It's Only You

Patriot

Patriot
Thrown into the air
Millions of red petals
Flew up in an ecstatic frenzy
Wavered for a moment
Then fell to the ground

Not yet fallen, I glimpse them
In suspension
Watched them in their imaginings
Thinking they could take flight
Like the eagles that command the skies

But they will not find their rapture in war
Millions of petals burning
A holocaust of roses
Greet the clear eye
Burnt out eyes

How many years blind?
scrounging the rosebuds
Degenerate food, degenerate religion, degenerate culture
Marlboros, christmas shopping and sex on TV
Religions of hate versus a multiculturalism of self-loathing hypocracy

But it's so easy to lash out
Lash away from your self-introspection
Towards an outside you barely understand
Finding unity and solace only in their new equality:
"Slavery is for white people too"

But I know the ground from which we're cast
Rich soil of freedom
Now aflame with that sterilizing heat
Aflame with dollars, violence and atomization
That crisp the ground and singe the roses apart

They only grow taller in the ground
But we can feel taller in the air
High on inflation, corn syrup and cocaine
The cheap thrill of stealing a neighbor's seed corn
Gorging oneself on a future that will never come

But for now the petals dance
At the height of their decadence and beauty
Unbeknownst to them
As they struggle higher
Away from the flames destined to consume them

I am one of these petals
But I do not look to the sky but to the bud
My home enveloped in flames
As I reflect on the future awaiting me
Dreaming of the bedrock I hope lies underneath….

Starchild

Sunrise
Touches eyes
Trembling before its glory
Along with all they see

Life-giving light
So primal
In its beauty,
Sparkles red and purple
Through the leaves and their birds singing praises of the darkness falling away

I have come here to meet the sun

Through this drama
Played out endlessly
Over and over
Before and after the last man
I stand
Its lonely child
In awe of its divine indifference to all that it illuminates

Why is it so easy
To find beauty in what lies so distant
While at the same time human company
Draws only the distance of a vacant stare
Towards the specific vagueries which numb the mind to time's passing
And throw one into the endless circles of monotonous conversation

Beauty
So apparent from far away
In the sovereignty of the sun over my head
Dissipates
As the proximity increases
In the words of a friend or the glance of a passer by

My mind
So enraptured by the inhumanity of the open sky
Cringes
When it brings its focus closer
To its own fractures refelected in the regular imaginings of other minds' eyes

But I am still with the sun this morning

Ensconced by the warmth of its rays
My awareness stretches
Moment by moment
My experience reaching out
Enveloping everything in my gaze
Feeling myself a blink in the eyes of the sun and stars from which I'm made

Snow Fall

Tonight
Reaching out to shadows in the darkness
I find old poems

Each word
Like the snow flakes outside:
Conceived in the black of night
They were admired only as they fell:
Each a unique jewel
Before they melded with the others on the ground

And when sunrise came
(Just as I know it will come tomorrow)
And the storm stopped
All the snow looked the same
In the daylight…

But in the darkness anything is possible
So even now I can reflect
On the gentle violence
Of ignorant words
And the softly falling snow...

Journey

This is the story of how I found the communes…

http://www.thefec.org/communities

Journey
And they say that I live in my own world
And that I walk through this life in a dream
And my words seem to melt into the air
Cause when I talk they turn away

So I wondered aloud
About this world that I found

And I asked "am I the thoughts inside my head?"
And they said "yes, you are that and nothing more"
And when I said "no I am everything else"
They said "no you are not" and shut the door

So I wandered alone
From this place in which I thought I was home

So I wandered through fields
And valleys and mountains
Through cities and country
And continents and nations

But I went through all these lands
As a foreigner and stranger
And they looked at me through eyes
As if I walked out of their dreams

Their dreams…


It was then as I walked somberly
Through these lands that had forsaken me
That I found my people dreaming the dream
That I had always dreamed…

And I found in your eyes
the truth that we are all we see

And we'll show them that our love
is more than just a dream

And they'll say that we live in our own world
And that we walk through this life in a dream
But we'll show them that our love is real
And we'll show them a new way….

