Speaking on behalf of the homeless (poem)
We are not all desperate bottomfeeders to the last.
We count them in our number like any other class of people --
any other.
And we are not all poets, novelists, aspiring filmmakers:
Some of us wouldn't give you a straight answer what
year it is, let alone how that should be significant to the arts.
I, myself, have eaten from garbage cans -- dry things, wrapped in
plastic and not wrapped in plastic, drank flat soda, cold
coffee, the dregs of beer cans, drops left in the corner
of liquor bottles big & small. -- It's not just something
cool they say in movies: the street finds a way inside of you
and its gravity is not undone by accident.
The ones waiting for the accident, demanding it, even,
you see them where their souls have become possessed in hysteria,
their madmen apocalypse of Christian Martyrdom braced
in, fenced in with ubiquitous methamphetamine addiction
or vigilantly defending some 20 ft. by 20 ft.
square piece of ground like scarecrow paper tigers -- they are
deaf, blind to the face of their condition. You are not.
And I am quick, apt, to place a few select, critical divisions
between they and I. I can be choosier about what I will
smoke than what I will eat. Marijuana, of course, has
a seemingly indefatigable number of benefits for the soul. And
the various new packagings -- edibles, seltzers and so forth
switch on a small, yet determined candle of a better future
in even the lamest, most deplorable threats & hassles of what
worse there is to be... You certainly can't count on having full
packages of cigarettes all the time -- your own brand or any other.
You can't even count on having a spare fifty cents or so for
a loose one -- like Denims (I can't remember more than those at the moment)
or whatever else you see the guys moving at modest tables on the sidewalk
to have an extra dollar to play with by the end of the week.
I'm frugal as often as I can be. I will sometimes smoke
one right after another if the mood is right for it
but also extinguish them halfway burnt, pick up every
least flake of tobacco where it's been discarded to
the random gray pavement, one of many, many, many
party-hats with no sincere or credible future
besides what fat has neglected to enforce upon them.
A dollar buys plenty of rolling papers.
Free book are always free. Wisdom is invaluable.
You might see me flying a sign near a trafficlight
the day you read this.
You might see me some other day, or have seen me
in a different year, in Poughkeepsie, Albany, New Paltz,
And I don't want your pity.
Save your sorrys for Jesus
and department store Santa Clauses.
I'm proud to be a Buddhist where
that's concerned: mindfully detached,
and walking up this mountain with
my own feet.
****
In the Buddhist sense of the word, all sentient beings, even the greediest, laziest, phoniest humans, rest on the scale between hell-beings and gods, depending on their individual spiritual average of karma. Good words & actions & livelihood increase your score. Self-important lies, excuses and hopeless confusion hurt your grades.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to go the 'fake it till you make it' route, I'd recommend imagining yourself as a bodhisattva whose human life has reached its natural conclusion, and then do as many deeds and take on as many meaningful endeavors and enterprise as seem practical or possible to love the world you "no longer" inhabit.
Thoughtful Marijuana, tobacco and alcohol consumption.are virtually priceless in promoting these attitudes and the heuristics and skills that would accompany their consumption.
Like the desk clerk in Barton Fink once wrote, hope this helps.
Richard
poem for the worst among us
ReplyDelete~
The internet has made the average person
all too comfortable with staring.
Their untried, under-experienced
dopamine
crowding the last,
and first, clusters
of neurons in lazy,
hapless brains
like parasites
of other people's lives.
As though human beings
without
exception
had suffered from
the same deficiencies
as they had. As though
their theft of personal space
were a natural condition of life.
Greedy virgins
without talent, patience
or integrity gather to the
world as they
gathered to their devices,
insisting (though never aloud)
we were
all
interchangeable
with anyone at all
within any proximity.
The hopelessly lonely
and eagerly deranged
spilling themselves into
the shadows of better people.
My words are not their words.
My thoughts are not their thoughts.
My madness, my dharma, my
heart...has
and will never
seek their detestable company.
****
*the blunt, gestural language of formrolled itself (by seemingly little more thanthe austere will of its promise) rolled itselfupon the canvas of existence and reality, withinherent appetite to electrify its inanimatematter and so render it animate.something that wasn't an animal but close to the idea of an animal.the shape of independence in its becoming.whatever nomadic and belligerent law had brutally governed that territoryin a previous dawn was here settled into the calm roar ofits obedient exit.
ReplyDeletethis bonesplinter of a mountain,this enormous stone treeskiing...throughan unlikely, rareglass slide.
awaited every instrument, every map, every misfortuneand reprisal and reciprocity and receipt that fingersand language might move upon, mightmove into the day. take your time, detective:the What requires a How, and the relevantinformation shares with no democracy norsubstantial form of guarantee, whatsoever,or only with time, not the stone of your belief.
****
notice how the terrible majority
ReplyDeleteof society
has shifted to autopilot.
suppose this might continue
for the entirety
of your life.
smugness is confidence.
obliviousness is charm.
indifference is stoic
beyond reproach.
the next best thing to
having money
is not needing it.
today I heard this vlogger
describe something as
'written at a low-grade temperature.
'I want to be more like that,
I want to undermine my compulsion
to stuff every word I can imaginein
to every sentence I use
to express my thoughts.
being influenced by the hyper-banality
of the terrifyingly banal people around me
isn't much better than stepping
willfully into their company.
you ever read any Jenny Offill?
I want to stay at a level of attention
like that, like the immediacy of
the moment with just enough
time to remember before
the next thing that requires
some attention moves into
play to confuse or compliment
or listen or speak or remind
or proffer new questions.
my inner ear recalls the sound
of the wind, the current. I
feel my heart gently choreograph
where my eyes will discover
a better fate.
maybe you want to think about
how you didn't elect to be born
the next time you're reflexively bitter
about your ultimate vulnerability
to die. that will be here anyway
even if this isn't what
you want.
because birth is as true as death.
because the cessation of suffering
carries equal significance
to the hassles and the indignity
and the utter dismay
of our collective Dharma.
yes, you are a part of this tragic society.
yes, take strength, listen to the god
in your heart.
****