6.14.10

from out of cool earth i emerge. softer. full. refreshed.

but now. a battle shall take place.

i go down, through precious soil into the hundreds of miles of sheer rock foundation, down.

into the freedom of the inferno.

there i go and my servants with me.

and we are warmed, purified, fortified.

out i come. sound the trumpets.

6.10.10

in. down. across.

to all these i have been.

citadels great i have visited. i've left my mark.

o fabric of heaven! you are, like us, more 'naught' than fiber.

i see through your web into the all. i have brought back souvenirs.

we shall see what happens next.

6.8.10

if i as a crumbly leaf, brown and wrinkled, floated up into the skies and saw one hundred kingdoms, would i be more a king, or less a king, than i am now?

if i feared for the feeding of my family due to my ostentatious wealth and precarious political position, rather than for the usual reasons, would i be less a pauper?

if my tears fell because i had lost in a large wager at the club table, rather than, as now, because god's angels give me vision of thunder and scarlet, would i be less holy?

to live is to me a mystery like waters and sand.

6.7.10

Be not the ministers of Job! Else read me not.

For life on Terra is suffering, death, destruction, mouldering. At every turn we face obstacle, stone, chain and lash.

Yet, this is a gift, truly, for it raises our eyes to the heaven which is below.

Deep. In the earth under earth. Below valleys. Under wells. Beneath the bottom of the sea.

There, in those regions which lie not--unlike the sky so sweet, the roses keen and kisses passionate--there, in that place of dark and loam and worm and blessed stone, there, there is my god. there is my refuge. there is my peace and joy. for there, at the very precipice of fire and water, lies salvation, truth, enlightenment, annihilation.

and so i dig, groping, in this outer darkness, stars and moon obscured, to claw beneath the hardened soil of foolishness and hope, to the softness of the earthly bosom. sweet earth.

sweet earth. take me as your lover. though small, i am passionate.

6.7.10

my fortress of sand. the rumble of chariots not far off.

time to pack up the family, load the mules, leave, and quickly.

i and my house shall move from Ur, and we shall go to a new land. a new land.

there milk and honey shall flow.

but first, we must make it to the first oasis on our trek, well away from the old city, before the marauders come.

we leave at midnight. tonight.

6.4.10

on the mat of terror and peace.

two veils separate me from. him.

form. form! i say!

be collected from the four corners.
be collected from the skies.
be collected from the waters.
be collected from the earth.
be collected from under the earth.
then descend.

and touch me.

5.30.10b

search not for understanding, approval;
there is none among your brethren.
seek out rejection, seek out disappointment,
seek out betrayal, and you shall be filled.

if you would find happiness, look only inside your grief,
search and sift among the dross of your disappointments, foolish thoughts, heartbreaks.
there you shall find a landing-place; and, with luck, and a good word,
you shall find yourself; you shall find a god.

with still more luck, your god with will be merciful, lovely, brave, helpful, sweet, broad-chested, and open-armed.

there, there you shall find rest and peace.


i am not quite sure why humans crave to congregate, perhaps they crave the known--evil--but known.

that call! that call! tire not of your prayers! rather sleep. to love another is to stab oneself with a steely knife. to be loved is to be stabbed with a knife of bone and lead.

5.30.10

my arms, the soft roughness of my robe. my waist, the tightness as i pull both sides together, i am wrapped.

i measure the sides of my covering, all even, a double-knot.
softly, softly, as snow slowed to a hover, the silk slithers down, down over my arms, my body, brushing my feet. i adjust my headdress. and then again, the sounds and lightest pressure of silk on silk as i am now covered as i should be.

and then, then, my crowns terrible fit, smugly, they have me.

down i kneel on my throne of thrones.

again to pray, to fly, to live, to die. again to salty feel tears, eyes blurred, the world whirls. my arms reach out to the altar and i stay erect.

one hand in the hand of the Beloved, the other, in the hand of my commander. we go, we go and i know not where, only that it is to another vista, anywhere but here.

o gods. i tremble for the road has led me long beyond my cable-tow, i am walking free yet not guideless through barrens and wilds. i shall never return, forever.

i know not even whether i shall reach a destination. for it is footfall, footfall, footfall. at least now that my boots have long since worn away, and the blisters healed, my feet are thickset with callus. but my heart, in turn, with each thickness added to my feet, is peeled thinly away, and beats like the unlidded eye of god upon myself, and i shudder.

5.21.10

slippers snug slip soundless on marble, polished, shined, pristine.
robes of white, black, red and purple glide just above.
silk on silk, still as deafness. as though there was no air, only vacuum--and my breath from some other source.

the marble extends a quarter mile in every direction from the center dais, once i reach it.
the tower soars above, 10,000 feet.
a ray of light shines down, unsure of itself.

i kneel on a throne of gold over silver, my cushions support me as i face the south, back to where the emptiness is, where a congregation could be,

but not even a dust mote finds purchase.

a triptych immense, bronze, burnished in front of me. upon it sigils and runes--runes ancient and inscrutable when socrates was a boy. yet i, i know them all.

the old gods of passion, of action, of movement, of soul and wind; they live. and their spirits are woven into my flesh, down into the sinews, down into the cells, down into the center of each cell: our will is one. i call them not for where i am they are.

and our will is expressed: a treasure of immeasurable size to me. and then temples, and writing, and the great work.

i have moved through the lake of time, forth and back to send me what i need in the NOW.

i am working, working in a way i cannot explain.

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.

3.31.10

i speak to no one but myself.

although i do listen attentively to myself, and sometimes i give good advice and often consolation sweet.

but is there no other? is there no one to know me? my master would say i must let this go. is this the price of this other life? that all interactions with other humans become so mundane, so distant, so meaningless, so painful?

now i know why i wear the spiritual chador, it is not so much so that i cannot be seen, it is so that i can see as few others as possible. for every person that i see, i love with painful love. and my family, i begin to worship them even as they are weights around my neck that pull me to the ground.

o god. which is better? the ignorance of this inner life and its ecstacies? or the knowledge that it brings, the hyper-clarity of all i see; the clairvoiyance which no man of any intelligence would want, and yet i did. for now i see all things, know all things, all things are brought into myself. and it makes me want to die. no. to die 10 times. for one death would not be enough to expiate all of the pains and dregs and evils and frightful truths and loves of this life.

o god. you have made me a freak among men. how then can I earn a living with normal humans? i despise all but my prayer closet and my journal. my journal now is my salvation; for without it the truths which thou givest to me would swirl in my head mercilessly.

thank you for the pen! vellum! ink! praise and highest praise!

but yet, o lord, you have given me the sentiments and temperament of a gentleman, but no inheritance, no money of my own, i live from day to day with my wife now realizing the perils we are in on the financial plane.

is this not why you also made me a magician? so far, I don't feel like a good one; but i don't feel like a bad one either. maybe i need to do some seeking under rocks.

heaven knows that on that other plane my arms are raised, my robe of glory falls around me and covers me and yet billows with the fire and maelstrom of thy divine wind buffetting me. yet i stand. and i see myself as the wind touches me---my hair and nails and bear grow to the floor and whiten before my eyes, then they shrink and i am a boy, then a child, then a toddler and my power increases with every metamorphosis. and then i am an angel, a demon, a wind, a tree, a lion, a cougar, a dragon, a man, and finally myself.

the heavens have changed their constellations. where have we been moved to o god? and when? and in what place are we. the star are all wrong, and they large, as large as moons. and each gives the light of ten moons. yet i stand, arms raised. and my valets rush to hold them up.