Lost Between These Walls

No home and no job.  I am ensconced in chaos.  I'd like to feel I wear it well, but I fear I am not the person I wish I was.  I am a seeker of freedom and no walls enclose me, yet I am litterally building them up as you read this.  Everything we create must be maintained.  Man's creation requires his constant re-creation of creation.  

Just as the pyramids are slowly grinding down into sand, so my identity slowly disintegrates even as I try to grasp at the grains as they fly away.

I cannot re-create what I thought I was, but I still long for the illusion of that past self...

It used to be that I looked towards the immediacy of the future and saw myself in everything -saw everything as myself, saw God, saw Identity, saw One.  Now I look forward and see nothing - uncertainty, Being, Void. 

Buddhists try to rid themselves of ego.  "No-self"they call it.  But the most enlightened among them admit that this is impossible.  Even the egoless always has a minimal presence.  A minimal ego that lets there be an attaining of "no-self".  The smaller the ego, the harder it is to shatter.  If it shatters, however, the void bears down that much harder and the seeker of light finds darkness that much more blinding...

Dreamself

Sorry I have been MIA for a while.  Here are some more song lyrics I've written.



They say
That when you are awake
That you are you
And I am me

But they say
That when you are dreaming
That you everything
'Cause your mind creates all that it sees


But what if I told you
That it never changes
'Cause when you awaken
You're still dreaming
And the world that surrounds you
Is all that you are
Cause the mind that percieves it
Arises from everything

And your life is the world's dream


But sometimes
Your mind runs in circles
And the love that's between us
Seems so far away
And the future expanding
Along with your past
Takes you away from the present
And all that you are here and now

And I wrote this song for you

Cause your life is the dream of the world
And your life is the world's dream

Meeting A Stranger For The First Time

Another song for you... still no recording though.  In the meantime I'll give you another song:

Meeting  A Stranger For The First Time

Walk down these streets while their feet and their faces

pass me by

They move as if they’re in a trance or as if I’m not

Really here

And I look into their eyes

And they look away

Cars driving up to the stoplights

Honk in their rush to get away

The streetlamps block out the moonlight

And I’m left here waiting for a sign….

And you appear under streetlamp’s glare

And In your eyes

I see you there

Noise from the city surrounds us with movement

But for me everything is still

An unspoken feeling, surrounding, expanding

To you, and me, the city…

And I’ve always lived for these moments

Where everything falls into place

Nothing between us but silence

No words could pierce our gaze

[bridge]

And you walk towards me

And my eyes can feel the touch of your smile

A dream all around us

As you walk by

[bridge]

I feel your smile though you dissolve into the crowd

City’s rhythm pulls you away into the emptiness of the streets

And I turn around

As you walk away

And the birds calling out from the rooftops

Tell me what I felt wasn't there

And I’m left here standing in silence

As the city pulls me away...

And you turn around….

Bitcoin

I've decided to start taking any and all donations in bitcoin starting immediately. I've been watching bitcoin for a few years now and have become more and more excited about it the more I learn about it. Bitcoin is a de-centralized, open-source crypto-currency. Bitcoin is fantastic because it is not dependent on any one institution and thus has no hierarchy (for example, a hierarchy of the government above the people) inherent to its structure.

 Here's an annoying video to explain everything to you

 In many ways, Bitcoin is like Gold:

 I do not believe that gold and bitcoin are really in competition. Rather, I think that bitcoin is in competition with central bank paper.  It provides a peer to peer alternative to paper promises issued by a centralized authority.  One can literally walk up to someone on the street, and exchange physical gold for digital bitcoin.   I believe this currency could make the entire banking industry obsolete in the long run, since one no longer needs to trust the institution issuing paper.  Rather, this trust is placed in cryptography as well as the bitcoin network which is so vast, taking it down would be, like the man in the video says, like taking down the internet.

Gold is money: it provides the store of value, safe from counterparty risk.  While Bitcoin functions as currency: instant, digital, easily transactable and highly portable.  Both of them are anonymous and neither of them is dependent on a centralized institution for their existence.


