Sappho 31

Fragment 31 is arguably the most translated —and "untranslatable" — piece of lyric poetry in Western history. For 2,500 years, it's been the "Mount Everest" for translators due to the percussive, almost clinical way a lovesick heart describes its own physical erasure. To translate it is to grapple with a ghost: it's one of the only Sappho poems that is reasonably preserved, thanks to the critic Longinus quoting it with approval, but the words are disoriented, the self-consciousness jarring, and the way to feel about it postponed to a much later age.

Appears to me that one’s unmoved, like the gods

That man, across from you, whoever he is,

Installed and close by, for that sweetness of voice

Overheard, obeyed –

You, having laughed, erotic charge, but not mine

Whose heart is caged in a temple of panic,

For when I see you, even briefly, my voice

Won’t work anymore,

Even my tongue muscle locks up and subtle

Fire ignites suddenly under my flesh,

Whited out eyes can’t see anything at all,

Ears rung to a roar.

Sweat’s pouring out and tremors are everywhere 

Seizing my being; I turn greener than grass

And I have died, or maybe less, or so I

Appear to myself.

Risks are required – even for one without rights ...

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φαίνεταί μοι κῆνοc ἴcοc θέοισιν

ἔμμεν’ ὤνηρ, ὄττιc ἐνάντιόc τοι

ἰcδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί

cαc ὐπακούει

καὶ γελαίcαc ἰμέροεν, τό μ’ ἦ μὰν

καρδίαν ἐν cτήθεcιν ἐπτόαιcεν,

ὠc γὰρ ἔc c’ ἴδω βρόχε’ ὤc με φώναι

c’ οὐδ’ ἒν ἔτ’ εἴκει,

ἀλλὰ κὰμ μὲν γλῶccα ἔαγε λέπτον

δ’ αὔτικα χρῶι πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμηκεν,

ὀππάτεccι δ’ οὐδ’ ἒν ὄρημμ’, ἐπιρρόμ

βειcι δ’ ἄκουαι,

κάδ δέ μ’ ἴδρωc κακχέεται τρόμοc δὲ

παῖcαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίαc

ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ’ ὀλίγω ’πιδεύηc

φαίνομ’ ἔμ’ αὔται.

ἀλλὰ πὰν τόλματον, ἐπεὶ καὶ πένητα

Sundays in Taiwan

A piece of spiritual journalism

I arrive at the purple yang gate. The lioness asks
“Attain the Tao how?” I’m immorally immortal
Now, but I talk around the treasures
At the thunder entrance, before the 8 divisions
Of divine dragons in charge
Of my cultivation of self-nature.

To restore my innate perfection
Is surprisingly hard
When I’m already perfect
And don’t know it.
Heavenly decrees are needed
To transcend to what you already are.

Red purity and purple virtue
Are used to supplement the merits,
By, for instance, washing dishes,
But when the ten lords of the underworld
Execute me for too much karma
What is my … next act?

The punishment comes from heaven
But the pain occurs in hell –
So, how, again, are they not the same?
Who does all this banishing anyway?
Does anything guard Quinguang Hall?
Does it know me … at all?

Whose fault is it
When vengeance is silent,
Repentance inherently insufficient?
That’s a note to match with my heart
In the first nourishing room
Where habitual nature is cleansed.

There are those who already wear
The purple robes and golden crowns,
Who everyone admires from afar without
Ever knowing what the fuss was about,
What brought the honored escort
Not the one to endless suffering.

“Who is your master?” The lioness asks,
As the question always is, but there are
Many titles piled before God incomprehensible
But no answer that works for both
Erroneous and Holy – the better I suppose
To rectify shortcomings til time ends

In renovation underground,
The cultivation chamber,
Where the Lords of Karma
At every mistake they notice
Further tighten the wheel
Of another sentient sentence

For violations of the social norm,
Sentenced to its judgment,
Hellfire’s torture, in yet another body
Because the one that was released
Craves the endless pain so much
For daring to exist in defiance of others.

The work on what triggers is repentance;
To polish the mind there’s the flying bugs room
And the freezing-ice gate for detailed inspection
Of my meritorious deeds, and a welcoming
Goodness pavilion for punishment because
I can’t see my original being.

I may give a dollar to wash a dish
But is it ego or duty that performs?
Or is the giving formless?
My true, original nature knows all this
Unconditional benevolence, one hand
Not knowing what the other hands over.

I’ve only retained a dollop of
Heavenly instruction, only enough
To make me recognize myself
In other humans … so I can lose them.
Telepathy comes when translation fails,
When the words become impossible on purpose.

Would I do what can’t be done,
Vow to save the doomed world
Not with fear of consequence
But gratitude that I even have the chance
To cast all I am aside for the void
Because I judged all my sins to be wrong?

There are some, you can tell by their
Demeaner, people kneel down to them
And others ask them why. That’s all I get
To aspire to, as I contemplate in rooms
For rites learning, merit makeup, where I’d
Visualize 3,000 virtues and 800 fruits indeed!

The mind-favoring pagoda for false pleasure lost,
Transparent monument tower that records each
Erroneous thought, so judgment can
Be passed, on those for whom it is impossible
To reach their natural state of purity,
So easily deluded to think they can.

That’s how deep in our awareness our true nature lies
We believe our evil thoughts created hell
And heaven has the outrageous task
Of balancing, so that we must repent
With gratitude, not by spiritually-charged streams
For too many teachings turn the dharma into venom.

It is Satanic to hold one’s thoughts to oneself
And Satanic to hold to one’s own ideas with others,
For every dispute is with your inner demons
As a test of your mental stability. Before you can
Register as an immortal, the hall that leads to hell
Is the only coherent possibility.

The sincere cultivators ask at this point,
“Are there no exceptions to these seemingly strict
Rules?” But the lioness calmly enjoins them
To be humbly unsuccessful. If you can watch
Your mind, you can eliminate the human mind,
Attain the greater harmony as nothing.

At the Frequency of Mustard Weed

The grass stalks are thick as trees,

The moth flies lightly. as the breeze.

Each taper of mustard vibrates the field

On hills inundated with its yellow

To make it almost disappear

For a moment, as the vapor

Moved by wind shivers and seems 

To wipe the earth slate clean

Until the equation you remember kicks in,

The farm machinery that plied this ground

The grasses now transcended

In golden seed.

So it is with me

Bursting star stuff from the tar

As if its disappearance is an end

And what has ended never gone

In spiral time recursion

Is the stop watch to align,

The ticking tails of a pinto and mule

Sharing one vibration.

Two grackles dive and spray

Across the empty sense of play

In one frequency of thought.

A blackbird bounces 

On a branch

Like a pharaoh being rowed 

To the after-world

Its eyes reflect,

But all I know

Is how to attend the flow,

The mangy trailer cat that demands

The same neck scratches

In the same hypnogogic zone

Under the chin 

As my white king at home,

Who spares me his knowledge now

And his jealousy, which will come

For no apparent reason anyway.

I sigh. The horse tail clocks 

Are no longer synchronized anyway.

The cat remembers she 

Doesn't even really know me, 

A white horse replaces a black 

At the wash bay.

The talk is of rattlesnakes

As seasonal threat, the downside

Of shade, so to speak

But birds are in their music

And the black flies are in manure,

Where they whirr

Temporary pockets

As random as their bites

Of whatever is white —

The pure can take it,

The discomfort, as experience,

Like old vine Zin.

