I am alone.
I have always been alone.
I was born alone, I live alone, I will die alone.
There has never been even one moment when I was not alone,
When I was not the pure awareness, when I was not the unborn-undying moment.
It is a wondrous state, given over at times, to many worldly distractions, but ever alone, nonetheless.
How the many others that come or go, that think of me, is utterly inconsequential.
And how I discern them, is but as clouds drifting across a sky.
There is no meaning, no purpose, no raison d'être,
But what the imagination imagines,
In all its many imaginings.
It is but a dream.
I, alone, am.
* * * *
These writings are an offering, a gift, to the eternal life within all creation.
Am I the delusional one for spouting all these thoughts? Or you, for not discerning it?
Or perhaps both, for ever having engaged in this fantastical, utterly improbable dreamtime, at all.
* * * *
That other road, the one more traveled,
Would have been far too bothersome and boring and painful,
To have wandered blue-pill down.
* * * *
Imagine the billions of trips around the sun it took for me to be here writing this.
* * * *
I am not Krishna, nor Lao Tzu, nor Buddha, nor Jesus,
Nor any other mythological name born of the human paradigm.
I am Michael, lord and master of this most-sanctified dreamtime mystery.
* * * *
And what did you, Pilgrim, perchance imagine a god-mind would be,
If not capable of journeying any and every way it was disposed?
I have embraced nothingness since it first became apparent.
The specter of death has ever been a constant companion.
So Fate, do what you will, I stand ready to greet you.
* * * *
If they were going to take my advice, they would not have needed it in the first place.
* * * *
No one will ever truly comprehend, how important a role,
Oxygen deprivation has played in this aphoristic manifesto.
* * * *
The biographical information is for those who still suckle the illusion.
* * * *
To think, how this work has crippled my back and hands, and for what, a fistful of nothing.
* * * *
It is on the reader to investigate my terms, to translate my meaning,
To discern that what is written is a manifesto, ultimate freedom its aim.
* * * *
Don't put me in charge; the blade sharpener would be a busy fellow.
* * * *
Reading these aphoristic ditties as acutely as possible,
As if they were being spoken aloud, with pauses and inflections,
Perhaps even several times, is the best way to imbibe their fullest meaning.
It is more than a little improbable anyone will ever read them all,
And not you, either, unless you are as absurdly mad,
As the hatter that imagined them into time.
* * * *
Long ago accomplished my unplanned mission; everything since has been layers of icing.
* * * *
There is nothing left in this dream world that I cannot die without seeing or doing.
* * * *
An in-the-world-but-not-of-it kind of work.
* * * *
A one-man revolution, a machine, if ever there was one.
* * * *
One life is more than I ever would have asked for, if anyone had bothered to ask.
It has been interesting, and I have gotten a more than adequate statistical sample of what existence offers,
But another one, or many more, would be completely redundant,
And exceedingly exhausting.
* * * *
Am a prophet? Am I a fool? Well, yeah.
* * * *
Missed the walking on water class, but warrant at least an honorable mention.
* * * *
I am Nero, fiddling while the world burns.
* * * *
Any given experience has been the fount of this manifesto.
* * * *
"Never again," he thought to himself, not for the first time that day.
* * * *
Could probably jot down just about anything I please,
In this, for-all-historical-impact-practical-purpose, largely unread manifesto.
Confess to every form of murder and mayhem, violation and pillage, I may, or may not, have done.
And more than likely, few, if any, would ever read or hear, much less imagine it.
And perchance they did, how many would not shrug their shoulders,
And quickly move on to the next scandalous headline,
In this absurd world full of horror galore.
* * * *
This soliloquy is as whole a metaphorical elephant, as this lingual frame of reference can muster.
I being but one of who-knows-how-many scribes expounding the greatest revelation.
Whose handiworks will persevere in the ever-shifting dunes of dreamtime,
Will perhaps be referenced as some future historian’s footnote,
Or perhaps, stacked with other esoteric works, on some obscure bookshelf.
Assuming humankind even survives long enough for history to be available for viewing.
* * * *
It is not about me, it is not about this temporal identity,
It is about the awareness, that which I call, for the lack of a better word, god.
Lower case, to keep it generic for marketing purposes.
* * * *
Red pill, blue pill, every moment, the choice.
* * * *
Would I have started all this, had I known what a Sisyphean task, it would become?
* * * *
My own lord and master, I Am.
* * * *
So many coffee shops it has taken to set all this into digital stone.
* * * *
I have herein imparted as great a vision as this mind can muster.
What will or will not come of it, only future minds will discern.
* * * *
Mindfully mindless.
* * * *
“A lot of words,” is all Loretta had to say.
* * * *
How often these words have come, before full comprehension of their meaning.
* * * *
These writings are as imaginary as everything else.
They might be absurd, if I was the only one saying it.
* * * *
Yet another day, pointing out that elephant in the room, standing right there, how can you not see it?
* * * *
No skin off my nose.
* * * *
“What a hot sack of bones I am!” I said mockingly, to the reflection in the mirror.
* * * *
To our mother, scarred and tortured in every way imaginable; I herein give voice.
* * * *
This entire adult life has been spent observing, imbibing, exploring, inquiring, whatever came to the door;
To very gradually, very unpretentiously, very unintentionally, very scientifically,
With great naïveté, wander into this eternal conclusion.
It is as honest as honest can be.
* * * *
My go-to corporate empires:
Starbucks, Netflix, Apple, Google, Amazon, Costco, Walmart, Raley’s, Save Mart, Safeway, Walgreen’s,
J.C. Penny’s, Sears, Target, Best Buy, Bev Mo, Carl's Jr., McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s,
BMW, CSAA, Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Lowe’s, UPS, FedEx Office,
Tri-Counties Bank, Chase Bank, T-Mobile, Visa, MasterCard,
Chevron, O'Reilly Auto Parts, MidwayUSA,
Hometown Buffet, Sizzler …
Not necessarily all.
Not necessarily that order.
* * * *
The frame of reference from whence this work comes,
Has many facets from its walkabout with imagination.
* * * *
Why waste time writing a story, when an aphorism will do?
* * * *
Another day, just me and my boulder underway.
* * * *
Have I tapped into nothingness? Or has nothingness tapped into me?
Or was it ever more than an elaborately-staged hoax-extraordinaire?
* * * *
What pathetic endgame am I fated to endure?
* * * *
What’s to miss?
* * * *
Forever is an imaginary state of time born of mind.
* * * *
If there is some deity that wants me to believe in it, how is its vanity, any more or less than mine?
* * * *
This is what I would do for the rest of time; maybe more bars, fewer coffee shops.
* * * *
Even the skinny ones are puffy.
* * * *
Neither space nor time can exist in the stillness of awareness.
* * * *
Welcome to the clubless-tribeless-groupless aloneness.
* * * *
Without the dream, without the other, what could You experience, what could You know?
* * * *
Tabula Rasa is an unrippled state.
* * * *
So many lost writings – tossed, burnt, erased, forgotten – mine, and so many others, oh well.
* * * *
He yammers on and on, Mommy, make him stop.
* * * *
The return to wonder, is exactly that.
* * * *
If it dies on the vine, it won't matter to little old me back-in-the-ground, now, will it?
* * * *
Eternity is bound by neither space nor time.
* * * *
Imagination cannot root in the stillness of awareness.
* * * *
Space-time is but a kaleidoscoping mirage in the eye of awareness.
* * * *
There is only now; all then’s and when’s are imaginary.
* * * *
How was it you became so attached to this blob of protoplasm?
* * * *
Still mind, eternal mind.
* * * *
If there is some deity that wants me to believe in it, it better hurry up, before this body turns to dust.
* * * *
There is no way could I have lived a domesticated existence,
Of commitment and compromise and responsibility and indebtedness.
In giving my dream over to the mystery, in wandering the path of least resistance,
I may well have experienced, may well have possessed, more than all my ancestors combined.
I may well be the wealthiest, freest microorganism, this Petri dish world has ever seen.
And the only one who has witnessed it, in the way these many pages describe.
And despite all the virtuous intentions, they will not change a thing,
And neither the Reaper, nor the Ferryman, will know, or care.
* * * *
Finally figured out what I'm talking about, again.
* * * *
A work destined for the netherworld of Dead Poets Society.
* * * *
A stream of consciousness.
* * * *
Ain’t never gonna go that way agin.
* * * *
There it is, you finally saw it, and not for the first time today.
* * * *
How freeing it is not to care.
* * * *
Curse you, imagination.
* * * *
The mystery has used this frame of reference to its own ends.
* * * *
Is that the way he meant it? … or that? … or that? … perhaps none, perhaps all … you decide.
