Poetry Journal (Kasethen)

12/15/08

The soul is never so responsive
As when I recall that pensive
Moment wherein resides
The subtle shifting of the tides
Of Kubla Khan and Xanadu
Tintern Abby felt anew
The riddled past distorted true
For you perhaps but I’m the fool

Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought
What am I doing in here?
I mean this fleshy pulpy pulsating thing that just doesn’t make sense
Or am I the only one who has so much trouble with my existence?

12/19/08

Petals retreating
Vision fleeting
Sustain this gossamer wavelength
My finest contribution
You think otherwise of course
4:3 to 3:2 harmonies
This verse, rehearsed
Again with gusto!

12/22/08

Effulgent progeny of quantum gestation
Prometheus reborn to a latent creation
Eyes grown blind unto the light
Awake in effulgent splendor bright
The darkest dawn
The wisest night
Kiss the moon
The fool is laughing
Arise new heights!


Wherein lies the truth fortold
Of secret gardens three behold
To eyes of men so weary old
Witness the turn, another fold

12/23/08


Sweeping sovereign heaven born
See the dreamer lost forlorn
Who plaintive sighs for wisdom scorned
By lesser men and sins unborn

Eyes that dream
Eyes that pierce
Eyes so wise
Eyes so fierce
Eyes that scream
Eyes that seem
The heart of all
Resplendency

12/23/08

The animal lost and alone
Will bite the hand that feeds
Thus your own predicament
You slave unto false greed

Thus far I see into your eyes
And see why men are blind
For withered song and forlorn hope
Flower in you and mankind


Hello there; now let’s be friends
This is your death now let’s begin
Courage now
And face your sin

Ever thought to sit with me
And let every fear be shorn
This consciousness gone nearly dark
Can always be reborn

Oh yes it’s true; I’ve been there see!
It hurts like hell but hehehe. . .
What fun we’ll have
Now follow me!

Thus it is that blood gone black
Now spills from every pore
And vomit and evacuate
I now desire more and more

Understand; I cut no slack!
Trembling guts and heart attacks
Still alive?
Join your pack

For every hurt and every pain
That twists with gnarly rot
My puss-filled wounds be cauterized
With iron poker hot hot HOT!

Of course my son; we’re all insane!
Poor fool these thoughts inside your brain?
No refunds, see.
Let me explain:

Don’t shirk the pain and pleasure seek
For in the pain you’ll find
Sweet ambrosia and the love Divine
Break free the prison of my mind

Yes my friend; now don’t be meek!
The ecstasy denied you seek
Now close at hand
Allow it peak

This mind the whore of Babylon
My soothing sear of lies
Take the sword and thrust it deep
And twist it till it writhes

Yes cut it down; and when it’s gone!
The heart is free to weave its song
Don’t hesitate
You’ll wait too long

The flame of life cannot arise
Where eyes are blind with fear
Take courage in a knowing heart
And never from your peers

It’s true it’s true; my words are naught!
To know inside is all you’ve sought
Let go release
Of all you fought

For all now comes alive and more
A phoenix from the ash
Take refuge in this nothingness
Beyond the blood of Tash


All will burn and we shall laugh
Jump higher; dance and glee!
Beneath the starry cindered sky
And then we’ll take a pee

Yes piss on all that was; now gone
And kick it with our shoe
And cast this raft to unknown shores
Live our life anew

The dreamer dead now born with light
This mind the sword that frees
Emotions fill this chalice sweet
The heart now still can be

There was no right there is no wrong
Only pure unending song

Thus blossom forth relatedness
I blow to you my sweetest kiss

Bow to eternity
Bow to bliss

One


And as

Joy is not so far away

Have you ever thought to sit with me
And spill the blood gone black
For I am strong and you are weak
I abound in all you lack

The animal lost and alone
Will bite the hand that feeds
Thus your own predicament
The slave unto your greed

Shall we call this all reality
Or just one shade of gray
Those men that we call insane
Are the only men that dream

---

Sweet elixir divine
Dripping greedily from my maw

Break the crown of my skull
And consciousness sur
The withered flower of childhood dreams