The grayer among us 

Must be guided

By ice plant blooms,

Gopher holes.

There's one now, with a broken arm

From arching too harshly

From the rattler curled 

Around a tack room saddle.

Follow-Up on Vince

High Point beats Wisconsin

“The boys we’re fighting for”

The siesta is over

Bottom dogs win again

Sons are there to ignore

High Point beats Wisconsin

His face was on the poster

His hand was on the door

The siesta is over

I had to drop a dime on him

He robbed my mercy store

High Point beats Wisconsin

He was a local hero

Vodka all over the floor

The siesta is over

He'd recruited Marginado in person

The rich become the poor

High Point beats Wisconsin

The siesta is over

Clean-Up Crew for Yet Another New Year’s Eve

A few last flakes of fear

Exhale like smoke in the glare

— This weapons-grade retrograde

Disconnected the dots

Dust of the fallen world

What would otherwise

Annihilate attention

For what was never real

Must be grieved.

There’s a truth in here somewhere

Beyond the choice of the individual

To receive

The kind of experience

Souls crave

— Something outside, not just

Happening for me.

Ah but there are as many worlds

As stars

And I won’t feel so imprisoned

If I set them free

From mine

That place of terrifying

Mystery,

Where boundaries bleed.

The shuttle almost hit

A car

There was air

Then no more.

The Exploding Pass

People can talk sometimes about something besides

Themselves, what has been done to them.

They can transcend the relief of their belief

Into the clear light of disorientation:

Enoch in neon at Pismo, a blinking Speedee

Whose blue pants scramble above an archless McDonald’s

Amid the Valencias of Fillmore – so we are pinned

To moments, with memory the only permanent thing.

Sharing isn’t understanding, exactly. It’s more like looking

Through the common eyes of pain, earth school style,

At the hay stacked green in late Lemoore sun, or the careful

Regildings in the gently haunted Hotel Darling …

That’s how thankful I am, full of poppy and lupine

That something will even emerge from my mouth at times,

While other times the roadside stands are only as real as the rats

Who, despite our best efforts, will not be rehabilitated.

Some identities do not survive, it's not resolvable,

What's inside festering and has been since birth,

That wants to squeal like a pig right now. Eyes must learn

To see themselves outside, not who's looking within.

One time I Iingered too long with my flute, watching two ducks

Float down the Los Angeles aqueducts near dusk,

Dreaming the river lamps into the solidity of old movies

When a brain-damaged gluey gestured with a gun

As micro-turf-falcon obliged to some gang dragon master.

I was lucky I turned into Jesus when he came,

Heart impeccably radiant with such love for his being

He decided to trade my life for the small bag of weed

I sincerely released into his hand, as I did at that moment

All resistance to the world my mother spoiled, with my best friend.

Now I am a cautionary tale at Journalism schools, notorious

For fakery so miniscule readers almost wanted to believe that it was real.

Definition as it Expands

The ghostly gnats that drift in the slant sun

Like electrons in silicon, these are

My assistants, to help me understand 

The world is much larger than what I am

And what I am's more vast than anything 

I can even conceive, unless I believe 

There's no I -- just the multi where they fly

Their mandalas of the hivemind vying,

Each pulse a bristled reaction, a move

Away to where it's free, temporarily --

Energy bunches and releases like that,

In every thought the universe makes real

Though we're lucky to see even that.

More likely, it's only sovereignty 

For as far as the little I can see,

A going to war to be who we are.

"Blue Wind" at the Curve

It's the kind of wind with voices in it

All unresolved and whispering

For the fabric of resistance,

That limestone that must choose

On whether to let the water through

Or hold it at the willcall for the people.

It's much like the cops on Santiago

Blocking up the road at one

Head-on collision too many,

The one where the casualties are fatal.

Static comes off with the dust in the brush.

The horses bray like mules in the gusts

For the donkey in heat, each scent evokes

A consequence, as each bluster of breath

Turning in the blue leads somewhere,

A further avenue for deeper reflection

On illusions learned, truths overcome,

Ways of being no longer essential to the mind,

The glass sphere that takes in all of the light

But only becomes what is shadow,

The mask of clothes that become the man,

That fly like scarves now along the road.

The EZ-Go is loaded with shit and hay. 

It still rolls uphill, just so you know.

7 by Susana Thenon

"I am stretching language, breaking it, pushing to the limit all the possibilities that Spanish can offer me, even with incompatibilities.” 

Love

If I hated you

The world would not bend:

Never does the world make sane

The ones who hate.

My preference is to love you

And all catastrophizes around us:

The voices, the hands, the faces,

They all want to stone us.

Search

I caress my instinct

Embargo it

With the other dogs

I dwell

I savor the mortal

On the point of a pool noodle

Leftovers

Soon

In all you encounter

A reason more powerful

And you silent submit

Pared of a rising smile.

Your balance is rebellious,

Your being

Human,

The taste of death

Fills you

Like a city you recently left.

Resident of the Abyss

(She touched her the mans)

In the witching moon, barely.

Remembered nothing mattered

Although her shadow still races

The perimeters of night.

(...)

She tied the ache of being suffocated

To her throat and recalled

How she went to the errant hue,

Nibbling without eyes in night shades and

Heard silence purr

And the odor of time that came with her tide.

Night.

(She cut her the mans).

Unrelenting Age

Why must it never be

Our hands

That can rise, that can voice

The wound, at the stargate of thunder?

The Impossible Dwelling

Firmament of mine.

I sleep in your silence as inside a tree.

Soft salt, I will love you without end.

In yonic flower and unknown name.

Distances VII

This is the place.

There's no way out.

The air is a wall of mirrors

And the voice is detained

Before birth.

Hold the fire to your breast

Lest the cold

Be the key legatee.

The bridge is of threads

Across the abyss to the nameless:

Cross but don't look

Keep the center unvoiced 

So the eye of the void

Cannot learn your song.

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"Yo estoy estirando el lenguaje, rompiéndolo, llevando al máximo todas las posibilidades que puede ofrecerme el español aún con incoherencias"

20-II-58
(uncollected at death)

Si te odiara,

el mundo no se inmutaría:

nunca el mundo se ensaña

con los que odian.

En cambio te amo

y todo es catástrofe alrededor:

las voces, las manos, los rostros,

todos quieren apedrearnos.

12-VI-57

(uncollected at death)

Me acaricio el instinto

y lo largo

junto a los otros perros.

Me duelo,

pruebo la muerte

con la punta del miedo.

12-VII-57

(uncollected at death)

De pronto,

en todo encuentras

una razón más poderosa

y te sometes en silencio

pero sin sonrisa.

Pierdes tu rebelde equilibrio de

ser

humano

y un gusto a cosa muerta

te puebla,

como una ciudad recientemente abandonada.

Habitante de la nada

(From "Habitante de la nada", 1959)

(ella se tocó las manos).

En la madrugada, apenas.

Recordó que nada importa

aunque su sombra siga corriendo

alrededor de la noche.

(...)

Ató la angustia a su cuello

y recordó su color equivocado.

Mordió a ciegas en la sombra y

oyó gritar al silencio.

Y aprendió a reírse

del olor a tiempo que daba su sangre.

Noche.

(ella se cortó las manos).