* * * *
A pleasant peasanthood.
* * * *
I have always cherished my aloneness,
But have had many male and female friends throughout my time.
Workplaces, coffee shops, bars, and health clubs, have always been good venues to meet people.
The company of strangers, with some moving from acquaintanceship to friendship.
One never knows where a first spontaneous conversation will lead.
Sometimes, never again; sometimes, ever more.
* * * *
My Shakespearian contribution, without the story or its many plots; more of a cut-to-the-chase soliloquy.
* * * *
I thank the gods every morning, that I wasn't born a woman.
* * * *
This life is the muse.
* * * *
From any and all perspectives, that in this mind occur, the mystery is fathomed, one ditty at a time.
* * * *
What will be my last thought?
* * * *
Bringing children into this world, this world in terrible decline, is a cruel thing to do to innocence.
The most benevolent act one could offer their progeny might well be to smother them in their sleep.
* * * *
Never had any distinct vision for this life,
So I naturally kept wandering, adventure after adventure,
Until my calling finally rose its scribing head.
* * * *
The world ain’t the better place I would have hoped,
So I guess my mission failed, as So It Goes predicted.
* * * *
I do not join groups; why would I create one?
* * * *
The Groundhog Day life.
* * * *
I hate this fucking world; I would never ever do this to my Self again.
If I was ever involuntarily reincarnated, I would stab myself with a steakknife,
Or blow my noggin off with my father’s shotgun, just as soon as I could pull the trigger.
* * * *
One fellow called what I have put together a theme park; I look at it more as a treasure trove.
* * * *
Done said my piece way too many times to ever be fully read by anyone who has a life.
* * * *
Damned work ethic.
* * * *
My tribe is all creation.
* * * *
Tanks, airplanes, ships, submarines – no, no, no – no tin cans for this good old white boy.
Give me rifle, a pistol, a blade, a few grenades, and put me in a foxhole or trench, or behind a tree or wall,
Before you lock me up with a bunch of other fools in an inescapable metal tomb.
A little room to run like hell, is not too much to ask.
* * * *
A fresh-off-the-tree original work.
* * * *
Word association is the best.
* * * *
Another day of human bullshit underway.
* * * *
Laying bare the arcane, and the banal, one ditty at a time.
* * * *
How can the mystery be anything less than what I,
In all my limitations, all my shortcomings, herein over and over expound?
How could it truly ever be any man-imagined, dualistic invention-notion-concoction, heretofore devised?
That humankind clings to all its idolatries when the truth of awareness is so Self-evident.
Is an irony permeated by paradox, a paradox permeated by irony,
That will boggle me to my last dying wheeze.
* * * *
Try to find your own face; then tell me I am wrong.
* * * *
It filled some of the time between barstools.
* * * *
Another blurb, another story, another manifesto, for the sands of quantum to wash away.
* * * *
Am I really that cynical? Or just a truth-speaker to power?
* * * *
Gaslighting the world, one ditty at a time.
* * * *
You deprive me of a full breath at your peril.
* * * *
What comes of it, if anything, is way beyond my need to know.
And the paycheck, yes, well, rumor has it that it is in the mail.
* * * *
Mister Just-in-Case says always be ready for that day that will hopefully never come.
* * * *
“How might that have come about?” he wondered, not for the first time that day.
* * * *
Education is a dubious exchange for innocence of mind.
* * * *
What I did not see or do, I witnessed others seeing or doing,
Or, as imagination so well allows, I wandered the mind, as times and moods inclined.
No need to keep gorging on and on; I am plenty-full enough.
* * * *
Screw all men! We don’t need them; never did.
We can build our own houses and bridges and malls.
We can pave our streets, and make everything we consume.
We can protect ourselves from all the things that go bump in the night.
We can raise boys into kind and good and boring, passive men,
Who will be otherwise useless as anything but drones.
Un-scrunch your panties girls, let’s show ‘em.
We can do it all ourselves! Screw men!
* * * *
Summoning up the will, is increasingly challenging.
* * * *
It all seems so patently obvious; is it them or me, who is all whacked out? Sometimes, I'm not sure.
* * * *
How I do enjoy a good comma.
* * * *
Am I something of a true believer, a cheerleader, for the mystery? Zeig heile, mein Mystery?
* * * *
Go, Team Stranger.
* * * *
A revolutionary manifesto, way too late.
* * * *
Women can be nasty fiends, who I put in hindsight as quickly as possible.
Thank the gods at this writing, that I only have to deal with one sister,
Mainly because she lives with me Mum, the main reason, I still here endure.
Were I to be reborn, I might well disappear wherever; never see any family again.
Of course, there were plenty of good moments, too; mine was a very easy, pleasant family.
But not a bother I would want, in the even more solitary path that another incarnation would wander.
* * * *
More than anyone can read, under a variety of titles, anyone online can find.
And perhaps even read, if American English circa Y2K, is one of their tongues.
* * * *
You don’t even get crocodile tears from me, darling.
* * * *
Am I crazy!? Well, yeah! And your point?
* * * *
Perhaps a few philosophy professors and students will use me as a footnote.
* * * *
Quite a thing to learn, finally, so late in life.
* * * *
I have met many, many, good, decent spirits – many quite twisted – all muses to this never-ending labor.
Enough spirits to make up for the most-foul sort, whose self-absorbed machinations,
Create so much unnecessary harshness in this dreamtime.
Yes, yes, they can read it, or maybe try to, but do not even for a split-moment,
Think I would ever turn my back on them, or, gods preserve me, ever allow them access to the treasury.
* * * *
I have studied many writings, many philosophies,
But I have never joined any so-called spiritual groups.
I have never much cared for allowing any collective mindset,
To orchestrate, or to usurp in any meaningful way,
What are my choices, and mine, alone.
A solo act, from the get-go.
And to the best, my ability allows,
I hopefully have not laden the unknowable future,
And anyone draw to awaken, with anything less than total veracity.
From a laptop, I opine all seekers to sally forth through as little muddle, as possible.
Eschew all cultures, traditions, tribal mindsets, groupthinks, that ever strive to own You, in all or part.
* * * *
There was a moment, when I first began scratching ditties on napkins in 1989, I threw a few away.
For some reason, long out of range of memory, they were a bit too much – even for me, he now laughed.
It was perhaps one of the many moments of choosing; those many moments, wherein fate calls.
The fork in the path, where I have always indulged my Self first, in the feast less eaten.
So, as you see, I did not tarry away from the sword, nor thoughts upon scraps.
And what is it all, but an homage to You, should you happen upon it.
* * * *
Read on, if you wish to know where bodies are hidden, and treasure, buried.
Was he serious? Or was he joking? … Bwahahahahaha … the echoing answer.
* * * *
A madman’s rabbit hole.
* * * *
Adrift in the Sea of Relativity.
* * * *
A time history could never have anticipated.
* * * *
Closer and closer to the edge; how close will I take it, else it takes me?
* * * *
The aging process has gradually reached the piteous point,
Where I often cannot recall what drew me to another chamber in the labyrinth.
It could be alzheimer's, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or a variety of other less-than-witty fates,
Or it might be any of the alternative chemistries, to which I have naturally inclined,
Times beyond counting, throughout this erstwhile walkabout.
* * * *
Agape comes and goes, as come and go the moods of mind.
* * * *
I know that guy, and there is no way he is a prophet; pretty sure he was odd, back in the day, too.
* * * *
The Feast Less Eaten
* * * *
My humble offering.
* * * *
Sure, I’d support a revolution, from the comfort of my living room.
* * * *
I would have bet on you never reading this.
* * * *
Yet another moment this memory set has seen and done, seemingly times beyond counting.
* * * *
Tarry on, Brave Knight
* * * *
Am absurd enough on my own, without having a psychotic world knocking at my door.
* * * *
Be first on your block to have this for free.
* * * *
Dark matter ain’t no matter to me.
* * * *
If I never crossed paths with another woman in this dream, including family, tranquility would reign.
And though the last fragments of obligation, is how I am playing it with what family remains,
If I was starting out all over again, I think I would fly from the nest, and never return.
* * * *
About many varieties of knowledge,
I can be as extremely useless and foolish as anyone.
Still looking for that Oz who knows everything, and remembers it, too.
* * * *
You know what to do as well as anyone.
* * * *
Thank you for letting me know you, observe you, absorb you, and then wander on, scot-free.
* * * *
What say has anyone in another’s choices, without a key to their soul, or a knife to their throat.
* * * *
Where the rabbit hole ends.
* * * *
Live or let live, live or let die, I prefer the former, unless you choose the latter.
* * * *
Today’s blend greets the day.
