- Still here? Thank you.
- I'm going to Manhattan Sunday, riding an early morning bus with Earthgirl and while she visits with a cousin for three or four hours I get to wander by myself until we get back on the bus to go home.
- As I type this sentence I don't know where the bus lets us off in Manhattan nor where Earthgirl is meeting her cousin nor how we will get there so I can't plan where I'll wander yet, and I haven't looked at the weather forecast either.
- As I type this sentence gas mains are exploding in Massachusetts while a hurricane bears down on massive coal ash pits and pigshit ponds in low-lying areas where the poor blacks live, twenty inches of rains expected, more possible, and Jeff Bezos wants to start Amazon indoctrination/surveillance with preschoolers at preschoolers' parents' expense.
- Flint still. Bark what?
- It's 2023, I emerge from bloggrave to note on onblog tombstone See! I haven't said anything in five years ocene, bark what.
- Bark what? that Trump's shoots broke kayfabe, and the Fucks thought it'd be a problem with the More Peasants Need to Die Sooner program, but know what? the Fucks are more than motherfucking good with Trump until he can't wobble no more and falls down, be still their hearts each breach of decorum.
- This Sunday's fake escape, lordy, grace is a unique day with a Beloved
- says this self-entitled fuck thinking, charge my iPhone battery cases, put in backpack.
- So, same, things are same, things with you?
- Back to the music:
GASLIGHT
Tom Raworth
i would be eight people and then the difficulties vanish
only as one i contain the complications
in a warm house roofed with the rib-cage of an elephant
i pass my grey mornings re-running the reels
and the images are the same but the emphasis shifts
the actors bow gently to me and i envy them
their repeated parts, their constant presence in that world
i would be eight people each inhabiting the others’ dreams
walking through corridors of glass framed pages
telling each other the final lines of letters
picking fruit in one dream and storing it in another
only as one i contain the complications
and the images are the same, their constant presence in that world
the actors bow gently to me and envy my grey mornings
i would be eight people with the rib-cage of an elephant
picking fruit in a warm house above actors bowing
re-running the reels of my presence in this world
the difficulties vanish and the images are the same
eight people, glass corridors, page lines repeated
inhabiting grey mornings roofed with my complications
only as one walking gently storing my dream
how are things with me? thank you for asking
ReplyDelete1)missus charley's mastectomy in early august was eventful but ultimately successful, radiation poisoning and chemo poisoning were not even offered, tinkering with her hormones was possible but equivocally indicated and declined by the patient, she is tired and mostly working at home now six weeks later
2)choir at our local parish of the church of rome has started up for the fall but the mood is much changed as a result of the news of the last few months, several people have stopped coming, there is a 'listening session' scheduled at our parish for monday after next for which i am considering sending an anonymous letter to our pastor (who is a close personal friend of 'uncle ted', the disgraced ex-cardinal mccarrick) expressing my sincere opinion about some of what's wrong and how it might be fixed if it could be fixed which of course is not possible because 'you can't get there from here' - you'd have to go somewhere else first - it will be on paper and possibly might reach other people if it is passed from hand to hand which could happen although one can't count on it
2a)i speak as a participant-observer who goes through the motions but quite frankly would leave this particular organization except for the fact that spouse is strongly committed to staying and her brand loyalty is such that she will not go to a retail outlet of any other abomination - as i told a fellow choir member, i come for the music, and the christianity - but the church of rome has a lot of other stuff too, unfortunately - my ancestors had good reasons for leaving
2c)but it's like being a citizen and resident of the united states of america - one could leave, but at a price - as krishna could have said, every human organization has divine and demonic tendencies
2d)see also next posting
`
ReplyDeletesome quotes from david r. bunch, whose book moderan is being republished by nyrb (a notice of which in your blogroll is what led me to begin the web search during which i found these passages - so far no success in coming across any poetry per se by him that has been posted)
[1]
Flesh seemed doomed that year; death's harpies were riding down. The once-beautiful, sweet and life-sustaining air was tinged with poison now, and man drank at his peril from the streams that had once been pure. He prayed to a God that was said to be in all things good, true and beautiful, but especially was thought to be all sternness and goodness, justice and loving-care, in some milk-white place far away, "On High." And those prayers if answered were answered very obliquely indeed. For the air got deeper in poison from the tinkering with lethal things the flesh-man indulged in when not praying, and the water got fuller with danger as each new explosion pounded the bomb-fevered air. There was talk of the End; great discussions were handled in great halls across the land. Treaties were signed among statesmen to help the air get better, to allow the streams to recover and run pure once again. But even as the flesh-hands grasped the pens to scrawl the marks of good faith in some countries, fear lashed at capitals in other countries. Arsenals were tested anew. Things done were undone. The air got sicker; the streams ran not pure but pure danger-- There seemed no chance for flesh-man, and his God seemed entirely silent wherever He was, wherever His white throne was. The HOPELESS signs were out everywhere. Little children asked that they be allowed to go quickly and not grow up hurting and maimed. Adults in what should have been the full flower of brave manhood and fair womanhood quaked, looked heavenward for some hopeful sign and, finding none, fell down and cried bitterly. The aged ones, quavering and whining now, finally decided that yes, truly they were most glad that they were so very old. The flesh billions courted at the Palace of Danger so ardently had turned against them and the mass wedding of Death and Destruction seemed now all but assured.
