Parallel rows of streetlights
construct diagonal lanes to the skyline,
etching narrow canopies of illumination
in the middle of a blackness
that drapes the hillside in its solitude.
Out from the slopes of infinity, and on to a moonlit road,
comes an ancient vision of undaunted innocence,
traveling like a peasant one hilltop above
a procession of automobile headlights
off of which bounce ghosts of fog.
Upon approaching the first 'Y' in the road,
this vision of ageless wonder runs between the two dividing lanes,
through a triangle of grasses which leads to a living room of trees
carpeted by ferns, moss, and lanes of sanctuary where I stand,
seeking to grasp the depth of this weightless night.
The remaining leaves of autumn's tree branches become fluttering wings,
as the invisible wind makes its presence known in the woods.
Simultaneously, dozens of fleeces of starlight, from dandelion stems,
leap into the stratosphere of their beauty.
II
The trace of this wonder now vanishes,
and ordinary dew begins to cover the trails
which lead to the owls of vigilance.
As I step, all becomes silent.
As I stand still, dread taps on my soul.
Dread continues to strike deeper and deeper.
I feel the slow ticking of a metronome coming to an end.
I can no longer feel anything else within,
as I await the gong of the executioner of rejection
with every strike tapping on the depths of my soul.
There is nowhere to flee and nowhere to wait
for the final sinking into annihilation.
However, the dread turns out to be a match striking a matchbook within,
and an inextinguishable spark soars out from the middle of my nothingness,
coasting to the summit of the Dark Night of the Soul,
automatically illuminating it with a glow that doesn't blind the eyes.
Then, stopping and turning toward me from mid air,
this living spark says, "See, it's only me."
I recognized who it was.
Instinct fell more clearly into my hands,
in the midst of a man recognizing and understanding
the state of the unknowing.
At the same time,
everything seems comprehensively simple.
At the same time,
an empty space deeply within became a living room.
III
Silence now permeates the cold
and icicles begin to smoke at their roots.
At home, in the heart,
one suddenly becomes detoxified from the poisons accumulated through:
1) the seduction which pealed off of billboards,
2) modeling runways which lead to the hallways of anorexia,
3) the anarchy of deregulation, amidst hermaphrodite aquatic life,
4) and the infections injected by the teeth marks of gossip.
This weightless night has become the home's compass
to that magnetic north, where, in between, is an ocean of celestial night,
deeply anchored in an agile focus that requires neither straining nor tension.
It's a sightedness that soars through an abyss
which is widely opened, yet completely covered,
with the protection that causes the intruders of terror
and the robbers of peace to become lost, at their first steps of attack.
IV
Along the roadside of this night's journey lay
the smug facial expressions of social manipulators
who raised hundreds of millions of other people's dollars,
in order to control those same people's thought patterns
and to implant in their minds cliches that replaced instinct.
It is along this roadside
where the smug facial expressions
are left smeared on pencil erasers,
laying disjointed from their voices.
It is along this roadside
where the enemy moves in a slow staccato cowardice,
in having become unable to rejoin the faces to the voices.
The deafening hiss of opinion polls now become deflated,
as the presentations of the pompous turn into a mutely slurred quaking.
In sequence,
interest rates without coupons
and consumer surveys without free samples
start to bleed black ink onto white lab coats.
Meanwhile,
cultic looking suit jackets
which bear the alertness of a park bench's wet paint
find a hiding place in a dry cleaner's back room.
All the while,
flocks of fear fly out from behind the stalactite of the mind,
exiting the nearest cave opening, and suddenly,
a universe of stars is discovered inside of one's entire being.
This weightless night preserves vessels and arteries,
as well as highways and railways,
from becoming the broken guitar strings of a mishandled instrument.
This also unlocks the pulse from the constricting vaults
which were made shock resistant to the legalized crimes
of fashionable nations that served the premeditated selfishness
of those who took advantage of politicians' fears of opinion polls
and the lack of lobbyist checkbooks.
As I walk throughout this cricketless night,
a two-story valley of intermingled slate
has become a hallway of collected peace,
as well as a path of adventure:
of adventure
on the ice covered slate of a creek,
where the icicles along its bordering inclines
blind the flash bulbs of the nature photographer.
