food awkwardly with small dishes

and sat down at a table with Ken Campbell,

a dude long dead that I hadn’t seen for decades,

I said: “Hi, Ken.” He recognized me,

he said my name and I woke up.

Beats Me

I knew Ginsberg a little,

but I was part of the second wave,

the hippies that Kerouac despised.

The Sixties was a Renaissance of 

the spirit, fueled by L.S.D..

We eschewed the American Dream,

the Eisenhower big daddy scheme,

and tried to find our own ways out

of a frozen society.

It was a dangerous calling, and many

died, but at least not in Vietnam.

We made it up as we went along.

Politically, the movement was a failure.

1968 Democrat convention the high water

mark. It was fun in Chicago, chanting with

Ginsberg and his ilk, until Daley’s cops

beat everyone up.

Notice it was the Democrats we were protesting,

so, at least we got that right.

The movement went underground, yet continues 

to this day. 

My poetry is faint proof of that, my mind is free,

no longer closeted in wishful thinking,

the carrot on the stick of material success,

that hollow victory.

The “archaic revival” concept came out of our

travails, our celebrations, our adventures.

Ancient wisdom, hard to see in this dark age.

“Don’t freak out the straight people.” was one 

of our slogans, because that seemed to be what

we were good at.

I remember being in a bus station in Minneapolis,

my friends and I, high, blowing bubbles.

The Ticketmaster came out of his booth and told us:

“Stop blowing bubbles, the old people don’t like it.”

Amazing and indicative of those times.

Not a beatnik, but I sure am beat, 

not looking for a victory I can bank,

each day stripped down to essentials,

back to the senses,

the trees, flowers, weather an opera

of phenomenon not made of the soap 

rendered from the corpses of industry,

of ambition, of useless endeavor.

You go ahead, I’m beaten, 

but I’m better off here.

Life And Its Reflection

“All matter is frozen light.” Sheldrake 

Easier to see when you look in someone’s 

eyes, into their “soul”, into their energy,

into whatever it is looking back, acting

not like a diamond, which may be purer,

prismatic, reflective not reflexive, brilliant 

but not alive, if only just standing there, 

waiting, like a diamond, maybe without

reaction, but anything could happen, a smile,

a shout, a laugh, a song, a tear, coming from

that emptiness inside, the beginning and end

of life and all complexities, so sophisticated 

like filigree magical art; the tie my dad had,

red, with what looked like white curvy line

design, but when you turned it horizontal, 

it was cursive writing and its mirror image 

that read:

“Go piss up a rope.”

I wanted that tie so much because it was the

reflection of my dad’s light, his humor, what

made him special in the whole of space.

The Left Hand Path

“The eccentric is the basis of design.” Wallace Stevens

The path less traveled.

Chthonic awareness in the basement 

looking for the stoppage.

Like a hunter, as a plumber, 

you have to look for the signs in nature.

Nature scoffs at plastic flowers,

trembles at the prospect of artificial intelligence.

Outlaw is honorific, not pejorative, to my mind.

There cannot be beliefs in the shop, or the battlefield,

as you prepare 

for the day’s uncertainties…what you see in front

of you is uncompromising, too real, no room for

daydream.

A plumber I worked with, in Boston,

had to unstop a toilet.

He started with the closet auger, 

reamed that sucker good

to no avail. 

His temperature rose like a heavyweight in mid bout.

He pulled the toilet, got a hose, stuck it in the top and 

the bottom of the toilet, wrestled with it for a long time.

Suddenly, the largest turd either of us had ever seen,

slithered out like a snake.

We stood there in awe for a sacred moment.

For a second, we both experienced non-thought.

Certainty is a temporary experience.

Everything you know is wrong.

Hold and then, release.

Go out with the breath.

Letting go is left hand wisdom.

Muscle Memory

Monday mornings I would wake up

and have to go to work as a plumber

and many times have the thought:

“I don’t know how to do this work!”

slightly panicked,

then, on the job, the work just happened

because ingrained, familiar, I just had to

see it, be there in it, didn’t have to think

most of the time….

everything I learned how to do was that

way…it took time to be familiar with the

medium

tools

procedures

process

how it came together whether it was

plumbing

writing 

teaching

acting

all different bicycles to learn how to

balance

create the right environment 

let the character speak for itself

not get in my own way.

Acting was effortless, just paying 

attention to words and expression.

Writing was to just keep writing

until the words began to organize

themselves.

Learning to teach was painful because,

as with the others, not good at first,

and there were people watching, so,

embarrassing clumsy, but confidence 

slowly grew.

Plumbing scared me the most because

it was for money

results were immediate

there was more at stake

plumbers were not normal people

customers had to be satisfied

(the biggest challenge of any job).

But,

like everything else, after a while,

I knew what I was doing.

Anger was a component; the adrenaline 

necessary to focus, what professional 

athletes possess that made Michael Jordan

seem to fly.

It took ten years after I quit to finally slow down.

I was chunky, strong…now my muscles are 

diminished as they are no longer necessary.

Still, a twinge a few Monday mornings,

then, “Thank goodness that’s over.”

I became competent at what I had to do,

whether I wanted to or not.

My accomplishment, if at all, is that

I never became lost in

what so many become,

the certainty that never pans out

in someone else’s game.

I’ve never been a criminal,

but I’ve always been an outlaw.