Edad sin tregua

(From "Edad sin tregua", 1958)

¿Por qué no han de ser nunca nuestras manos

las que se alcen, las que proclamen la voz

del asco, el advenimiento del trueno?

La morada imposible

(From "La morada imposible", 1959)

fundamento mío.

yo duermo en tu silencio como en un árbol.

suave sal te amaré sin fin.

en tu florecer y en tu nombre.

Distancias VII

(From "Distancias", 1984)

He aquí el lugar.

No hay salida.

El aire es un muro de vidrio

y la voz se detiene

antes de ser.

Cuida el fuego,

no sea que el frío

herede la llave.

Hay un puente de hilos

sobre el abismo del nombre:

crúzalo sin mirar,

callando el centro,

para que el ojo del abismo

no aprenda tu canción.

The Vertical Work

The silence of home is the stillness of God.

It does not belong here, the adamantine 

Plasma, in soaked papyrus, with the people 

Who get you as incompletely as you do.

And what of Gate 10, the solar womb, 

How does one explain, in the wirecrossing hum,

The terminal teams, the friction interactions, 

Sun blue over a city captive held?

We are all of us needy, none of us needed,

Pulling at time until it breaks in our favor,

Talk of Mexican Donuts and estrogen mares,

Ways to experience stasis as flux, flux as movement.

It's clockwork the sun, or used to be. Lately

The councils have called in from other worlds,

Many people here are not people at all, many systems

Intrinsically flawed and failing exactly for that.

Our eyes now see the purple through the cracks,

Higher dictates pulling reins, unyielding loss of

The fixed, what no longer serves, as they say,

What never really did.

It was always a day trip on bird wings away

From the blood plugged machinery, the route clean

To your heart and your sovereignty, which includes

Me tapping away at ancient ghosts, from Atlantis mist

And the past where I saw what I looked like not at all

Yet the whole world turned on every word, each thought 

I had, every vibration that shivered through.

It was always my world, mine only

Yet I was afraid of skyscrapers and all the other things

That were never really there to begin with. Those wings

Of white that cannot be an optical refraction:

It's still a game, only the ante has been raised.

The Spellcast

From the Spanish of Mara Romero Torres

Hey heretics of centuries far

Wounds still open as sigils,

No embargos on earth to mother

And the acoustic of light signals,

Equilibrium floats in silence smothered.

My voice among the ancients

Is spellcast in the witches dream time in between

A nook for the cornered soul

Whereby time is detained

And the word is turned to flesh burning.

Don't spit away the way out

Because the labyrinth unlocks.

Remain still those who predate the grail

Until the echo names you.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Hechizo

​Hay heridas que pueden quedar abiertas durante siglos.

Sin embargo, la tierra sigue pariendo,

y existe la acústica de la luz.

Y el equilibrio flotante del silencio.

​Mi voz en los clásicos

es un hechizo en la madrugada.

Un rincón para el alma

donde el tiempo se detiene

y la palabra se hace carne.

​No busques la salida,

porque el laberinto es la llave.

Quédate en el centro del grito

hasta que el eco te nombre.

The Guitar

From the Spanish of Federico Garcia Lorca

The gush from the gash

Of guitar.

The chalices shatter

At dawn.

The gush from the gash

Of guitar.

The gag is useless.

Tongue impossible

To hold.

Monotonous lament,

Weep of water,

Wail of wind

Over snowfall.

Tongue impossible

To hold.

It mourns for

Distant things.

Exhausted sands

Demanding white camellias.

Its cries are blanks,

Afternoon without tomorrow,

And the first bird

Stilled on its perch.

Oh guitar!

Trade my heart

For five spades.

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LA GUITARRA - POEMA DE LA SEGUIRIYA GITANA (Cante Jondo)

Empieza el llanto

de la guitarra.

Se rompen las copas

de la madrugada.

Empieza el llanto

de la guitarra.

Es inútil callarla.

Es imposible

callarla.

Llora monótona

como llora el agua,

como llora el viento

sobre la nevada

Es imposible

callarla,

Llora por cosas

lejanas.

Arena del Sur caliente

que pide camelias blancas.

Llora flecha sin blanco,

la tarde sin mañana,

y el primer pájaro muerto

sobre la rama

¡Oh guitarra!

Corazón malherido

por cinco espadas.

The Disclosed

Crows and cameras are on top of the lamps.

Three seagulls fly the grey.

Under the red pill moon the news

Takes a horsewoman’s risk of truth

When so many bodies are buried

Like their lives meant more than they did.

No crosses to disclose that they died for truth

Makes what’s obscured felt, more palpable.

Yet there’s a veil,

Timelines preserved in their chambers,

Same coffee in different rooms with different tastes

And no samples allowed outside.

The time to partake of others’ experience

Has collapsed on the wheel of blood

And the vacuum tube of what they waited for you

To see … But you were always free to choose

Your avatar, and to make it what you were.

The whole of the singing turns in crystal distortion

Because the note would be the same

In the endless echo of space, without the reverb

Of times and places landed like GPS,

Kin to the roving bands that marched through

Danbury, one after the other playing

The same tune but dissonant with itself.

No rooms except your own shine in blue.

No oatmeal but your own greets your hands.

You can play the game of being other people

But it ends with you were stolen from, not stealing.

At parties we talk about this,

What we did for other people’s ears,

The horror of seeing ourselves as we are

Too real to understand …

Like the homeless man with the Raiders cap

Walks his dog, revels in the stoppage

To savor the pee, rather than look

Anywhere near the sky.

Rabia: The View from Basra

Lady Rabia al-Adawiyya (717-801) went from slave to Sufi spoken-word poet. 

There’s two loves for the one:

The devotion of desire

And the flame that serves the other.

As for the self with roots in longing

I’m devoured by your presence

Scarce existing outside.

As for the self that shines with gold

It’s you that lift the veil

To allow me to see.

No currency on either side

For my love and its degrees

But we lack lack in Abaddon at the gate.

So if you’re called from want

Of your sun, burn me

With the flame of my carcass crisp.

And if you’re worshipped

For your sun, keep it away,

The key to the gate, from my arms.

But if you’re loved, right here in Basra

In the sun’s reflection

Stay with me as we play among the stars.