V
As I find myself walking through a more narrow ravine,
where overhangs a trestle of sumac branches,
I find myself approaching a place visited by me before.
It's a place where the contour of the topography features a familiar clearing
land-marked by a patch of clover and burdock
from where bees once retrieved the vestiges of a fallen house of peasantry.
From this path's vantage point, however,
I can neither see nor feel the clearing's patch.
From here, it is obstructed by something faded.
From here, it takes the parting of a sea of clouds
to bring the visibility of moonlight into the clearing,
in order to discern the obstruction that blocks an entrance-way
where beauty in action transformed into the meaning of the beauty portrayed.
VI
So many times have I gone out of my way to avoid this obstacle
which has been found standing in so many places, slowing so many lives.
So many times did I redirect my steps away from this thing,
so as to not cross its path anymore.
Yet,
once again,
it turned out to be another inevitable encounter with it.
Once again, it is placed in my way. Once again, I'm standing before:
1) Stone tablets without prophets ... made of a stenographer's note pad.
2) Fine print without explanations ... on an adjacent graffiti of persuasion.
3) Subscripts ... placed next to a revolving door of opinions.
4) Attachments ... with the Sunday work schedule, on a hymnal of time cards.
It was over this
that opposing members of political parties argued,
while posing in front of numerous photographers
for each one's hometown newspaper.
It is over this thing I should leap.
This is where
I saw red turn to maroon
on a canvas of neglected time.
This is also where
I saw the discarded colors of a student council election
that decided the official school colors which bled during the wash cycle.
VII
It was also here where I first saw
competitive & nonsupportive women,
with unresponsive glazes in their eyes,
walk away from the weightless night,
looking to marry the check books of bankers
who held liens on remodeling company warehouses.
Their hunt and their wait for the highest bidder
was claimed by them to be their ordained destiny,
even though they never said who it was
who gave them the predestination.
Why were they the chosen ones?
because they were glamorous ... too glamorous for the company of commoners.
because they had feelings ... feelings too divine for our palpitations.
because they were artistes ... too talented for contact with any untouchable
from India to America and all points in between.
Such great poets were they
that they never had to write poetry to prove it.
Such great philosophers were they
that they never had to give reasons for anything they said or did.
Such great psychologists were they
that they could diagnose you immediately:
1) by the clothes you wore,
2) by the car you drove,
3) by the checks you cashed,
4) by the price range of the colognes
in the counter window over which you stopped.
The cosmogony and ecology of creation
was never important to these women
who wore faces of arsenic bought at the cosmetic counter.
Neither moral theology nor ethics nor even courtesy
was of any concern to them,
because the covers of the educational books
had no highly paid models on them,
and because the pages had no circles to scratch and sniff.
The fate of the world never mattered to them, either.
Only the fate of themselves did.
Matters of conscience were of no concern to these weakest of animals
who only followed the trail of synthetic chemical scents and nothing more.
Not even the pain & deprivation which they caused others
were any concern for these princesses & priestesses of death.
In their voice patterns one can still hear:
1) fire ripping away tee pees that collapsed around the knelt pleas of squaws,
2) whips cracking slaves tied to sun welted wood sheds,
3) billy clubs on strikers before world series batting practice,
4) and the ignored thuds of murder
.
VIII
The men whom they sought turned out to be the hunters
who hunted for pleasure and convenience at will,
while believing themselves to own any woman at the saying,
even though the chiseled features of a suave Zorro were non-existent in them.
These were the men whose final goal of all existence
was to yell out "score" & "mine" with neither brakes nor mercy.
As a result of their beliefs in nothing, they ordained themselves the lords of Sunday
which they designated as the day of profit upon the tired & weary.
They demolished the local playground and the ball field,
putting up interest bearing real estate in their places,
so that the profits could afford for them
season tickets at the arena and the stadium,
where they could watch a master race of cardboard cut-outs
who were displayed near the beer & chip sections of grocery stores
during playoff season.
The 13% rule of designated recreation ground
was then placed by the zoning officer
in the woods.
While these hunters sat in comfort
and raised the temperature of the warm security constructed by:
1) carpenters &; electricians,
2) cashiers & drivers,
3) laborers & installers,
4) engineers & draftsmen,
they sought to lower every wage that they could get away with lowering.
