radical druid

A few years ago, I bought a wonderful book by Howard Rheingold called They Have a Word For It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases. This book examines foreign words that describe a concept rather than a single word, for which English has no single-word equivalent. It was quite fascinating to me, as a writer, philosopher and student of culture, to see exactly how Orwell's statement that “if you don't have a word for it, it doesn't exist” is absolutely true.

Anyway, today's word (which I don't think is in the book, but the words in days to come will be) is:

Namaste: An ancient Sanskrit word that means “I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you, which is of light and peace. When you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, we are one.”

Namaste to all :)

Work on the soul is busy work - it is unstructured, free-for-all work, meaning long stretches of silence, staring at ceilings, talking nonsense syllables to listening walls and trees; it is caterwauling at unseen demons, driving all night to the Devil's radio, running and stomping and stretching and rolling in a ball in the corner of the bathroom weeping. It is about space and time precisely because it has no space and time. It is finding that quiet place despite the intrusion of the outside world, beyond the realm of the noise, of the clutter, of the trains and automobiles that ceaselessly interrupt the silence of humming lights and appliances and blood forced through stretching veins and arteries. It is hard and laborious effort that requires concentration, yet not that concentration of mind locked onto a single idea (at least not our definition of single signifying one small isolated incident on a palette of far more colorful and homogenous choices). The work of the soul is to encompass and devour the cacophonous interruptions of space and time and yet let them live on, unaffected by our presence. When we search to find that secret, dark, silent place, we find that it is not secret, for it is populated by strangers we greet by name - our illusions of self, of others, of the two intertwined and the two in distant mirrors; not dark, for it is bathed in light - not a light directed outward so the faces of our “oppressors” are brought into view, or so the flaws of our acquaintances and lovers can be more closely examined, but a searchlight, microscopic in its laser-like precision, where we are brought face to face with our own illusions, preconceived notions, and false and hasty impressions of our belief system, a system which compared to the new view we have encountered of the universe may be reduced to babbling, meaningless chaos; nor is it silent, for with our outer eyes closed, we hear the tick and clanging of the universal clock of time, the rasping of the hinges of space, which we can only eradicate with our own song - which we can scream or whimper, call or challenge, whistle, hum or orate, knowing that our voice is but a pindrop in the giant chorus of our existence singing from before our birth beyond time until now.
-- John Litzenberg, from The Secret Undertown Ministry, Pseudographic Xenophoria, 1994

First of all, thank you to everyone who took the time to share something of themselves with me in response to my last friends-only post. I hope that each of you got as much from looking at the beauty of others as I got from your offerings. I am touched deeply.
Now, however, I think I need to spend some time away from LJ. Nearing on 200 poems in about 8 months, and quite a bit of soul searching in the process, befriending and being friended has changed my life in so many ways. But I think I need to take a break.
Last night, I wrote a brief prologue of a journey in the desert. It describes, I think, my basic frame of mind.

The Desert
The edges of his shoes were scuffed and nicked, and a layer of dust clung to them. The sound of a pebble as he scrunched it underfoot made him look down and notice, each step stirring up a small cloud of dust as his feet met the ground, one after the other. It was a dirt road, and he had been on it a long time.
He looked up from his feet and his gaze returned to the horizon, where the road ahead disappeared over the edge where the clouds met the now graying sky. Against the fading light of the day, there were a few trees dark and lonely seemingly scattered at random, breaking the long line of sight that extended ahead to the right and left, endlessly.
His legs were tired from the day’s journey, and his back throbbed slightly from the weight of his pack. Not too exhausted to walk another few hours, but then it would be dark, and harder to find a suitable place to make camp. Better to stop now, and start again before dawn tomorrow.
To his right, past the edge of the road, an endless expanse of flat land. On the left the terrain was pretty much the same, but he could see a few slight rises here and there, the beginning of hills that slowly gave way, in the far distance, to a range of low lying mountains. About a hundred yards off the road in that direction was a large outcropping of rocks that seemed like the head of a giant statue buried neck-deep in the spare and sandy soil. What might have been a nose hung out about halfway up the formation, giving a bit of protection from the sun In its shadow. If it rains tonight, he thought, that might be the driest place for miles.
As he picked his way carefully across the stretch of unpaved earth towards the rocks, he casually gathered what twigs and dry grass he could carry. Standing under the jutting rock overhang, he glanced back at the road, then lay down his bundle of sticks and weeds. Then he circled the rock formation, which was about 30 feet across, three times – looking for signs of animal or insect life, anything that might indicate other users of this spot. Seeing no evidence of recent activity, he returned to his stockpiled fuel, kicked a small circle of earth away to form a hollow in the ground, and filled it with the dry twigs.

If anyone would care to correspond with me off-line during my LJ sabbatical, please use the e-mail address in my profile. I'll be back, but I'm not sure how soon.
Namaste, ya'll.

About 10 years ago, I was fascinated with both stream-of-consciousness and cut-up, randomized writing. In that fertile stream bed, fueled by endless coffee cups and unfiltered cigarettes, I lay for a period of about two straight years. There was something in me that wanted to cross William S. Burroughs and Henry Miller, and somehow end up with a statement about modern culture. Did I succeed? Who knows. Looking back on that time, it was a frenetic time of perapetitic cavailing. Talking loud, and much, filling in the spaces between words with more words, wild gestures and constant barrages of noise that passed for Music.

