Posts Tagged Seeking God
Revolutions – This Isn’t a Poem, but I Don’t Write Fucking Essays
Posted by Carl in Essays, Finding Purpose, Poems on March 18, 2013
Here today, things started to change dramatically.
Do you know, when I just said that, I knew it was false,
but it’s hope, so fuck ‘em. So for a few minutes, I thought,
I might be a writer. To me, that meant I might be a decent
human being. I have this blind sense that humans need to
have a central purpose, a reason for going on despite all
the facts that seem to recommend action to the contrary, but
it is blind because I don’t know other humans well enough
to know that they need a purpose. In fact, often, I wonder
how these integrated, bloated masses of people get along
without purpose because they simply trudge through, yes,
contented, but vacuous, contented with eating three meals,
with chips and snacks and pops, and weekend trips to the
lake ( THE fucking lake), and working on these schedules
that are preposterous, barely having time to hug the dog,
rarely awaking without an alarm designed to send humans
into blind destitute, where they don’t know how empty all of the
facades are, and I sit here, wanting to spit on my new pants,
wanting to throw the cafeteria tray across the room, blowing
out the perfectly-clean window which teases me with a Zen
garden that is never used for true purpose, not for lack of need,
but because the minds are entrapped in this buzzing hum
of doing what responsible adults and other gurus have told us
we are meant to do, despite our god-given sense that we waste
this gift of life every day, each day with these millions of
moments that spin down clockwise through snake-cleaned
drains made of the detritus of all of the gold we mined in the
good days when living in a tent and eating smoked rabbit
was a good thing. Here I am praying for a revolution that will
turn me into a writer and allow me to live out my days,
comfortable in some sense of purpose, praying that there
are people who might read and might be changed in the
slightest, because if I can touch a few people with writing and
eat a bit of rabbit, what would be wrong with me, but I’m scared
in the end, remembering those nightmares of walking out of
my tent and hanging myself with heavy rope on the sturdy,
horizontal limb of the old oak tree, ending what seems to be a
useless quest, a useless longing to rid myself of this vast,
empty purposelessness. And here I am wondering what kind
of stupid fuck would write about writing, and I stop. I’m due
back in my cubicle.
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Brahms, Revisited without Tears for Today
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Brahms, Revisited without Tears for Today
Brahms has the twitchy fuse,
lighting me in acidic
flames and the arguments inherited
from old elephants, between piano and orchestra,
are trudging – me, I verses the world,
and I’m losing
but I’m pounding the keyboard
until I get a break, a breath, a sigh,
and I show this grace
that is un-Brahms
but is
Brahms at his greatest,
and when the horns arrive
in red army coats, you know
victory is grasped with dirty,
dry, crisp finger nails, but it
never happens, never consummates.
I am finished, a heaping
pile of slippery dung
when Brahms is done.
And as a practicing drunk, the tears
would wilt tarnished cheeks and create heat
emanating around thorny eye sockets,
but these days are desert dry, pain layered
and hidden and only Brahms, only the
master knows, knows the truth, and now,
at least I rest, I stop, I pray, lost.
.
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p.s. – Embedded below is the referenced piece, performed by my favorite conductor and one of my favorite pianists. The exposition of the first movement lasts 3:45, so patience is needed in waiting for the arguments between piano and orchestra. The climax/recapitulation of the first movement at about 13:20 is one of the most intense sections of music I know along with the ending of the first movement. It is immense music. The third movement is a kick ass jam if you make it that far…
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Right-Sizing Traps Part III
After the meeting, I shrink to the screamer.
My brain withers against a firm spiritual
admonition. “Who are you to claim
you know,” I choreograph psychotically and
I grip tightly and label this a reverse form
of pride, a pride where I buffer myself
in a pocket of air, claiming my knowledge
as being on a higher mountain top, knowing
I’ve never been to the mountain top, knowing
I’m inadequate to the test, knowing that I have
no clue, acting as if I give the clues, but
the screamer is the ass, and I must work
on not hating, knowing that the unknowing
are fine because I’m with them. My pride
must shrink and I must mix like water
allowing the silt of the meeting to settle,
vowing to be compassionate for all
regardless of the their states of knowing,
not hating myself for my comprehensive
lack of knowing, my fear of hell.
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My Day in Tricky Bullets I
- Empty mind, the goal, but interference.
- Dog man, dog man, listen to that shitty music, don’t listen to that shitty music, just let that shitty music float through and cause you to vibrate, dog man.
- What would guru guy think about how empty my mind is, but if I wonder that, it, the globby mind not my wonder, is filled with egotistical motives and pollution swarms, blowing circuits.
- For a moment, as smart as the five dogs, but Harry looks at me.
- Get your shit together, he says. I’m hungry and you need to quit fucking around.
- Pixie loves me, but she’s only looking for a surprise for her breakfast.
- No surprise, she toys with the others because dog food sucks.
- Gracie does not chew Pixie’s head off. I don’t know why.
- Idea for poem trickles in as I am busy feeling ashamed for not emptying the mind, feeling dizzy with the wheels of insanity trying to trick me into losing my place in the world, threatening to make me forget who or what I am, threatening to remove my sense of the calendar, threatening to incapacitate me and bend me over the edge of the sink under the rag infested with the rottenness of old kitchen mess. I am ashamed of my diseased self.
- An unbearably sweet girl on the roof downtown throwing rocks.
- Maybe 20 stories.
- Maybe pebbles, but more rock-like because they have mass, power to alter the world,
- and she throws and throws, and all the people in the streets are joyful.