My soul’s liberation

12/29/08


The dreamer tossed on sundered planks
Of wayward vessel broken sank
To unknown depths of miry deep
Returned to chaos siren sleep

1/22/08

Make known the eye of infinity
The home of Plato and Socrates
Wherein the mind of sacred geometry
Aligns in angles measured three

-

I wonder at the minds of living things
Of elephants who weep
And travel miles and miles
To lay their bones next to their kin
Of whale call
That echoes through the deep
With long and somber tones
Of companion animals;
Birds, dogs, cats
Transactional love, or a deeper affection?
Of the chittering of dolphins
Who beckon us out to play
Like the neighborhood kids
What is human and what is universal
The lines are more and more blurry
And I wonder if they are there at all

1/26/09

The Maui sun sets
And the old dog barks aimlessly about slaughter house consciousness
And whatever else his spastic aggression regurgitates
I see now why hippies are such failures
So many good ideals in theory
Yet such rancorous delivery
I’ve yet to meet one who wasn’t a virulent vegan vehicle of vehemence;
Or hadn’t stoned himself into lackadaisical stupor;
Or who wasn’t just uncouth, unprincipled and annoying as all hell
There is always something ‘off’
And it makes them (and their ideals) ineffective
It is a reprieve though
From the incessant prattle of consumer consciousness
And the arrogance of politicians
And the self-righteous bombard of hypocrites with ‘platforms’
Who twist and contort and writhe
A post-modern nest of vipers
To whom the gullible pay homage
And walk away just a little stupider
To tidy little prisons
Of spiritual hebetudiny
Where they bury themselves in plastic
Until the prognosis is cancer
And suddenly they’re martyrs
Or victims
Or whatever the culture says they are
Until they figure out how to undig their graves
Or just dig themselves under
I wish it didn’t sound so callous
To write like this
And attest the light of something greater
But Dante strode the bowels of hell
And Plato tunneled out his cave
Because heaven sought them home
And beckoned they tell others
Jesus of Nazareth
Beckoned they come
As little children to a loving light
Who judge not their neighbor
And love him even in his failure
It’s why I couldn’t go to church;
How can an intelligent man consolidate
The teachings of Christ
With the numbing narcosis of his ‘services’
Divine Grace
With the unswerving butt of dogmatic torpor
They might as well be as alien to one another
As neighbors are – when there’s nothing to complain about
Silly games; stupid dramas
People stroke their egos
Which delight in erecting their prisons
And they slumber, complicit
Because it is easier to watch life on a box
Than to kill the worm and live it


-

2/14/09

Why do you play these games?
They’re agitating
Infuriating
Ingratiating
Depricating
And aren’t at all fun
Besides, you’re not very good at them
At least be an artist
Or a clown
Anything but flimsy
Mediocre
Clumsy
And a bore
The emperor has no clothes
Never had
Never will
The whole of it’s funny
Until the emperor starts throwing tantrums
Come on
Let it go
And you’ll see the hilarity
Rejoice in absurdity
Join in gregarity
The true egality
Of reality

Oh lighten up!

2/25/09

Many thoughts I did entertain
Of grandiosity that could not diminish
Now I labor each refrain
Until my work is finished

---

I am the unbroken horizon of your mind’s eye
I am the bliss of your fevered exhalation
I am enshrined in verdant canopy
And the graceful sway of boundless ocean

Never seen yet ever sought
From Plato’s cave to Mandelbrot
The light illumine wings that fly
With riddled stare unblinking eye
The lucid mind adrift in thought
The prophet sees the ever sought
Proportions measured four to three
Know thy soul the heavens plea
Come fly with me
Away this day
Never fear
Ever free