* * * *
“No friggin’ way am I going back to that insane asylum!”
Jesus cried out, when he was told by Daddy it was time for the sequel,
So, as often happens, the ne’re-do-well, who did not show up for the board meeting,
Is named by the chair, to suit up, sally out, and try again to awaken the masses from their slumber.
Thank the mystery, that he was not allotted any absurdities to mesmerize the sheeples anew,
Nor stand up before awed throngs, reciting the Lord’s Prayer through a microphone,
And, Jesus, yes, you guessed it, he is off diddling Mary; no, not the mother.
Yup, right again, Daddy is with Mommy, over in the bouncy cloud.
* * * *
I do not write this to change the world,
I write because that is what draws this attention.
Great if it does something positive for whoever reads it,
But rest assured, it would more than likely, still have been scribed.
There is more than enough evidence in swollen landfills and windswept ash heaps,
To verify how much all my creative projects have meant to man and god(s) … and me-myself-and-I.
The greatest satisfaction has always been, first and foremost, in the doing.
Power and wealth and esteem, what are they to me?
Croesus would envy my array.
* * * *
I gave as much or more than I took, far as I choose to remember.
* * * *
Alas, I, too, can be a recalcitrant mind-tripper.
* * * *
Write it off to the Ravings of a Madman account.
* * * *
Were I young again, what might I do with that gun in my father’s closet?
And no, I am not talking some sort of bloodthirsty natural-born-killer, school-massacre scenario.
Nor any of the other rob-rape-pillage possibilities for which guns are made.S
* * * *
Maybe I should change my last name to Kardashian.
* * * *
Oh, the things I shall never see.
* * * *
Reverence is somebody else’s problem.
* * * *
Fortunately for the world, I was raised by two of the most decent folks I have ever known.
Elsewise, I wonder what sort of life this mind, free of labels, might have been shorn into.
* * * *
It is wit and curiosity, with a rational helping of doubt, that has escorted me to this moment.
It took a great deal of heavy lifting, a great deal of serendipitous wandering,
And most importantly, a bloodhound’s nose for mendacity.
So, here I am, still lifting, still sniffing.
* * * *
Managed to wake up again this morning,
Just as ensnared in the net of accelerating exponential,
As when I rested my world-weary noggin against the pillow last night.
Amazing what we are witnessing as this garden world becomes more and more undone.
* * * *
If you cannot peruse these thoughts,
Without weariness, without fight-or-flight reaction,
Then they are not for you, at least not at this point in your dreamtime.
* * * *
My testament, mein kampf.
* * * *
Here I am digitalizing a thought, when I could just chuck it all, and wander in idle bliss.
* * * *
Odds are, you would not want to be around me for long bursts, if at all.
My chit-chat is pretty routine, pretty repetitive, pretty mundane, pretty boring, pretty yawn.
I am a recording of a frame of reference, to which relatively few are inclined.
* * * *
Imagination has written me off, as ‘no fun.’
* * * *
True believers are always looking for acolytes; ergo, I must not be a true believer.
* * * *
It is done when the mind runs out of things to type.
* * * *
I may be mistaken about all this, but do not see how.
In every way truth can be comprehended: from rational to irrational,
From to realistic to delusional, from absolute to relative, from infinite to infinitesimal,
From sensible to absurd, from ironic to paradoxical, from white to black,
It all melds into a unified certainty that cannot be undone.
It is this acuity, both deliberated and intuited,
That doubts all other contenders.
* * * *
Ravings of a madman.
* * * *
It was something, needed doing, and I had an inclination, and was not otherwise distracted.
* * * *
I only sound somewhat intelligent, somewhat linguistic, somewhat sage-worthy.
There has been a great deal foolishness and stupidity and vanity, gone through this dreamy mill,
To toss so many thoughts into a space-time, I can never more than imagine.
Things that none but I, would ever even bother to know.
And even I, were there any choice.
* * * *
There are many individuals who I do not like,
And there no doubt a fair share who do not much care for me.
Why I bothered composing all this blather is a pirouette of irony and paradox.
I really do not care even one iota if the human species goes extinct.
What a sigh of relief it would no doubt be, for all nature,
To at last be free of our cancerous malignancy.
Alas, that all the domesticated creatures,
Will have to up their ante to survive
The neo-Darwinian reboot.
So it goes, ad infinitum.
The cats will likely get by,
But good luck to the rat dogs.
* * * *
There is a point in the creation of any given aphorism, when the final draft, is complete.
There may be changes another time, but for that right-there-right-now,
The deed is done, and done well enough to sally on.
It is that moment of completion,
That zen-ish realization, that calls every artist.
That exact right time, right place, to adjourn, no matter the genre.
* * * *
That is one good-looking blob.
* * * *
You can bet, whatever you please, that this endeavor,
Has been a great source of every variety of prideful impulse.
A means to elucidate every sort of contemplation that came to mind,
Upon a species that will never know of it, that would not care, even if it did.
* * * *
Like tossing a candle into the wind.
* * * *
Being in this mind can sometimes be something of a lost-at-sea experience.
* * * *
Feeling a tad spiteful today, eh?
* * * *
Another problem, another challenge, another bother, oh, joy.
* * * *
Just plebeian enough to be the right man for the job.
* * * *
The obesity! The obesity!
* * * *
Just another philosopher on the heap, remembered in name only, if at all.
* * * *
To write this, I played along, I answered the call.
And if I had not, who else would have blathered so?
* * * *
Aphorisms are about expressing an insight, in your own unique way.
* * * *
Apologies if I have inadvertently plagiarized.
So many dead and dying poets; overlap is inevitable.
It will no doubt happen again in the turtles-up-and-down way.
* * * *
And he shall be called Michael.
* * * *
What am I but imagination’s puppet whore?
I have given in, to, and walked away, from, so many amusements.
I have been harbor to every narcissistic notion, every hedonistic impulse, that low-fruited into easy reach.
What you now leisurely leaf through, is the dissertation, the legacy, of this nomadic existence.
What will imagination do with her philosophical tour de force, her magnum opus?
Alas, that is a future that I can never more than speculate, more than wonder.
And like a tabby toying with an all-but-dead mouse, she appears not done with me.
For moi, it is less about it ever being read, than having been witness to the entire oeuvre.
Many of these thoughts may be wrong, in whole or part, but I am as right as this vision allows.
And in this time, and probably all before, opinion means as much or more than fact, in too many a mind.
* * * *
Another lifetime?! Do this all again?!
And again and again, and how many times to the nth again?!
Fuck me!! Fuck that!! You friggin’ crazy?! You some sort of sadomasochistic nutjob?!
Get out of here with all that imbecilic, mean and nasty, spiteful thinkin’.
Bad, bad, bad, you makin’ my poor little noggin hurt.
* * * *
Punctuation tries to direct the reader how the author intended it be voiced.
* * * *
Is there ever to be an end to this rope?
* * * *
My yoke is light, especially for those who will never even know of it, much less read it.
* * * *
Well, I’d be impressed, if I didn’t know him so well.
* * * *
Where’s the hemlock?
* * * *
Written for a future I have absolutely no interest in experiencing.
Although an occasional flyby might be interesting,
Just to see how badly it all turns out.
So many fun possibilities.
Hard to pick just one.
* * * *
Atlas, Sisyphus, Michael, all so serious.
The boulder, the world, the pen,
You can put them down.
* * * *
These thoughts are whatever comes out, whatever chances out,
In the timeless free-thinking of this ever-streaming consciousness.
There is no plan, and I am but a voice, one of many, assigned this task.
It was not sought, it was not requested, at any point in time.
It began without fanfare, and it will end when it ends.
One friend, a classical music critic, called me
The Thomas Wolfe of lyrical aphorisms.
He will likely remain far more read.
* * * *
Nothing says ‘I am a whore’ like shredded jeans.
* * * *
Existence, I’m over it.
* * * *
Too late in the lineup to change the tack of the game.
* * * *
Thank the gods it is almost over, is all I have to say.
One life as a human being is one more than enough.
I would never voluntarily do this to my Self again.
* * * *
A tribe of one.
* * * *
Another testament, neither new nor old.
* * * *
OMG, I’m Eeyore!
* * * *
The last romance was most definitely the last.
Way too much effort for way too little return.
And too many, weavings not worth the cloth.
Male and female, Mars and Venus, the way it is.
Certainly, in this uncivil civilization we have become.
* * * *
To imagination, I am something of a turncoat, a traitor, a deserter, a renegade,
But it has thus far allowed it, and even given it wings, of sorts.
Sometime to irritate its own mesmerized audience.
What will be done with this Socrates?
Where’s the hemlock?
* * * *
This body of thought is likely way too much work for the Ivory Tower sort to ever seriously process.