“Moving Rocky to Balboa” (from The Secret Undertown Ministry, 1994)
Boxing the compass like Muhammad Ali we're all made from the same Cassius Clay, you know and all along the watchtower once you let them in the door you've got to listen to their churchbell's spieling and somewhere a voice in the darkness cries out: “Quiet on the settle down comforter while I get my thoughts together we stand divided by five gives the solution pi in the sky!” and meanwhile clouds are forming and we've got to get inside under the canopy beneath the umbrella situated below the awning. Somewhere along the river in a club where no one goes except to pick fights or china patterns or their noses, Old Blue Eyes is singing a James Van Heusen tune and no one hears him, no one knows the words, but it goes like this: “It's a quarter to three, there's no one in the place but me, listen, Joe, I've got no place to go, but make it one for me, one for my baby, and one for the road.”
Happily we leave this scene of unrequited, unreturned, unmitigated, and unforgivable love and move along Union Avenue through the desolate streets where traffic lights are holding their breath in remembrance of Hendrix and the wind still cries, I suppose, but its tears are from laughter and as it passes the hospital it seems to say wake up wake up you're not dead yet but sleeping only sleeping in the thousand years of sleep.
“A mastodon once shit where you are standing!” Homespun cries.
There's a history of the spot you're in, the fix you've created, the world you've denied, that even James Michener wouldn't have the guts to capitalize on. Visions of sugar plums dried and disgusted turned to weary ancient prunes in the scathing light of summer's hatred fade to black like those bananas waiting to make bread like all the rest of us who punch the clock and keep hoping the bell will ring and the round will be over.
“Cut me, Mick,” shouts Gravity, “I gotta see. You gotta cut me or I won't know where I'm standing.”
And so we let ourselves be wounded in battles that have lost their significance and even their ritual charm. It's been so long since my last confession I can't remember how much I miss the flail, the rack, the Chinese water torture, the hail storm Mary fighting traffic down the Angelus highway looking for a friendly face in a well-lit truck stop who'll hand me the key on a cement block and the rain can fall down like water in the porcelain altar where I have prostrated myself in service to an alcoholic kingdom. You cannot serve two masters, it is said, but they never said anything about tequila and whiskey. The piano's out of tune but it plays on anyway, you just keep your feet moving and eventually the keys will dance and maybe you'll pick up the beat and find the words scrolling by your right hand me going down for the last time I don't know return to sender my love is the seventh wave goodbye and tell me that you love me tender is the night prowler and the lights just keep on passing by like stars in the sky or big rigs on the interstate and wish I may wish I might I wish I'd fall asleep tonight and I've tried counting blessings instead of sheep - it cuts down on the shit lying around in dreamland, but like Ben Franklin said about fish and houseguests starting to smell after about three days, the bountiful cornucopia that seems to have erupted into my mind at my birth is going like gangbusters or a busted sewer line and wher
e it all ends, nobody knows but they act like they do and you don't and that, my friend, is where it all begins.

Inspired by and her brilliant swamp mix CD, I have put together a collection of a different sort: The David Crosby Sampler :)
Volume I
Deja Vu
Laughing
Song with No Words (Tree with No Leaves)
The Lee Shore
Music is Love
Tracks in the Dust
Drive My Car
Yours and Mine
Long Time Gone
Homeward Through the Haze
Where Will I Be?
Delta
Page 43
Carry Me
Bittersweet
Draft Morning
In My Dreams
Shadow Captain
Guinnevere
Volume II
Almost Cut My Hair
Morrison
Taken at All
At the Edge
Tribal Gathering
Rusty and Blue
Wooden Ships
That House
To the Last Whale
Critical Mass
Little Blind Fish
Guinnevere (demo version)
I'd Swear There was Somebody Here
It's All Coming Back
Dolphin's Smile

Memorial Day 1994

Once upon a time (which so many of us assume is in the past, but could very well be the future) in a coffee shop far, far away (so far, in fact, it might be considered to be in Memphis, Tennessee) on a Sunday that was confused about its own self-image, seeing how it had become devalued by being sandwiched in the middle, between the bookends, so to speak, of a three-day weekend commemorating the inconsistent foreign policy of a barely toilet-trained democracy, a young man named Gravity Pushman, who was an anarchist comedian who moonlighted as a itinerant philosopher/busboy/ panhandler/candidate for the U. S. Senate, sat with a girl who met a Crown Victoria coming out of a Circle K parking lot who dreamt of being a mental case and thereby receiving special treatment from people who assume that they are not (crazy, that is). Like most men of mice and plan, it (the situation, that is) was better laid than executed, which might be considered a moral judgment regarding the penal (or penile) system of the above-stated Greek resurrected Frankenstein monster, but since there are no givens in the above equation, one can never tell. We were speaking of executions and putting our words into action by killing time, which Aleister Crowley affirms is the only real measure of our lifespans that we are aware of, and therefore, if you love life you mustn't waste it.

“You know what your problem is,” he said, running an Ohio Blue Tip against the floor of the porch and putting the flame to the cigarette at his lips, “your problem is that you just cannot hang; whereas I can hang, do hang, am hanging, and probably will hang at some time in the future, for a crime I could not or shall not have committed, having been sentenced to meet the hangman's daughter by a jury of my peers in accordance with the laws of the state and the dictates of moral society and quite possibly by the whim of several species of television-weaned autosuggestible mass consumers of misinformation on the basis of circumstantial evidence, or through the influence of outward pressures upon the existent legal system, or perhaps even through the whim of that particular doctor of jurisprudence who in his closing remarks to said jury will imply that although the proof is more in the pudding, there is no pudding like a Jello pudding pop, and ergo, primae facie, habeas corpus, pop goes the weasel.”

