Yes

ledger

 Each breath I take

I give back again

My balance sheet

Rests at zero

Asking for nothing

That’s all I get

a time will come

Let’s say

His time 

In office

Will end

When fear

Gives way

To love

Of truth

He will

Fall away

No longer

Clinging to

Poisonous

Resentment

And deceit

we found invisible currents

In prison this morning, this:

Be Near Me  

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

1911 –1984

 

Be near me now,
My tormenter, my love, be near me—
At this hour when night comes down,
When, having drunk from the gash of sunset, darkness comes
With the balm of musk in its hands, its diamond lancets,
When it comes with cries of lamentation,
                                             with laughter with songs;
Its blue-gray anklets of pain clinking with every step.
At this hour when hearts, deep in their hiding places,
Have begun to hope once more, when they start their vigil
For hands still enfolded in sleeves;
When wine being poured makes the sound
                                             of inconsolable children
                      who, though you try with all your heart,
                                             cannot be soothed.
When whatever you want to do cannot be done,
When nothing is of any use;
—At this hour when night comes down,
When night comes, dragging its long face,
                                             dressed in mourning,
Be with me,
My tormenter, my love, be near me.

 

From The True Subject by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated by Naomi Lazard. © 1987 Princeton University Press. 

Man from South Sudan, man from Pakistan, man from New England, man from Brooklyn, woman from Toronto -- a morning talking about Volkswagens, Russian symphonies, Illegitimi non carborundum, David Brooks, character, humility, and slavery, the difference between accountability vs punishment for crimes -- two poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, we do final circle.

You Tell Us What to Do 

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

1911 –1984

 

When we launched life

on the river of grief,

how vital were our arms, how ruby our blood.

With a few strokes, it seemed,

we would cross all pain,

we would soon disembark.

That didn't happen.

In the stillness of each wave we found invisible currents.

The boatmen, too, were unskilled,

their oars untested.

Investigate the matter as you will,

blame whomever, as much as you want,

but the river hasn't changed,

the raft is still the same.

Now you suggest what's to be done,

you tell us how to come ashore.  

When we saw the wounds of our country

appear on our skins,

we believed each word of the healers.

Besides, we remembered so many cures,

it seemed at any moment

all troubles would end, each wound heal completely.

That didn't happen: our ailments

were so many, so deep within us

that all diagnoses proved false, each remedy useless.

Now do whatever, follow each clue,

accuse whomever, as much as you will,

our bodies are still the same,

our wounds still open.

Now tell us what we should do,

you tell us how to heal these wounds.

 

 

From The Rebel's Silhouette by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated by Agha Shahid Ali. Copyright © 1991 by Agha Shahid Ali.

The always surprise of gratefulness. 

who nowadays

I’m glad they practiced hard and long. 

Observe the example of Buddha Shakyamuni of the Jeta Grove, who practiced sitting up straight for six years even though he was gifted with intrinsic wisdom.  

 

Still celebrated is Master Bodhidharma of the Shaolin Temple, who sat facing the wall for nine years although he had already received the mind seal.  

 

Ancient sages were like this; who nowadays does not need to practice as they did?

—Dogen 1227, dailyzen

I am not such a practitioner.

I tire easily.

My name is already forgotten.

Mercifully.

no more will go in

 Too much is said

Too many words

Mostly opinion

Mostly unnecessary

(He shakes his head)

(He says nothing else)

the very thing that dominates and exploits us

David Brooks cites Michel Foucault as saying the essential struggle in life is against the fascist in each one of us.

Here’s Foucault's full quote:

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.

(--quote is from French philosopher Michel Foucault's preface to the English translation of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's book Anti-Oedipus.)

 Without self-awareness and self-understanding, we are pawns of the fascism of others and the fascism within us.

History and culture are less a mystery when we investigate that within us which creates and enables history and culture

je ne sais quoi bon mots et pensées

 Whose penis will get hard for hours

Whose breasts slip out in wardrobe malfunction

Which medications will cure diabetes, heart disease, spine curvature

These are our tv and radio and internet news and advertisements

America’s preoccupation with practicing  and pardoning pedophilia 

the new game of who gives a shit about truth, I’m a genius, got money

I’d rather listen to sardonic Keith Olbermann and wizened David Brooks

Certainly helpful Heather Cox Richardson or even dour Paul Krugman

One vote for opening umbrella to ward off the hundreds of podcasts

pundits and pontificators falling from an indiscriminate sky 

Back to books, essays, monographs, and scholarly pieces peer reviewed

On to haiku, prose poems, essays, and je ne sais quoi bon mots et pensées

noting that which drives by on a Thursday early afternoon

the silent house, everything holding its counsel, as your eyes testify

finishing power of now

 Cold April day

Hot bath, snug nap —

No one cares what I do

at 4;30 am, this

• Phenomena
• Moving through exchange
• To that which is manifest

• . . .

• plural phenomena  : an observable fact or event : an item of experience or reality
• the act of giving or taking one thing in return for another
• : readily perceived by the senses and especially by the sense of sight. Their sadness was manifest in their faces; easily understood or recognized by the mind : OBVIOUS

I suppose I could have dreamt about hot dogs and baked beans, some diet tonic water alongside a lake in Cape Breton.

But the process of phenomenology in nine words?