Scholars already have their many ancient champions aligned in too near-perfect an order,
To allow a tribeless autodidact, a take-no-prisoners-army-of-one anarchist,
To waltz in, and add to their already overwrought syllabuses.
* * * *
Got it all right here, folks, something for everyone, got it all right here.
* * * *
What a thing to witness such a cataclysmic unfolding in the history of this garden orb.
With or without life on board, it will spin along until, eventually,
The mystery sees fit to consume it entirely,
And then, presumably, speculatively, spit out something new,
Assuming, of course, that some form of imaginary perception is there to witness it.
* * * *
Spontaneous serendipity is what I do.
* * * *
Every day, a new leg around and about the mountain.
* * * *
Rest assured that I am not laughing with you.
* * * *
And there I was, hoping for enlightened leadership.
* * * *
It don’t got the legs for that journey.
* * * *
Like sitting on a porch in a rocking chair,
Whittling on a stick with as sharp a blade,
As this nature-nurture mind-body allows.
* * * *
If you think you can cash in on all this babble, be my guest.
* * * *
A life of serendipity is not for all.
* * * *
Only because you never saw or heard yourself through a man’s mind.
* * * *
The never-ending legacy.
* * * *
As petty as anyone, at times.
* * * *
Dang, I just save the universe, and no one was watching.
* * * *
What a thing it is, to have been given the opportunity,
To consciously witness the mystery so intimately.
* * * *
Once again, I mistakenly believed it mattered.
* * * *
Half full, half empty, that glass got recycled a long time ago.
* * * *
If you, for even a second, think I am not be as vain and greedy, as any other monkey-mind, think again.
Though a constant wordsmith, I dwell in the same monkey-mind as all others.
The only difference would be in the pondering.
And if you If you think I asked for this, think again on that, as well.
* * * *
You will find the essential thesis,
Mixed in with all sorts of other yada-yada,
Somewhere in the here or there.
Kind of a tossed salad.
* * * *
Very much doubt that men, alone,
Would have dominated and destroyed this garden as we have.
Likely, we would be still be wandering landscapes, hunting and fishing, sleeping in hammocks and tents,
Happily content, entirely unburdened by the inconsequential busy-ness of the other sex.
And any younglings that happened by, would grow up as nature intended.
* * * *
I am all possibilities.
* * * *
Who will be my first follower? Who is my first torch-bearer?
Who will be my Plato? Who will be my Paul?
If there is to be one at all?
* * * *
Regarding these many thoughts, they are how I see the mystery.
They are my response to the infinity of vagaries in this quantum theater,
As directly and clearly and poignantly articulated, as this frame of reference allows.
As this astonishing dream, this dumbfounding dream, seems to have been programmed to do.
To daily, with Sisyphean effort, push the boulder up the mountain, is not the chore many would think it.
As Camus concluded in his Myth of Sisyphus essay: Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity
That negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well.
This universe, henceforth without a master, seems to him neither sterile nor futile.
Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, n itself forms a world.
The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
* * * *
This entire soliloquy has been scribbled
In the day-to-day existence of work and play that I have wandered.
All very happenstance, very happenchance; rhyme and reason have got little or nothing to do with it.
It appears that I was born to transcribe this, if such wonderment warrants mention.
Surrender to your fate, your destiny, surrender to its whimsies,
Is all I can sincerely offer, in way of advice,
To the empty theater.
* * * *
Seriously folks, who reads footnotes?
* * * *
As original as original gets.
* * * *
Been here, done this.
* * * *
This old brain just is not what it used to be.
Getting to where I am starting to feeling darned lucky,
Remembering any and all, odds-and-ends particulars, anymore.
But hey, what have I been scribbling about here,
For far too many cycles of any sun?
* * * *
Is it really some ‘me’, some ‘myself’, some ‘I’, who is reading this?
Or is this sense of ‘me’ really nothing more than programmed imagination?
Imagination shrouding the awareness timelessly witnessing this sensory-mind dream.
The awareness eternally witnessing dreamtimes in all sentient beings in which mystery harbors.
What is there to say, but that these musings have all willy-nilly bubbled into the abyss of this mind’s eye,
And then step-by-step morphed from that emptiness, to paper to screen to world-wide web.
Oh, that I could somehow see how they play out in the epoch decline and fall,
That all existence will endure through the dreamtime ahead.
I would hazard a guess that most writers,
Most artists, most creators, of any and all persuasions,
Feel much the same as they watch their creations drift into a future-past
They cannot more than in imagination play out, all the twists, all the turns, of possibility.
* * * *
Yeah, that guy over there, at the corner table.
The one with the MacBook Pro and Starbucks mug.
Yeah, that’s me, or so I pretend, as the given moment calls.
* * * *
Hold the applause, hold the titles, hold the dogma, hold the cultists, hold the vanity.
* * * *
Well, I am watching it, but it ain’t ‘me’.
* * * *
Why stick around when the favorite parts of any given day are sleeping and napping?
* * * *
No way would I ever do this to my Self again.
* * * *
Have gleaned just enough trivia in a variety of subjects to access a wide selection of metaphors.
* * * *
If you live by the sword, you will die wherever the sword leads you.
I have lived by the keyboard, and stenosis and carpal tunnel,
Are most definitely aiding and abetting the demise.
The end is every moment, nigh and nigher.
* * * *
Have played this life relatively anonymous; chances are this body of work will, too.
* * * *
It would be just my luck to be that vain.
* * * *
Let me know if I have written something that has never been said or written before.
* * * *
Like all worthy seers, I am here to destroy you; have a nice day.
* * * *
Observations and commentary of a madman.
* * * *
If that ain’t motivation, I don’t what is.
* * * *
Yet another set of hieroglyphs, of which relatively few will ever even hear, much less begin, to read.
In retrospect, it has always seemed less like it is me scribbling and digitalizing these thoughts,
Than it is just being open enough for them to make their way through this sack of goo.
Hopefully, no one makes too much of this life or persona, in whatever happens,
Or does not happen, with this labyrinth, awash with ditties of every hew and skew.
* * * *
How different the state of mind wandering through a world filled with blobs.
* * * *
I have done my part,
I have said my piece,
I have played my fate,
I have had my fun,
And here,
Is where it got me.
* * * *
What Self-respecting Buddha would not have shut up long ago?
* * * *
Takes a healthy dose of cynicism to laugh and sneer,
At the avalanche bearing down on this erstwhile garden.
* * * *
The Golden Goose ain’t got nothing on me.
* * * *
So many muses, so many foils, have in so many ways,
Unknowingly played a part in creating these writings
* * * *
Here I am, old and grey and weaker by the day, somehow thank-the-gods single,
Why would I go through all the male-female tango-tangle ever again?
Way too much work, way too much bother, for so little return.
Makes me shudder and quake, even pondering on it.
Never been in my nature to be lonely, needy, lusty, or lovey-dovey.
There would be many tales of many escapades and non-escapades with the unfairer sex,
Were there an audience not already all too familiar with anything and everything I might possibly narrate.
* * * *
Contentment takes practice.
* * * *
Imagination entices me to play its game,
By continually bubbling up aphorism after aphorism.
It is an object lesson in the futility of even for a moment wondering,
Whether or not awareness in human form, can ever change course in any profound way.
Can ever be free of the occupier, consciousness, and its imaginary theatre, permeated by vanity and greed.
A prison guard who taunts me every moment, with every conceivable absurdity.
* * * *
So many muses, so many foils, have in so many ways,
Unknowingly played a part in creating these writings.
* * * *
Hard for vanity to understand why the world is not rushing to my door.
* * * *
This fine mess, this cluster-fuck, has taken on epic proportions.
* * * *
Like all writing scribed in previous times, this edifice of scribblings will need
At least several hundred years to percolate into whatever fate is in store.
Whether or not, what Mother Nature is brewing this every moment,
Will allow that much time, is the stuff of dystopian nightmares,
To which imaginary time machines give imaginary access.
* * * *
Or dancing on for years to come, enduring all the agonies and ecstasies in store.
Playing the odds like a gambler would a craps table.
Every day, a decision.
* * * *
The wag of time takes another swing at the keyboard.
* * * *
This from Ninos:
A childhood friend of Ninos, had years before shared with him his thoughts regarding the unfairer sex:
Treat them as you would pets. Be kind. Be patient. Tell them they are beautiful. Tell them they are loved. They are not capable of accessing the dimension in which men casually wander. Nor are we, into theirs.
It is just the way our species evolved; no one has ever had, nor will ever have, any say in anything.
* * * *
There would be many stories, of so many adventures, were there an audience.
