feeling

extraordinarily

self-conscious

using a language

that was spread like the plague 

by

allegedly 

civilized colonizers

At The Local Supermarket

Walked into the local supermarket.

One of the assistants came up to me

With a polite smile. "What do you want, sir?"

All that's around us is food,

Vegetables, shampoos, and more food.

I take a deep breath

Well what I want is not more time.

No, I'm not fed up with time,

I mean, what I want is timelessness,

A lot of it. I'd like to rest far, far away,

In a distant land, and think over things

For a century or two.

I just want to live forever, you know

The shop assistant stares at me, at a loss.

There will be a time for death to die,

But right now all that's around us is food,

Vegetables, shampoos, and more food

Grasping Reality

This, then, is insanity

To be bound as if by chains

To the contours of a shallow reality,

To blend with the system and dance with it

Like empty air ensconced in a hollow jar,

To refuse to swim into the deep heights

Of what is, beyond what seems

See reality for what it truly is

Grasp it by the tail, fly the skies

For the only what that saves is

Elusive evasion with the dancing river of light

Liberation

Liberated from the ambiguities of a never-arriving future,

Feeling the chains fall from the hands,

Unshackled from earth-existence

Living one foot in time, one foot out

Hand in hand with what's divine,

The timeless etched on all our hopes.

Love, the matter of reality

And its very embodiment, eternal God,

Leading us into the promised land of light

Raw Light In The Dark

Shivering as if in fear

But in reality shaking with amiable laughter,

All them billion years or older

And us mere fading wisps of smoke.

Raw light in the dark

Apparently black canvas jaded

With pinpointing diadems,

Celestial stadium of perpetual, ageless watchers,

Constellated hope of endless light for mankind.

Seems like the dark 

Forces our race to find light

All us watching the stars,

And them watching us

Message to Posterity

 

We the characters of the 'casual comedy' 

Solemnly predict 

That reality as we know it

Will peter out

In a century or so  

And we beg posterity

To learn from our woes

 

Let There Be Light A Second Time

 

Let there be light a second time,
Dear God,
Not cause your light has faded
But because we men have blinded.
Blinded ourselves
And each other -
Such is the story of man,
The great emperor,
The king of the universe
Who sought to sate his incessant greed
And found blindness at road's end

 

On Reading King's 'I Have A Dream'

 

Well, I thought to myself,
This thing is worth more
Than all of British literature.
No: I corrected myself.
It's worth more than
All of the Western canon

I sigh and hope with the words
That one day all men be equal,
And beyond: I hope
That the black man be given
A special place,
Here on earth,
And later in God's hearth

 

Poem Written at 4:47 On December the 3rd, 2020

 

What’s a time like this doing

In the title of a poem like this?

Well, I – author, narrator, hypothetical poet

Of this present poem –

Would like to get all of the now

In what I’m writing,

In what you’re reading.

Cause what I write now is what you read later, huh?

Or from your perspective, future, unknown, possible reader(s),

What I wrote then, is what you read now.

Your now is different from my now, old friend.

Here’s to hoping our nows meet

Poemist Dabbles in Casual Art on A Desolate Evening

 

I, poemist
walk to the outermost sides
of the outer courtyard
of the palace named Dream.
and i shriek want, yes

i shriek want.
i want the morning
i want the evening
i want every shred of time
neatly assembled and

arranged before my heart
before this evening's over, see?
my heart used to have a tic-toc tic-toc
round it but now it don't, see?
and i want a watch and

i want some food
and i want some peace
and some cosmic security
with that, too
while yer at it

and i want time
and i want peace
i want time
i want time
i want time

and somehow
i knew
when i heard
the falling sound
that time had broke -  

would never expand
nor contract
but it'd ever be the same;
would always be the same
insensitive tyrant

Sussurations

The inside world inside of you

Dances on with God

Christ's song and Heaven's dance

Whirl round in your heart

Sussurations of the wind-leaves

Of the night's breeze

Sing a whispered melody,

At the stroke of midnight.

The wind sings birthday, as if 

The dawn bird's already up.

Here's the cake's candle - blow it out,

Cause with this breath everything changes

The very air sparkles with light,

And reality sings for joy

And the inside world inside of you

Dances on with God.

God's blessings and a rainbow upon all your days

Celerity

I look back

And see the utopian past

The dystopian present

And the goodness-knows-what future,

Ensconced in a celerity of data.

The world has become

One single machine

Lights of a New Dawn

Shards of a glass past

Rejoining and casting  

A beautiful brilliance onto the future,

Out of the light that floods this day -

A blessed rainbow on all of your days.

Light pervades the very air you breathe,

As you love God with a conversational heart,

Swaying with an immanence of peace

I wish you the frequent thought of trees,

Pastures, fields and leaves

Let the immensity of the skies at dawn

Awe your soul into the wonder of existence.