[2]
"Maybe you could camp here until the time comes up to talk, and then I could hear your tale," I said, because I had my humor about me as well as one of my feet in safety, in the door of the peep-box of steel.
"Just say I found the Answers," he said. "Just say you've seen the walking-talking Don't-Care man, one being who has escaped The Grip. It wasn't easy, it took a long time, and planning, but I think I've achieved it finally, the ultimate resolution of that built-in agony, the Life-Death Predicament of Man."
That was a big statement he'd just loaded out there at the last.
what an idea - to have resolved the built-in agony of the human condition - here are some viewpoints on it that i have found appealing:
DeleteWe Will Serve the Lord
----Rory Cooney
Wealth can be an idol, built of gleaming gold,
Bringing dreams of paradise, futures bought and sold.
Some will choose to gather it, all that they can hoard,
But as for me and my House, we will serve the Lord.
Pleasure is a siren, promising the flesh,
brief relief from emptiness, a hiding place from death.
Some will choose to chase it, until it leaves them bored.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Power is a hunger, burning in the breast,
to walk among the mighty and trample on the rest.
Some will choose to gain it by lie or guile or sword,
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Father of all mercy, giver of all life,
here we speak our covenant above the noisy strife.
Hear us shout in glory above the pagan horde,
As for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instrument of Peace Meditation
Slightly edited (to be non-theistic) version of the Prayer of St. Francis (it was named in honor of him, not written by him)
My goal is to be an instrument of peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
I seek not so much to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in letting go of a smaller self that we are able to recognize our wider identity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In The mind illuminated: A complete meditation guide integrating Buddhist wisdom and brain science, Culadasa gives a picture (3 pictures, really – figure 57, pages 411-413) of the changes in worldview he says can be produced by practicing the program of development he delineates. There are a lot of circles and arrows in the illustrations. Here are the captions for the three stages:
p. 411 Three assumptions – that I am a separate Self, that I live in a world of relatively enduring and self-existent “things”, and that my happiness comes from the interactions between my Self and this world of things – are shared throughout the subminds making up the mind-system. They provide the foundation for our sense of meaning and purpose in life.
p. 412 The “true” nature of reality, as revealed through Insight experiences, directly conflicts with all these assumptions: there are no “things”, only process; all we ever really experience are the fabrications of our own minds; the Self I think I am is as impermanent and empty as everything else; the world can never be the source of my happiness. When these truths are realized by the deep unconscious minds, it is severely disruptive.
p. 413 As Insight matures, individual sub-minds reorganize their internal models to accommodate the new information. This transformation brings about a completely new worldview, life takes on a new and deeper meaning and purpose than ever before, and there is a much greater sense of ease, regardless of what may happen.
The thought balloon on page 413 states, “I am not separate. Everything arises and passes away due to causes and conditions. This body and mind are not things, but causal process. Having arisen due to causes and conditions, they are causes and conditions in their turn. Ultimate truth is knowable, but not through ideas and concepts. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”
I just got a copy of the new NYRB edition, gonna take it on bus to Manhattan, see what happens.
DeleteBeen thinking about people who've passed on in what's left of family (not much left, me and a brother, my sister passed on at the age of 23 which could easily have been avoided) so kind of melancholy at this point. But I find solace in my music mainly because when I practice and play I don't think of anything else. Also Teddy continues to be a joy and best buddy. Still can't hike, total bummer. But I did find a house with no neighbors (thank heaven) where the forest comes right up to about two feet from the back of said house. I see deer, wild turkeys, squirrels, all types of song birds, clouds, leaves, a real tiny lizard, and no people (praise be to the gods). Thinking of old friends past and present and glad that some are still kicking. I'm thinking fuck Trump and fuck the assholes surrounding him. Fuck Obama too. Or as the gangster Legs Diamond once quipped, "fuck 'em all except for six and save those for the pall bearers." Charming individual no doubt. Thinking how sad it is that I lived long enough to see the beginning of the end of this beautiful planet and how I'm part of its demise just by being. Thinking of just how much more beautiful it was just 50 years ago and how fucked up it is to see it all go up in smoke when I wanted to believe that its beauty would go on long after I bit the big one. Doesn't seem so feasible now, does it. Otherwise things be great.
ReplyDelete