“You know I'm not as smart as you,” she said, “I can't keep up with you.”

“That's why the humans are a race,” he responded, “and all other things are species or breeds or varieties. They seem to think it's something to be won, either by being the most fleet of foot or by answering the right question at the right time with the right intention in the right tone of voice under the right conditions to receive the right response.”

“What if,” she broke in, “what if the right wing was really the left wing, and the left wing was really the right?”

He paused for a minute to think, flicking the ash from the end of his cigarette. “You'd still have to cut the breast three ways,” he answered, “the only difference would be that the wishbone would be the funny bone.”

Thinking, hoping, and perhaps even praying that someday she might be clever, she responded in the interrogative (which she could comprehend on certain levels on certain days in certain company during certain conversations, but would be hard pressed to spell, whereas since his experience as a runner-up in the Hardin County, Ohio spelling bee at the age of eight gave him an incredible grasp of useless things such as spelling, he would have been glad to say 'interrogative' i-n-t-e-r-r (or maybe 'double r') o-g-a-t-i-v-e 'interrogative'), saying, “Funny ha-ha, funny weirdstrange, funny intelligent, funny odd, or funny indigenous poor people exchanged for funny trees made into funny pulp print in funny papers read by funny exploitationalists passing funny money in a funny farm nursing home for the insane society?”

“You know those times when you think you're funny,” he retorted, “when you think you're funny, but you're not?”
“

I know,” she interrupted, “this is one of them.”

“If there is hope,” he continued, “its candle might just be burning for you. Don't get too excited, however, or the exhaust from your deep breathing, soul-searching, self-help administrating, inner-child spoiling exercises just might be enough to put us all in total darkness, which was, of course, where Moses was when the lights went out.”

“Your mother,” she responded, “must be a saint. I just can't see how any one could put up with you.”

“All I can say to that,” he laughed, “is this: too bad it wasn't Eddie Vedder.”

MAY 1994

I actually sent this fax to my boss yesterday in response to his request to “send a test fax” because the corporate machine appeared to be down:

BEGIN TEST

THIS IS A TEST TRANSMISSION

Other than to pass electrons from one point to another in an attempt to verify the operational status of an electronic device, it serves no real purpose, conveys no meaningful information, represents no parties, suggests no agendas, intimates no conditions, passes no judgments, includes no warranties, reaches no agreements, cuts no deals, posts no bills, paints no portraits, does no windows and seals no fates.
Upon receipt (which in and of itself should prove beyond the pale the efficacy of the above referenced purpose - that being a test of the receiving capabilities of the receiving device), if such transmission results in the generation or production of printed material, the recipient may feel free to spindle, fold, staple, mutilate or otherwise crumble, lacerate, disintegrate, masticate, mascerate, eviscerate or in any manner whatsoever denigrate the morphological properties of that resultant document, including but not limited to any number of degrees of alteration to the physical and defining properties of said document, up to and including complete destruction and/or annihlation.

If this transmission is received merely in electronic form and without accompanying printed version(s), the wise recipient could no no worse that simply to delete it.

If this transmission is not received, however, the above instructions and suggestions may be freely ignored or otherwise disregarded. Of course, having not received them, by virtue of not receiving this transmission from which said instructions originate, that task will be exceedingly easy to perform.

THIS IS A TEST TRANSMISSION

END TEST

What If and the Temptations

WHAT IF:
Money actually grew on trees?
You actually had more than one once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
Your face actually stayed in the guise of some hideous scowl you made when you were six?
Things were easier done than said?
What was up never came down?
The birds and bees got together and planned the assassinations of Drs. Ruth Westheimer, Sigmund Freud and Benjamin Spock?
The lamb beat the shit out of a couple of lions?
Evolution is really de-volution?
You died, got younger, and then were born?
Apples and oranges are really the same thing?
Square pegs fit into round holes?

WHAT THEN?

Homespun and Gravity look at each other, the two sailors, the sun setting swiftly in the southern sky.

"Well," Homespun begins, "now what?"

"War Stories!" the sailors shout, lifting non-existent mugs to their dry, cracked lips in anticipation (although they were not actually in Anticipation, Pennsylvania, but in the suburbs of America, nowhere near the non-friendly skies of Philadelphia, and were not actually in Anticipation, burning in Effigy, waiting in Limbo, or doing anything else that might be construed to be happening in any other place, bated breath notwithstanding).

"Why is it," Gravity asked, "that whenever people get together to talk about their past, they call it telling war stories? Is it all that bad? Why not, for example, tell peace or love or fond memory stories, instead of war, horror, experience done taught me a lesson that I would not have learned or had taught to me but I shall drill into your head the validity of my sorrowful life by sharing it with you tales from the crypt of crap that has somehow accumulated in my pointed little worthless head of a pin understanding of what it takes to not only convey a moral message but stupid story simultaneously?"

"I say," Homespun answered, "that we share intimate stories from the pursuit of the wild and furry frubbit."

PROLOGUE

As the curtain opens, CHORUS enters and assumes position center stage. The stage lights are low, and a spot follows CHORUS. He pauses, looking off into the wings expectantly, then turns to the AUDIENCE.