From this breath on, everything changes, 

For the dawn bird's song goes on forever

The Thoughts of the Puny

Worlds within world

And the phantasm called imagination

Creating, dancing in all 

Alternative universes.

Oh what worlds we create 

With our seven-inch skull.

We humans are puny

But capable of thinking 

About the universe

And making make-believe lands.

And the one we inhabit now - 

Tiny speck of blue,

In a sea of black - 

So small!

But it's a nice speck,

And we call it home.

At least for now

Lockdown

 

Here we are,
Billions of us,
Fighting for sanity
In the prison of our homes.
Will someone set us free?

We hear the jangling of keys,
As God opens our cells one by one

 

The Night Might Have Been Dark

 

The whisperings of the dawn
Beckoned me,
Leading me through the winding streams
And lush pastures
To its source

The night might have been dark
But light has no equal

 

 

Immortality

 

World full of someones,
And I in it
Waiting for the inexorable event
Of my redemption from mortality
By myself?

Surrendering into mortality
To immortality

Your Talent

 

I see you glistening with light - 

You are singing, dancing, 

Painting, writing 

Or loving  with a tender heart

You are doing what you truly love

This is your vision, your passion

Your art, your philosophy, 

Your every thought

So it doesn't matter at all

If no one recognizes the wonder in you,

Because not everyone understands, little one

And not everyone may be interested 

In the beautiful spring blossoming 

In your soul.

But go on

Do what lies closest to your heart

For that is what you were meant to do,

From the beginnings of the universe

I see the vision of your art

And ask you never to stop

You're not showing off, 

You're not wasting time,

You are being, existing as in a dance - 

You are being what God created you to be

So sing on and dance on.

 

 

 

Home and Hearth

Prayed a prayer

For world sanity

And lost consciousness.

Found myself on God's hearth

After an evening talk with him,

Before the kindly hearth

I wonder why

I don't lock myself in this house

Journey to the Centre of Light

 

 

I.

 

 

Diminish into majesty

And be weak to be strong

So weak as to be gasping

For breath, another breath

That will get you on your legs

To face the disappearance again.

You are your only obstacle

And when the I is annihilated,

Hope remains.

 

The stars disappear,

One by one,

Twinkling stars,

Little stars,

One by one

First the light of a cheerful sky,

Then the fellowship of mundane mirth,

Then the eyes and the light,

And superimposed realities

And the night itself

One by one

In pugnacious, noisy exits,

One by one

Hope is the puny thing with feathers,

A flying bird shot down

 

Sorry, but chill - it’s not all burnt yet.

You’re not the one who

You once were, nor are you

Who you should be.

You are a muddled up mess

Of yourself. Get yourself straightened out

C’mon round here,

Take the road right here,

The narrow one,

Or the one over here

The one that is no road at all

I know you ain’t ready

For the first one yet,

So buck up, get yourself together

(To tear yourself apart)

Don’t be such a sloth.

We all have to go this way,

If we wanna get real light

Of all this, whatever this is

(So tear yourself apart)

 

You are not what you were meant to be

The regale king lives in elfin fatuity

Rage against yourself

At the bathetic hebetude of your existence

For the regale king lives in distracted absurdity

Take a breath, and exist

Be, be what you are,

Not what you were or will be

But what you are

And what you were meant to be

 

And O, although this is night,

The night will not hold

 

Ignorance is the wisdom of the light

You know nothing, do you realize?

You are nothing, do you see?

Come to this fountain of wisdom, follow me

Or watch me lead myself

 

 

II.

 

 

Hubris is a number of stones

Tied to one’s arms and legs

And you jump into the river of your illusions

You’re now under the water,

Drowning and gasping for breath

For goodness’ sake,

What are you waiting for? Fight!

Fight and struggle and rage,

For your struggle begins here

Break free of those nasty stones,

And the cords, and save yourself –

You are all that you have –

Save your life, or what’s left of it,

Something, anything

 

Ah, I see from the shore

That you have broken out,

And are floundering at the surface,

Gasping for precious breath.

Very pleasant and satisfactory,

You have saved yourself,

Or what’s left of yourself -

Or so you think so.

The fight is only beginning, really –

The war’s right over there,

Round the corner, turn right

After the decrepit buildings

But that’s all later, of course.

Now, follow the man on the shore,

Who is actually yourself.

 

In the distance you see

The approaching enemy army,

Innumerable but not insurmountable

Your enemy is no less mighty.

Don’t be afraid – fight

And you know you have to

You do not know who the enemy is

But fight you have to

You know you have to

The two armies rushing to each other

Each somewhat familiar to the other,

And you recognize the enemy:

Yourself.

You fight anyway.