Ego And Religion

Ego wants to survive, be eternal even,

so it creates beliefs that will give it a

way out, or a way in, to heaven and

eternal life, don’t you know, no matter

what doctrine, dogma, the religion obeys.

It’s primitive thinking based on fear of

the unknown so Homosap makes things up.

Not much more needs to be said except 

primitive beliefs are obstacles to evolution.

Not much more needs to be said except

when does the Homosap get over his myths?

There’s no bravery in beliefs, the way of sheep,

like blinders on a horse,

these are the days of our lives,

lost in soap operas evolved from childhood tales.

Waiting

“What rough beast, it’s hour come ‘round at last,

slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”  Yeats

Waiting for a poem.

Waiting for the end of the world.

Waiting for the Golden Age.

Waiting for 3I/Atlas to be revealed

as soft disclosure.

Waiting for the Bus.

Waiting for tribunals.

Intense waiting,

provocative waiting,

pregnant waiting,

like waiting for D Day,

like waiting for Deus Ex Machina,

like waiting for Christmas when 

you were a kid.

So much seems to be happening.

Draw your own conclusions, but

conclusions are what I’m waiting for.

On the edge of my seat waiting.

If it was a movie, perhaps I’d enjoy it.

Maybe it is, but I’ve never been

in a movie before…

it makes me nervous.

If I had a part to play in it,

I’d feel more involved.

I’m just a spectator waiting,

under a volcano,

for it to blow.

Precarious

One could say that about all our lives,

as uncertain as a May fly’s,

seemingly immortal when we’re young,

everyone feels that way, coming in to

a fresh body, well endowed with strength,

partying all night and working all day…

we see others taking chances;

a selfie on a cliff,

outrunning the police.

We think we’re immune

until we walk into an airplane propeller

because we’re not paying attention.

Lately, I haven’t been able to forget

that I’m made of flesh and blood,

a machine that wears out, runs down.

The algorithm reaches its conclusion.

Only a few are able to see continuity 

of the discontinuity; the eternity 

hidden within the mechanism.

“In the spring the chrysanthemum’s

astringent fragrance comes revealing

the hidden mechanism of machine

within machine within machine.” 

Wallace Stevens

We all walk the tightrope, like the

little Frenchman, even though the

Twin Towers are no more; the poem

that killed three thousand, a surprise,

a shock; he moved between the towers

with confidence…he didn’t fall.

Then, the towers fell,

as if they were us.

Open Your Eyes

“Neo, Social Media has you.” Trinity

The matrix is a maze, constantly reconfiguring

to keep you lost,

away from your senses,

your connection to reality.

Lots of blind alleys,

dead ends,

traps to keep you confused.

Luckily, it’s all just words.

Unfortunately, words control your minds.

“It’s back to the senses,

back to the senses now,

now senses the to back.”

You have to look if you want to see.

The churning of thoughts is what keeps 

you enslaved.

That’s all that Buddha was saying.

Back then, they didn’t have the machines 

that machine our minds.

Back then, they relied on the senses.

The “archaic revival”, McKenna’s idea,

“ecstasy, community, ecological harmony,

egalitarianism” sounds better than what

the Homosap is currently up to.

It’s what us hippies could only finger paint.

But, we did feel it, saw it, heard it, tasted it.

Those moments were more real than any

peddled by propaganda of political ponces.

We’d better wake up now while we’re 

still alive.

Doing Things

I used to like doing things,

but I don’t anymore.

When I have to do something now,

I need a day to think about the thing, 

a day to do it,

and a day think about the thing I did.

This week was overwhelming.

I had two things to do:

see the dentist,

get my clothes that I had had repaired.

I’m done now, and resting gently,

my mind temporarily free from occupation.

 

When I was a plumber,  sometimes I’d do

eight service calls in a day…one an hour.

Think Sea Biscuit in his prime.

In my twenties, my mind was continually 

racing with thoughts and ideas no relief.

Now, it’s up a lazy river,

space fastened to a dying animal.

When I don’t have something specific to do,

I hang out, just in case of emergency.

In case of emergency, break my samadhi.

Cosmic Comedian

Karma chameleon

boffo once every light year

hitting on all cylinders, cycles,

eccentricities, probabilities until

it’s back to empty fecundity, 

the beginning was the word,

have you heard the word is love,

everybody’s talking about the bird,

bird, bird, b’bird is the word,

Penrose’s cyclical universe on all

cylinders, l’i’ll Deus Coupe you 

don’t know don’t know what ergo-t,

Black hole gonna shut you down.

Now, you try!

Soap Opera

“Before you have an erection,

your mind gets hard first.”

White Fang Lama

Soap Opera.

If there’s a term for it, it exists.

Better yet, many have experienced it.

It exists not just as the entertainment 

we know.

It exists as wasted time of people’s lives.

You can’t tell the fiction from the reality.

Colonizing Mars?

Martian soap opera, whether it happens or not.

Wars  always begin as soap operas before the

bodies start falling.

Eight billion characters in massive display 

of soap opera.

It all boils down to one point:

call it soap opera,

call it samsara,

decorate it all you want,

call it a golden age.

Look at history repeating itself.

“There’s nothing new under the sun.”

was written thousands of years ago.

Things only seem new until about

the thirties, when reality begins to 

seems to

repeats itself.

How many situation comedies 

can there be?

Even the Absurdists get it wrong.

Sure, Godot is never coming, but

his never coming is always there.