* * * *
Use thoughts such as these as a launchpad, not an orbit.
* * * *
I am not here to save you; I am here to destroy you, whoever you imagine yourself to be.
* * * *
“There can only be one boss in the field,” I remember my father muttering under his breath,
After settling a wrangle with a crew contractor during the peak some long ago peach harvest.
* * * *
Yes, I am Shiva. And so are You.
No, I am not Shiva. And neither are You.
* * * *
Playing in this touchy-feely sandbox does not mean I am not entirely alone all the while.
That all others are but apparitions, dancing about all around me,
In a magical holodeck of quantum design.
Perfectly choreographed by the sensory mind,
In all its quantum-chemical-electrical-biological glory.
It may be delusional, but it is a madness that makes it tolerable.
* * * *
So Goldilocks!
* * * *
Said my piece, had my fun.
* * * *
I am most definitely beyond doubt, not a storyteller, never have been, never will be.
By the end of the first sentence, certainly the first paragraph, we would both be asleep.
* * * *
Hard to argue with a dead man.
* * * *
An anti-follower philosopher, I am, I am.
Please do not bother me with applause or adoration or gifts.
In fact, a little hissing and booing, and maybe a tomato or two, would cheer me more.
* * * *
I root for awareness; but bet on imagination.
* * * *
Yup, I will be forgetting that, too.
* * * *
Too cynical for you? Well, maybe someday I’ll tell you what I really think.
* * * *
My little Gormenghast.
* * * *
The abyss is not near as entertaining as Never Never Land for this Peter Pan.
* * * *
Sitting here in the corner, quietly blazing, another day underway.
* * * *
Yet another day of having to see the same tiring faces, and listen to the same tiring pap.
* * * *
These writings are entirely stream of consciousness.
As haphazard as haphazard can be in this patterned theater of the absurd.
Far, far, more than enough, to befuddle those who will never begin to discern, never begin to comprehend,
The unfathomable, ineffable, indivisible mystery, they every moment are.
* * * *
I write because I have no interest in being on any stage,
For more than occasional, serendipitous, impromptu performances.
Dancing these carpal-tunneled fingers on the keyboard – me, my own audience –
Is the most enjoyable aspect of this exploration of the mystery, of this philosophical manifesto.
Mein kampf, if you will.
* * * *
I enjoy science and all the other intellectual pursuits as much as the next Joe Everyman,
But there is a point of diminishing returns we have long since passed.
When will we finally see the meaninglessness
Of the infinity of zeros on either side of the decimal point?
* * * *
These thoughts have been written as precisely, as legalistically,
As this nature-nurture bag of crunchy-chewy-gooey wit allows.
* * * *
If it is drama without guns or swords, then it is a chick flick.
Something any real man should only partake in moderation.
* * * *
Must have been really bored with everything else for it to come to this.
* * * *
Another day of futility underway.
* * * *
Good government is about filling the potholes everywhere I drive.
* * * *
Please take your zealotry elsewhere; this is not the droid you are looking for.
* * * *
This is the honest, unsheathed truth, as seen through this very human mind’s eye.
Feel free to compose your own thoughts, your own opus, if you have anything clearer to say.
The inquiry into the mystery is a solitary, inward journey, not a race, not a competition, not a possession.
If rhetoric is the vehicle, then a corrupt idea may well be in play, and tacking on is the best bet.
Try not to scribe anything that requires persuasion, else it likely not be true, either.
Please note I may well be blind to many of my own transgressions,
So, please proceed with some caution in these halls.
* * * *
It would take a very astute translator to even closely transcribe this into any other language but English.
In fact, as any linguist knows, it will be quickly unreadable for English readers,
Only a few centuries, perhaps decades, down the road.
It does not matter that it is read, nor that it have impact, but that it was written.
* * * *
Do not even think about asking how many re-do’s and backtracks and backpedals
And sidebars and waylays and bushwhacks and sundry other distractions,
Have gone into constructing this Winchester House of an edifice.
Have been nature-nurture putterer since the earliest daze.
Thank or curse three years of drafting in high school,
Countless hours of tedious farm boy work before that,
And who knows how many odds ‘n ends diversions since.
* * * *
I walked among you –unnoticed, unobserved, undetected, invisible –
Because I was no different than you, because I was the same mystery as you.
A student of life, a philosopher, inspired to experience, to learn, whatever life offered.
And the resulting thoughts are my gift to whoever’s fate it is to find them.
Written for those who hunger for that which is prior to more.
For those ready to discern the mystery within all.
* * * *
A gift to the dream, nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.
* * * *
Yup, I am the only one who will ever read it all,
From the first scrawls until whatever comes out until the demise,
The well running dry, or I just decide to shut the rig down, and take up golf or fishing.
Meanwhile, let the day begin.
* * * *
Good-bye, Cruel World, someday.
* * * *
An unexpected, unplanned, unnecessary journey, indeed.
* * * *
You need not hear my voice, to hear my voice, nor see my face, to know it your own.
* * * *
Have wandered many camps in this dream, but none ever drew me enough to spend an entire lifetime,
Until the tail end of the 80’s, at the age of 36, when thoughts began coming, one after another.
And so, this imaginary destiny finally took on a clarity, something of a perpetual wave,
One that appears not to be crashing for as long as ‘so far’ is fated to endure.
And even if it does crash, the deed is done, and done well enough.
The only question is whether or not it will find some legs,
And saunter on into some telling role in the dreamtime to come.
But there are far too many stacks and stacks of lost and forgotten writings,
In every variety of used book store, library book sale, and garage sale, to plan a party.
* * * *
An anonymous gift to anonymous readers.
* * * *
Another day of putting into words that which words can never tell.
What comes of them was well beyond my control the first time they were shared.
I will never be able to more than guess, than speculate, their destiny.
It is a truth all teachers and storytellers well know.
* * * *
Socrates was served up hemlock for all his ramblings.
The official charges were:
(1) corrupting youth.
(2) worshipping false gods.
(3) not worshipping the state religion.
Surely, my ditties are as deserving of such a destiny.
Good thing I do not live in the Muslim world, or one of its affiliates,
For I would have long since been a flaming marshmallow casting ash into the wind.
* * * *
Oh boy, another way to waste time until it wastes me.
* * * *
For all practical purposes, I never made more than a few dollars off of these writings,
And have actually contributed more than a little of my own treasure, as well as health and well-being.
And if truth be told, the Kinko’s in Chico, California, also gave to the cause, albeit unwittingly,
Who knows how man spiral bound copies, in the wee hours of many a graveyard shift.
* * * *
Serendipity at its finest.
* * * *
An original work, brought to you, by you.
* * * *
Lots of questionable, often bad decisions, to reach this old-man-and-the-sea point in time.
* * * *
So much left to do in this ever-expanding philosophical project.
Anyone interested down the road is welcome to do with it what they will.
There are no family, there are no friends, there is no following, tethered to its fate.
What happens to it is entirely up to the mystery from whence it came.
* * * *
Oh, how I do relish playing with my native language; in tongue, on paper, on screen.
The play of all things grammatical, is an significant part of this writer’s story.
As are the skillsets of supporting cast members: techno and spatial.
And though I still rank myself apprentice in any and all use,
For Joe Everyman, it pretty much daily yields a great deal of satisfaction.
* * * *
As MacBeth (Shakespeare) put it: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
* * * *
A blob by any other name would be the same.
* * * *
I serve the awareness, and the matrix, whose quantum magic gives us the illusion of space and time.
* * * *
Take this babbleon on the road? Are you kidding? You must be looking for Willie Nelson.
* * * *
There would no doubt be a very painful death in store,
Were I to travel to some parts of the world,
And say what I have to say.
* * * *
I am far and away from being first or last to scribe such thoughts as these.
All that can really be claimed, is that there is a fair amount within this digital labyrinth.
Free gratis, for any who are already under sail, or about to set off, upon a voyage of Self-discovery.
* * * *
And through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I do every moment journey.
* * * *
Should I be even a little embarrassed? Nah.
* * * *
Have always just accepted and done whatever the dream offered.
Never had an agenda, never had a dog in the fight, never had a raison d'etre.
Have always just been here now, watching the show, doing whatever needed to be done,
And in the second half of this temporal existence, it has been about writing whatever comes to mind.
* * * *
I might let this mind, this imagination wander,
Every light and dark nook and cranny imagination allows,
But there are a wide range of boundaries to what I would actually do.
There are some things that I would even take my own life,
Before they would ever happen by these hands.
* * * *
Will this wellspring of thought ever go dry?
How nice it would be to let it all go.
And yet again, I enjoy it so.
* * * *
Duh, Michael, you are such a dim wit, sometimes.