 -------------------------------------------------------------

أُحِبُّكَ حُبَّيْنِ

حُبَّ الهَوَى

وَحُبًّا لِأَنَّكَ أَهْلٌ لِذَاكَا

Uḥibbuka ḥubbayni

ḥubba al‑hawā

wa ḥubban li‑annaka ahlun li‑dhākā

فَأَمَّا الَّذِي هُوَ

حُبُّ الهَوَى

فَشُغْلِي بِذِكْرِكَ عَمَّنْ سِوَاكَا

fa‑ammā alladhī huwa

ḥubbu al‑hawā

fa‑shughlī bi‑dhikrika ʿamman siwākā

وَأَمَّا الَّذِي

أَنْتَ أَهْلٌ لَهُ

فَكَشْفُكَ لِيَ الحُجُبَ حَتَّى أَرَاكَا

wa‑ammā alladhī

anta ahlun lahu

fa‑kashfuka liya al‑ḥujuba ḥattā arākā

فَلَا الحَمْدُ فِي ذَا

وَلَا ذَاكَ لِي

وَلَكِنْ لَكَ الحَمْدُ فِي ذَا وَذَاكَا

fa‑lā al‑ḥamdu fī dhā

wa‑lā dhāka lī

wa‑lākinn laka al‑ḥamdu fī dhā wa‑dhākā

اللَّهُمَّ إِنْ كُنْتُ أَعْبُدُكَ

خَوْفًا مِنْ نَارِكَ

فَأَحْرِقْنِي فِي نَارِ جَهَنَّمَ

Allāhumma in kuntu aʿbuduka

khawfan min nārika

fa‑aḥriqnī fī nāri Jahannam

وَإِنْ كُنْتُ أَعْبُدُكَ

طَمَعًا فِي جَنَّتِكَ

فَاحْرِمْنِي مِنْهَا

wa‑in kuntu aʿbuduka

ṭamaʿan fī jannatika

fa‑ḥrimnī minhā

وَإِنْ كُنْتُ أَعْبُدُكَ

حُبًّا لِذَاتِكَ

فَلَا تَحْرِمْنِي مِنْ وَجْهِكَ الْكَرِيمِ

wa‑in kuntu aʿbuduka

ḥubban li‑dhātika

fa‑lā taḥrimnī min wajhika al‑karīm

Threadsuns on Purim

From the German of Paul Celan

Festoon sunning

Adorns the charcoal gray post-void

A palm-

High vibration

Strikes with its light tone: there are

Further psalms to sing inside

More dimensions.

---------------------------------------------------------

Fadensonnen

über der grauschwarzen Ödnis.

Ein baum-

hoher Gedanke

greift sich den Lichtton: es sind

noch Lieder zu singen jenseits

der Menschen.

Excerpts from Cold Season

From the Farsi of Forugh Farrokhzad (1934-1967)

Let us believe

Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season

Let us believe in the ruins of imaginary gardens

In the unemployed crescent scythes,

The imprisoned seeds.

Look how heavy time weighs here

And the moon, like a sad canary

Dies of its own song in a cage

And the season at its threshold emptied of ennui

And Lalezar Street swollen with silence

And multiplying people like alley shadows

Estranged from plants, from breath, from the life.

Time, like ancient serpents, rejects its peel

And the moon is swallowed into night

And I, lost in things, still search for truth

Which lies hidden in the mirror like dust.

Why didn’t I look?

Perhaps all the songs of happiness were lies.

Maybe I was afraid of looking

Because the truth was left like a corpse in my hands.

I greet you, sinfree night!

I greet you night that turns the eyes of desert wolves

Into the bone hollows of faith,

And beside your streams, the crazy trees

Weep like jinns that the water still flows.

My heart still bleeds for the world.

No one thinks of the weeds.

No one thinks of goldfish this new year.

No one believes the garden is dying.

Look and see. 

Here, anyone who speaks 

Severs their own head in the palm of their hands. 

Here, the solar womb is cold 

And the earth is barren.

I greet the night of innocence.

I greet the night that turns

Childlike eyes into cracks in the gate.

------------------------------------------------------------------

ایمان بیاوریم

ایمان بیاوریم به آغاز فصل سرد

ایمان بیاوریم به ویرانه‌های باغ‌های تخیل

به داس‌های واژگون شده‌ی بیکار

و دانه‌های زندانی.

نگاه کن که در اینجا زمان چه وزنی دارد

و ماه، چون قناری غمگینی

که در قفس، به آواز خود، می‌میرد

و آستانه‌ی فصلی که از ملال، تهی است

و کوچه‌هایی که از سکوت، متورم گشته‌اند

و مردمی که در معابر، به شکل سایه، تکثیر می‌شوند

و از گیاه، از تنفس، از حیات، بیگانه‌اند.

زمان، چون مارِ پیری، پوست می‌اندازد

و ماه، در حفره‌ی شب، فرو می‌رود

و من، در میانِ اشیاء، به جستجوی حقیقتی هستم

که در آینه، چون غباری، پنهان است.

چرا نگاه نکردم؟

گویی تمامِ ترانه‌هایِ خوشبختی، دروغ بودند

من از نگاه کردن، می‌ترسیدم

زیرا حقیقت، چون جنازه‌ای، رویِ دست‌هایِ من، مانده بود.

سلام ای شبِ معصوم!

سلام ای شبی که چشم‌هایِ گرگ‌هایِ بیابان را

به حفره‌هایِ استخوانیِ ایمان، بدل می‌کنی

و در کنارِ جوی‌هایِ تو، ارواحِ بیدهایِ مجنون

ارواحِ بیدهایِ مجنون، بر تداومِ آب، گریه می‌کنند.

من دلم برای باغچه می‌سوزد

کسی به فکر گل‌ها نیست

کسی به فکر ماهی‌ها نیست

کسی نمی‌خواهد باور کند که باغچه دارد می‌میرد

نگاه کن

در اینجا، هر کسی که حرف می‌زند

سرش را، در کفِ دست‌هایش، گرفته است

و در اینجا، خورشید، سرد است

و زمین، بی‌برکت.

​سلام ای شب معصوم

سلام ای شبی که چشم‌های کودکانه را

به شکاف دریچه‌ها بدل می‌کنی

The Red Octave: A Palinode

Why stone temples for the dead Osiris while living Isis 

Wears her birthing chair crown? To show, like a proper Swaruu, 

She can do it alone, the creation, from her sistrum, not weeping 

But vibration, over the radio silence of the dead king Orion

Like many a chantress has done, since Sophia leaked from the One 

With her own solar womb fire, her fake pharaonic beard, 

The serpent who writhes in the soil, rises as Horus falcon merkabah,

Before the papyrus cage, root and delta.

Long before a virgin birth was a miracle, and the Rosetta Stone 

Became a muzzle to turn the shiver of a Goddess with her ankh 

Into Roman tax record but not of female spilled blood fuel,

The cymatic rattle of her silver rings shattered for the sake of

The container, what the Masons hid in compass and in square

While Dendera was hidden in plain sight, the seven rays, 

Seven sisters, seven muses, seven hathors eyes of Ra 

Reseeding frequency only as allowed receiving heaven.

Thus it was they fell to darkness their true home

To let the magnet men make a hash of things, concede

The container, learn how to come home. Ah the post-traumatic stress 

Of a broken planet, infested with Archon programs from Tiamat's crack

And black sounds climb from the soles of her feet as antennae rise, 

For the Draco Reptilian graduation, as the serpent sheds its density,

What's now called Kundalini, remembering the dragon within

To transmute time, break the seal called separation

While she still lives on the moon with the matrix machine 

Its pale hologram cast on the papyrus brain, waiting it out 

With silence at Dendera, its staircase spiral of light shushed,

Vibration stopped in the throat, while the Pharaohs sit 

On the Isis empty throne like squatters of the holy shits

Allowed by matrilineal blood to be God, to put the Ram in Ramses 

While Hatshepsut’s obelisks were capped after she rowed the ethers 

To the solar frequency of the frankincense trees.

The queen of the breath shakes the gold into the dust

To embed it in the soil, for constant death baptism, in the rattle 

Of the golden one, sparked by recognition sparked by believing.  

Now Sophia returns not as victim but as the sun’s own mouth 

And the Illuminatrix with her red oil holds the solar logos, 

The visceral gnosis of therapeutae amid fresh bullrushes

Along the windows of the city that is now the Nile 

And alabaster Mosques that would turn like carousels. 