Poor believers.

There are no rules, except maybe

the Golden One.

There is no finish line, no lasting

accolades, just Cracker Jack prizes,

Crusader Rabbit,

Rags the Tiger,

Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales.

“Help, Cecil, help. Help, Cecil, help.

Help, Cecil, help.”

Tee-rooth

“Teeth to live!” Zappa, Lumpy Gravy.

“The Teeth Mother Naked At Last!”  Bly 

“Remember the the tooth! The tooth!”

Duke Leto Atredies

“We’re going to have to pull that tooth.”

OK.

Waiting for that.

I apologize for writing about this.

It’s trivial and personal and who needs

to hear about it?

Two days until extraction.

(sounds like a Special Forces deal.)

The azitromicen will keep working ‘til then.

Well, heck…

it’s not like it’s cancer,

it’s not the Spanish Inquisition.

It’s a blessing, one could say…

a temporary constant reminder

of something like it gonna be…someday.

Yes, use your good health and senses 

while you have them.

This is your mother speaking.

This shows how crazy I am.

The tooth in question had been capped,

and the cap came off.

I didn’t get it put back on

for eight months

(I wanted to see what would happen)

It got infected, and now it must be pulled.

I will experience the whole thing.

I want to experience the whole thing.

That’ll teach me a lesson!

It’s true that anything can be the subject of a poem.

That doesn’t mean  every poem should be published.

On the quantum scale, every life is worth living.

I want to undercut that truth, 

but I think I’ll leave it there.

Reality’s Latest Victim

That could be any of us, I suppose,

although, 

some are more victim than others,

some float on the waves of the apparent,

some slip-slide through realities;

the mob Boss walking the street in his bathrobe,

Sammy the Bull winding  up with a podcast,

describing his murders in detail,

the pedophiles at Disneyland dressing as Goofy,

me, with the soul of a poet, 

becoming plumber outlaw just surviving.

…victims of being born,

victims of our families,

childhood,

environment…

so many things could go wrong

before we even get off the ground,

let alone accomplish any damn thing,

or learn anything useful at all.

Myself, just a victim of time, 

like all, is all.

One can be King and die a horrible death.

One can be like me, alone, and die ok, 

or anything in between.

I’d like to write a cool ending, but, 

that’s just it…

nothing cool about …

…nothing.

On the other hand,

nothing ever ends

nothing never ends

Signs

I was looking for a sign 

that I was heading in the right direction

Today, I saw a white bird,

I don’t know if it was a dove,

on the ground in front of me.

In twenty years, I’ve never seen

one of those before.

Actually, before I saw the white bird,

I realized my whole life has been a sign

a sign I was a Buddhist

a sign I had been so for lifetimes

a sign that, in this life, I had been in the

right place at the right time.

Believe it or not, 

it has nothing to do with belief.

The signs, the “da”s are always there

for anyone to see.

“Look, and then, you can see.” Trungpa

You see?

(I know…that was a cheap shot.)

Question:

Someone hands you a piece of paper,

and stands in front of you.

You open it, it reads:

“Look up.”

What do you do?

Do you see?

The Whisper of Da, Reality’s Subtle Signs ( in collaboration with Gemini A.I.)

The world is always ready to speak to us,

if only we would listen: a loose thread from

the cuff of the day, a tiny beckoning tear.

The mailbox hangs from its hinges, a minor 

imperfection of wood.

If the mailbox hangs, the postman might be

afraid to deliver the mail to the waiting, empty

space where a letter of fortune could have been.

Our hopes and dreams hang in the balance, 

like the one forgotten button from our coat

that fell off and got lost.

To see the warning written on the wind, 

written on the cap that fell off a tooth,

the subtle script of fate,

is to catch the necessary clue before 

it’s too late.

Friendship with the world means

we have nothing at all to fear.

The Algorithm’s Song

The truth that moves on stage

is how the lines are made.

You have to read between the lines

to see the signs, 

the surface story is too clean,

a stage where nothing has been seen.

We want the truth, or so we think.

It’s different when we see it face to face,

a shock when suddenly we know.

The mirror cracks, the paint runs down,

the neat facade begins to shrink,

the Emperor has lost his crown.

What can we do, pilloried by what’s so?

Let go, let go, nothing to cling to here.

Tomorrow is another brave new world.

The truth that moves on stage 

is how the lines are made.

The Universe Is Cyclical And So Are We

Blue star kachina.

Hopi prophesy signaling the end of the age,

the beginning of the next.

3I/Atlas just turned blue. 

Just a coincidence, maybe?

But other signs are there:

humans losing their connection to the earth,

losing their connection to sanity, common sense.

Koyaanisqatsi.

So much is ending.

So much is beginning.

I/A….A/I….

you have to read between the lines

to see the signs.

Nature has a way of righting itself,

whether humans like it or not.

We have forgotten that we are nature too;

we come from nature, are part of nature.

You wouldn’t think it, looking at Kensington.

You wouldn’t think it, looking at a purple 

haired obese lady with an hundred piercings.

You wouldn’t think it, looking at the fields

in Ukraine strewn with corpses,

Gaza strewn with corpses,

human history strewn with corpses.

At this point, people might be surprised if

you told them there were times and places 

when people lived in harmony.

Harmony, in Japanese, is “wa”.

I was told a story when I was in Japan.

A woman worked for a company. She 

was very innovative, had many great ideas

to change the company to improve it.