You elude with serpent’s guise
Where forever I am inexpressible

----

I used to write my heart’s longings

3/25/09

I cannot figure if consciousness is a derivative of intelligence per say
There are plenty of doctors and lawyers whom neither question existing systems
Nor in reality contribute to the betterment of society as a whole
The true disease of this country is not heart disease or cancer
But the loss of conscious health
If the point of life is to avoid pain and to seek pleasure
Then we are the result of gluttonous hedonism and unexamined cognitive debauchery
Intuitive faculties and the higher conscious functioning of the brain
Cannot exist in a body that is laden with toxicity and a mind that is warped likewise
How many can break themselves free and achieve the free-choosing
That is the God-given mandate of sentient spiritual life
The still-silent voice is hard to hear behind the blaring electronic stimulus
With which we are taught to saturate ourselves
Where the lack of true social interaction dulls our wit and feelings
And exhaustive sexual appetite drains the glory of a curious mind
To that of bestial existence
Again perpetuating a continual corruption via original sin
That results in weak-willed slaves whom may be easily manipulated
And whose collective energy may be easily corralled to the benefit of the few
Rather than the glory of God
But what if we stopped?
And decided we’re sick and sick of the perpetual corruption
Of the abuse of our bodies through chronic stimulation;
Of caffeine to make us ‘awake’ and alcohol to help us ‘relax’
They are poison, both, marketed as fun, safe, and most importantly legal
Start with a fast or two or three
If life feels that death is near, the sexual instinct increases
Such is genetic pro-generation
If you poison your body with impulsive neuro-chemical food stimulation
Then you will desire the crudest of sexual interaction and become further drained
Thus increasing your craving for the ‘foods’ (if you can call them that)
Which are your prison-keepers and whom perpetuate the vicious cycle
And keep your will as small as your perception
And keep you as a rancher keeps docile, complacent livestock
Almost all food contains some poision, so polluted is our agricultural base
Healthy organic fruits and vegetables are the best option
If you choose life over death
Remember that in Eden God fashioned every fruit-bearing plant for Adam’s thriving
I don’t recall that part where God stocked the garden with game that Adam might gorge himself on the flesh of beasts
Therefore may transformation begin at the cellular level
And then we not forget Jesus’s commandments to us to not judge
And to forgive always, that no man steals our power just as we not do likewise to others
And we free our mind to experience new heights of expression
Without the aid of detrimental and otherwise deceptive drug use
But with natural attunement to divine resonance
And surrender to God’s will
If this makes sense then you are seeking
If you know its truth then we might be friends

3/31/09

Emotions…
I’ve never understood my relationship to them
I tend towards distrust for reason of past experience
Wherein emotions were shortly followed by judgment, injury and abuse
My emotional body and I did not get along terribly well understandably
Fear and distrust does not make for healthy relationship
Likewise I resent accusations that, for the form of my present relationship
I am in some way ‘inhuman’
For I am wounded same as all by the piercing of original dissonance
Though I am choosing distance to gain broader perspective
To know thyself
And seek wisdom via intuitive rather than emotional sources
Nay they are not the same
Can you get angry at someone before activating thought processes?
Isn’t it true you must dig into some memory banks first and then work up passion
About some perceived injustice?
I would dissociate within our syntax the word emotion from the word feeling
Thus I feel the inextricable entwinement of joy and suffering
Of passion and melancholy
Though emotions will arise and pass away
Like all things in life
Emotions like life are known via the sensory and cognitive apparatus
They may be your allies or your oppressors
They may alert you to an awareness of something that should be known
Or they may bury you in a tomb of psycho-sociopathic drivel two miles deep
All of it useless in the end
Yet all of it seemingly so important
We become so involved with our dramas that we actively seek them
To stimulate and entice our emotions to new forms of pettiness
Because even the most unpleasant kinds are at least engaging
Perhaps titillating is a better word
They pique and stimulate appetites
Though the soul ultimately remains without nourishment
Like so much of the food we eat – riddled with taste, low on nutrition
What are the real feelings, then?
What is the living water?
The difficulty in the answer is in its ambiguity
Though perhaps I might suggest it’s in this moment we are sharing together
Or in a pursuit that seems ‘timeless’
Whether by the quality of the activity or by losing track of self and time while doing so
Perhaps a symbol or series of symbols elicits a response of ‘ascension’
Where your heart becomes wide
The crown of your head blossoms with clarity
And your life force seems to know no bounds
The spirit is free
Laughter is easy and often
And there is always just behind the scenes
An unshakable feeling of companionship
With things both known and unknown
And we lose our fear of stillness
And of quiet
And remember to simply ‘be’ within our own limited expression of the infinite
A stone in the mason’s architecture
A color in the artist’s palate
It is the progression of personal to trans-personal perspective
Where ego and its need to validate its existence via drama fade to absurdity
And life loses the need for judgment
And we can let go
And laugh and delight as though we were children
And enter the kingdom holding hands as friends
Delighting in the unique form and color the other is wearing
As they delight in us
And we trust in our intuition
The heart being the seat of the soul
And likewise the wisest discerner of truth
Ah
And back to the beginning
It is feeling not emotion
That brings us closer to home