CHORUS: Strangled by the definitive, in its last great hope, the word begins its slow descent. Alone, its sentence yet to be served in some once upon a future time, it crawls on scabbed and bloody knees to make its mark, to pass itself off as a living being.

As CHORUS is speaking, SELF enters from stage left and begins to circle curiously around him. When CHORUS is finished speaking, SELF begins, turned half to CHORUS and half to the AUDIENCE, within the circle of the spot on CHORUS.

SELF: You don’t begin to think about a noun until it verbs. Until and unless you see, notice, or run into a tree, does the tree have meaning or even existence? Likewise, unless you give yourself attention, do you exist or even matter? The hypocrisy of Hamlet’s church…

MAN (enters and walks across stage): "…its canon raised ‘gainst self-slaughter…"

CHORUS: A ha!

SELF: …lies in the fact that the church/state wants no one to take its birthright from it – its claim to ownership of self. Yet, once the individual begins to come into their own, to recognize that it has no debt to be repaid, no original sin, that is has worth in and of its self, separate and equal to its worth to the state, then the self’s usefulness to the Heavenly Host is no more. In fact, the self-martyred soul is a reproach. The church has failed, the walls of its Jericho crumbling onto its crimson-stained feet…feet marked with the stigmata from the shattered stained glass field where angels fear to tread. Indeed, as may be surmised, Judas was the only disciple strong enough to serve the Messiah as was required.

MAN: Let ye be judged in the last days by your works!

SELF: By your verbs, in other words – by the motion in your sentence.

CHORUS: Only the verb "to be" has not definable action. If I am "being" a tree, what action is taken? What visible, outward action, that is?

So once again I've started reading, for pleasure, the dictionary. On an on-going basis, I'll post ten words I discover (or rediscover) from each section that appeal to me, along with my interpretation of their "poetic" significance". Here are the A's:

aeropause the atmospheric elevation above which aircraft cannot fly In a poetic context, this could apply to Icarus or human efforts in general.

aphasia loss of the ability to speak or understand speech Besides its medical connotations, aphasia has poetic implications as well, particularly when looked at from the reverse side: perhaps it is a loss of the ability to speak or understand a language which no longer has purpose, or to communicate in such a way that is beyond language itself.

aphelion the point on a planetary orbit farthest from the sun Ah, the ramifications of this one are many: humankind's distance from its spiritual origin(s), the darkest point in a personal history, that point at which epiphanies are discovered that lead to a return to the light.

apocrypha writings of questionable authenticity Perhaps documents indicating the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of our once-allies and now conveniently enemies?

appurtenance something that belongs with or to another more important thing; an accessory The quality exuberated by George W. Bush in the presence of Dick Cheney?

arabesque an intricate design of innerwoven leaves, flowers, and geometric forms The warp and woof of the carpet of life.

arrogate to claim, take or assume for onself without right Arrogant self delegation; an assumption of powers beyond one's comprehension; judgment of another's way of life.

atheneum a library a beautiful word; the temple of Athena to signify a place to pay homage to knowledge.

augur a soothsayer or seer; to predict, especially from signs Of course, it all depends on who put up the signs, and in what language they are given.

auriferous containing gold, or gold-bearing To assume one's path is auriferous is to seek within the lining within the grayest cloud for a mere glimmer of precious metal.

Once again, words to the wise from LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings:

Charity :: case
Scale :: back
Jennifer Lopez :: why?
Coercion :: arrogation
Meter :: funky
Pressure :: drop
June :: bug
Infestation :: sanitize
Serial killer :: made for TV
Anguish :: languishing angst

bacchanal a riotus or drunken festivity

When the self-righteous trip and fall
upon their own hypocrisy
lovers of truth, in bacchanal,
must not rejoice too mightily

backbite to speak spitefully or nastily about someone who is not present

If you would backbite at your foes
Beware those wearing a friend's clothes
For the toothmarks you make in vain
May cause the biter loss and pain

badinage playful banter

In badinage, two friends may seem
to play at odds, to stranger's eyes;
and often, that foreign esteem,
will read such things as tricks and lies.

bagatelle a trifle

The world is not a bagetelle
A worthless thing we buy and sell;
indeed, its whole is beyond price
and must not yield to avarice.

bathos a ludicrously abrupt shift from an elevated to a commonplace style; insincere or overly sentimental pathos

Hark! The lofty purpose seeks
conveyance in the grandest terms,
yet far too frequently, it speaks
in seeming bathos, just to worms.

bedizen to adorn or dress gaudily

To those who would bedizen truth
and seek to change how it is taken:
know this, once upon the tooth
its flavor cannot be mistaken.

belletrist a writer of literature regarded for its artistic rather than informative value

If you would be a belletrist,
take heed and shape your art
in a great vacuum, sealed and safe
where no ideas start.

benthos the bottom of a sea or lake; the organisms living there

The benthos in the calm, smooth sand
will often fail to understand
the turmoil up amidst the waves
and standing still, think themselves brave.

billingsgate foul, abusive language

The simple man will heap his foes
with endless billingsgate,
not reckonizing that the trowel
he uses seals his own sad fate.

bowdlerize to expurgate (a book) prudishly

Some seek to safely bowdlerize
the Constitution's promise;
they say, 'tis safe to "modernize" ---
to gut, would be more honest.