I was told she was fired because she

upset the “wa” of the company.

Sounds crazy to us “entrepreneurs”, eh?

Nature has a way of righting itself.

Just another clue as to where we went wrong,

as it seems humans have done many times before.

Don’t worry, though, because there’s no hope.

The Kachinas take off their masks and we’re done.

Their monkey wrenches no longer wake us up.

The sleeping mountains throw open their eyes.

And So It Goes

Human experience hasn’t changed.

Life events, circumstances, concomitants 

are always changing.

People get excited when something new

comes along….excited or horrified,

and so it goes.

If you think about it, there is nothing new

under the sun.

It’s all a re-run.

Sure, it looks new, has that new car smell

that quickly fades.

Even if 3I/Atlas is an alien craft, we’ve had

every scenario of possibility already described 

in all the movies and science fiction novels,

which means it’s more than just a possibility.

Past, present and future are all within the mind.

What can happen and what will happen are

already happening…the clues are already there.

Seeds have been planted long ago.

Fruition is just a matter of time, like the Denver

Nuggets basketball team,

like Communists in the USA,

like Trump and the “plan”,

like where your mother’s drinking, smoking,

bad eating habits will lead.

“If you want to see the future, look at the present.

If you want to see the past, look at the present.”

This is what the wise men say.

Reality doesn’t care whether you like it or not,

like a parent that says it’s time for bed.

Things will work out better if one adheres to the truth.

If not, the inevitable will take a little longer.

In that sense, having cancer is the same as being born.

They’re both what happens.

If you can dig it, neither is a problem.

From beginning to end, it just goes.

Get on the bus, or be left behind,

meaning,

use your intelligence because no one can know

better than you.

Life Span

A bridge between two worlds

so long you can remember things

that everyone else has forgotten.

The time it takes to smoke 

a last cigarette.

A chance, an opportunity, whether

taken advantage of or not.

A journey, a tragedy, a victory

unfolding, a story for the ages.

The time we get when we sign 

on the dotted line

to be born.

Victims Of Circumstance

Every day the world goes on,

the beating of hearts and machinery,

to what end is always questionable.

It’s hard to read the signs….

no instruction manual.

Taken by winds of karma,

life sucks and blows with every breath.

until death, when we wonder:

“What was that?”

Living but not awake…

awake but not aware…

training  the mind itself used to be a thing.

Now training is only to survive and be

productive, like a bear in a circus.

More distractions; internet, social media,

that keep us from ourselves.

Nobody knows why, it just happened, 

fulfilling long ago prophesies.

Elijah’s chariot in the sky…

Ezechiel’s wheels within wheels…

fantasy or description?

Many have seen UFOs, including me.

No one believes us.

You think we made it up, like the Bible?

Give me a break.

It’s time to think a little bigger, or risk

getting swept away by the changes

coming to our relative world.

Algorithm Vs. Evolution

It sped up at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

Einstein’s work made Newtonian physics 

obsolete…science started to be on shaky ground.

Art gradually broke down the norms of the way

people saw the world.

Information distribution became constantly more

rapid and widespread.

The algorithm continually sped up, until 

machines were created (computers) that could

speed it up faster than humans could do 

by themselves.

“We’re entering the fifth dimension.”

“We’re entering a new age.”

“You know that something’s happening 

here, but you don’t know what it is.”

Advances in science that have made life

better happened alongside weaponry 

advances that killed humans better.

On the whole, the algorithm hasn’t made

people smarter or less self destructive.

Musk is a hero (ideal) that wants to colonize 

Mars when we haven’t figure out how to

manage the earth properly…that’s the ape

overreaching…not evolution.

It’s not evolution.

It’s blind survival instinct that will build

a bigger bomb if it thinks that will help it 

live longer.

It’s no more evolved than an amoeba.

Christ was evolved because he taught

compassion, something that the people

of that part of the world, that time in

history, might never have heard of.

They weren’t ready for him.

He scared them so they killed him.

Buddha was evolved and he taught

others the means to self evolve.

He said, back then, that by the time 

we are in now, it would be very hard 

to even hear, let alone understand, his

teachings. He said this time would be

the beginning of the Dark Age.

“Wisdom gap”: “the widening disparity 

between humanity’s rapidly advancing 

technological power, and humanity’s 

lagging ability to use that power wisely.”

(A.I.)

So fascinating, all these gadgets, 

all these possibilities, the shiny objects

posing as reality that distract us from

what’s really going on: the mirror we 

can’t help but eventually trip over.

Nothing happens for a long time, and suddenly….

…everything happens at once

world on the verge of nuclear war 

world on the verge of discovering

(revealing) aliens 3I/Atlas, baby!

Uh…I guess that’s everything.

When Is Enough Enough?

I should probably stop right there.

I’ve been writing for fifty years.

Certainly that’s enough.

Henry the Eighth ate so much that,

by the time he died, his body was

bloated and rotting.

He certainly ate enough.

The war to end all wars was followed

by a worse war, and the wars just kept

happening.

Certainly we’ve had enough of that.

Frankly, I’ve had enough of this life,

although it seems to keep happening.

We keep getting reborn because we

never get enough of what we think 

we’re looking for; separation from

space is the wind up spring that never

runs down and drives us forward

forever.

Even when we’re not, we’re trying to be.