Right now bitcoin is in its early stages and is extremely speculative and volatile.  I am not posting this, encouraging you to put your savings into bitcoin but rather, I am posting this as a show of support for bitcoin itself.


If you're new to this blog you might want to check out some of my poetry.


Anyway, if you like what you read here, drop some BTC in the bucket!

Sol Invictus

Sol Invictus

For a moment it was all I felt:

The dawn,

Ephemeral

As its young wavering light,

Touched my eyes…

For a moment I was there:

My eyes,

No longer mine,

Dissolved into the light

In the rapture of their rays…

For a moment everything was perfect:

The trees

Silhouetted on the horizon

Waved their branches

Beckoning me to forget my boundaries…

For a moment I was nothing

For a moment I was everything

For a moment I was completely present…

First Bike Ride

First Bike Ride

my hand wraps around the handle

like a nostalgic  mind holding on to a memory:

caught up in a futility it refuses to recognize

grasping too tightly

so that the knuckles turn white

but still unable to keep it from slipping away...

Time: New Revelations

Time: The Vulgar Understanding (Hegel, Dialectic)
Present burns forward
In its eternal struggle
To light dark futures

Time: The Christian Must Shed His Veil (Michel Henry)
God gives present In
A moment not meant for us
Until we meet it

Dead of Spring

Dead of Spring
Like the passionless spring,
Still failing to banish the winter snow that threatens April with its shivers,
I sit here watching the world go by:
Moment by moment
Snow flake by snow flake
Falling on the rooftops of abandoned houses
Melting away like so much of what remains unrealized.

As the world passes me by
Time no longer seems the joy born of the boundless unfolding of the present
In an infinite variety of forms waiting to be explored.

As the world passes me by
Time is the fire in which I now burn
Every second thrown into the flames
Every moment, a moment I did not capture.

Like this passionless spring,
Still hesitant to dip its warm toes into the cold winter air.
I sit and watch the city pulse
Each face a snowflake melting into the crowd
Each a drop of water
Secretly waiting for the spring to feed them to the flowers waiting to bloom
Each unconsciously yearning for the sun to break the frost
Each drifting by on winds through which I do not travel
All of us waiting for something that we can’t identify and that has not come…

Revelation Now

Sight is the shadow
Of creation not yet bound
To the chains of time

Concrete and Shadows

 I promise you I'll find some way to record myself.  Till then, I guess we'll both have to be satisfied with lyrics.

Concrete and Shadows

Reflecting its shades of grey

The moon lights the people’s cityscape

Waiting for them to open their eyes

From a dream so fantastic it touches the sky

Lets take all its shapes of squares and straight lines

And curve them and weave them like ivy vines

Lets touch all the pavement, the steel and the glass

And turn it to forest, to fields and to grass

And dance in the rain

Time will stop again

My friend

And you are the sunrise that is what it embraces

And you are the leaves’ green dancing in the grey

Concrete and shadows won’t keep you in memory’s chains

Echoing on the stone

Feet try to find their way home

Faces pass each other by

A friendly glance shares no reply

But I look into you and see in your eyes

The love that’s so wanting in the city at night.

Lets take the awareness we share in our gaze

And use it to build and to live a new way

And touch all the grey

And to green it will fade

Cause you are the sunrise that is what it embraces

And you are the leaves’ green dancing in the grey

Concrete and shadows won’t keep you in memory’s chains

Time slowly turns all into dust

Concrete crumbles and metal rusts

All things born will pass away

Isolation cannot remain

Glass towers enclose me while feet touch the stone

People surround me yet I feel alone

The love I remember fades in with the grey

And tonight I’m left longing for the warmth of new day

But I hope all the same

I’ll feel it again

With you my friend

Cause you are the sunrise that is what it embraces

And you are the leaves’ green dancing in the grey

Concrete and shadows won’t keep you in memory’s chains

1933

It seems that history is repeating itself...

For What Would Never Be Written

Inside the house

Above the streets

Behind the bookcase

The blank page

gazed

Into eyes longing to forget

Forget isolation

Forget the cold

boots on grey pavement

thundering forward

backward

outside

inside

inside

inside

The Grass

In my mind the grass,
Still dead from winter's cold breath,
Lingers in its scent...