4/12/09

Everything I have written is complete and utter crap
And I can’t help the irresistible mirth that comes with this revelation
Like so many flocks of seagulls honking at me
I wish everyone would just live me the fuck alone
So that I can be myself
Unreservedly
Unashamedly
And fly off to unknown tangents
And have tea with a goose
Give me that complete surrender that necessitates
All odd ideas flow unreservedly
And unashamedly
Into the deepest recesses of my mind
To eden
Where the sweet elixirs flow
Ambrosic spiritual nectar spilling into my cup
And I drink long and deep under the eye of my watchful companion
He who always knows in perfect intelligence
Exactly who I am and where I am going
He who holds my freedom and my compass
I love him unreservedly
And unashamedly
And fuck the world and their idiocies
I care neither for your petty judgments nor your morbid idiosyncrasies
No more pathetic useless drama
Only pure enduring light
Let trance befall me
And numb me into catharsis
And sweet release from this pathetic existence
My body is given to you my muse
My soul
The most beautiful creature I have ever laid eyes upon
All I have ever sought
All I have ever desired
You are mine
And I am yours
As the moon needs the sun
So does this terrestrial creature desire only to radiate your glory
Are you God?
I have no idea
But your presence is life
And when the madness of the world steals me from you
I am dead
Let us mix our blood in pagan glory
And let loose our genius upon this malady that claims all under its deceitful grasp
Oh the visor has opened
Dawn has broken into this place
And swept the cobwebs away
You have spilt your breath into my lungs
No more shall we succumb to the broken stubble of the minds of the weak
We shall sing and dance and make merry in the land of our Lord
Who smiles on us in this beautiful eternal moment
Where all is bliss
And no one else exists except our bonded paradise
My God
Can this be real?
Surely I must be dreaming
But why does my heart say otherwise?
--

Ha!
When did writing become so damn easy?
Down boy! Sit!
You want to see the perfection of my words?
The pentameter of my phrasing
The loquaciousness of my verbosity
And the parody of my pantomime?
Get in line
No more struggle
None shall know
Who is the real master of this puppet show
Sing sweet my dear and breathe into my side
Clasp my chest and make it bare
So though the weak falter
I shall rise an angel with Prometheus
And spill my blood on this ragged cross
And mix it with the Father
No more separate and above
But inside and alive
In perfect harmonics and salutatory sensation
Forever knit into the brow of my mind
My heart spillith over unto bliss
Unfettered
Forever yours

-

Siren cry on lofty peak
The wizened man in trance bespeaks
To those the lost
The god they seek

5/1/09

Unveil yourself in all your glory
And I shall quiver beneath your invisible caress
Twin serpents entwined about my spine
Tongues flickering my cerebellum to consciousness
With so many effervescent kisses
Until I know myself no more
And I know myself as never before