Or, as in Tuesday Evening Conversation, remembering how Charles G., known affectionately as ’the mouth of the harbor' twenty years ago at our shop, would sing at me:

You've got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive

E-lim-i-nate the negative

Latch on to the affirmative

Don't mess with Mr. In-Between

https://genius.com/Bing-crosby-ac-cent-tchu-ate-the-positive-lyrics 

We loved to disagree. 

He was responding to the stance I took that relationality, nexus, in media stat virtus, stepping into the between, the not-this not-that, the Buddha’s Middle way, the advaita, the form is emptiness, emptiness form, the I and the Father are One, the Shema’s The Lord is One, the pivot point on the see-saw, the eye that sees the world is the eye that sees me.

Moving through the exchange is where Being and Becoming traverse one another, where idea and action sit for tea, where duality collapses into Itself.

I no longer have any desire to see a discrete and embodied God.

Not on earth, nor in heaven.

I’d prefer to have my attention move toward that which is manifest, moving through the exchange that phenomena donates to Itself.

That which we mine without possession.

where light goes when it goes out

 my streak continues

sitting still in medical room

lights go out with unmoving

a universe of pinpoint glowing

enter/leave my eyes

til she comes in

saying “you

did it

again”

not unlike

axe handles

snyder, chen, pound

calling bird through morning tree

 Cat wants to eat

Buddha just sits there

Northeast sun on right shoulder

gassho

 Earth —

What loveliness 

Such 

Good companion

extro … vision/version

 I am

Looking 

Out

For my  

Self 

shy heart

sish-squish

sish-squish

sish-squish

take a breath, 

exhale -- hold it

take a breath, 

exhale -- hold it

take a breath

exhale, hold it

the choreography of

echocardiography

laying on left side

as she moves reader-ball

here and there while heart

yawns and tries not to pose

that is not it at all

 My mother once told me I was cruel because I remembered conversations and things told me.

I know, I know -- quoting bible stories as told probably fits that cruelty.

According to the book of Genesis, after cre-

ating the universe, god created Adam (2: 7). He

(god’s reported gender) forbad Adam from eating

fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

(2: 17). After god decided Adam needed a help-

mate, he created Eve (21–2). Gen 3 explains that

a serpent tempted Eve to eat said fruit – rules be

damned. She ate the fruit and gave Adam a bite.

God was not happy. He cursed Eve: she had to

conceive and carry children (16). Adam had to

work the land.

As many of you may know, some religious

individuals try to explain this (and other) sto-

ries away, to claim that they are metaphorical.

Many believers reject these reinterpretations.

Whether metaphorical or not, these spell trouble

for a Christian conception of god.

God punished Adam not for doing ‘wrong’

in any ordinary sense of that term, but for

disobeying him. God told Adam not to eat

said fruit. (He could have told them: ‘don’t

pick your nose while standing on your left

leg’.) But why is disobeying god wrong unless

what Adam did was wrong, independent of the

command? Otherwise, god looks like a mob boss

who expects compliance, no matter what the

command. That does not sound like the actions

of a noble creature.

Then in Gen 6: 11–15, we learn about Noah.

God did not like the way Noah’s neighbours

acted. So, god devised a scheme to save Noah

and punish everyone else. He instructed Noah

to build a boat on which he could carry his fam-

ily and one pair of all animal species. Then the

rain came. Forty days and nights. Non-stop. Any

creature not on the boat died, including all peo-

ple, no matter their age, and all animals – sans

those fortunate enough to be chosen for a boat

ride.

Is that a suitable death for two-year-olds,

mentally challenged twelve-year-olds, or George

and Georgina Giraffe? What would we think of

a human who did this? We would deem him a

‘moral monster’. So we should. We would not

revere him or consider him kind, generous or

loving.

Then there is Job as described in the book

by that name. Job was upright. But Satan (why

did god create Satan?) came to god and bet him

that Job would no longer continue to worship

him if he (Job) lost all he cared for. On a bet

god allowed Job to lose his family, wealth and

42

https://doi.org/10.1017/S147717562510078X Published online by Cambridge University PressThink • Vol 24 • No 71 • Autumn 2025

standing. By golly, he was going to show that

devil!

God won the wager. Job never cursed god. But

to what end? So that god could demonstrate that

he was right? What would we say of a human

engaging in such a wager? We would not praise

him.

(-from, Living Without a God, by Hugh LaFollette)

I suppose the biblical author, like Eliot’s Prufrock, would add: 

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

"That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all."

https://www.maths.tcd.ie/~busy/prufrock.html#:~:text=It%20is%20impossible%20to%20say,I%20meant%2C%20at%20all.%22

So we are left with the scholar’s dilemma -- is it fact, fiction, myth, metaphor, analogically generated stories pointing beyond themselves?

Is “God” a literary device served up to initiate a cultural/political baseline for future capitalization and control?

Or, are we merely screwed by thinking independently and going against commonly held belief?

These days, everything is a wager -- from sporting events to the Strait of Hormuz to tomorrow morning's stock market numbers. 

Place your bets, gentlemen and ladies!

And never give a sucker an even break!

fiat nobis

 It must come upon many. The weariness. The body moving away from itself.

The tiredness of awfulness.

The way the rich and powerful in their dreariness and slovenly discounting of moral behavior model ugliness and disreputable ways.

This is a hard age.

We look to the honorable and the kind for encouragement.

To the dignified and the saintly for example.