The end result was that these tablets without prophets
once again made the model homes for the third world's work force,
thereby raising the rent for the working poor of all the Americas.
IX
The first urge is to cat-paw oneself past these condensed versions of thought.
Past:
the slave auctions etched into the wood grains of port docks.
Away From:
the neon signs that still read, "Catholics need not apply."
Past:
the jack hammering of the wedding's altar,
replaced by the courtroom bench.
Further Away From:
the whistles that monitored the factory shifts of the children of smoke.
Far Around:
the 8 year closed market operation,
uptown from the afternoon soup kitchen.
Further Around:
the 30 year mortgage,
on faded aluminum siding.
Making your schedule anything other than:
the Marxist's 7 day work week,
done in the name of free enterprise,
and
the hypocrisy of Sunday holiday shopping,
done in the name of sacred rites.
Avoiding Contact With:
the grabbing hands under the broken pinata
and
the stretched-out hands over the rock star's stage.
While Keeping a Course Far Away From:
the goose stepping rhythm of deathly pale minds
who prevented sunlight from ever touching the face of children.
While Avoiding a Countdown With:
the early morning mushroom clouds of clear Pacific days
which left shadows at ground zero.
X
Let Everyman and Womanhood cat-paw a path into something else
:
Into a schematic of regenerated moonlight on leaves,
during the poet's walk near the blackened stripes of willow branches.
Into a schematic of regenerated water beads splashed into coastal air
by those who made albatross-like swan dives into a nearby gulf stream,
in order to retrieve the wreckage of ancient mariners.
Into a schematic of regenerated branches and leaves
gardens and markets
classrooms and studios
forests and lakes
neighborhoods and homes
treaties and contracts
fabric and design
highways and rest stops
work hours and store hours
historic moments and the hour of our death:
Into a schematic
entirely unmarked by the graffiti of genetic engineers
who try to make for themselves a master race
out of pirated DNA.
Into regenerated breezes:
Of breezes through the hair of women
who do not place the destiny of their lives
on the brands of their shampoos.
Of women
with soft chiseled features,
absorbing contemplation
while following the contour of love.
Of breezes on the faces of men
who do not place the destiny of the world
on the rate of return of interest bearing funds.
Of men
standing in the crossfire of love,
while holding doves coos in their hands
without crushing them.
Of humanity
letting the bilateral currents of love flow on the lanes of its own propulsion.
Of humanity
supporting those who have wilted.
XI
Concerning these tablets
over which was traced centuries of lies
told by those who replaced the faces
they once tore out of stolen picture frames
with their own:
What do I do? What is anyone to do?
Does one simply breeze around them?
Does one ignore them and act as if they never existed?
ANS: No.
Neither go around these tablets nor over their line items,
rearranged after every caucus
by the side who spoke the loudest and most intrusively.
Neither flee in the opposite direction from these prophetless tablets,
nor spray an aerosol graffiti of protest upon them.
Go through them. Break through.
Break through the conventions of compromise
and through the incarnate lies.
Through this thing that vetoed all that is holy, majestic, and sacred.
Break: 1) the unchallenged plane,
2) the hypnotic trance,
3) the spell of caped magicians
who hold lightning bolts of dust.
Run through this unconsecration
at a finish line speed and break the finish line tape,
while groomed campaign managers in recessed meeting rooms
draw one dimensional animals on the cave walls of their minds.
Run.
We were made for it.
Gallop.
We were instilled with it.
Sprint.
We were coached to do it.
Go into the forbidden zone,
where men and women seek to know the reason why things should be so.
Into a zone of meaning, where one speaks as if
it will be the last chance to ever speak again,
making communication sacramental,
instead of making it a sacrilege,
in mimic of morning radio shows.
XII THE RIP AND TEAR OF PEACE
It was so exhilarating. I'm alive.
Now, the dead can be buried.
A convention of winds
now gathering through the shreds
has become the laser jet printing
of a returning dawn.
At this point,
to sleep through the remainder of the night is enough.
- to melt the unbandaged edges of fatigue
that rattle the window panes of the body.
- to view a gallery of dreams upon the window to the soul.
- to rest, to heal, and to awaken
free of the aberrations of the plagiarist's cliches
that hung on the strings of runaway puppets
during shows that children did not watch.
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