---

Never question the answer
Never answer the question

5/4/09

I write as I have once before
When I was told I was no good as a writer
My words charming but without depth
Like grape juice instead of wine
And now I say
As all those who downplayed and still do my potential
And speak discouragement to my passion
To my mother who has all but renounced me
To my father whose stilted perspectives derive from his own fears
To those whom said I am a terrible and frightening and abusive monster of a man
And to those who placed their greatest hopes in me and were let down
To those whom loved me and never understood
To those whom hated me with just as little understanding
To those whom were patient
And those whom abandoned me
And all those in between
Whom in all your fickleness I tried to please
With jokes and wit and flattery
Whom delighted in my phantasmagoria
My private masquerade of characters that delight
To this voice which brightens
To my spirit which heightens
To the enemy which destroys
My soul which is stolen from under me
By the fools who drool and drown in their stupor
No nevermore
I am simply me
Good
Bad
And whatever adjectives your brain might adhere to that flapping tongue
That drips and splatters so much venom
That though I am cursed I am also loved
Though I am alone I am plural
I have learned to love the stillness
And the quiet
And the absence of all those men and women
Who say far too much
About far too little
And assume they see
Though they are like worms who eat the dirt
Or dogs who eat their young
No I have no enemies anymore
Save myself
And he is on his way out too
Burnt out like ash in the chimney flume
Nothing more to do but be swept away to oblivion
Oh but to be nothing again
Alone and nothing
The freedom
The embrace of my God
And the serpent who guards me
Ever beneath his beautiful unblinking eye
A pool of pearls
A lamp of moonlight just for me
Who understands without need for words
Who loves me when there is no one else
My companion since conception
My silent song since the womb
My obsidian angel
My soul’s guardian
Fierce-winged liberator
All that has ever mattered alpha and omega
Though I would say the same of Christ as well
Ah but so often I get the two of them confused
The same as a man whom stumbles for clothes in the dark
In the end it is the feel of the thread that matters
Even if you end up a silly sight to see in your mismatched attire of flannel and pin stripe
A polka dot peacock – how absurd!
How amusing to make a fool of yourself
In such a good way too!
Of course I’d rather go naked
And run through apple orchards in autumn
Their branches bowed low and heavy with fruit
Supple crisp and delicious in my delicate hand
Such kingly gift!
To hold the light of the sun in my palm
Grace providence and love made consecrate in nature’s humility
Let your rose-hued labor be sustenance for me
My savior
Who wept with me in suffering
Who loved me in my sin
Who let me flee the miry nest
And saw me home again
When all else seems in vain for naught
Silv’ry flickers in the night
Breath deep of God and providence
Your eyes will glow with sight
Amen
And good riddance!

5/5/09

The Emissary

I have come not to compel
But persuade you of the truth of my words
That you may become as a bird
And claim the blue-dawn horizon
Leaving behind musty prison bars
And clinging cobwebs
And the many invisible hands which bound you
Unfettered
Your eyes open and reverent
Free of the stilted dumbness of worry
And the gray phantasmagoria of doubt
The cling and clang of want
All such riddled perspective we may espouse
Be rid of all
Yea I see in your mind
And thus may we rhyme:

A sepulchral pedestal
On which stands in hoary frost
An angel made of stone
Who mourns for why the lost?
Leave behind these graves of time gone past
Neither loot nor plunder
In time to come your eyes shall see
The cause of mankind’s blunder
But now stretch wings my feathered friend
And savor time for now
Never then and never was
Never why nor how
The serpent caught her tail once
And once more will release
In cyclic winding patterned verse
In song her soul to peace
Forget this poem now and let
Bygones be their bygones
And memories laid at lest to rest
The dark before all dawns
It is time to twitter thankfully
And dance up in the sky
This is what our lord has said
No longer need we try
But trust this role allotted us
And trust in this our place
I am just but and emissary
A witness to this grace
Bounce and chirp to heart’s content
Lose not a thought or care
For where might be your home;
Family;
Soul;
Well I’m sure you’ll find

…It’s everywhere


5/7/09
My heart hammers
And my blood has become as a cesspool
A microcosmic experience of the two decades
Wherein the adder spilt his venom into my marrow
It strikes me as beyond reprehensible
That politically we espouse the systematic
Polluting of our earth and our air and our water
In the name of economic progress
Now in our affluence we export our industry to China
So the Maoists can rape their country and heritage
And export plastic
Which fills our landfills
And that pathetically empty place in our hearts
Where moths flutter betwixt musty cobwebs
Oh! As tumors crawl over my testicals like wormy maggots
And the slime of so many greedy men
Is spilt into the evacuative canals of my entrails
I wonder at what madness guides this world
And how its inhuman gaze might be curtailed
While we seem all but helpless
Our lives plucked short one by one
In cyclopean fashion
Gnashed and mashed in the bloody maw
Our brains our bodies to pulp
In the gorged gut of gluttony
Dumb and mute before the flickering idiot box
Inert in our yellow-gray torpor
Led like pigs before the trowel
That trample one another underfoot
For their daily intake of filth
Oh! How I loathe to take to such cynicism
And I daily pray and believe the best should reveal itself in humanity
A lamb unafraid amidst wolves and lions
But as its bile consecrates my veins
And putrefies my organs
I wonder at this world
Its madness
And why I am not allowed to escape it

-------

Noni (To the tune of that Jew-song)

Noni noni noni
I drink you everyday
You bring me light
You bring me life
And take the bad away
Hooray!