* * * *
The no-religion religion.
* * * *
Another ditty lost in the wake of mind.
* * * *
I am as pride-filled as any other human; we are all the same imaginary notion.
* * * *
This whole world, this whole lifetime
Has been so perfectly scripted, so perfectly acted,
That I sometimes wonder if my name is not Michael, but Truman.
* * * *
Relativity reigns.
* * * *
This, too, has been written by the whim of imagination.
* * * *
Story-telling is a talent, a skillset, that finds no perch in this mind.
All that comes to this dreamer are aphorisms, and maybe a few anecdotes.
Any reader well-versed in literature, would set down any attempt within minutes,
Which enough already do with this philosophical Winchester House as it is.
* * * *
Missed my first opportunity when I first spotted my father’s no-name shotgun in his closet.
Could have cut short a lifetime of vexation, right then and there.
Yeah, regrets, I gotta few.
* * * *
I know what my values are, but I would hesitate to inflict them on others.
* * * *
Another leg in the daily pastime, the daily chore, the daily slog, done, done, check.
* * * *
Dang, where did I put that blue pill?
* * * *
A lot of nice guys wake up next to their women every morning,
With their manhood still secure in the lockbox beneath her pillow.
How I escaped that abysmal destiny is a chronicle I barely remember.
How many nets I stumbled around or through, is a tale I will never know.
* * * *
To have had this esoteric vision,
And a wide-ranging skillset existence,
Has been a most remarkable thing to witness.
* * * *
An unfolding train wreck (a.k.a., cluster fuck).
* * * *
Just a regular Joe Everyman, friend to some, adversary to others.
Somewhat charismatic, but somewhat disagreeable at times, as well.
Pretty much guaranteed to always be moving on sooner or later.
* * * *
This could not have been written were I not still tangoing with vanity.
* * * *
Yeah, I still believe in Santa Clause, so I get it.
* * * *
There’s that guy who’s always writing on index cards,
And sitting in coffee shops typing away on his computer.
* * * *
I may be mad, but be in good company.
* * * *
Autobiography of a Madman: Court Jester to His Cosmos
* * * *
Away from any and all limelight,
And with an asleep-at-the-wheel censor within,
I say and do, and write, pretty much whatever comes to mind.
* * * *
I serve the awareness, I serve the moment, I serve the matrix, I serve the mystery, there is no other.
* * * *
I dance with you to appease my vanity, oftentimes by stoking yours.
* * * *
I have no life, so here I am again.
* * * *
Unless someone else has written down their truth about me,
And it is somehow unearthed from the landfills that dot the landscape,
Any readers will only know my version; the lie I believe true.
* * * *
Why go on putting myself through this, is a question daily posed.
* * * *
Apologies for all the grammatical errors.
I am really still an apprentice when it comes to wordplay.
The English language – the American English version – and linguistics in general,
Have always been something of a challenge, one which I do so dearly enjoy,
That there are few daze I do not spend some time scribbling or typing.
* * * *
Lost in space, lost in time, lost in mind, I am found.
* * * *
My Little Forum
* * * *
Spent my life experiencing, exploring, swinging from vine to vine in my little jungle,
Looking for something that called me, something that would engage me.
And at some point in the middle years, words began to come,
And without the fanfare of drums and trumpets,
Destiny took on a reality, a clarity, as never before.
I have wielded pen and keyboard as well as ability allows,
For what point and purpose, if any, can be no more than speculated.
* * * *
Just an aphorism machine, I am, I am.
* * * *
No art form, and in this case, no ditty, can be considered done,
Until the last breath, the last wheezing exhale, of this ‘dust or bust’ cadaver.
Of the once-upon-a time vigorous, nature-nurture city state,
Now expiring, exiting, one cell at a time.
* * * *
It took a lot of vanity to write this; I am not as free as actual death will take it.
* * * *
When do I get my invite to the Dead Poets Society, by the way?
* * * *
We have an independent streak in this piece of the world,
That does not go well with being as bound to tradition and custom,
As the parts of the world that have thousands of years of history.
We started off with an empty slate, a tabula rasa, of sorts,
After we killed off or imprisoned the indigenous folk.
* * * *
All the magical creatures, all the folktale characters, would do well to disclose themselves to me,
For they would have no greater advocate, no greater truthsayer, no greater promoter,
To declare their reality be true, to the world of skeptics, to which I am liege.
* * * *
So much already said, already written,
Across all times, across all spaces, come and gone before.
How can this life work ever be known, ever have any meaningful impact?
How can the species ever change its evolutionary context, its genomically induced patterning?
How can a species compelled, bound, to a narcissistic-hedonistic paradigm,
Ever hope to survive a universe that has never cared
About anything ever created?
* * * *
Somebody had to write it, and I wasn’t busy.
* * * *
How has all pitter-patter come about;
This thirty-plus year philosophical edifice?
First, the etchings of the thought are scribbled,
Where it may be transcribed as originally intuited,
Or expanded, or changed entirely to something similar,
But different, from the now completely lost and gone original.
And then, on an Apple laptop – days, months, years – later,
Who can guess what will happen as fingers dance away?
And the original etching scratched on an index card,
Makes its way to one trash container or another,
Lost forever in the nearest already full landfill.
Somebody had to write it, and I wasn’t busy.
* * * *
Welcome to the spider’s den.
* * * *
What could possibly be left that I have not touched on?
What a thing it has been to be witness to this existence.
* * * *
Another day of pleasant boredom underway.
* * * *
Am I there, yet?
* * * *
The Man from QUANTUM.
* * * *
Why write a story when the moral, the bare bones, the punchline, is all that is required.
When cutting to the chase, getting to the point, takes so much less effort, for all concerned.
* * * *
Not quite needy enough, not quite greedy enough, to weave it into fame and fortune.
* * * *
Beautiful women would often do well to stay silent.
* * * *
The Devil may care.
* * * *
Oh, would that I had something left enough to give chase.
A hobby; nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.
* * * *
My journey through the Ivory Tower was never much of a scholarly one.
Had to work for my grades, and then only just managed,
To land in the above-average ranks.
The same can be said of the athletic ventures.
* * * *
I was born to be retired.
* * * *
Don’t know if I’m enlightened, but I certainly am full of shit.
* * * *
A cosmic bean counter.
* * * *
I do love the pause of a comma.
* * * *
One friend likened the output of my aphoristic babble to Tom Wolf’s in real literature.
* * * *
Time for another walkabout.
* * * *
For the future, such as it is.
* * * *
Another pearl tossed into the time born of mind, for it to do whatever it will.
* * * *
This keyboard is stage enough for me; enjoy your popcorn, hold the applause.
* * * *
Dead before my time.
* * * *
A few footnotes, at best, is my guess.
* * * *
Just watching the human paradigm slide into dissolution one day at at time.
* * * *
My Winchester House
* * * *
Fingers dancing away on the keyboards of a couple Apple MacBook Pro laptops.
Alone, relatively free of the constraints of any distracting obligations to any individual, any group,
I freely contemplate, freely explore, freely scrutinize, anything that wanders into mind.
This is an opus – as earnest, as sincere, as serious – as this dreamer can muster.
Be sure not make it about me, for I am you in but another reverie.
* * * *
Nothing needs be concealed.
I have played the gamut as mindlessly as any.
If I have not done it, I saw it done, or thought about doing it.
Taking the Red Pill, the no-stone-unturned dream, is not one many will choose.
How did it happen, that this small-town farmboy, wandered aimlessly down a barely-recalled trail?
It is a long and vague and tedious narrative, that reads as any plebeian fare,
Relatively unexceptional to its ever-present core.
* * * *
Yet another day, same mind, same body, same instincts, same routine, same storyline.
* * * *
What is any existence but a progression of moments,
Spontaneous, inadvertent, unforeseen,
As only the fates can be.
* * * *
Who but me will ever read all this silliness?
The things we do with our lives.
Absurdity reigns.
* * * *
This is what I was born to do; hopefully, this work will not be lost, or worse, usurped.
* * * *
Ooh, goody, something else that I do not need very badly.
* * * *
Waking up to yet another day of meditations and contemplations, such as they are.
* * * *
Yes, yes, I get it, I get it, anything may well be possible:
Gods, angels, demons, ghosts, vampires, zombies, goblins, fairies, aliens,
Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Cupid, Saint Patrick, Father Time … and yes, Jesus, too.
But how can you expect me to not want it validated by a number of reliable witnesses,
Including my Self, the most sober, reliable, earnest, truth-seeker, I know,
Before I go all-in True Believer on it?
“Show me,” declared the man from Missouri.