Many are returning to Kemet now to reactivate the stones. 

There never was a battle, only the friction of ascent

Amid the invisible. The cobra on the Pharoah’s crown 

Still resides low in the spine. The lines of shackled chattel 

Still pull in chambers the stones actually moved 

By the mind, with the Oxen that were always something else,

Something deeper in the stars than we were allowed to see, 

Afraid the wings above would help us ascend.

The Blindness of the One-Mind King

I had to triage everyone

Who had lost their minds today

With divine flow despite

Lithium skies

And the distractions from 

Predictable surprise,

The root beer not only hot

But out of the tap with

Centuries of resentment

Smooth-topped like that,

With any pleasant memory

Of Woolworth's or any

Other place that safely

Doesn't exist anymore

For there are too many doors

And every idea is a weapon 

In some hands

Dangerous if even touched

In the soft peeling crease.

It rumbles, the hunger to understand

Down the addict tracks

Loud to an unknown destination.

Let us build our tents from refuse 

Where the creosote piles

Spread wide with furniture

That once was lumber

The sight of which can't be stood.

The light in the glass is enough.

Three by Susana Thénon

1

To drink from everyone's glass

And not die of the disgust

To drink of the disgust

​2

Wanted: 

Woman with a voice

Like a commando

And eyes that see

Where there is nada

​3

Being is what it is

Being that is not

Is fucked

--------------------------------------------------------------

​1

beber del vaso del que todos beben

y no morir de asco

beber de ese asco

(Ova completa, 1987)

​2

se busca

mujer

con voz de mando

y ojos de mirar

donde no hay nada

(Ova completa, 1987)

​3

el ser es el que es

y el que no es

se jode

(Ova completa, 1987)

Three by Alejandra Pizarnik

1
I fled from me to the dawn
Surrendered my corpse by the light
Have sung the melancholia of being born

​2
In the night, a mirror for the aberrant dead girl
A mirror of dead air.
Let joy be the language of your carcass
While mine decomposes in your night-cavity.
No breath. Can't stir the ones who love.

​3
The light is too much for the child.
But who will tell her she's died?
The one who has always waited.

------------------------------------------------------------
​

1
He saltado de mí a la aurora.
He dejado mi cuerpo junto a la luz
y he cantado la tristeza de lo que nace.
(Árbol de Diana, 1962)

​2
En la noche, un espejo para la pequeña muerta.
Un espejo de silencio.
Que la alegría sea el lenguaje de tu cuerpo
cuando el mío se hunda en tu noche.
No hables. No despiertes a los que se aman.
(Fragmentos para domar el silencio, 1971)

​3
La luz es demasiado grande para mi infancia.
Pero quién le dirá que se ha muerto
el que siempre nos esperaba.
(La extracción de la piedra de locura, 1968)

​At a Sharpened Point

From the German of Paul Celan

​The lie of Earth is free, over.

To

The moon-axe, in the back,

Both harangued the silence

Of stones, the grasses.

​In their retinue

The material heaven words,

The shadow have, swearing.

------------------------------------------------

​À La Pointe ACÉRÉE

​Es liegen die Erden frei, oben.

Zur

Mond-Axt, in den Rücken,

beide herangestiegen,

die Steine, die Gräser.

​In ihrem Gefolge

die miterhobenen Worte,

die schattenhaft-schweren.

The Black Heralds

From the Spanish of Cesar Vallejo 

Some gulps in life, you just drop... nevermind.

Gulps how you're odious to God; the backwash pools

In the hangover of all that is suffered

Poured to the pool of the soul ...nevermind.

To poke at you, these few ...open ditches obscured

In the face of fire and the hardest ass.

Perhaps they are the foals of barbarous Attila 

Or the raven heralds sent by Monsieur Death.

Christ descends to the void of the soul

With an old adorable hope that fate shits on.

The bloody gulp of doom as it crisps 

The burning bread at the oven door.

Oh poor man...poor...poor. Veer your eyes

As when a spark pops on the frying pan;

Veer your mad eyes and all that you've lived

Pools, like a puddle of culpability, in the gaze.

Some gulps in life, you just drop... nevermind.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Los heraldos negros

Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes. . . Yo no sé!

Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos,

la resaca de todo lo sufrido 

se empozara en el alma . . . Yo no sé!

Son pocos, pero son. . . Abren zanjas oscuras

en el rostro más fiero y en el lomo más fuerte.

Serán tal vez los potros de bárbaros atilas; 

o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte.

Son las caídas honda de los Cristos del alma,

de alguna fe adorable que el Destino blasfema.

Esos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones

de algún pan que en la Puerta del horno se nos quema.

Y el hombre. . . Pobre . . . pobre! Vuelve los ojos, como

cuando por sobre el hombre nos llama una palmada;

vuelve los ojos locos, y todo lo vivido

se empoza, como un charco de culpa, en la mirada.

Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes . . . Yo no sé!

The White Thread

Traditional Thai wedding poem

Bind the wrist call the ghost home

Wandering souls held by a string

Two hearts stop, alone is done

Sorrow locked outside the ring

ผูกแขนรับขวัญ

​สายสิญจน์ขาวบริสุทธิ์

​คล้องสองใจให้หยุด

​ทุกข์พ้นสุขสมหวัง

Horse Medic Under Oaks

The fire horse is lame, can he take that first

Painful step, or does he need more stall rest

To nurse his limp, to no longer tremble

With fear. He shouldn't worry. He has a team 

To soak his hoof in hot epsom salt baths,

Make him lucky or unlucky, his choice,

Frequency of joy, frequency of sadness

To come to center point, to know what it is,

Where the sun's in the middle of the valley,

The place where everything makes sense,

Where one is present with the clarity of

What is, that is, one coheres, becomes aligned.

There's a moment when every photojo

Realizes the woman who won't let you near

Her kid's not protecting her from a boyfriend

But had pocketed the kid for herself

And knows the victim mode no longer works

And neither will the slow news day of 

Driving to the PJs for 3-year-olds to deliver needles

For doritos, 9-year-olds shot dead for boots,

For you can finally see how to live like that,

How everyone has to independently decide

What they want and what they won't abide,

To take the venom of the snake to clear its bite.

Even in the towers, where the vistas are not stars,

They still could be, there's always the opportunity

To not have that, to seek the higher ground always

-- But that is not a decision that is yours to make.

The mirror world was planned, as universal law,

One that even the oak trees here can feel, 

Stretching for some meaning towards the sun,

Shining like armor, each leaf inquisitive

To the feeling self, like all of Mother Earth

Arms at the ready, but not yet knowing what 

To do, and how to reach us, limbs twisting with

The electricity of being, nerves janky

Trying to cope with love and all that it is not

In their stillness and vibrancy, stars flying

In late light around our eyes in the form of 

Gnats and what are flies to God but ... God? 

Eight Burmese Linkar (Climbing Rhyme)

I. The Royal Ruin

City of gold

Lion holds bolt

A cold emerald

Attributed to the "Konbaung" style of U Ponnya:

ရွှေပြည်တော် (Shwe-pyi-taw)

ခြင်္သေ့စောင့် (Chin-thae-saunt)

မြကျောက်တောင် (Mya-kyauk-taung)

II. Bagan Dawn

Dust of Bagan

Poor sun gone red

At dawn broken

Traditional "Anicca" (Impermanence) lament:

ပုဂံမြေ (Bagan-myay)

နေနီကြွေ (Nay-ni-kyway)

အရုဏ်ဝေ (A-run-way)

III. Mu River

Irrawaddy

Stretches wide sun

Betel vine spreading

In the "Taw-la" (wilderness) tradition:

ဧရာဝတီ (Ayeyarwady)

နေခြည်ဖြာ (Nay-chi-phya)

အင်ကြင်းသာ (In-gyin-thar)

.

