L'avenir n'est pas un souvenir

Pachebel's canon played the day 

I watched you down the aisle 

Your smile made stars seem dim 

And the world was all promise

Imagine then if we knew 

Life would split in a hundred ways 

If heaven itself would fall 

For one of us 

New Year's Day 2025

J'ai vécu plusieurs vies

Je ne sais pas si

Tu connais les noms 

De mes enfants

Dans notre enfance

Nous avons rêvé de ces choses

-Rembobine, réfléchis-

Le futur est aussi 

Réel que le passé

Mais l'un est parti

L'autre est une promesse

À réaliser

On the word OM

OM is fundamentally an orientation/position of profound gratitude.  

All living beings lose the essence of their life properties eventually: this is defined by the particular configuration of the atoms and molecules in their body and around them that enable life functioning.  Once this configuration (really configurations) is disrupted, the descending OM begins.

The beginning of the OM is of course the first moments of existence, i.e. the particular configuration manifested in the post-contact reality of egg and sperm, pollen and germ cell.  Note, this says absolutely nothing at all about the moral status of such a configuration, merely that this is the first utterance of the OM.  This is true of every living being.  

Taken from The Treatise on Other Spiritual Wisdom, Gilla Artenis

sleep beneath the foam blown waves

sleep beneath the

foam blown waves that 

crash against the ancient shore 

soon I'll be no more 

for by the ocean all things 

turn to mist and 

drift away 

no more day or

endless starry night

no more the lover’s

lamp beside the bed 

for I will shed this 

mortal flesh 

for truer sight and 

deepest night 

where even gods receive 

a perfect rest 

beneath the foam blown waves 

the devil is in the details

 The devil is in the details...

poor innocent E and A

they knew the rules and they did it anyway
they stole the thing that would have 
set them free
"we were misled!"
willfully self-directed
"we didn't know"
you were told with adamantium tongue and
impossibly clear crystalline words
the way of things

millions of consequences
billions of hurtling lives 
down the garbage shoot of a
trillion cities

these are the consequences liars!

I promised

I promised in the last life  

I'd find her in the next 

An age went by 

And cities fell 

While worlds were turned to ash 

Before she came and grew 

And I was born and knew 

The person standing there

was you 

Every death creates a veil 

Obscuring reborn sight 

Until the sacred moment 

(often late into the night) 

The inner eye is opened 

And you see things as they are 

How bright you've shone 

To reach this eye, 

How far…

mirror

you are mirrored 

neuroses 

of each other, 

and it's love 

the bliss of love, 

the intensity of it a

cosmic rip in 

spacetime 

when will destiny be

fulfilled 

and the sighing days

cease to 

exist 

if i waited

this whole life i've waited

for the jewel of my soul, 

and she is it and doesn't know, 

and another thinks she is, 

and another grows very curious,

another lends her ear, 

and another married a cruel, stupid man, 

still another wants to run away

my life and reason with a smile that 

could break the blazing sky,

where in the world do you 

keep your quiet home? 

will i be a gray and tired man

before the day? 

I saw her

i lay no claim to her

and life itself cannot own

her passing

for she lives a deeper magic

untouched by any common 

hour 

but... i'd like to think

i've seen her with my

patient eyes 

sharpened by the northern wind, 

Middle Eastern suns, 

and jungles of infinite green, 

there beneath the 

lightbulb in my kitchen 

i saw her. 

how was it possible? 

i was ready...

Haiku 2

 

stranger than fiction

"Reality is stranger than fiction," she said. 

I turned it over for a second. 

"What if reality IS fiction?" I muttered. 

"Like we're living in a simulation or something?"

"Well there's that too." I sipped my tea carefully before continuing. "Chuang-tze once had a dream he was a butterfly, and upon waking he was no longer sure whether he was Chuang-tze dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being Chuang-tze." I paused again for more tea, but before I could continue she cut me off. 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" 

"What do you think it means?" 

"No no I'm not falling for that." She crossed her arms. "You tell me. You brought it up." 

"It means you think you're listening to me speak but maybe you're just having a dream about listening to me speak.  And if you're having a dream, then it's not even me speaking, but you, since it's your dream and your brain is creating the whole thing."

"That is totally not what that story meant."

"What do I know I'm just a voice in your head," I shrugged. 

"Why do I even bother talking to you?" She sounded exasperated. 

"Who else are you going to talk to?" 

"If this is all in my head I could literally talk to anyone I wanted." 

"Now you've got it," I said. 

Goodnight. 

touched

I have been touched by the gods

or the universe 

whatever that profound space is 

both inside and outside my head

and am somewhat mad

at least i think so 

but i ask myself, am i truly

going mad? 

or is everyone else who plods along 

like nothing remarkable is 

taking place, 

are they the ones who are mad? 

so these either are the writings of a madman 

or the diary of one of the few 

sane people on earth, 

even time itself won't tell 

Midnight in the back of my car

Midnight. In the back of my car we made love until we were dripping like the foggy windows. Then the thing all back seat lovers fear: the knock at the window.

It was her mother. How she found us down that dead-end road in the middle of the night is still a mystery to me, but she did, with that supernatural radar mothers have. The knock. The knock that threw us into motion like thieves caught in the act. What were we stealing? 

She got dressed faster than me and stormed out of the car to confront her mother. As I pulled my clothes on I heard them yelling at each other. I was impressed by her ferocity. I'd be sheepish. I was caught fair and square. What right would I have to put up a fight?

She came back and told me she had to go. She told me everything was ok and she'd call me soon. They drove away and I turned my defrost on full so I could see. I was that guy, wasn't I?  The ones parents fear.

There was a difference, I told myself. I actually loved her. I didn't know what the hell I was doing but I loved her. The drive was 30 minutes through the hills and trees and I turned the whole thing over in my mind. When I got home I slipped in through the bedroom window so I wouldn't wake my family. 

As sleep came to me I thought about the water running down the inside of my car window and her hand pressed against it while we made love, in the same spot her mother put her hand when she knocked... 

promise me

promise me

you'll find the beauty 

in our world

when my eyes

no longer see 

promise me 

you'll have vision 

for the two of us 

i, looking 

through you

in this moment of

pure existence 

double-visioned 

graced moment of 

divine sight 

let light fill 

our body

in the presence of 

this passionate 

cohabitation 

i am always with you 

if you have eyes 

to see 

oh my earth

in my final moments
let me be light
let me soar the starry sky
my earth, oh my earth
i leave you by
returning
will i ever see again?
no, oh no
as long as the 
end of time

firefly

When I was little I'd catch fireflies in a jar. Only one or two at a time. To my young mind these small creatures were living miracles.

They would always appear in the same spot in our backyard, near a small hill around the base of an old telephone pole. Catching them was easier than you might think. One simply had to wait for the little insect to signal with its glowing abdomen and scoop it up. Where I live now in suburbia I rarely see them in great enough numbers to do this, but when I was a child, the night air was full of them. 

I'd take my jar inside and inspect the bug under some light. What a strange creature lived there on the other side of my fingers and a few millimeters of glass.

Then I'd sit the jar next to my bed and go to sleep, but with one eye open to watch my little prisoner. Sometimes I'd see it glowing there, but never so brilliantly as outside.

In the morning I'd find the firefly lifeless on the bottom of the jar. I don't think one ever made it through the night.  There's probably a metaphor in that, if one cared to think a little more about it.