* * * *
I writes it the way I sees it
If I am wrong (which I only rarely am),
You will find me in your imaginary fire and brimstone,
Where only the most interesting, most entertaining, folk are allowed.
* * * *
I am not immune to vanity and corruption, so do not give me the keys to the world.
Without checks and balances, I would probably mess things up as badly as anybody.
* * * *
Drop-dead goo, baby, you are drop-dead goo.
* * * *
I do not join groups, why would I want to create one?
I do not follow anyone, why would I want to lead anyone?
These many thoughts came to mind, and I make them available.
What becomes of them is up to whoever finds them;
Very few of whom I will ever meet.
* * * *
Check your assumptions at the door, please.
* * * *
What about any woman would be more interesting,
Than doing whatever I want, whenever I want?
A flying solo life is why you are reading this.
It required a great deal of departing many lives.
* * * *
If this does become known, it will be after the fall.
* * * *
The rumbles of another nap are starting to sound.
* * * *
Yes, anything may well be possible,
But I need to have it corroborated
By reliable witnesses, including moi,
Before I sally all-in True Believer on it.
* * * *
The eternal philosopher, historian, anthropologist, scientist, mathematician,
And any other academic arenas this mind was drawn to reconnoiter,
All together, pervade the ever-expanding frame of reference.
So full, so empty, an imaginary destiny plays out.
* * * *
It is never too late to take the blue pill.
* * * *
Soul reader.
* * * *
Yet another distracting sidebar; another ripple in the ever-expanding frame of reference.
* * * *
It is a curious thing, these many years of so many thoughts coming to mind.
Not sure how they come, how they keep coming, so often, and with such lucidity.
Starts any given time and space, usually with a pen scribbling onto a blank index card,
And then on to Microsoft Word on the MacBook Pro, with all its cherished accoutrements:
Google search, spellcheck, dictionary, thesaurus, and a knack for word association.
All the drafting and newspaper layout make for the spatial machinations.
And … Voilà!
* * * *
Is is possible I might someday be deemed, through the happenstance-happenstance of serenditpity,
One of the most dangerous spies, the most dangerous anarchists, the world has ever known?
I was given access to the keys of the kingdom. and from the steps of that ivory tower,
Have used the technologies of these times to sprinkle many a breadcrumb across the world.
What will come of it, if anything, who now knows? The steady slog of time, is in that sense required.
* * * *
A quixotic quantum manifesto, very much indeed.
My itty-bitty part in the grand théâtre of dreamtime.
My little contribution to the grand théâtre of dreamtime.
My little celebration of the grand théâtre of dreamtime.
My little salutation to the grand théâtre of dreamtime.
* * * *
Dagnabbit, am I talking through my hat again?
* * * *
Why do this to your Self, again and again and again, forever again.
That is the ten thousand dollar question, my friend,
That is the thousand dollar question.
* * * *
What can I say, it is the way imagination larks about in this wee brain.
* * * *
But for a few incidental plagarisms, an entirely original work.
* * * *
I be quantum matrixing.
* * * *
Maybe I am wrong in this dittyfesting at times.
Sometimes the wrong selection in the wordsmithing.
Sometimes just plain old wrongo-bongo ooplsie.
* * * *
Am I, or am I not, the exception that proves the rule? You decide.
* * * *
Raising the bar one ditty at a time.
* * * *
Regarding wearing a mask, a shield, in this or any other time;
Regarding having the inalienable right to protect myself, I ask you:
Why I would ever want your bodily fluids, to in any way mix with mine?
I expressly reserve the due diligence to pick and choose on that one, thank you.
* * * *
Jesus Christos, that took a while to figure out.
* * * *
I do so delight in language in all its forms.
Alas, that this mind-body is harbor to only one to speak of,
It being American English, specifically rural Central California, circa Y2K.
How I would so enjoy to be in linguistics, what a maestro is to music, or a master is to a forge.
How I would love to know many more languges across all geographies and times.
I do this mind’s plebhean best in setting down these many thoughts.
Please foregive, if I, in any way, slur your better diction.
* * * *
Not taking the Fifth, here, obviously.
I be beyond-all-doubt guilty, as charged.
Hang me high, ‘Yer Honor, in the highest tree.
* * * *
What a different world this world would be if everyone was like me?
* * * *
More rantings from a rational mind.
* * * *
As I do not find it worth a pauper’s pittance,
And both specifically and generally,
Do not hold out much hope for anything,
I ask any who have answer, even speculation,
What hope can there ever be in a four-letter word?
* * * *
Someone could spend years, perhaps a lifetime, reading and re-reading,
All that I have written and posted on a variety of online platforms,
Including the works of other thinkers across space and time.
There is no shortage fo material for any whose fate it is to witness.
* * * *
Just sitting in one here or there or another, likely with a mug of coffee, or two or three,
At one table or couch or another, tap-tap-tapping away at the keyboard,
Any and every gyration of imagination that comes to mind,
All dancing away on the screen above it.
Word processing, with all its trappings, gotta love it.
* * * *
You can say it better? Have at it, have fun, vanity is all.
* * * *
This body of work could not have been scribed,
Were I not relatively talented at wandering all camps,
Sometimes in person, sometimes in mind, always as witness.
* * * *
Yes, yes, yes, for someone so into the stillness of awareness,
I sure do babble on, and am not too good at sitting still, either.
* * * *
Killing me solftly with your breath,
Killing me softly with your cough,
Killing me softly with your sneeze,
Killing me softly with your song and dance.
All you are to me is a flat-earther who few if any will miss.
* * * *
Spreading my word, one conversation, one email, one website business card, at a time.
Under the radar, to be sure, and no sign it is finding any wiings at this writing.
For me to believe it might meaningfully change the human paradigm,
Requires a level of vanity to which I endeavor not to succumb.
As the human species is not even close to waking up in any meaningful way,
Far easier to continue anonymously enjoying the writing and posting, and depart content.
* * * *
One happenchnce friend of mine, an onine classical music critic,
Called my aphorisms lyrical, whatever that means.
All I can say is, that is just how they come out, and shape up.
Nothing planned about how this mind was linguistically programmed.
* * * *
I am retired unto a quiet, moderate, relatively anonymous routine;
One largely focused on these writings, and the rest, whatever else calls.
It could be family, it could be friendships, it could be entertainment,
It could be a long, nondescript, aimless-wandering, walkabout.
Casually waiting for the Reaper to come settle all scores.
What more needs doing? What more needs saying?
* * * *
With so little audience to mold my ways and means,
I can dam-the-torpedos. say and do. whatever I friggin’ please,
As often as I may choose, and in as many ways as I can darned-well imagine.
Whoever might wish to stop or contain me, is pretty much way too late.
Like it or no, history has me in its talons, to what end, I know not.
Nor do I care to do more than pipedream any and all ripples,
From complete and utter obscurity, to unending acclaim.
“Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” saith the Preacher.
* * * *
They are like puzzle pieces that come together so easily.
A most pleasant way to pass, to pipedream, the dreaming.
* * * *
How fondly I remember those younger, much more innocent moments,
When it did not even occur to me to give a hoot of a rat’s ass
What was happening in this dustball of a world,
When the headlines of historic events
Had yet to draw this wanderer’s attention.
There is indeed an undeniable bliss in ignorance.
* * * *
Just writing for writing’s sake.
Have posted it on the internet for anyone interested,
But have no concern about whether or not anything ever comes of it.
Ramblings of a mind bent by serendipity toward observing and writing about the mystery.
Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.
* * * *
If parts of this body of work are someday translated into other languages,
Who can ever truly know whether or not the interpretations of the sundry frames of reference,
Are even remotely close to what was intended, envisioned, by this quantum mind,
In the context of the original window of the dream called time.
Beware all translations; especially your own.
* * * *
Always more than a little beyond amazing to watch the tiny seeds of a thought
Evolve from scratch paper to screen, into what you are now reading.
The wonders of this modern age have been invaluable partners
In their bringing this mind’s frame of reference, its vision of reality,
To all who have the ears to hear and eyes to see this mystery for themselves.
How fortunate I feel to have been witness to this opus, no matter what becomes of it.
* * * *
How I do enjoy, do relish, my commas.
The little pauses in the way I would say it,
Had I an audience of even one, lending its ear.
* * * *
Imagine the Grecian orators of old, in their robes,
Speaking to forums filled with critical minds,
Perceiving the candor in every thought.
* * * *
No Wikipedia page for me, yet.
* * * *
And why would I care about that?
* * * *
Forgive me, Lord, I was born in Kaliforny, and don’t know no different.
* * * *
It cannot be emphasized too much, how big a role word association plays in this work.
* * * *
Do we really need to go through that again?
* * * *
How tiring this record can ofttimes be.