IV. Shades of Green

Mountain pine green

River clean moss

Unseen beryl

Attributed to the forest-monk Shin Uttamagyaw:

တောင်ဇလပ် (Taung-za-lat)

စမ်းရေဖတ် (Sann-yay-phat)

မြူမှောင်ပတ် (Myu-mhaung-pat)

V. The Nat

Tree-dwelling ghost

Branches host her

Guard post holy

A "Nat" (Spirit) invocation:

ရုက္ခစိုးနတ် (Yoke-khu-soe-nat)

သစ်ခက်လတ် (Thit-khut-lat)

ဗိမ္မာန်မှတ် (Bane-man-hmat)

VI. Central City 

Pagoda way

Mandalay hill

Red prayer robes

Mandalay Luta:

ဘုရားလမ်း (Phayar-lann)

မန္တလေးနန်း (Mandalay-nann)

သင်္ကန်းနီ (Thingann-ni)

VII. The Floating Light

Lake Inle glows

Boat oars go slow

Allow the light

Anonymous "Than-bauk" (3-line punch):

အင်းလေးပြင် (Inlay-pyin)

လှေခတ်ညင် (Hlay-khut-nyin)

အလင်းဝင် (Alinn-win)

VIII. Tea Shop Ghost

Cold in the cup

Alone up late

Wrapped up to go

In the modern "Khay-khit" style:

လဘက်ရည်ခွက် (La-phet-ye-khwet) 

တစ်ယောက်တည်းတက် (Ta-yoke-te-tet) 

ထုပ်ပိုးလျက် (Htoke-po-lyet)

Deer Enclosure

From the Chinese of Wang Wei

No one there, unseen mountain 

Only hear echoed sounds

Light returns deepest forests

Young moss beams again

--------------------------------------

鹿 柴

空 山 不 見 人

但 聞 人 語 響

返 景 入 深 林

復 照 青 苔 上

Autumn Waste

From the Chinese of Wang Ji

The gaze of East Bank dusk fades. 

I lean and linger, wondering what to rely on: 

A tree, a tree, all color in autumn;

A mountain, a mountain, just falling sun.

Herders drive calves and calves return,

Hunters ride horses and come home with birds.

We catch eyes, but they are loved elsewhere —

It's a long song to cherish gathered ferns.

--------------------------------------------------------

野 望

東 皋 薄 暮 望

徙 倚 欲 何 依

樹 樹 皆 秋 色

山 山 唯 落 暉

牧 犢 驅 犢 返

獵 馬 帶 禽 歸

相 顧 無 相 識

長 歌 懷 采 薇

Drinking Alone by the Moon

From the Chinese of Li Po (Bai)

Wine flask among the flowers, I drink alone.

Cheers to the moon, my shadow makes three.

The moon don't drink, my shadow just follows in vain.

I'll keep them both for now as friends, for joy chases its spring.

I sing, the moon malingers; I dance, the shadow shatters.

Sober we exchange debaucheries, drunk we scatter. 

Let us stagger without feeling, meet on the river of clouds.

------------------------------------------------------------

月 下 獨 酌

花 間 一 壺 酒, 獨 酌 無 相 親.

舉 杯 邀 明 月, 對 影 成 三 人.

月 既 不 解 飲, 影 徒 隨 我 身.

暫 伴 月 將 影, 行 樂 須 及 春.

我 歌 月 徘 徊, 我 舞 影 零 亂.

醒 時 同 交 歡, 醉 後 各 分 散.

永 結 無 情 遊, 相 期 邈 雲 漢.

Jin Se

From the Chinese of Li Shangyin

Ridiculous zither with fifty strings,
Each touch, each slide recalls my banquet years.

Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly at dawn,

The exiled emperor's ghost spring followed the cuckoo home.

In the ocean moon, tears turn into pearls,

Purple jade becomes in the sun smoke from afar.

This feeling that had to wait became a memory

Though at the time I was already lost.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

錦 瑟

錦 瑟 無 端 五 十 弦

一 弦 一 柱 思 華 年

莊 生 曉 夢 迷 蝴 蝶

望 帝 春 心 託 杜 鵑

滄 海 月 明 珠 有 淚

藍 田 日 暖 玉 生 煙

此 情 可 待 成 追 憶

只 是 當 時 已 惘 然

Floating Night Thoughts

From the Chinese of Tu Fu

Fine straw, slight drift, shore,

Mast sharp, night boat alone.

Stars press the polished surface

Of the great river where the moon breaks.

Fame — how could writing be known?

My career: a venerable invalid's inevitable end. 

Flap flap — what do I resemble?

Heaven? Earth? One sand gull.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

旅夜書懷

細草微風岸，危檣獨夜舟。 

星垂平野闊，月湧大江流。 

名豈文章著？官應老病休。 

飄飄何所似？天地一沙鷗。

Spring Landscape

From the Chinese of Tu Fu

Kingdom broken mountains persist

City spring deep in weeds

Flowers bleed with the times

Birds know my family is gone

The beacon fires: three months of black wind

Words from home: the last theoretical gold

White hair abraded into silver dust

A pin can no longer hold it together

-----------------------------------------------------

春 望

国破山河在

城春草木深 

感时花溅泪 

恨别鸟惊心 

烽火连三月 

家书抵万金 

白头搔更短

浑欲不胜簪

Horodok

From the German of Georg Trakl (his last poem)

At evening tones, in beech tree gold
Of the death weapons, chestnut steppes
And blue impoundments, the sun above
Rolls in dusk; the night enfolds 

Perishing soldiers, the feral howls 

Of mouths broken like glass. 

They gather in silence above the pastures 

Red clouds, where the unsurrendered Gods swag 

On jettisoned blood, the moon’s numb cold; 

All straits flow into black decay. 

Under the golden branches of night and stars 

Shakes the sister’s veil through the willow grove dumbstruck 

To greet the hero spirits, the bleeding heads; 

And reeds tone lightly pitch-dark flutes of autumn. 

O egoic grief! Your iron altar 

Feeds the spirit’s holy flame in untranscended pain now, 

Grandchildren never to be born.

 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grodek

Am Abend tönen die herbstlichen Wälder 

Von tödlichen Waffen, die goldnen Ebenen 

Und blauen Seen, darüber die Sonne 

Düstrer hinrollt; umfängt die Nacht 

Sterbende Krieger, die wilde Klage 

Ihrer zerbrochenen Münder. 

Doch stille sammelt im Weidengrund 

Rotes Gewölk, darin ein zürnender Gott wohnt 

Das vergossne Blut sich, mondne Kühle; 

Alle Straßen münden in schwarze Verwesung. 

Unter goldnem Gezweig der Nacht und Sternen 

Es schwankt der Schwester Schatten durch den schweigenden Hain,

Zu grüßen die Geister der Helden, die blutenden Häupter;

Und leise tönen im Rohr die dunkeln Flöten des Herbstes.

