Saturday, July 12, 2025

here be dragons

 ten years ago tonight

was Sandra Bland's last

in morning she'll be dead


found in her cell

asphyxiated 

following traffic stop


some Texas state trooper

killed her with his stop

saying she didn't signal


if you want to talk of

racial profiling, or poor training, 

or stupidity -- go ahead


for now I look at Sandra

the sorrow of institutional

clamps on wrists of a sister

.   .   .

"Here be dragons" (Latin: hic sunt dracones) means dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of a medieval practice of putting illustrations of dragons, sea monsters and other mythological creatures on uncharted areas of maps where potential dangers were thought to exist.[1][2].  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_be_dragons#:~:text=%22Here%20be%20dragons%22%20(Latin,dangers%20were%20thought%20to%20exist.

one day, surely

So much seems wrong

And is wrong

So many seem obtuse

And are stupid

So, what to do?

Pray the disheartening one

Disappears — 

Requiescat in Pace

In peace?

Yes —

Give him

What he

Doesn’t

Friday, July 11, 2025

well said

Benedict

Spoke it

So well

For us

. . .

Cf —benedictio), "a blessing," noun of action from benedicere (in classical Latin two words, bene dicere) "to speak well of, bless," from bene "well" (from PIE root *deu- (2) "to do, perform; show favor, revere") + dicere "to say, speak" (from PIE root *deik- "to show," also "pronounce solemnly").   —online etymological dictionary 

            Also:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Benedict-of-Nursia 

unlinked

 Linked-in wants to know why I am deleting my account.

It really wasn’t an active account. It was a nom de plume.

I had no connections. No bio. No work experience.

If I were a hermit, I suspect that lack of data would suffice. 

I tell them fading away.

They didn’t seem to care.

Good for them.

Good for you.

Good for me.

(write it) disaster; enough to be born

 In prison today we read Andy Weir’s story “The Egg” and then Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art.

Much sharing about deaths in families, the art of losing, the curious notion of finally being born after living every life throughout all time.

This is a post-doctoral seminar on personal phenomenology and poetic imagination. The study group is a secret configuration of unselective attendees wandering in from busy hallway in education, otherwise a passing sea of waving hellos through glass windows.

We’ve been commissioned by the decommissioned think-tank to unearth un-hypothicised connections in the ethos of thinking/feeling coming-to-word in a random setting with random attendees for an unspecified time.

We are, of course, a very high security clearance gathering. No-one, not even the attendees, knows what or why the mandate is, not the duration of the study, nor to whom the completely redacted final report will be sent.

One Art

    BY ELIZABETH BISHOP
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Copyright Credit: Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” from The Complete Poems 1926-1979.

And:

The Egg

By: Andy Weir

 

You were on your way home when you died. 

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me. 

And that’s when you met me. 

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words. 

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said. 

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said. 

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?” 

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty. 

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.” 

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. 

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent. 

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time. 

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way. 

        (--by Andy Weir) 

As we walk out of prison, we maintain a low profile. Someone calls out “That’s my philosophy professor.” No one hears him. 

A state representative is telling someone about a recent vote. A guard tells another guard what’s to eat for lunch. Lobby officer calls out saying goodbye -- he’s a cheery soul.

I get out of prison again. I’m one of the lucky ones. Security guards and prison administrators walk beside me out the final clanging door. 

I’m almost ready to be born.

What a (wonderful) disaster!