Only Buddha had enough of the circle jerk

called samsara. When he passed into Nirvana,

he became space, our true home.

That’s enough.

Is It All A Game?

Is who dies with the most stuff the winner?

In that case there doesn’t seem to be many rules.

And, there aren’t many winners.

Day of the Dead and people get drunk and dance

in the cemetery.

If life is a game, Mexicans are in the bonus round.

Resurrection

Fortunate sun

dredging me up again,

more than every third day,

more reliable than Mexican electricity.

Alive again in the routine.

What did Jesus do the first 

thing that morning,

have a cup of coffee?

Might as well could have done.

All we hear about is the miracles,

as if that was enough to sustain us

for thousands of years.

Have any good resurrections lately?

No, but we have plenty of special effects,

A.I. videos, and you can resurrect them

again and again….forever and ever.

Ugh.

But I have chocolate cake,

music that sounds new,

and, I’m awake.

Space

Space is where the aliens come from

Space is where we come from.

Space pervades all phenomena.

Space is where we return to when we die.

Space is the “fecund minimum”. (Stevens)

Space is the cosmic potential.

Space is too much for our little minds.

Space is the same as our Big minds.

Having a body is a conundrum.

We feel limited by it, but our minds are infinite.

It’s hard to reconcile, takes effort to recognize,

realize space, but many have done it.

These are the humans that see the universe

in a drop of water.

These humans have become part of the environment,

not sticking out like a sore thumb

a sore head

a dumb dumb.

These are just words…don’t believe them.

Find out for yourself like Buddha did.

Believe it or not, space awaits.

“The truth is the most important thing.”

— Irvin Tischer

Tough Crowd

The brainwashed are a tough crowd.

It’s hard to make them even smile.

No room in their heads for anything

that isn’t already there.

Victims of amnesia as to what they

really are.

Amazing, really, that they don’t see

the truth staring them in the face,

like the Democrats,

like Nazis,

like Jim Jones followers into oblivion,

like all the cults that ever were.

A chunk of Americans are brainwashed 

in the cult perpetrated on them by evil,

corrupt social engineers.

People don’t want to hear this.

People don’t want to hear the truth.

Who even wants to read these words?

No one wants to hear me crying in the

wilderness of bewildering deception.

Question

They say the Dark Age is when

the truth is hard to hear.

Isn’t that where we are now?

Matter Of Fact

Sunny day, sitting on a rock, waiting

for the bus…I know where it’s going,

my rut, my routine, not heavy, light

like my life that floats on the waves

of the senses.

Matter doesn’t matter. It’s the illusion 

of solidity, the ground of confusion.

The words I write don’t become matter.

If someone connects with the words it’s 

the same as seeing a flower, really seeing

it for the first time, only materializing in

the mind.

Everything human starts in the mind.

Monuments are only expressions of mind.

They are the play of matter in which the 

truth is revealed.

The truth is not material, but it’s the only

thing that matters, 

like the Lincoln Memorial.

Life Is A Clue Called Existence

Clue to what, you wonder.

“What’s it all about, Alfie,

is it just for the moment we

live?” 

“Try to remember…” (how

does that song go?)

getting excited about

explanations

theories

epiphanies 

dogmas

doesn’t seem to satisfy for

very long, 

like junk food.

Some humans have found out 

what life’s about

so should you.

I’m not smart enough to even

maintain my own existence,

but at least I’ve discovered the truth.

That revelation will last for eternity

because it has already.

Soft Disclosure

“I hate to break it to you, but…”

Comey…Bolton

3I/ATLAS

The Blue Kachina

“I’ll be right back. I’m going

out for a pack of cigarettes.”

Catching Up

Starting to remember,

or, memory is catching up to me.

It’s all there in the karma cache,

in the DNA of which we only use

a tiny bit, the rest waiting to be triggered.

Meditation is the only way it works.

Nothing is ever lost.

Actions have inevitable consequences.

That’s why your eyes are blue,

why you always wanted to be

whatever,

why you have lots of love or not,

why you always had a longing

to go to Tibet like my mother,

though she never made it there.

Magically, I brought it to her, so,

it caught up to her.

Nothing is ever lost.

Please don’t believe anything I say.

Belief is spinning your wheels and going nowhere.

Catch up through the senses to where

you actually are, see the world for yourself,

not the picture painted for you by others…

it’s the only way to evolve,

it’s the only way to remember what you are.

Tepoztlan Redux

People aren’t crazy here…

if they are I don’t know because they’re smiling…

that could be crazy too.

(a haiku with too many syllables)

People here are transparent because they have

nothing to hide because they have nothing.

The old gringos I know here are crazy the same

as if they were in the USA.

I wear colorful clothes.

People know that, which makes me invisible,

invisible but friendly.

I smile at the children and they smile back.

That makes me feel ok.

That makes me feel I’m in the right place,

it makes me feel I found my spot.

(twenty percent Burning Man)

Everybody’s tripping.

It’s more blatant here, less purposeful,

not obvious to tourists.

There’s acceptance of the drunk 

passed out in the doorway,

ready to arise for the next fiesta,

which should be any moment now.

People are beautiful because not downtrodden;

poor but not afraid of poverty.

There’s something about the place itself 

that sustains life…nature giving people 

a reason to live.

Narcos seem to leave the place alone.

Even they know not to mess with a good thing.

I feel the precariousness of life here, a shared

experience with the people.

Tepoztlan is not like any place I’ve been.