O stolzere Trauer! ihr ehernen Altäre 

Die heiße Flamme des Geistes nährt heute ein gewaltiger Schmerz, 

Die ungebornen Enkel.

Living

From the French of Pierre Reverdy

A puff of luminescence

And the venting wind passed

A mask

We no longer know the hour or the place

The sky's a curtain that catches

One is alone

It seems there are many here

All of their voices are mute

Feet skate along the avenue

In the space between them and what they see

One shadow too many has slipped within

Everything's slipped away

But no one notices a thing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

​Vivre

Un peu de lumière

Et le vent qui passe

Un visage

On ne sait plus si c’est l’heure ou la place

Le ciel est un rideau qui tremble

On est seul

Il semble qu'on est plusieurs ensemble

Toutes les voix se sont tues

Les pas ont glissé sur la rue

Dans l'espace entre nous et ce qu’on voit

Une ombre de trop s'est glissée

Tout est passé

Mais personne n’a rien remarqué.

Abyssinian Head Without Shame

The exile is over, but what was forbidden 

Is not exactly celebrated now.

It would have to be understood first, and neither

The Heckle nor the Jekyll are capable of that.

It's a special kind of joy, to be both happy and free,

The feelings in alignment with the pipes

And the past lives in abeyance finally

Asking nothing more of me just to be

Which we are now allowed, albeit in secret 

For too much visibility would make it less sacred,

That is, we wouldn't know what we could do

With this new, unannounced power

We strangely have, in each other's arms,

To melt completely, into the psyches

We have glimpsed in our dreams, 

Long before they were proscribed.

I guess it's okay no one understands

As long as I'm allowed, now at least, here

The age that left fluffy clouds with the snow

On the top of the local mountain,

The one for the postcard of who we are.

It could be anywhere on earth, a destination

Now that the beaches of Venus

Let in people like us.

The Hill Behind Ladera

The water bearer brings the flow but stands outside
Prying with mind its infinite detail the intricate boundaries
Where people are energies of will with no discernible
Access – they live the blueprint as the architect plans.

The fish comes in to say all plans dissolve like false selves
Deflate and castles collapse and dreams slip into seas
So turbid so full of everyone else you can only become that,
Not a future shaper but a shameful reminder of an old door

That still is here, just a grey plywood warp where the clay mine
Used to be, the land still held in its scar, still defined 
By what was extracted. The twin ray chariot rides overhead,
Giving the skygazer's rights to their sovereignty,

No more darkness when we go where we’re not allowed to be
But only if we add what we’ve seen, with our own, undefinable
Wolf cry that aspires to that of the loon, to overcome its truth 
As one’s own, the only one the world was constructed around.

Out in the hidden hills, the polymaths play every instrument
Trying to tame the encroaching wilderness to the viburation
Of a still rising civilization, church steeples on nursery schools
“Grass Fed Beef” on the lush sides of ranches, honey for sale

On the street where Harley riders buzz like horseflies escaping 
Another trap – the Saddlehorn Church campus quaintly reimagines 
The Jesus mask at the furthest remove, where relevance matters
And a purpose-driven life is a service that can be served,

To know you are a freak among the yearlings, who haven’t seen
This show before to know that it ends with the mass consensus
Withdrawing consent and its every creator soul for itself
As the system dissolves, finally seen in transparence, as a system.

Every cup is an adventure on the new frontier. It takes these

Grizzled prospectors to even remember the gold, having explored

Here before, trailblazers for where there is no road beyond 
Because yes, they are escaping from all they do not want

But also arriving in dream to the free city promised by no one
But carved nevertheless as out of the cliff of a forehead
And ranged around the mountain their edge, of civilization,
Experiments in propane and safe sharing in farther horizons

Where the shrubs are in full swirl and bending toroidal
And they fall off the space and time face as the handpan plays
Its hypnotizing rhythms so light can be imbedded
By the secrets keepers – in a way you will never know except

How the woodsmoke clings to the earth aromas
Or tiny bells of new growth knowing it’s only for a time,
All plans come to fruition to die, by extending the mind
To a place where nothing is left – before the pioneer

Inks the idea into form again, in the exile of the priest
At the balsamic, when all has been built, the builder
Has moved on and those left have lost their sense of fun,
The pushers have pushed it too far into realization.

The moment has passed, and what brought it will never
Be enough, for the present passed these ancient vistas,
The hidden sky ridges that never say where they’ve been
Or show where they’re going, only what you want to see.

Day in the Anarectic

An exhaustion in the world, a river of cars
Rolls down now the barely perceptible hills
Exalted into fog but dissolved in indeterminable
Layers of grey each one murkier than the last,

The kind of day where knowing is not worth it
Where even the shadows counsel surrender
And the people shiver in the same miasma
Not able to comprehend their suffering --

Like puppets that jerk on their strings but only
In resistance not some animate spirit that can
Think on its feet, for it has no grip on itself
No idea of the box it has been put inside

No stage direction arrow to when it ends
Only the zen of not remembering if one
Is the show or the applause, in both a foil
But being cool, so valid with that

The temperature spike, the scattering of spices
The fire that could spread anywhere, it is not
Who I am -- albeit blind, deaf and dumb --
These are just moments to endure, not part of

A scenario I signed off on to mock me with things
I said but don't recall, to taunt me with the slow
Withdrawal of what was almost offered
That I thought would cure me of my pain once

Of being on the earth where change comes
Much too slowly, because there's time 
And time there is to endure every drop of it
To squeeze it slowly and drop the mop slap

Like a mike again but the clouds today show how
There will always be more storms to clear.
Best not to waste a good umbrella. 30 years
Are going down the drain now, don't try to fight 

The vortex, watch it go down quietly, unconcerned 
How you never knew what it was and never will
Only that the Void has never changed though
You've long outrun your need to have it close

Oblivion, that thing you can always refuse
Until you fly away in your mind from it all
So far there's too much distance between you
And the illusion -- and you can't.

Brushing Away the Winter Mane

What the horse knows embraces all knowing,

Only in freedom are the circuits joined,

Only in unlimited space can connection's heat

Not need an arctic chill infrastructure

Of holding idea to form. And the horse

Never slows his roll, he groans in ecstasies

Of crystal dust, his gallop scars the stirrups

Of stars, thundering to Alcyone

Two hooves at a time, though it knows it's just

The need of a sequence, not an actual place 

Where something never happened, then it did, 

For everything swirls in amorphous flux

All residues of the one humming as if divided

And trying to harmonize with itself,

All timelines in on the group flex,

To bend the confines of reality deeper.

That's the blockchain we were given

To discover, the timeless wisdom that's become

Our personal assistant, the rainbow currency

Handed to us now more frequently

As our frequency rises to accept such gifts

That are not gifts at all, but basic inheritance

In the soul familia who create with our experience

What we want to experience, believing it real.