Patriotism

         Hello all! I have been neglecting my poetry in favor of song writing recently and, while this means i haven't produced any poetry, I have been writing lyrics.  I just moved to Richmond VA and as a consequence i have neither much means (or even a job) with which to make a recording (rent a recording studio and/or buy recording equipment) of the songs I have written, but I will get on it as soon as I have the means.

         This song is about the deep spiritual nature that undergirds American patriotism.  Unlike most other countries -some bound together by bonds of race and blood, others existing as the careless footprints of deceased empires- American patriotism stems from a call to action by one's own conscience.  What makes one's blood American is not its connection or faith towards its dead past -to one's ethnic heritage and family roots for instance-, but rather the fact that it is real, living, blood whose pulse cries out for freedom.  This is why people can come here from all four corners of the globe and become Americans regardless of color or creed.

          Finally, I feel compelled to point out that, though many of my fellow countrymen were lucky enough to be born in this land of freedom, many are not truly American.  They do not want and, in fact, work to oppose freedom.  Most unknowingly, but some with conscious intent.  This latter group can be found in its greatest concentration high up in the USA government and its corresponding crony-capitalist mega-corporations.

          Do not misunderstand me.  I am not calling for violence against anyone (in the final verse of this song, the line "my blood falls on this soil", emphasizes individual self-sacrifice and not a commitment to violence against others).  I am merely calling attention to the precarious nature of our union as well as the fact that it is in our day to day lives that we must change the world rather than looking to government to make these changes for us.

The Calling

My blood calls to the soil

Of a land I long to see

Where all my kindred spirits

Would dance in harmony

My brother’s of the forest

My sister’s of the sea

My father is of freedom made

And mother: love of humanity

And we fade

We’ll come again

Does your blood call to this soil

Of this land you long to see

Where all our kindred spirits

Once lived in prosperity

This land is of the forest

This land is of the sea

This land was once of freedom made

Now lives in slavery

And we fade

We’ll come again

My blood falls on this soil

In hopes of liberty

That all my kindred spirits

Would have a place to be

I am of the forest

I am of the sea

Faith in freedom I’ll proclaim

That all might love like me

And we fade

We’ll rise again…

Socrates

-->

Socrates

Some people

Cannot let the silence dance

In the gaps between the conversation

That harbor a deeper intimacy

Than words could let us know.

Afraid to shed the dream-words

That never seem to bridge the void

Between the different speakers

Speaking their different lives,

They think they cannot reconcile

Gazes that do not meet in conversation

So they fill the space with words

To create a common ground

But the ground falls under foot

Of those who ponder words in the silence

That follows their pronouncement

And lingers in interpretations.

If only they would cease their thoughts

That strive to avail them of discomfort

Found in the uneasiness

Of not knowing what the other feels.

Only then would they smile in silence:

For the love that awaits them there

As two people feel the understanding

That the most important things must remain unsaid.

My Feet Grow In the Ground

Sorry I have been MIA for a while.  I've been teaching myself guitar and have written my first song!  I can give you the lyrics but unfortunately I don't have the means (nor the skill) to provide you with a proper recording.

Lyrics:

I see my flesh break through the soil:

Green sprouts from the brown.

I taste my blood fall from the sky:

Onto the thirsty ground.

I smell my bones: richness of earth

Wet with the morning rain.

I feel my eye pierce through the clouds,

Lighting a brand new day.

Freedom comes when memories fade

And the future whispers its truth

This love unbridled cannot be tamed

Once you release it in you

Feet sink in soil walking the path

Away from a day in the fields

Friends by your side joke and they laugh

knowing how the others feel

Something’s real about the way

You forget what you thought you were

Sun shines dimly as day wanes

And all you can feel is love

Freedom comes when memories fade

And the future whispers its truth

This love unbridled cannot be tamed

Once you release it in you

[bridge]

Seasons come and seasons go

But I remain here still.

Even when I pass away

I will dissolve into it all

Freedom comes when memories fade

And the future whispers its truth

This love unbridled cannot be tamed

Once you release it in you