In one of his early 70s comedy routines, Flip Wilson imagined a conversation between Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain (and I paraphrase, as the album Cowboys and Colored People is long out of print and my vinyl is lost to the ravages of time):

Queen: Well, what's in America, Chris? What are you going to find there?
Columbus: Ray Charles.
Queen: Ray Charles is in America?
Columbus: Damn right, woman. Where do you think all those records come from?
Queen (excited): Chris gonna find Ray Charles, Chris gonna find Ray Charles ...

At this point, Queen Isabella promptly handed Chris a check, which he took down to the local Army-Navy store, obtained three used ships, four cases of rum and a couple of rashers of beef jerky. The rest, as they say, is history.

Humorous as this interpretation may be, it highlights a very important point: Ray Charles was America.

And a lot more, as well. Never mind the fact that without Ray Charles, it's probable that Van Morrison would still be an unknown skiffle player; or that Joe Cocker might never have been inspired to damage himself in service to a song. Never mind that legions of artists, stretching back in time from Elvis and Aretha (herself touted as the female Ray Charles early in her career) to Stevie Wonder, would not have had a figurative leg to stand on without him.

The fact is that Ray Charles represents the ideal of America, as expressed in Music. That ideal is that what makes us different, what gives us strength of character, is how we are able to use what is formative in our lives to create a personal interpretation of our reality that illustrates not so much who we are, but what we are capable of.

Ray Charles, although blind, saw something more clearly than others who retained the ability to "see". It is apparent to me in the large body of work he did as a solo artist, but comes absolutely into focus when you examine the duets he performed with other people: Joe Cocker, George Jones, Willie Nelson and so many others were touched by the "Genius" of Ray Charles, and learned, I think, one important lesson: that Music really is the universal language, and it doesn't matter what anyone says about which genre you should limit yourself to or what type of Music is "appropriate" for you to perform. What is essential to living life to its fullest, to experiencing, not only the depths of sadness, but the elevated heights of joy, is not so much picking the song. The song itself is secondary in this process (although the song, to be truly universal, has to have certain basic qualities).

What is essential, sang Ray Charles in a lesson to us all, is to sing with your whole being, to find yourself by embracing not the preconceived notions of what a song has been, but what it could be. Where it could go; and by extension, where we as human beings can go if we dare to venture outside the safe, accepted boxes in which society so desires to put each of us.

Ray Charles singing "America the Beautiful" is a revelation about America. Because it poignantly illustrates not only the absolute love of what America is supposed to stand for, but the heart-wrenching sadness of how far from that goal we are at present. Ray Charles knew that America was not, in practice, about brotherhood. But it SHOULD be. It COULD be.

Ray Charles almost single handedly changed American Music, taking from its isolationist parts and creating a homogenous, harmonious and soulful whole. He created "American" Music from southern gospel, northern Appalachian, western swing, eastern cool and midwest and Delta blues.

American Music. The Music of not white, black, rich, poor, ignorant, educated, simple, or complicated.

The tragedy is that with his loss, we may forget how to sing it.

Ray never ratted out a friend
because they leaned far left;
the communists had great songs too:
from all, Ray learned, and wept.

A silent moment, now, we share
now that his voice is stilled;
and promise, though some would forget
that song, we never will.

11 JUN 2004

LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings

Colorblind :: Equality
Shallow :: Gene Pool
Erotica :: Swedish
Figment :: Imagination
Eviction :: Notice
Composed :: Decomposed
Chill :: Blains
Girl :: Trouble
California :: Eureka
Bond :: Word

Once again, from LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings:

Abundance :: Largesse
Casino :: Royale
Shell :: Game
Overpriced :: Underpaid
Cancellation :: Notice
Eternal :: Damnation
Lyrics :: Poetry
Faith :: Doubt
Because :: The Wind is High
Wimp :: Out

Introduction to a Poem Requested by a Dear Friend

Please note: dear friend is somewhat of an ambiguous phrase, which should not be misconstrued to mean that I have anything against any deer, elk, moose, springbok, or other non-horse, leaping, running, jumping herbivore - which is like a vegetarian except more boring in conversation - because I like woodland and veldt-dwelling creatures of that sort because they never try to talk to you when you're on the phone with someone else).

Anyway, here goes: It's a never-ending story, a pit without a toppus or a bottomus, a continuous saga, or at least a tale that seems to be sagging ever closer and closer to the ground: it's the ending of the end-all, the creme de la creme of something that was once was soft and pliable and oh so very pleasant to the touch, smell and sight but now has hardened into a plastispasmodic dessert tray offering that shows signs of oxidation, sugar viscosity breakdown and overall loss of morphologicality and appeal. What is it? Or rather, what was it, what could it have possible been, from whence did it come and will it return at end of day to close our eyes and minds to deprive us of the burden of imaginative recompense? I don't know.

I'm milking this one for all it's worth: I feel it's my udder responsibility. What I have attempted to attempt here is an introduction, a prologue, a pre-initialization segue, an opening monologue, to set the stage, give you the background, or sort of give you the "in last week's episode" synopsis of what you might have missed if you had been out having some sort of a mid-life crisis experiment consciousness awakening mind-bending good old fashioned get up and go something going on last week and between the sound bite politics and other mindless trivia that have been sandwiched in between your neurons and synapses in the intervening time period instead of paying strict attention to the events, actions, and their separating moments of extreme boredom (don't you just love those peaks and valleys?).