Twenty years ago, I cried in the restaurant 

the first two mornings I was here.

I wondered why.

I realized, for the first time in my life,

I felt like I was home.

No Proof Of Life

Nothing is proven…things just work out

for a while, maybe even reliable, but

circumstances change, things wear out,

a new model comes along, a brand new

technology, better theory that explains.

Maybe we have evidence we can use

in a court of law, in the court of public

opinion, that we exist: we have snap

shots, diplomas, verified anecdotes 

that say we were where whenever

and did what, but considering eternity

even titanium explanations wither.

That’s exactly why a cup of tea is

as monumental as anything can be.

Art Is Life

From the Sumerians to today,

life has been expressed in art,

part of many a religion, more

or less.

Poets worked out their lives in

words…Ginsberg howled,

Rimbaud and Burroughs wrote

their nightmares on paper until

they lost their power.

Bukowski, Miller, DeQuincy

and more weren’t just scribbling,

no

it is their blood and sweat in those

lines that freed them from their 

prisons.

I know what they did so beautiful 

that people still read and feel the

breath of their lives as close as you

can get to eternity.

Ya Think?

I think therefore I am a fool.

“What was I thinking?” was

heard to be said.

“I break when the little voices

in my head tell me to.” a

bumper sticker read.

What about the people that go

into convulsions when they hear

the word: Trump?

Is that using their heads?

It’s a heady topic too bald faced

for many.

When I don’t think, there I am.

Lost from childhood, it’s hard

to get off that bandwagon. 

I was lucky…my world made 

no sense from the beginning.

I had to find out what was true.

I never believed anything for 

very long.

Most adults, growing up, didn’t 

even seem human to me.

That seeded my belief in other

world aliens. 

Now that I’ve seen their crafts 

with my own eyes, they’re real

to me, no matter what someone

else mutters in their dream.

Tick Tock

Another night late in life,

check off the box.

What’s happening out there?

So many things.

Can you handle the truth?

I think it’s stranger than the fictions

we hear about everyday.

Certainly everything I was told was a lie,

although those that told me didn’t know

because someone told them and so it goes.

I’ve seen UFOs undeniably as have so many,

still scientifically unproven says NASA,

Never A Straight Answer, and that’s just

one agency that eats money and is part 

of the house of cards so many are lost 

believing in.

But, in a way it doesn’t matter because

there’s not much time.

Precious lives, precious time, even if

it’s only a hot dog, a cup of tea.

Ballade Of A Tin Soldier

I was changing the sheets like I do,

the pink ones for the gold this time.

I had the music on something noir.

It started like that, the way it used to

start; interesting, fascinating, sultry.

But quickly the color wasn’t there,

washed out like faded, superimposed

film. The music kept on and I went

back to my chore.

Nothing monumental about any of it.

I wish my life had more pizzazz,

I’d rather be done with it,

but I still have my chores.

Just A Poet

There are/have been many poets better than me

that have died unread, unknown.

There are many flowers in the woods no one

will ever see.

Art is beauty and truth and just happens because

humans can’t help themselves and that’s the way

it is and should be.

Machine conglomerates put on shows that are

predictable, banal, and full of cliche, not art,

just another mechanism of control. 

Chaim Soutine (I love his name best of all)

painted rotting beef carcasses he hung in

his apartment, slathering them with blood

so he could keep painting them fresh.

It got him  out of poverty, but he died anyway

indirectly because of the Nazis.

Nazi “art” was brutal and simplistic.

It was propaganda lies in the form of art.

The Nazis shot Lorca in a field.

Disney does similar, albeit less violent,

travesties in the USA to the same end.

A country without art is a country without a heart.

Luckily, the beat goes on.

Krag watches, amused.

(For those playing the home game, that’s a clue.)

Broken Hearted But Not Lonely

I’m not lonely because I don’t feel separated 

from my experience of the world through the

senses no I’m part of the world part of the 

environment the space that pervades existence

between molecules of so called matter so quantum

connectedness between vast distances 

instantaneously like love does for example

but

my heart is broken for so many in bad situations 

or that don’t have a clue and wander in confusion

and in that space I am with them I don’t know if

that helps.

Spectre

Innuendos on the internet creating impressions

are they true, do they have any validity? 

the curse of the sound bite

if it sticks they think it’s true

and the roar of the crowd rises to give it weight

every conversation you have is a shouting match

until the volume is the only thing that pretends authority.

All in all it’s but a ghost imagining itself real.

Spontaneous Auto-Da-Fe

Parasitic random words emit their aroma

or is it stench half full empty is what you

get at the end of the day or anytime why

not but you saw that coming so more of

the same which I could just repeat like

echolalia until my mind is ash which 

always happens for a while at some point

until phoenix words arise again from the

swamp of possibilities how many lots so

you’re reading fire that burns into words

that become ash as soon as you read them

and on to the next thing fill it up so there

are no distractions that might just show 

you what’s really happening but we haven’t 

analyzed the data sufficiently we can’t find

the records I’ll refer you to my supervisor 

I’m afraid there’s nothing more we can do.

Fat Back And Baked Beans

Or, a cassoulet if you prefer…

it’s only words,

but they can make your mouth water.

That’s not something you extrapolate.

It’s good enough as it is,

even though the words keep coming out

the life keeps living

senses whirring like bees

sounds of things happening 

that can be tasty too.

