where to

 Reading Thomas’s Aquinas on causes.

“A rock falls down because its goal is the center of the earth.”

Never thought about it like that. 

essere-con oltre l'appartenenza, nessun trattino

 Monks and nuns call on

God in middle of night, chant

Into darkness, here

What are they doing 

We know that God is Beyond —

Their longing to Bewith

That’s it, isn’t it —

The longing to Bewith God

Beyond Belonging

nearing midnight

 I cannot think

Of anything

Not god

Not zen

Energy

Depletes

Surely the dead

Are dead and gone

No telling where

Until when

when it's your neck on the block, head in sand

Lalla Ded was a Kashmiri mystic who lived in the 14th century.

Poets, at times, have insight into what is taking place seven centuries later.

She wrote

   Now sir, make sure you've corralled your ass.

   Or he'll champ his way

   through your neighbors' saffron gardens.

   No one's going to stand proxy

   when it's your neck on the block. 

 

    (--Lalla Ded) 

We have an uncorralled ass champing his way through the peoples’ house and the peoples’ constitution while his minions unbutton their collars and ready their necks for (surely) a nearing falling blade.

I’m sure there will be an abundance of thoughts and prayers as their headless torsos find their way to unsurprising uncourageous ground. 

I would not have thought such reckless partisanship and mindless ambition would ever have exposed itself in such an interesting and enlightened time such as our current century.

There’s no explaining the combination of ruthless greed and uninsightful glee.

Of course, when you pride yourself on being ignorant and unawake, these’s not much wiggle room out of the quicksand of sucking breathless asphyxiation.

(o vromerós), phew, are you getting that whiff

 tear down the East Wing

of our White House, let it go

it is not needed --

we have our ο βρωμερός 

the one who makes red roses

smell like corruption

and a barrel and a heap

 Tell me

If

You love me

(“If” responds)

I love

You

A bushel and a peck

(There is

So much

To be grateful)

For

dominant minority, archeological mis-memory

At 4:20AM

Without knowing

It occurred to me

It was 4:20AM

And it was 

I awarded myself

A certificate of

Achievement

Thanked the  stars

And my family

Then proceeded

To tell you this

It is no longer

4:20AM, I have

Grown older with

This realization, and

The parchment already

Folds and crumples

With time not caring

My short window of

Astonishment cracks

Ancient papyrus, a

Forgotten civilization

Gone to slumber under

Wind-sculpted sands

Even Toynbee scholars

Are unable 

To chronicle 

In revised editions of

A Study of History

Forty-five hundred years

Into dusty dusky 

Speculation whether

We, yes we, ever existed

practice makes one’s way through

 Of course I practice

But memory is failing —

I must have practiced

Let me think of it

I walked, breathing, at snow bowl,

Read poetry, yes

I practiced, with Hirshfield, with

Lalla Ded, Robert Creeley

With meetingbrook friends

Between Buddhism

And Christianity is 

Mere conversation

no koan, no face, no recognition

 Show me your face…

     Stop it

Show me your original face…

     Stop it, stop it now

Before your parents were born…

     Just stop, right now

What’s wrong? I’m just asking…

     No you’re not, you’re antagonizing

. . .

I have no face

I am mere mask

What you see

You have put there

…

I’m sorry for asking

I won’t again

Zen is disappearing

Like your face, 

The one seen

Not recognized 

Seen,

Through and through

who woulda thunk; a real red, white, and blue

 some conclude the mess

this government is causing

can only end by

a military 

takeover, a faithful corps

true to  their sworn oath --

the constitution --

funny, isn't it, our best 

American hope

for democracy

resides in replacing chumps

with authentic grunts

...   ...   ...

cf. a look at where the power lies: and those with whom most truth dies 

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-power-map-of-the-trump-regime?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2xguy9&triedRedirect=true

note: neither Reich nor this poster advocate what these four haiku quatrains seem to mull.

Poetry is a useless meditation. There’s nothing verse than a poet before coffee. 

μνημοσύνη; ηλιθιότητα

 To find

God, get

Lost

Right here

There is

No future —

Residing

Within the

Unrecognisable 

μνημοσύνη; ηλιθιότητα

(Stupidity of

Memory)

...   ...   ...

(mnimosýni;  ilithiótita)

an antidote uneven

 I don’t know a saint

I suspect they are rare, an

Antidote, oddly

we whisper

Finish reading Bernardo Kastrup. 

• Kastrup, Bernardo (2019). The Idea of the World: A Multi-Disciplinary Argument for the Mental Nature of Reality. Winchester, UK: Iff Books. ISBN 9781785357398.[29]

At end he cites Wilbur poem:

 Epistemology  

by Richard Wilbur

 I.
Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones: 
But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.

II.
We milk the cow of the world, and as we do
We whisper in her ear, 'You are not true.’

The backstory:

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2024

'Cloudy, Cloudy Is the Stuff of Stones'

The best-known and still unchallenged refutation of the Irish Anglican Bishop George Berkeley’s theory of subjective idealism – he called it “immaterialism” -- is recounted by James Boswell on August 6, 1763: 

“After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, ‘I refute it thus.’” 

 https://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com/2024/03/cloudy-cloudy-is-stuff-of-stones.html

 Idealism? Materialism?

Leave philosophy to poetry, and the fulsome void to conversation, as in prison this morning, editing “nel vuoto”.

seeing a world not outside mind

 Ah, rain, good, at last

Dry earth opens to water

This drop, this drop, this

nel vuoto

4. To present an image. We are not a school of painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of his art.  (From the imaginism manifesto, possibly Ezra Pound)

1. 

In the void nothing

happens that you can explain —

Don’t try, stay alert

2.

Go about morning

As if each conversation

Began existence 

3.

You do not arrive

Until one unknown thought lights

Cosmic birth canal

lighting her way

 Twenty six years pass

Since sister’s death tonight, in

Cabin, guiding flame

free speech and the price of bullets

 we now put bullet-

proof protection between crowd

and speaker -- afraid

nimium, yes, 過度に (kado ni)

 There is too much to

Say — if you love me, too much

Is already said

paws sign language

 Cat walks on me

Knocks pens from table

Wants her breakfast

jesus drives by

Stillness of this room

Empty water bottles on

Desk, night table, floor —

My body becomes

Sluice between ground well and yard

Saving drought water —

Night animals hide

In stillness, overhead sky

Long, long, long distance —

We are unconscious

Our stupidity is red

No stop, crash and burn

Once, I’d say — Sunday 

Church — listen to preacher's words,

Now, silent, stay in room