 

Follow yourself into yourself,

Where the war is

Destroy all within reach

And salvage what you can.

 

And at the end of it all

You’re lying there, gasping –

Wounded, but victorious

You attempt a ghost of a smile

Then, blackout

 

 

III.

 

 

The glass filled with water

Is neither half-empty nor half-full

But only mere illusion

Do not be struck by the geography of the words

My words could lead you nowhere,

Could give you nothing

Wriggling out of the theses and antitheses

And the stating of facts and their negation,

Stop all that – too confusing

There’s something better – the truth

 

The way to existence is its annihilation

The way to yourself is away

Close your eyes, and you can see

Open your eyes and be blind again.

You are now not who you were

You will never be what you were

You are not and thus you are

 

Well. That was a periphrastic way of

Telling you that you are not

There yet, wherever there is

You are halfway in the middle of

Nowhere, and still you are somewhere

Look, young fellow, you’ve stumbled into

Your morgue or something,

So shut up and let the

Roadside mystics and street philosophers

Perform the exequies. Stay put

Now is no time to ask the mirror, 

“Who’s the weakest of ‘em all?”

Stay put, where you are,

Or where you are not

You may be here or there or anywhere,

But you are nought.

Walk away from your sorry self

To reach yourself, that’s the best advice

I can give you or myself.

Oh whatever. We been talking too long.

Buck up, and follow.

 

And O, although this is night

 

At the mathematical centre of the

Spherical universe is the still point,

The point that does not expand nor implode

But is still and at peace

As calm as is the eye of every storm

The still point that is both motionless

And moving at the speed of light

For it is light itself

And this surrounding storm

Deserves itself, is willful

For creation is not yet at peace

The universe revolves around this light

Would you care to see it?

 

You are the weakest of them all.

 

 

IV.

 

 

Time is non-existent , a desultory myth

That primitives cooked up; Realize –

History is measured in a series of lives

Short lives, long lives, bright ones, dark ones

All festooned with smiles, tears and the lot

If you want to escape the tyranny

Of living in history, follow me, or watch me lead myself

Rise above the smiles and the tears

And be transfigured once and for all

Live with one foot in time, one foot out

Dancing all the while in this dance called existence

For the secret to life is the celebration of existence

 

So dance now and dance forever,

Dance quick and dance long

Geworfenheit. You have been thrown into the dance.

Dance to exist, to save yourself

Come celebrate existence and not disaster

Do not stay chirping at the sky and the trees

And the clouds and the breeze

Do not be captivated by the wisdom and the folly of man

Search deep, past the depths,

Into the meaning of existence

Or the existence of meaning

I do not know which,

I do not care which,

For I know nothing, I feel nothing,

I am nothing -

Follow me.

 

 

V.

 

 

And where are we going, you ask me

We are going to the center of the dance,

To the whiteness and the light

And the beauty and the purity

And the power and the peace

And the joy.

This is another kind of sublimity

You have heard of this road all your life

Perhaps you have known this road before

This road so squeezed that we walk in single file

Yet when we walk it, it seems

We have never known it

 

Only transfigured sight can see and

Comprehend without burning

What none understand

The light that is more than light:

A sheer effulgence of fellowship.

Feel the immanence of the light,

For we are close to where we should be –

To the heart of reality

 

Be born in this blinding light

And feel the pain and the simplicity

Relish the utter poverty of not belonging to oneself

And be born in this effulgence

 

Yes, a dream deferred explodes forever

And what we crave is not what comes to pass

The right concoction of resignation

And fiery ambition is the white water

That will tame your thirst for glory

The stars disappear, twinkling little stars

One by one

But hope remains – do not explode

We are there at last, at the end of the road

And you see sheer Light smiling at you

With a smile that was always there

 

And the night will not hold

 

The Sunrise Fable

 

 

 

Okay, I’m not going to make things too complicated. It’s all very simple. Nothing to it.

The sunrise here at my place hasn’t been all that beautiful these past days. Been getting bit faded here and there, you know. Not much life in it. That ‘extra-worldly’ shine was out. Less of heaven in it, if you know what I mean. Like, sometimes I just prop myself down on this beach here on the Swiss coast at, what – 5 in the morning, and I’d be waiting for dawn to burst. With my canvas and brush at hand, of course….  And there’d be glimpses of heaven here and there. The moment felt ethereal.

Not now. I look at the sunrises these days and can’t dabble a shine of colour. Sun seems to have gone colour-blind.

And so. I’m off to tell God about it. I’m going to ask Him to do something about it.

I get out of my modest cottage in Downtown Switzerland, and I began walking. All I’ve got is my orange shirt, pants and a knapsack with brushes, colour and one sheet of thick paper. I know I’ll have to go a long way, and I can exchange on-the-spot paintings for the food and rest I’ll need.