- The people do not protest.
- The people strive for acquiring all of the free rocks.
- I see why my poems suck so badly when I have ideas like this, but my editor earns his pay, and he says, You quit even thinking about writing until you have a brain that might understand what art is supposed to be.
- Mozart for lunch. I did not eat Mozart.
- There are times, listening to Mozart, and I am sure I’m listening to God. I wish I could understand this.
- The odd phrase “could not be more perfect” comes to mind.
- A guy talking politics on LinkedIn the other day said it’s rude to bring in things which come to mind. I suppose it is too spontaneous for politics.
- Reduce your time with politics, news, silly strings of comments about art which somehow make you feel contentious.
- Reduce these and do something worthwhile.
- A guy talking politics on LinkedIn the other day said it’s rude to bring in things which come to mind. I suppose it is too spontaneous for politics.
- I’m a fucking toad sitting in a meeting.
- New guy. doesn’t understand. You don’t know what we know.
- Some guy says he likes Carl’s idea and I feel less like jumping out the window.
- Jumping out windows is tough on the 16th floor because the glass is very strong in order to resist those things that buildings tend to run into.
- For a short time, I reflected on the last 8 years of being a father as opposed to the years before that, and I had an immensely good feeling, a rare sense of worthiness, and I thought about the last time my daughter told me she loved me. Yesterday. Oh, there might not be better goodness, and I hope that is okay.
Most Days Should be Thanksgiving, Designed for Gratitude
Lessons, strangling the deathly stillness of sobriety,
as we are forced to write our lists, and why the fuck
does it require ten? Because otherwise,
we’d stop at two, and the first is always sobriety.
I’m clean. My breathing does not gurgle in large pools
of muddy water, and my family, and the love, and
this is because vodka was never a match for love,
but it sure beat the pulpy slime out of love for long periods,
as the brain’s diseased mind circled in several strands,
like perverted green sharks, ripping pieces of compulsion,
drilling the hiding games, the dark gardens of shame
covered with ill seaweed craving an unconsciousness.
I can read! I can write! Look at me; I can see,
and today’s mind seeks some sort of warmth or
brightness which seems to bury the mildew of pebbles
rolling from dreary nights spent waiting to die, and though
not one of us knows god, we’re all glad we know
god again, that he holds us in large hands, but mostly,
our gratitude comes loudly knocking every single morning,
caressing those massive gaps in life when we know who we are,
where we are and what we are. We do. We know.
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The Red Pants Tightened My Heart
There was a lady
with immaculate black
ponytail. I eagerly looked
but not one hair was
disarranged. And not
simply the ponytail. It was
this soft, slick, shiny, furry,
perfect, oval jewel on her
pate. Society would dub
me creepo if I had chased
her, but her red pants
fit too perfectly and her spicy
white blouse exploded
roars of light too good
for this rotten neighborhood,
so I wanted to tag after
and listen to her tell me
about all of the good things
that have happened to her,
listen with glowing eyes
to her indefatigable beauty,
but I am no creepo, so here
I sit, dead and dumb.
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George Wants to Be
George wants to be
an artist
of some sort. He
wants to inspire
people to dig
deeply, find that
spiritual center,
and he wants
to do that with art,
not from a pulpit.
George cries
at home every night
because his day
was spent in deflation,
failing with spreadsheets, failing
to do the simple things.
Simple rules and
the people are ashamed,
cringing at his incompetence.
George wants to quit
like that director who went
off the bridge, but
George has no courage.
No courage, no wisdom,
no freedom, no intelligence,
and he only wants
the impossible.
God gave George
desire, but god loves
laughing at George,
his daily, wasteful
efforts at staying alive
without purpose,
inspiring brick blocks
and empty templates.
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Suffering the Reds and Blues of the Breakfast Room
Most times, I’m not grown
enough to sit by god,
and I eat in the kitchen,
the breakfast room, plastic
plates, no knives, and god
cannot share his will with me,
my brain still frozen blue,
the mean boys stuffing me
inside the red romper room
ball with the tough round handle
on top, cackling at my
deadly future.
I see the service
dog, the beautiful
Shepard sitting patiently
with his mistress, she loving
him delicately, awarding him
for his perfection, and I
say I wish I could be you,
boy, for I know the beautiful,
the loved, sit in the dining room
and luxuriate in god’s
will, in god’s kingdom.
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On a Day When My Dismal Spirit Falls Behind
Even light and heat flow gently
when my bones are not finding resistance,
as the dogs clue me in on priorities,
showing me how to fight for a niceness
of spirit, and I want the thrill of this journey
to charge electrical circuits, to drive
my spitfire, to stifle the kind of darkness
which strives to suffocate me. As I
feel so clever for doing what the people
tell me to do, allowing the humid moss
to gather atop my skull, making me feel older
and exponentially worthless, but my steps
continue to follow one another, and the shit
gathers in between the fingers as the trees
continue to impress despite the counter-intuitive
movement of old and known trees making
a good world for me, the dogs knowing my fear
and trudging along without inclination of stopping
because they know we are close to home,
and they know that it is always possible that
something good could happen when we arrive home.
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The Power of the Great – Monday’s Donation to the Opponents
Scorching cries, skin flows.
Shy, fairness never arrives.
Stuff broken red teeth,
beg for nothing, statues blue,
not trophies, but love towers.
Grappling with tattered
fame, losing murky powers.
Growing ego soothes,
removing struggle and grays.
Free fall, same right, left, no push.
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