Another excerpt from The Secret Undertown Ministry:

And Now a Word From Our Sponsors

Speaking hypothetically [which might mean communicating virtually by forcing directed bursts of recently inhaled oxygen-nitrogen-miscellaneous ethereal non-visible compounds to rise from within the air sac viscera through the windpipe and past a discerning set of vocal chords (say, a G-major-minor-7 flat 5) under the epiglottis and over the taste buds the river and somewhere behind grandmother's house oh what big teeth you have and then out into the void where someone is waiting patiently -- and here's the first occurrence of doctor-patient confidentiality, isn't it? Doesn't it seem like being someone's patient shouldn't mean waiting for 45 minutes for an 80 second consultation? -- and fortunately, you've got an attention span of more than 4/1000ths of a second or you never would remember what you wanted to say before you launched into it per the preceding description], which might be to orally transmit similitudes or other such drivel (and as Isaiah once said, "I have used the little suckers!"), please turn and spit. Thank you.

The Twenty Percentists represented (do they sign their correspondence "Periodontically Yours"?), the proverbial four out of five -- and using the word proverbial here does not refer to the fact that Solomon, although long in the tooth towards the end of his reign, was probably not working with a full set of choppers -- would like you to rinse, please? Incidentally, if you'll pardon the tongue-in-cheek (a little drill-side humor) do four out of five of the leading figures on the Caspian Sea and the Crimea -- where Tartar control was at one time a little on the drastic side -- feel that the ever-loving Constantinatives went a little overboard (and of course, that's where they got the fish that had the taste that prompted the sauce that the Tartars built!). And on that same wavelength (a little fisherman's' humor, and as Charlie Mingus said, the shoes of the fisherman's wife are some jive ass slippers) why eat fish that doesn't taste fishy? Isn't that like saying you want a tomato that tastes like an apple, or "Let's have a misteak and Vidalia not-onion?" That's all fine and dandy if you're one of those that thinks that whiting tastes like haddock tastes like code tastes like scrod tastes like talapia and it's all so much better drowned in a cream sauce, but why eat fish at all? Why not put a little salt and a few bones in some tofu? Anyway...

My relatives, with little regard for the medicinal benefits of scotch, get gin-give-itis around the holidays. Here all this time I thought they were talking about Tartan Control - and that suits me fine, because there are just too many Scotsmen and not enough single malt for my liking. Throw the Highlanders (including Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert) overboard and pour me a shot of Laphroaig or Glenfiddich. Four out of five Gaelic practitioners of the orthodontic arts recommend Tartan Control Plaid Remover. And while we're talking about dentists, please remember that the Listerine will never get into your mouth if you're sitting in front of your mirror like the Quiet Man and that little bottle is swinging across the treetops yodeling like Johnny Weismuller. Oh, those crazy Scotsmen. Our Father, who art intoxicated, hollow J & B thy brand. Perhaps the fifth (not of scotch, this time, but of those irrepressible dentists) doesn't work with patients who chew gum -- then again, if all the world were bread and cheese and all the sea were ink and they told their friends and so on and so on how would we ever find time for sweet chewy nasty unwholesome foods that without which there might be little need for the man in white smock who sounds like a golfer ("You've got a hole in one on the back nine there, my friend," or "Nurse, I'd like the putter, please," or whatever it is they say). Is there a little stamp that goes on the Doctor of Dental Science certificate that indicates membership in the Four Out of Five Club? Do associate members get discount rates on green fees, or just on those neat sharp pointy instruments the use of which inevitably brings the remark, "That didn't hurt a bit, did it?"

Speaking hypothetically (which in addition to being next to impossible with all this stuff in my mouth), turn and spit (I almost forgot, that's better). It's the next best thing to being there and take it or leave it, it's all we've got, because my dentist (who happens to be one of the four looking for a fifth on the isle of Islay where they make Laphroaig in copper kettle and age it for ten years and that's why it tastes like heather and peat moss and shag tobacco and has a little quaint mist about it but still doesn't explain why it has to cost at least thirty-five dollars a bottle) is out of town fishing. I hope he's got a bottle of Tartar sauce with him, because I tripped on the Col Gate and have Crest fallen and I can't get upper bicuspid. Somebody left their Trident on the lawn and I've got a lump on my jawbone that feels like a sermon from the Molar Majority. Feels like I've just Neptuned in and caught the end of Poseidon's Misadventures (edited for television).

Gives a whole new meaning to brushing up your MacBeth.

Copyright 1995 John Litzenberg. All Rights Reserved

Thanks to 3 Blind Mice for this interesting meme:

The most destructive habit :: Meddling
The greatest Joy :: Incrementing Life
The greatest loss :: Hope
The most satisfying work :: For others
The ugliest personality trait :: Mindless obedience
The most endangered species :: Balanced debaters
Our greatest natural resource :: Our underlying principles
The greatest "shot in the arm" :: Mutual respect
The greatest problem to overcome :: Stubborn sectarianism
The most effective sleeping pill :: Honest evaluation
The most crippling failure disease :: Belief in critics
The most powerful force in life :: Love
The most dangerous pariah :: Someone who stops learning
The world's most incredible computer :: The brain
The worst thing to be without :: Perspective
The deadliest weapon :: The doubt-free mind
The two most power-filled words :: Yes, and No
The greatest asset :: Humility
The most worthless emotion :: Jealousy
The most beautiful attire :: Attention
The most prized possession :: Integrity
The most powerful channel of communication :: Listening
The most contagious spirit :: Possibility