I walk and walk and walk and that night I stop before a quaint bakery. I paint a melody of a painting of the old chap in the bakery, on a single paper. I show it to the pleased chap and he agrees amiably to my request of a loaf of bread and a place to rest. Biting into the fresh loaf, I ask him if he knows where God is.

He says no. The next day I continue on.

I walk and walk and walk. When I’m too hungry to go on, I ask a school kid to give me a plain sheet of paper. I tell him to sit down by the side of the street. He sits, bewildered. I paint him in a quiet pasture, with a breath-taking sunrise watching him. I’m done in five minutes, and I hand it to him. He squeals in delight, gives me a pound, and rushes to show it to his Mama. Artistically the sketch would fetch 700 pounds.

I walk and walk and walk. Weeks pass. I’m out of Switzerland. In a month I reach France. I ask them, “Do you know where God is?”

“Quest’que ce?” They ask.

“Dieu.” I repeat.

“Non, non….” They reply.

I go on. Past the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre…. On and on.

I soon reach Italy. I pass the Leaning Tower of Pisa, saunter through St. Francis’ Assisi, and continue.  

I reach the Persian lands. The winds blow without restraint, making musical sounds among the sand dunes. The sun is scorching me. I sit down.

In the distance I see a man in white approaching. When he is near, I ask him, “Sir, do you know where God is?” He seems to be a man of God.

He nods. He points to the wide waters by the desert. “Travel onwards. Go on and on and on till you find Him.”

I sketch a picture, nod in thanks, and accept what the man offers. With it I buy a boat and continue on my way, by sea.

On and on and on…. Three days pass. I begin to feel hungry. That evening, I seem to be alone in the whole wide world, with the circling horizon around me showing me nothing but water. After a while I see a speck. The speck becomes bigger. It’s on the east horizon. I paddle towards it. It becomes an island – quite a big one. Soon I reach the coast. I tie the boat to a pillar of limestone and with my knapsack I venture into the island.

The island is about four or five kilometres across. It’s covered with trees and bushes. In the middle of it all is a huge mountain. I head for it.

It takes about an hour to scale up to the top. I reach the top. It’s quite wide, 20 or 30 metres across. The centre is hemmed in by rock walls, so I can’t see the centre. I walk around the perimeter till I find an opening.

“No, that’s not going to happen,” a voice booms amiably. I hear the voice first, then I see God, in a corner of the little ‘room’ of rock. His back is turned to me. He turns to me and smiles. He has got a huge beard, friendly eyes and stands tall, a bit more than me. He is dressed in a white cloak. There is a shine about Him.

“Good evening, Jonathan!” He exclaims with a friendly laugh. His laugh captivates me – it’s infused with raw happiness. I smile back before I know it.

I enter into the mountaintop room. “But how do you know my name?” I ask, seating myself on a stone shelf, tired after the long walk.

God smiles. “Oh, I know.” His eyes sparkle bright with something a thousand times more explosive than what we fancifully label ‘love’. I have a hard time holding his gaze, but I can’t help but look again, like a boy who looks right at the Sun when he’s told not to do so.

I hesitate. Then I ask, “Are you God?”

He laughs. The booming echoes surround me, and caress my very soul. His happy laugh takes some time.

Then He looks right at me. “My boy,” He says, amused. “I’m all there ever is.”

I muster up all the courage I’ve got. “I’m from Switzerland – “

“I know.”

“I came to ask You something.”

“What is it you want, Jonathan?” He asks, sitting beside me.

“You know, the sunrise back there at my place isn’t like it used to be,” I began. I get bolder and everything comes at once. “Like, there isn’t that ‘other-worldly” touch to it, these days. Less of heaven in it, if You can see what I mean. Usually I get lost in sunrises, but the ones that’ve come round these couple of weeks are uninspiring…. They don’t captivate me like they used to.”

He nods. “I see.” He is silent for a while. He seems to be thinking.

“And so”, I continue. “I’d really appreciate it if You could lighten it up a bit.”

He looks at me for some time. Then He repeats. “No, that’s not going to happen.”

“Oh,” I merely say, taken aback. I must look crestfallen, because He pats me on the back and smiles affectionately at me. “But don’t feel sad about that,” He consoles.

He stands up, and ruffles my hair. “I’ll make the sun rise every day in your heart instead.”

I nod, feeling better. I get up too, and pick up my knapsack

“Here, get something to eat. You must be hungry,” He says, pointing at the shelf. I put some loaves and fish in my knapsack.

I give Him my hand. “Well, bye then. And thanks for everything.” I say.

He nods.

“Wait a moment,” He calls after me as I leave.

I come back.

He gives me a sheet of paper.

I sit there and start painting Him.