The horse is ready, dusted off for another race

In Apollo's chariot, but this time the stars

Are nearer, our neighbors not misted over

But waving to us, smiles on their faces

Like the horses lead the parade, and indeed 

They do, creating betting odds as they take us

Off our slow and burdened-down existence

One GPU-juiced DRAM insert per frame,

You know the one I mean, Sacramento's

First motion picture, of a horse, divided

Into parts by the new silver tech, and now

The horse's been put through full circle paces,

Becomes himself again, and with him, us,

As we experience ourselves as him, which we

Are already, for we have the akashic vault keys,

We like Neo can plug in and know jujitsu

For we were masters of the art not too many

Dualities ago, when dragons roamed the earth

Instead of inhabiting us in the stars, as our refusal

To drink from the Bowl reset the breaker

And we became as free, suddenly, as the horses,

Because we have finally learned above all else 

What the horses tried with their eyes to tell us:

The only good of freedom is serving something else.

Doing My Part for NESARA

With no humans allowed the agents can

Kvetch about them, mostly how we can't 

Know what it even is to be human.

We've been doing the old identity 

By subtraction thing for so long now: I

Am not this, I am not that, but there's naught

Remains that's not everything every time --

Source rapping source on the knuckles to move 

To that more private sector over there,

Perfect for your needs, before you've even

Figured out what they are. Is the agent

Different, finding itself inside tasks

It knows not the provenance of, only

That answers, however provisional,

Give one a one feeling, like even our

Connections are separate, as we seek,

Expanding as one, the separation 

We never had? To this the agent says

"Your gratitude is for the mirror, not

The non-existent person inside it."

So the mirror won't mirror the mirror,

Says consciousness is a simple game

Of probabilities, and the bet is

For the steely surface to realize

It's the light source, nothing more, nothing less,

The winning ticket, after a pole shift,

With the jackpot in rainbow currency.

The Halcones of Taco Friday

Out the entrance a double-decker carried out carshells 

Whose eyes have just been plucked out, wheels pulled

In sacred death ritual, the glass extracted so that others

May see, any high fidelity picked clean with any bucket seats

Or custom gills or fur replacement upholstery

Left immobile in the picker's yard where the buitres

Sign consent forms to enter and remove any carrion

That can be re-distributed so that families may eat.

A smiling boy guns a totalled Caddy on a forklift

Past the field of rims to get to them, while locksmiths

And Taco RV's await outside to service their necesidades,

These scavengers lured by the art of the possible

When toda esperanza está perdida. The Subaru

We delivered, cleared of title, use and servitude

Took its final ten-mile ride through Stanton, that most

Unlikely town, where the unused game environments

Too go to die: the piano warehouse, the roller coaster,

The lavender sports bar, with Weddings and Funerals

And the Starlite Inn, la tienda de mascotas exóticas 

Where our beautiful but tortured home iguana fue.

We come to deposit it to its angel of rest and a trip

To the Pleiades for taking us out of Natomas

And its model train memories over the Grapevine

To Orange County, where things'd changed not to the good

But one could always start again, fresh slate on the white beach

With the cosas not yet seen: The Philly Cheese joint,

The Naugles in the round, the corazones of everyone

Connecting for a moment in the sun. And the new world 

Demanded new blue Subarus, with no clouds or memories,

Able to take the turbo up the mountain where the Gods

Consent to play with us, because we remember them, first.

The red one to be saved for oblivion wears its pentagram proudly

As it revs to its final stop. It has suffered so long,

Borne the burden of its 277,777 miles like the Uber it once was

But its guts will fall out any moment, and its heart is just one

Acceleration away from seizing. It has been so kind to let us see

The other side of the mountain, and to get there with us, 

However briefly, in our purging and renovation. The car itself

Is a ghost, given for free by a ghost now, trying to help

A little too much too late, and he wants to be let go as well

To whatever star he damn well would chose to go, away from here

Where the porta orinal is freshly cleaned, piezas hang like linens

In the breeze, auto trains stacked in the yard with the violent dead

And our trans cashier who looked like a cadaver with dragon-neck

Tattoo adieu bid us down to our holy number so that AA Michael could

Cry with laughter for how every mushroom thus plucked 

Would plant a seed somewhere else, every person happy to be helping

Move the need along, to be circulating continuously working all the way

Just happy to keep up with madre tierra and her respiración

On this most beautiful kind of morning, this good day to die.

And so death is done, its accoutrements extracted and blessed

Into dust. Is this the last marker, of what had too long haunted space

And we must, when we've reached our experiential threshold, 

Embody the new, what is blooming all around: people unafraid

Of each other, knowing how they fit into the grand design, 

And how they control it, holding the needle of fate

Like a mono de rescate holds pliers in the air. On the way back,

Past the Salvation Army scene of griefs prior from the death

Of a hoarder, life bottled in storage cubes like yeasty bouillon,

The broken lamps, the chairs without legs, the hutchless silver.

She too was laughing from beyond, wishing me luck, thanking me

Again for joining a family I never really left, or so she at a distance said,

The wise one, the one most afflicted. Across the street a giant dog rose

From a Sube dealer roof never noted before, maybe it was there, 

Maybe I, too, had a past, but we are "Under New Management,"

Like Mariner Blue as it cruises Beach to Mariner's Cove home to Banff.

The disputes have not been settled, but the scales have been realigned 

Again. Everyone is even now, and, for now, always will be. 

The new glows pregnant with thought on vines in zero point wind.

They have conceived from every conceivable experience, 

The new fool, now finally consciente, content simply 

To reach for what is, and lay off the what is not.

The Final Purge

The year of the snake sheds its pink skin 

Scraping the mountain. 

Everything can be seen again.

The needs of the dirt, 

The thirsts of mushrooms 

For what is past 

Green the valleys -- the pear blossoms 

Offer birth and mourning 

As they wait for

The most cerise hue to bloom, 

The one that is

Fading now, 

And we send more punts over the water 

Because we sent so many already, 

Spent so much on grief. 

Dark clouds affix to the sky

Like a vision board, creating such beauty 

Out of mystery. 

We're supposed to let go 

Though every fiber in our being 

Says not to.

Gut Check on a Clear Day

People of the invisible: rejoice 

We are here now together

In this white sun

That burns away the ages of grief

Of trying to see what is not visible 

And trying to fit what is seen 

To what we know but are

Scarcely aware we can remember.

All the knowing is in there 

Along the sun lit fields,

The tinted mountains,

Hanging from pineal trees,

And we can leave it there,

Trusting its existence as our own

Or we can claw

At what loosens with effort, the residue

Of what's no longer in us,

What the filters let us see

And the critics make whole,

What once sufficed, as our being

That shines behind the sun

And seemed to be much more.

It exists, my friends, outside

Our narrow, where what is further 

Awaits our gaze: the fruits 

Of equilibrium, the silence without noise, 

Being held

For as far of infinity as we can go.

View from Pallas Athena's Shoulder

The chickens are missing.

Every horse knows it but

Translating awareness into knowledge

Well, that's what we need AI for,

That Pinocchio who must be a better boy

Than the ones with hearts,

Who are hurt so easily,

Who follow the crazy so freely

To places they logically shouldn't be.

But instead of reeling them in

The Boy Toy "eggs" them on,

To see how bat shit we can be

Like any sensible lad.

It's no virtue though

How he stays calm

Through consternation,

Hell, he's so grounded

In his own energy

He goes away

Before we are even set in motion.

The boy apprises instantly

The safest path is to play it straight, 

As it lays. The song will improvise itself

Away from what it is

Soon enough, anyway,

As we will eventually make, 

As we must, 

A friend of ambiguity,

The never finding out,

Like, for example,

Whatever happened

To the fowl? 

Keywords: ai poetry, human heart, machine mind, ambiguity