The Key to Graduation

Growing up, I was internal
Hoping, dreaming for the day that others would see me as special
Pain constricted the exterior
But strengthened the interior

The Muse introduced herself early
I wrote and sung and played and imagined
And hoped

And imagined hope

Reaching for The One who would
Accept the exterior
But See the interior
Believe the interior
Share lives in the interior

This many years on
Pattern recognition has improved
I'm still There

Reaching with imagined hope towards
Blinking lights
Which sate and bate in figure eights

I have the toughest teacher in the world
Giving me daily lesson plans

The challenge - can I live from Here without going There.

I'll keep trying
Or simply give up trying
And probably, if the intention in surrender is pure
Be graced by release

And Graduate.

Alphabet Soup

Upward drizzle from the train to the platform to the escalator to the causeway.

The Muse or one of her cellmates has obviously set up shop here:  a causal bunker,  well protected. She's torching passer-bys with creative fire.

Most of the commuters' suits are unreasonably fire-proof,  but not mine.  I'm burned to ashes and am rising again before I even know what's hit me.  Under my left arm,  The Book.  In my right hand,  a set of golden tongs.  Over my eyes:  nothing.  Everything is shining and new and waiting to be discovered.  Undulating fields of love as I see what everybody else has become,  and what I can do about it.

They're all letters:

Commuters come personalities come images come words come letters.

There's a pattern here,  but it's in the fact that there IS no pattern

The lawyers,  accountants,  programmers,  construction workers,  Baristas,  hangers-on,  applicants,  daycare drop-outs, businesswomen, bankers,  analysts and traders...

...all reduced to a single letter each.  Nothing to do with their profession;  many aren't even english:  Hebrew,  Sanskrit, Greek, Aramaic, French, Spanish, Slang, Graffiti...

my personal Tower of Babel Buffet.

There are no seconds here,  however -  all firsts;   even the same letters shine differently as I pluck them with my trusted tongs and put them into the book.

It's mechanical at first,  I pick and choose who should go in,  then relax into an almost random sweep,  then a  fully fluid pick and grab.

The book flips pages as it fills,  and even seems to be indexing itself.

The Muse is waiting at the exit,  cigarette in hand and absurd pocket watch dangling from her waist jacket pocket.

"You like?"   she seems to ask as she takes the book  opens it *exactly* in the middle,  and watches as a visual cacophony unfolds itself - up into thunderheads,  then splitting and folding and splitting and folding in on itself, then spraying everyone in sight with chains of God,  anchored in the The Book.

With that,  she says a word,  the crowd moves as one,  and she skis through the lobby,  out the door,  and through the downtown streets:

Creativity, pulled by God,  through the noosphere and further.

God bless the Muse, and her Alphabet Soup.

Namaste.

Metta meta Metta

Metta meta Metta.

I stopped at my Muse's tree yesterday,  and spent a considerable amount of time walking in and around the root system.  I'm quite certain it was never intended to be used as a labyrinth, or even labelled Her tree - but the nexus of realities I've been threading myself through have their own set of rules,  and top of list is that they don't give a tinker's damn about how thing's should be.

If they did,  would there be shining galaxies waiting to be plucked as ripe fruit from the branches?  Or light shining from the soil? Or a candied wind that wraps itself around me like a shawl and dances me to new absurdities I missed the first time round?

The last find,  as always,  was the Most interesting:  A living parchment between the second and third branches;  aspen papyrus with three words:  Metta meta Metta.

It was invasive to peel the parchment from the tree, and somehow,  it was redundant to take it anyways.

Sometimes the Muse's embrace is full and sensual; sometimes a  gift basket dropped off in a somnolescent moment during a commute home. And then other times like today,   it's simply a pointer to something that's already been branded in my heart or mind,  needing some attention.

Such was this,  a reminder of my narrative,  for today anyways: Metta meta Metta.

In spite of my brokenness and rusted parts -memory of a goldfish, self confidence up and down like a toilet seat - purpose continually re-imagined, scrubbed,  re-imagined again -  maybe because of them - I am compelled to glory in the grand design, the One-in-All,  the Theory of Everything. And today that is summed up in those three words.

Metta - loving kindness;  compassion,  the sire of grace and intenion:

sandwhiching:

Meta - the story of stories,  the Platonic forms felt if not understood - the arch that connects it all. 
The place where details are abstracted  to a place where memory is not a problem - they *are* the very nature of remembering.

sandwhiched by

Metta - loving kindness; compassion, the sire of grace and intention


When my endless curiosity is lit up by Knowledge then dulled by my limitations, it's important to know what it is to Know:

And for me,  tonite anyways,  it's Metta meta Metta.

Listening with the I's

A Z of city blocks away from the other nexus that draws strange carnates

I saw you shoveling

Black on white

Balaclava'd, scarved, hooded

Hidden in plain site

I was following the safety line

Anchored in the yesterdays collected and dropped like seeds

from the mountain to the tower

But you

You interrupted the assumptions and currents

Charged with my safe and unchallenged arrival

At the stale-idea exchange

With a glance that wouldn't register until Otis delivered me through the corporate womb:

The snow arced its delivery and landing

Stretched back to the shovel and naked hands

Misted out, ridiculing space's conventions

Becoming a 70's icon

Flew into a gray cotton morning

Thick gathering over a lonely looking sky

Revealing the miracle

for all willing to listen

with their I's

Living Meditation

I have no idea
But wonder how long this can last
Just answered myself
...and started the engine again

I have no idea
*And* wonder how long this can last
Just answered myself
...and started the engine again

There is no idea
Wonder at this
Answer myself?
started the engine again

no idea
wonder
myself
started the engine again

no idea
no myself
wonder
engine in neutral

Wonder
engine stalled

I am

Terror-Firma

Grizzled cheek in hand
Eyes caught between a gaze and fixation
Analysis floating just above fear's cold fingers
I see you.

One became two by four
Lumbered bread of relationship
Building material that could be held
*and* checked for faults

Wood cannot build itself
So I step back

I can stack and add
But the cutting is beyond me.

Still, I try

With the grain;
Against the vein

My sap hot and dripping
Congealing into flumes and parapets
That naked feet crush
and are cut by

Blood and sap and sawdust
Hardened resined mosaic that I pick up
And fashion into a broach for the three of you

Wondering if it will light up with your heart;
Or ice over with rejection
or, worst of wall-
Sit unchanged

I sit cross legged and try to connect

with terror-firma.

Non local

Reeks in here, and whatever magic I once associated with the coin operated bandito seems destined to a short shelf-life.

Until I make the call.

Micro-macro trickle down economics here, chitlins - moose head silver slivers the box and starts a mechanical supply and demand chain reaction from deep within. Metal to metal to electric signal to the switching station to point B and now as I hear her answer

I see four ladders stretching out from each side of the phone booth, right-angling up and converging like a great french braid; exploding in fanning filaments and

she's sending signals back now, signals *within* the signals; emotion through the electrical and

the filaments are awake and searching, spiralling upwards, sensing her movement

which is coming from letters now, ascii ghosts dancing the periphery between the physical and the sensed

And outward, looking down, it is a web now; filaments and letters entangled in an impossible wireframework; two lovers connected and the filaments are lit and there is ecstasy and mystery not bound by space or time but by

the click of a receiver and a port sealing itself from the world.

tee-ha!