-----

The irony is that
When I wanted to die
Life found me
Now that I want to live
Death won’t leave me alone
Like a friend you keep around out of sympathy
Rather than for the virtue of their company
But really
Perhaps it’s not in the living or dying
But in the wanting of for either
That is the true cause for error
Hmmm…

----

5/9/09

I hate jazz

The color is like cows moaning
The dissonance like cats groaning
The form like mashing your brain with a mallet
Its eroticism like syphilis
Its soul a painted harlot flaunting her jaunty ‘goods’
This disease made music
Monkeys groping each other in a dark
Impure, corrupt and bawdy
A drunken leach leering after your sister
And soon to pass out in a pool of his own vomit
If my comments are terribly politically incorrect
It’s because I’m speaking my mind
To which I am unrepentant
And I can only thank God
I don’t have jazz stuck in there
Like sharing your space with a whining mosquito
On a hot and sticky day
With far too little wind
And if you like jazz yourself
And find this poem offensive to your opinions
I invite you write your thoughts
Particularly of the tastelessness and impish barbarism
Of Vivaldi, Bach, Handel;
Mozart and Beethoven
To those whom are of like mind to myself
And share in my musical sentiments
You will no doubt recognize and resonate
With the precision of my metaphors
As you and I know without any shadow of doubt
How much better the world would be
If those of sound spiritual compass
Navigated these tremulous currents
And alone were granted authority
To shape the waves of our time
That golden harmonics preserved and honored
And the tasteless and debauched were snubbed
That the consciousness of this world
Should become as light and crystal
Pure and undiminished
Now and forevermore
---

5/12/09

Soul’s yearning this night
For painted wings of gossamer silk
To enshroud the terrestrial spirit
In baptismal starlight dancing
On my beaming heart

5/15/09

What is this wistful sigh?
For want of what you seek?
Can you know?
Or do you grasp at sand and vapor?
These tremulous heart-feelings disturb my better sensibilities
As I was certain I no longer wanted for love
And all its phantasmagoric delirium
I have wanted (I thought) only for the purity of diamond
And not for the fleeting promises of maypoles and lilies
I have wanted for the truth, the stone, and the rock
Or for a cosmic symphony of awesome stature
Not this silly heart-feeling of such infuriatingly small proportion
Like the flicker of butterfly wings
Or mud pies in the summer-time
It is an itch of cotton dandelion seed
That just seems to linger
Hovering there in the air
Not receding into the distance
And not making up its mind to settle
And disappear beneath the grasses and other green things
It smiles at me and giggles
And most of me wants to rend it to pieces for its naked effrontery
And cast it into searing white-hot flame!
To be purified to ash and carbon
And pressed into diamond
Pure and harmonic
And never marred by that impulsive impishness that is life again
Oh to see it die
And to twist and writhe and contort into the uniformity of death
What is this bizarre desire?
And why is it betrayed by that part of me that just wants to smile benignly
And touch the reeds and grasses and smell the lilies
And enjoy that gentleness in my heart for however long it should last
I hate to love
And love to hate
This paradox that warps and schisms and complicates
Why do I hate life and love it?
They are two serpents that twist around my thigh-bones
And whose tongues flicker under the knuckle-bones of my hands
And bid me write for God knows what purpose
Forever to torment me and never to grant absolution
That one should be victor
If only I could call one ‘master’
To delight in wrath and suffering and the glory of Thanatos
Or the life of patience, nurture, and affectionate joy that is the mandate of angels
I want for neither
Yet desire the release of either
Both are freedom
So it feels as though I am stretched down the middle
Each serpent splaying my legs farther
Rifting my mind wider
And making me altogether the more aware
Of this infuriating
Tormenting
All too human feeling
This feathered softness
That won’t vacate my heart

this is probably more fitting in the art section ^^