4.27.10

i lay out the praying clothes. first my mat, then my pillow to raise me up a bit. then the pure white robe, a blue mantle around my legs, a purple mantle around my shoulders. then, the great black chador, a true chadri, grill obscuring my face, luscious folds of sable black falling around me. i put a huge scarlet mantle over all and secure it with a flat-topped prayer cap. i am now ready. i place my hands on the spindly little table in front of me. and my coffee is as a dread draught of hell.
my groanings dark, high, low, screeching.

perfect.

4.20.10

twang of taught bike tires on hot tarmac.
bile rising in the heart.
all is bright and dim.
a voice commanding sure and low
a chopping voice
a hacking voice
a voice that has known killing and blood.
and i find it is me.
i scream into the sky blue in tongues long ago
under pyres, under cliffs, under siege.
and the voice is terrible.
even while the rise and fall flows and ferries me along my route
pedal dammit! don't forget to pedal!
i turn shyly from left to right; no one listening.

fresh from my pleas, my entreaties, my demands to my lover-god,
this voice takes form and a man rises out of the ground, blue ragged
mantle
dung-colored tunic
the voice is his.

cords of glass and steel and light and crashing flow out
his knarled fingers, bent, broken, puissant and masterful
a circle, two more, and runes flow out from him, out, up, to the front.

his speaking more clear than ever. i want to cover my ears but i must keep steering or die.
he speaks and two figures appear in a circle, cowering.
the teacher, for so he must be,
the teacher lecturing now, singsong, lilting, if old welsh with an old norse accent can lilt.
and then his piercing eyes, blue as sky, blue as bay water, greedy as a money-lender.
he looks to me and commands.
and i say in my own voice, my own tongue, sounding harsh and cracked as his own, what i command. and i do command, but put limits on the authority of these two, oh. just one to accomplish.
the other will stay hostage under the mission is complete.

and the master sings happily and gaily and he sings great tubes smaller atop the other, a round ziggurat rising to a pyramid. and the whole is complete and finished and gone.

and i am left, dazed, atop my bicycle. i am nearly home.

the master comes back, and he sings me a lullaby and tells me, i know, fear not!
it is now done.

i suppose it is truly who you know that matters.

4.17.10

my fingers are of glass today. my face is as marble. a partial metamorphosis.
i live now as a man with a bird cage. the cage is locked and empty.
but the golden birdcage speaks to me. perhaps my soul is in that birdcage. i don't know.]i feel myself to be alive, but then, don't' all the dead think they yet live?

my chest is of slate. my legs of steel rods.


even so i don my prayer cap and shawl and pray. if that is what a god does, then that is what i am doing.

how do i exist if not in others?

4.9.10

light rushes through my closed eyes. light of coolness, warmth, blazing fire. i see it only with closed eyes. open ones are blind.

i feel the god-head-energy surging hrough me. it is subtle, but it is strong. stronger than steel. but my body and superficial mind are pathetic. perhaps they will always be so.

in prayer i am a mighty mountain, in the flesh, i am barely a man.

make me a mountain on this plane. make me a star. make me a mountain RANGE. i shall be more than i am. i shall shed this skin and become new as a newborne's skin. i shall wash in the jordan seven times. and i shall be clean. wash me! wash me! wash me! wash me! wash me! wash me! wash me!

all the world. athena, help me access the wisdom to gently turn this paper-thin, kitten-weak, immature external mind and body, as i said guide it to better and better and finally great performance on the terran plane. please, mother. hail!

i shall use the gifts given to me. my god! i am an embarrassment of riches! no greater fool every lived! for others who are pathetic on this plane do not have the glaxaies by the hundreds that i have been given. i have the mind of a genius and i act like a fool. so therefore i am in the big leagues of sinners. no more!

sin not against thyself!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4.7.10

I finally understand.

The nature of being in the physical realm IS slavery. It is submission.

It is serfdom. I, in my privilege, was taught that I was a freeborne.

But king, prince, sultan, mullah, fellah; we are all slaves. Even emperors are slaves. The insidious webs that surround our physical body and mental life are sometimes gossamer, sometimes as cords of iron and thickest hemp-rope.

And there is no freedom for the spirit until the free man realizes his bondage. This is why the slaves and serfs have more happiness and joy, between the beatings and the lash. When the master is away or at ease, the life of the slave is one of happiness, freedom--for there is no internal struggle. The slave accepts his lot--although unfair, ungodly and detestable---he knows it, intimately. And has no fear of its approach, for it has already overtaken him.

For the free man, slavery is the ghost that will never go away. Finally, when he achieves wisdom, he realizes that he too is a slave. That those in authority over him are masters and not caretakers; yield a lash subtle, not a guiding hand.

For there are no men in authority who are good. Thus, all men are evil. We are evil to those under our bondage, and we chafe disobediently in our hearts and our hands (when we can!) to those who have us under their bondage.

And, supremely, we are in bondage in our spirits, our souls. For we cannot leave ourselves. And we cannot leave God. Existence cannot be escaped, even through death. Thus, we stay alive, unwilling and despondent. We long and fear for death; we long and fear our life. Thus, we are all wretched.

We cry out to the creator of this wheel of death. And why do we believe we shall be answered? Yea! Even if he makes us a god, even then we shall not escape. Is God too, then, a slave? Who is God's master? He must be terrible indeed.