Again, brought to you by LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings:

Lounge :: Lizard
Photograph :: Artificial Memory
Catacomb :: Mass grave
Crucifix :: Crossroads
Fire drill :: Test
Tube :: Inner
Dropped :: Acid
LTD :: Country Squire
Panther :: Black
Formica :: Grandma's house

Dathy Pahka and the Couscous Bauble

We sit in circles, crop circles, like silver-clad heroes at Arthur's table, dark knights of the soul of verse, our words colliding in the jousts of wit and criticism. Is it the flame that draws us moths to it, and so we dance in the flickering candelight, hoping to stay entranced and yet remain unscorched? Like ashes on the forehead can remind us of our lone and bitter days, days when we thought "if I could only be accepted, if they would only listen" and so drank ourselves silly in the inconsequentiality of the moment, we titter, stumble, laugh and tumble against the cold, hard steel of our truths, our realities.

And in the end, we want of wealth, of fame, of power, of "don't I know you from somewhere" and "weren't you with...last seasons" and "oh, I thought your last...was simply marvelous" and so on and so forth and furthermore and insofar and even if it mattered, even just one smattering of an insignificant jot of ink that spilled on blotting paper or stained the index finger rather than died its immortal death on the crucifix of watermarks and typesetters' thorns - yes, even if that could save our tortured souls from waking in a world we could not evade with our descriptions, make light of in our comedic stances, would we want to pass it by, relinquish our hold on that which makes us realize how much we need to simply create, to form, to place under our power that experience of living, of dying, of falling down drunk in an alley watching our world crumble in half empty tea cups?

Written, it seems so concrete, so decisive and bold - yet it is the journal of a hallucination, created in our minds and carried out on the gurney of the flesh into the streets we barely recognize, and the stones in the pavement do not glint or glitter as we remember them, nor so brightly as they can.

An in our drunken haze we drop our curtsies and highballs half-full of the contraband elixir we consider our inspiration - and we ask for it by name in the password prose of prayer: give me three or four rounds of Dark (and often cloudy and thick swirling dark it is), and then a couple of clear and crystal Brights for the road, the road I must trod down in inebriated, lucid celebration of my inhibited yearnings. I want, I announce to the "wicked and expedient stones," the world of my choice, of my creation: a world where one can morally possess a mind and venture to speak it, a world where social conventions are gatherings of gregarious and yet not sheeplike folk who know not only which fork to use with the salad, but which one to take at the bend in the road that leads to funny or witty, separating dull chortles from mirthful laughter.

Laughter, yes, and tears that come from excess - these are the signs by which we will be known; and they shall sing our praises while they curse us, hound us for momentos while they scour the tabloids for our inadequacies, and read until the wee hours of morning each drop of saccharine and strychnine we draw from our veins with the prick of a vengeful pen.

1995

Once upon a time, although since as a dimension, time is a relatively unstable paradigm and cannot often be trusted to remain in the tense that one would expect, in a land far, far away [and distance too would seem but an illusion that our physical bodies must endure, but that our minds can easily dissolve with a modicum of effort], there was a very small planet that circled its medium density star - one tiny speck of dust in a mighty dustbowl of a universe.

It was a planet of contradictions. A planet of unusual propensities. A planet that called itself a world sometimes, but at other times felt like a planet.

The inhabitants of this strange planet who had an interest in such things at one point unanimously named it. Those who did not require a name for it seldom acknowledged such activities, regardless of how much circumstance their participants conferred upon them. They may have been thinking, "What's in a name?", but they also might not have even noticed. In the seventh-most widely spoken language of the inhabitants who populated (either by chance birth or through destiny motivated relocation) the most diverse range of climates, the planet was known as Arthel - well, the name was not actually a word in that language, but in a language that was used by a majority of the dominant inhabitants, a language no longer actively spoken on the planet, but revered as a way to escape the need to define things to the non-dominant inhabitants. You may already have begun to guess at some of the unusual propensities to which this planet was inclined.

The inhabitants of this planet, Arthel, were fortunate enough to have been able to develop, propagate and thereby populate it, thanks to a remarkable compatibility between their requirements for survival and the resources available from the environment in which they did these things. The significance of this fact cannot be overlooked - there were many other planets that would not have nurtured these inhabitants in such a successful manner. Many of these inhabitants marked this significance by embracing a sense of their own uniqueness, their innate skills; many others did not. Some of those who chose not to mark such things?were among those who had no "name" for their home - at least not one that was widely circulated or shared.

As one might typically expect on a planet that embraced contradiction and an air of "mystery", the species of inhabitant that was most abundant on Arthel did not "control" Arthel. It may be that they did not wish to control it, or it may be that they simply had no conceptualization of control with which to apply that construct. In either case, the primary inhabitants of the planet were not the most vociferous planetary residents. There was far too much planet, it can be assumed, to cause much of a reason for worry about which inhabitants got which resources. Think locally, you can almost hear them saying. Work with what you've got at hand. Of course, many of the majority inhabitants did not have "hands" - hands were an evolutionary development that concerned only a small number of Arthelans. Most Arthelans enjoyed other physical traits that more than compensated for opposable thumbs.
But it is the Arthelans with opposable thumbs that concern us in this story. This is their history, more than the history of Arthel, although the two are intertwined so closely that few can see light between the threads.