It all makes sense in the sense of the senses.

I mean, what else ya got,

the internet?

In Mexico The Birds Grow On Trees

Several colorful young roosters,

free rangers, on my street perched

in low hanging branches of a tree.

At that location, the chickens, dogs,

and a cat hang out with each other

in peaceable kingdomness.

Martial music in the town square where

I’m having coffee, loudspeaker chatter.

I wish the moment would last, but…

you know…

Brand New Mexican flag on a pole…

I wonder how long it will be there?

I’ll have breakfast now, though I’m

tired of eating,

tired of maintaining this losing battle.

I like seeing the happy animals because

they couldn’t care less.

They’re my teachers now.

Time On The Internet

I spend twelve hours a day average

on the internet. How’s about you?

Yes, it fills the time nicely, it’s true, and,

let’s face it, I’m not going anywhere.

But I also consider it doing research 

on the quantum maze as it unfolds…

(pause to put on noir music)

…not just history in the making…

more like watching reality evolve

like a kaleidoscope, a claymation,

into a different, foreign manifestation,

not just polarization.

Perhaps, even, interstellar visitors.

Put that in your paradigm and smoke it.

So, yes, so many clues proliferate on a

magic screen, not that what’s happening 

is truly being seen, more a shadow play,

the truth hidden behind a curtain dream.

Besides, there is so much I see there that

I don’t really want to be anywhere near;

the civil unrest and lawlessness I’m not

around, the craziness of the mob, 

no thanks, I’d rather be gratefully here

with a magic window to the great somewhere.

 

Just There

“I don’t do anything. I just get up.”

from the play: “The Time Of Your Life”

I’m more that way anymore.

We all look back at our lives when we get old.

You will too if you make it that far.

Not many regrets, which many can’t say.

Maybe I did what I was programmed to do

from past karma lives.

Might as well could be that way.

No finish line, no victory parade so I’ll never know.

“ How do we know you’re enlightened?”

one wag asked the Buddha.

“The earth is my witness “ he heard the Buddha say.

At least, he had the earth to hold him up.

Me?

I can’t prove a damned thing.

The good news is, I don’t care.

Interesting Day

Watching Charley Sheen recovered from his

“adventures” with a clarity that only comes

from waking up from being close to death.

It’s a spiritual path, the home game, for sure.

Charley is unlike many that didn’t survive.

I’m 76, so that means I’ve survived so far.

It’s just nice to recognize another human 

being once in a while.

They’re a vanishing breed.

Should I?

That’s a question one has many

times when one is young.

When old, the questions tend to be

“I did.” or “I didn’t.”

Reasons why you shouldn’t usually 

come after you’ve failed.

I read my brother’s diary once.

In it, he wrote that he’d made so many bad 

decisions that he decided to not make

any more decisions.

Shortly after that, he became catatonic.

So, the answer to the question; “Should I?”

seems to be:

You probably should.

11:12 A. M.

Right now.

Today, so far so good,

what’s next is easy and planned.

So, some words,

not to fill in the time, no,

just more of the monologue.

Time continues anyway.

Is time precious?

Maybe time is precocious,

always ending a little too  early,

starting a little too late,

as if it had a mind of its own.

People are afraid of time…

that’s why schedules were invented.

That’s why some people never

leave the house.

You might say that writing something 

is a good use of time.

A Zen monk might say doing nothing

is the best use of time.

Is waiting for a bus waiting for a bus

or something else?

Maybe this poem will never end, but

at some point I’ll stop writing.

You can measure the amount of time

I’ve been writing. 

Put that alongside eternity.

11:27

J.F.K.

I was 14, in high school, and my German 

teacher came into the class crying and told

us that Kennedy had been shot. Everyone

was stunned. The next day, I saw Oswald 

get shot on television. It was the first 

“instant replay” where they showed the video

of what had just happened.

I thought: “Something is wrong.” It was an

existential feeling, something wrong about

the whole thing. Then, Johnson became the

President, I didn’t go to Vietnam, and I became

a Buddhist because nothing else made sense.

Woah

Did you feel that?

Why are people so insane?

What goes on in the brain?

Brainwashing activated?

“Preserve the harmonic field.

Time is collapsing.”

The center cannot hold.

We’re mainly water powered

by electricity, the brain an organic

computer with perception….sturdy,

yet really quite delicately living in

symbiosis with an environment not

long in cosmic time…

now glimmerings of mass hysteria

“bad chemicals” making people do

all kinds of f’ed up stuff? It’s not

the fluoride this time. Too many

things all at once…world in turmoil,

the brink of nuclear war, 3I/ATLAS 

zooming in, no one’s seen anything

like it, people believing the thoughts

in their heads they read on a Cracker

Jack box or heard the same words 

over and over and over on the Telly 

oh welly, it’s alright, Maw, I’m only

bleeding.

Red Alert

Take a leap, Homie! I would…

or would you rather sleep like

wood? (I don’t get it any more).

Look alive and be quick about it,

not dead

between the eyes

between marriages

between jobs

between beliefs

the categories are as endless as

the imagination.

Hurry up every chance you get because

it’s over.

I Gave My Whole Life To The United States

Grandiose, maybe, but I’m a Buddhist,

so, I had to give it away and I happened

to be in America, so that’s what happened.