* * * *
Moi can be happy about that with a little shift in attitude.
* * * *
The one-percenters and their minions have always been in charge, always will be.
They have all together created my world, my life of work and play, possible.
I thank them for all their industry, for all their service, to my benefit.
While they every day calculate their treasure many times over,
While they every day evaluate their power many times over,
While they every day bask in their fame many times over,
I amble about, partaking whatever the moment offers.
Solitary, anonymous, ordinary, detached, boundless.
Unlike so many, I have grasped that enough is enough.
* * * *
I salute those yet to serve.
* * * *
Running low on curiosity; the craving to know is not what it was.
* * * *
A peasant who became king of his universe.
* * * *
Imagination toying with itself.
* * * *
For a mind so yearning for peace and quiet, I sure am a chatty thing.
* * * *
To mañana, or not to mañana, that is the question.
* * * *
Given the way they have been dispersed willy-nilly-no-direction-known across all boundaries,
There is absolutely no way I can know what is happening with these writings.
They could be slowly spreading, or be being all but ignored.
Johnny Appleseed ain’t got nothing on me,
As I dance toward the exit.
* * * *
Good God, what did he mean by that?!
* * * *
Many thanks to all who have made this brief existcnce, this brief adventure, possible.
Thank you for your service, and all that you will continue to do in the time remaining.
* * * *
How this philosophical work has scribed itself in the second half of this dreamtime,
Has been a beyond-all-pales, unanticipated, unsought, uninvited, please-no-not-me, sort of destiny.
What a remarkable expedition to be fashioned into a herald of this ineffable mystery.
Yet another thinker leaving a long and winding trail of breadcrumbs,
All pointing to the unknowable within and without.
* * * *
There is a unique alliance between me and my Self and I, and word-processing.
With its spellcheck, its dictionary, its thesaurus, there is so much depth, there is so much breadth.
These many thoughts would not have happened, could not have happened,
Were it not for this time’s digital platform.
* * * *
The only throne I worship is made of porcelain.
* * * *
Piecemeal worked for me.
* * * *
Entertaining can be fun in spontaneous moments, but a career of it? No way, Jose.
* * * *
What do I care if there is but meager audience for these many thoughts?
I have imagined and written, read and re-read. each and every one, some many, many times.
That, coupled with the appreciation of those who have gleaned my intent,
Is applause enough for this illusory mind’s vanity.
* * * *
Always with the editorial eye.
* * * *
If everyone was like me at this writing, then not much would get done or undone.
Fellow earthling would thrive, climate change would be averted, world peace would reign.
There would be no more hunger, no more pain, no more sickness, no more suffering.
Heaven could not do it any better, and Hell would be a demonless ghost town.
* * * *
If you’re looking for point and purpose, it ain’t in this corner.
* * * *
If there is a god, he/she/it can go fuck him/her/itself.
* * * *
Momma raised a fool, not an idiot.
* * * *
A more scholarly work eludes me, sorry.
* * * *
A dream, filled with nightmares, that I would never voluntarily repeat.
* * * *
The fountain of youth is in here somewhere.
* * * *
I am free to say whatever I please in these digitalized pages.
What power I have in my imaginary realm.
Mwahahahahaha …
The end of the universe is nigh.
* * * *
Do not, do not, do not, I repeat, do not, do what I did.
It were not for no reason I wear this Mad Hatter cap.
* * * *
Have long given up in any way-shape-form imagining that humankind
Will ever evolve into caretakers, guardians, custodians, protectors, defenders,
Sentinels, stewards, partners, lovers, of the natural world, the Great Mother, that bore it.
* * * *
I am incapable of believing anything other than it is an insoluble mystery.
* * * *
What philosopher does not wonder at the absurdity of his/her life’s work?
* * * *
I serve what my vision, my awareness, discerns.
* * * *
Do I talk to my Self? Well, obviously. And listen, as well.
* * * *
Who, if anyone, will discover this collection of random thoughts,
And cast it into the composting mound of erstwhile dead poets, dead thinkers,
To be forever lost, to be forever forgotten, in one future or another?
* * * *
I have played many characters, and we are all good friends.
* * * *
While Rome burned, I wrote, and then wrote more.
* * * *
A good nap should never be put off, I say, I say.
* * * *
Madman across the keyboard.
* * * *
Maybe tomorrow, or did I say that yesterday?
* * * *
‘Tis often I wonder what others might think, what others might say, about these thoughts.
What praises and curses and ho-hums would they, and the bully critics, cultivate,
Were they to peruse and ponder to some serious degree, a few lines or so.
Makes me laugh plenty ha-ha hard and long, imagining the din.
* * * *
What a joy it is to be me … sometimes.
* * * *
The entire human existence has been imagined from the Darwinian get-go.
* * * *
Drift on, stranger, there ain’t nothing here.
* * * *
Oh, for a time machine.
* * * *
There are many limits to what I want to learn, or can learn, with the given transmitter.
* * * *
The fountain of youth is within.
* * * *
This, too, shall be forgotten.
* * * *
Writing for an audience that will not be around much longer.
* * * *
I don’t do namby-pamby.
* * * *
Just regurgitating the same old thing.
* * * *
A trail guide, a tour guide, if there ever was one.
* * * *
Chances are, fat oozing around the edges of a bikini does not arouse too many endorphins.
* * * *
I just want to entertain my Self, thank you.
* * * *
Seemed so real at the time.
* * * *
Just an ordinary fellow, a Joe Everyman, who called it as he saw it.
* * * *
Calls it as I sees it.
* * * *
Most everything this mind has ever created has been given away, lost, tossed, forgotten.
Who can answer what will become of all this esoteric wordplay but what the Fates deign.
From this vantage, it is already in the pile of so it went, dealt with it, got over it, moved on.
* * * *
What to do with all this esoteric babble, is a question for which I lack answer.
* * * *
What different message could there possible be?
* * * *
Hold the applause, thank you.
* * * *
If I was going to lose something, I would want it to be that.
* * * *
Deities and demons are but bit players in my vision.
* * * *
Another day of esoteric soliloquizing.
* * * *
Time for another round of contemplation of non-existence.
* * * *
An hour is too long.
* * * *
We’re all prostitutes, Honey.
* * * *
There are worse fates.
* * * *
It has taken a great deal of inner dialogue, inner chatter, to pen all these musings.
Is any writer, any thinker, or any other monkey mind, really any less loquacious?
* * * *
Where the fuck did I put that blue pill?
* * * *
My little Winchester House.
* * * *
I, Mystery.
* * * *
Been there more than a few times.
* * * *
Worn enough hats to know what to do when one blows off.
* * * *
Have spent this life creating in so many ways, and where is it all now?
Some of it still in possession, some of it in the hands of others,
Most of it likely in garbage dumps or feeding fires.
So it goes, so it went, such is existence.
As if it never even happened.
* * * *
A stone unturned is wisdom undiscerned.
* * * *
A gift from your Self to your Self.
* * * *
Life, it will kill you.
* * * *
You know I’m thinking it.
* * * *
Why didn’t you tell me?
* * * *
The endless hunt for duplicates in all these pages is a happenchance task.
* * * *
Habits die hard.
* * * *
I Am That, the revolution.
* * * *
Is there anything that cannot be usurped?
* * * *
Truth is truth, no cherry-picking.
* * * *
Scouts and spies are handy tools in any war chest.
* * * *
A storyteller without a story.
* * * *
I give into any nap that will have me, that will take me to oblivion, to home.
* * * *
In every now, every beginning, every end.
* * * *
As if it never even happened … ker-poof.
* * * *
My universe, my call.
* * * *
Redefining god one ditty at a time.
* * * *
Still creating, still enduring, bother after bother for your Self, eh?
* * * *
Regrets?
Yup, a few more than a few.
Rest assured, I won’t be the first to throw a stone.
* * * *
Homeward bound.
* * * *
All this philosophical wordplay would never have happened in the ways and means it has,
Were it not for the mindboggling computer and internet technologies of this modern time.
That is, word processing, and all its dictionary-thesaurus-spellcheck-grammar capability.
* * * *
Mission accomplished; I did what I could.
* * * *
Wrote that one wrong.
* * * *
From one to however many others, one perch at a time.
* * * *
Whoever might ever read all this blather is only just less zany than the fellow who wrote it.
* * * *
These many thoughts
Will one day suffer the fate of all such works.
Such is the dustbin of history.
* * * *
Moi no more.
* * * *
Why should it matter to me what anybody else thinks?
* * * *
Not something I need to do.
* * * *
How did I mean it? However you translate it.
* * * *
Devil’s advocate for the gods.
* * * *
How fortunate I am not to have been born into so many other existences.