2003

Again, from LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings:

Coroner :: Really most sincerely dead
Mystify :: Misdirect
Corroborate :: Alibi
Misinterpret :: Scriptures
Humorless :: Boring
Calculus :: Headache
Eye for an eye :: Total blindness
CPR :: David Crosby
Stitched :: Lilo'ed
Facility :: Lavatory

Another one from LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings

Shelter :: Storm
Karate Kid :: Wax off
Andrew :: Lloyd Webber
Rib :: Eye
Push it :: Off
Creep :: Midnight
Chainlink :: Mail
Squash :: Court
No mercy :: No justice
Superhero :: Nemesis

I read the news over at Jill's Poetry Hut about Jimmy Smith. As a keyboardist myself, I have a space in my heart for Jimmy --- both because he was absolutely inspirational, and because listening to him convinced me that I'd never be quite good enough. He was incredible.

For Jimmy Smith

Say, brother, have you heard the news?
Down at the church of jazz
they're still as statues in the pews;
their organist has passed.

He built that church from sweat and smoke,
with churning Leslie sound
and worked that Hammond 'til it broke
to pieces on the ground.

The cat was bad. He swung the beat
so hard it bent the ear,
and pushed the limits so complete
that others ran in fear.

If you grew one more set of hands,
had legs that whipped like rubber bands,
and overworked adrenal glands,
he'd still destroy you, understand?

The label virtuosity
is often placed amiss;
but one man earned it honestly.
His name was Jimmy Smith.

09 JAN 2005

Another weekly helping from LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings:

Judge::Not
Detroit::Rock City
Hyphen::ated
Get it right::for once
Pulsating::throbbing
Yoga::Union
Memorable::Otherwise forgettable
Financial advisor::Never a borrower or lender be
Ten million::useless reasons
I::and Thou

Again, from LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings:

Dirty work::but someone's got to do it
Shopkeeper::Albert Flasher
Goodness::gracious
Yearning::burning churning
Show and tell::smoke and mirrors
Trapped::caught
Malcolm::X
Season::in the sun
Bestseller::There's no accounting for taste
Desk::anchor

Again courtesy of LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings:

You’ve got a friend::But don't you let them
Immigration::immigration face
Waitress::you could tell I was no debutante
Snickers::satisfies
Recognize::think again
Concept::idea
Birthday::party
Told you so::neener-neener
Unlikely::possible, but not probable
Extension::to file

Thanks to LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings:

Usher::in a new era
Cherish::is a word
Mistreat::mean
Forum::a funny thing happened on the way
Systematic::hydromatic
Warning::objects in mirror are closer than they appear
Wash::and go
I wish::in one hand
Candles::flicker
Metallic::orb

LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings

Shape up::ship out
New Orleans::Where ya't, dahlin'?
In the bedroom::behind closed doors
All the time::eternally
Philosophy::the sport of jesters
Tyler::and Tippecanoe
Disturbed::unstable
French kiss::leads to french leave
Solidify::amalgamate
Furtive::glances

cabal a group of conspirators, a secret plot

Some think that Truth is hidden, and in all,
the private purview of their own cabal.
Well, look around the world, see what that's wrought:
centuries of squabbles to define what Truth is not.

cacophony harsh, discordant sound : dissonance

If you would sing your own song in the world,
you mustn't mind the world's cacophony.
For it's not fair that you alone are loud,
expecting others to sing silently.

callow immature and inexperienced

Some ponds appear quite deep and still,
while others are quite shallow.
Some fields are fit to yield great crops
while others must lie fallow.
What lies beneath the surface marks
the wise soul from the callow.

canard a false, unfounded, and misleading story

I would to war, except that I
hold truth in such regard;
and will not bow to jingo fears
based on a grand canard.
If weapons of destructive might
were found where they were claimed,
I might be of a different mind,
and of my land, not shamed.

casuistry subtle but misleading reasoning, esp. about moral principles

That one has leave to do a thing, implies the casuist,
it must be sanctioned by the heavens, else would not exist;
thus armed, their followers proceed with righteous presuppose,
and think their arm's dominion swings where I dare put my nose.

catharsis purgation, especially of the bowels, emotional or psychological cleansing

The voting booth, ideally,
gives catharsis to a nation;
Without ideals, it cannot cure
politic constipation.

cenotaph a monument built in honor of a dead person whose remains are interred elsewhere

The polls reveal widespread support
for our brave nation's path;
Let's hope for freedom's sake
Iraq is not its cenotaph.

claque a group of persons hired to applaud at a performance

Are they our representatives,
or just a Party claque?
Republican, or Democrat,
I'd like my country back.

clastic made up of fragments

Religion claims to stretch to fit
all times, through faith's elastic,
neglecting to remind us that
the truth, at best, is clastic;
it cannot fit in just one mold,
nor neatly be confined.
It's purpose is to make us seek
beyond set paradigms.

concrescence the growing together of related parts, as of the anatomy

As darkness fades away when faced
with growing luminescence,
so should our differences recede
as we accept concrescence:
the world becoming ever smaller
and our lives entwined
'til I agree your way as sacred
as I now claim mine.

Again from LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings

Stink::serendipity
Renewal::urban
I remember...::leonard
Loneliness::isolation
Ooooh::baby
For real::compared to what
Titanium::zircon encrusted
Get down::and boogie
Rupture::spleen
Dramatic::critic