Arnold Toynbee said that the coming of

Buddhism to the West was the most rad

event of the Twentieth Century, he said 

it, not me, but I was part of that if anything,

and now meditation is more of a thing, not

some strange other culture’s hoagie pokie,

even scientists are taking it seriously.

So, there’s that.

I like the tombstone inscription Kurt Vonnegut 

wrote in one of his novels:

“(Name here)

He tried”

Heaven On Earth

I could never understand why you had to wait

until you were dead to go to heaven, and why

you would need a priest as a go between….oh,

that’s right, it’s a religion.

Even the hippies knew that heaven was in your 

mind, so, I guess, the LSD was helpful after all.

We all know people that are in hell on the spot

when they’re angry. Why can’t we be in heaven

on the spot?

We can.

It’s called enlightenment, which has nothing to 

do with religion.

Heaven is the natural state of mind that is free

from confusion and conflicting emotions.

Who has that?

Buddha, for sure…Christ too, which is why 

they killed him.

Christ taught love and compassion, which the

Jews were never into.

They still like their old, jealous God, and the

money lenders are still in the temple.

Revolutionaries change the way people see things.

Buddha was one as was Christ,

Mohammed not so much.

Maybe a Deus Ex Machina, sent by God, 

is on its way (3I/Atlas?) to set humanity straight.

The way things are going, it might as well could be.

A Tin Can Of Flim Flam

Just because the world is crazy 

about a cheap trick doesn’t mean

one has to go along with it.

Snake oil salesman in three piece

suits selling vile concoctions made

up in their minds just to get control 

of the rubes but the rubes weren’t 

born yesterday. 

Their evil is on display now not subtle 

because it’s not working the way they

thought it would. (I don’t know why

they didn’t get the message from the

previous failures that are the template

for their process that never works) So

they try harder which manifests their

true intent beyond their words: pain.

This is the world we live in not a brave

new one not a renaissance of evolution 

NO everything we thought we learned

by making laws and standards so society

could run smoothly for the benefit of all

is being attacked viciously by barbarians

of the soul / Homosap can’t seem to get 

his evolution on it’s two steps forward 

one step back (except for Buddha the

endpoint of evolution that had its time

but is now out of season.)

Empty Mirror

Look into a mirror and imagine you’re not there.

That’s an analogy for enlightenment; pure perception 

without reference to a self.

That’s the mind of the universe, universal mind.

There is only one mind, if we can even say that.

It’s not born and doesn’t die.

We just hitch a ride with it we call our lives.

When we die, it’s just getting off the bus at the last stop,

which is called space.

How we deal with that is a whole different story.

Corollary:

When we argue with someone, what we’re seeing

is our own dirty face in the mirror.

Cosmic Dust

“Quantum particles are the dreams that stuff

is made of.”   David Moser

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Ozymandias buried in the sand.

If 3I/Atlas brings aliens so what.

Everything’s a fairy tale anyway.

You loved, she broke your heart,

you got over it, now you can’t 

remember the heartache, the pain.

Extrapolate that to your whole life,

to sentient existence, 

and you’ve got the picture.

The heaviest matter is created in

the biggest explosions of the universe.

That fact fits in here somewhere.

Cosmic Fairy Tale

First you had Omuamua comet, about as big as a football field.

Then you have 3I/Atlas, between 8 and 40 kilometers huge.

Since September 11 we have C/2025 r2 (SWAN) they say

is 100x larger than 3I/Atlas. 

I know the earth is in the Goldilocks zone, but what’s with the

increasingly humongous objects zooming in that are weirder 

and weirder? 

And how come now when there were none before and the earth

(coincidentally?) is going though some major human changes?

No wonder ancient history myths (Annunaki ?) sound like mystery.

Ezekiel’s flaming chariot could have been a UFO.

Right now something is happening in the sky, which is space.

Humans have perception extensions to be able to see the space ballet.

Poor scientific method that doesn’t want to jump to conclusions 

but is getting scared shitless.

Maybe all those “I love Lucy” episodes we broadcast into the void

made the aliens want to come to earth and turn off the t.v. themselves.

Is anyone ever ready for the truth?

Asking for my little green friend.

Update: 9/18/2025

Remember, this is a cosmic fairytale.

It’s a fairytale in part because can you

believe any of the videos on the internet?

One video I saw today said that 3I/Atlas

had changed course two days ago and that

it was now heading towards the earth and

that it would be same distance from the

earth as the moon on October 31st. If true,

we should be able to see it clearly. On the

other hand, Gemini A.I. says that the 

consensus among scientists is that 3I/Atlas

is a natural object, and that it hasn’t altered

it’s course, if you can believe NASA (not a

straight story), so, for now, it remains a story

of some sort, whether a fairy tale or not.

That’s the latest chapter in this story. 

If it’s fiction or the truth, we don’t have

long to wait, a little over a month, which

I like personally. The second coming of 

Jesus is just so uncertain. What is certain

is that all major religions have predicted

this time. They’re just stories too.

Clues

Everyone wants to have a clue

about what’s going on; belief

system, philosophy, some strong

thoughts that make sense of it all.

If you’re clueless, you’re either 

a saint or an idiot.

Some people (most?) jump onto

the first bandwagon that comes 

along or that they’re born into.

Some people get creative and 

start their own cults:

Scientology started as a dare.

It all boils down to fear of the

impermanence of existence that

drives the search for a certainty 

that never was there.

There’s your clue.

For your information,

that’s all Buddha had to go on.