for LJ user stephanielynch

When the middle of the road is muddy slick
so that the vehicles of truth get mired,
'Tis then the vultures gather there to pick
among the helpless and the uninspired.

The wheels of progress spin but cannot grab
or gain a purchase 'gainst the tide of war,
but spout mere rhetoric and useless gab
until the words don't matter anymore.

And love? It is subsumed in mindless hate;
the doves of peace set on by hungry hawks
who speak of "help" but would decide our fate
while the whole world still argues and just gawks.

The future in such times is so unsure -
for who's to judge whose motives are more pure?

21 JUN 2003

I remember being 8 years old and watching every minute of the Watergate hearings on television. Watching the PBS special on the 30th Anniversary of the Destruction of the Innocence of the Republic, or rather, the Watergate scandal (which Kurt Vonnegut so eloquently pointed out was the first time we as a nation were made aware that a President so hated the American people that he in essence used the Constitution as toilet paper and demonstrated his contempt for law as being for other people), I am reminded of something Lao Tzu wrote:

The value of a government lies in its honesty;
The value of management lies in its ability;
The value of action lies its timing.

To which I might also add: the value of justice lies in its impartiality.

As many of the senators who participated in the hearings commented in this retrospective, it would nice if we as a nation had learned some kind of lasting lesson from Watergate. Something about the nature of the Executive branch to stretch its tentacles seeking power and usurping the nature of balance between itself and the other branches of government. Something about our Chief Executive believing themselves above the law, beyond the realm of culpability, outside the judgment of history, able to justify its own actions in the name of national security.

I can hear you breathing, America
Will you catch up with me
Dangling your embittered and jealous umbilicus
Asking
Who among you when your child asks for bread
Will hand him a grenade?
It's not some dark sin that hides you
That tangles itself between your hunchback slouch
Taking the offense
And turning it to saccharine misgiving,
Writing manifesto after manifesto
In depressed Republican villages,
Burning books
(besides, who reads?)
That betray the lies:
The absence of a common enemy
A booming peacetime economy
Unprecedented availability of information.
No one wins this anti-trust action,
America,
I can hear you breathing,
Sweating,
Cursing your unseen enemies
In the absence of the rear view mirror
I was young, once,
But you were born to bed pans and liquid food,
To hearing aids and walking sticks,
To constipation and incontinence.
Can you hear me, America?

2001

Sometimes, I think that I have borne a lot
of resentment, and fought against the world
believing to lead with your fist uncurled
meant weakness, and what you deserved, you got.

I lived as if my troubles were the most
important thing in the whole universe;
and those who hurt me, from me got it worse.
I thought of myself as a hungry ghost,

feeding on others misfortune and pain,
using their foibles as inspiration
for forming great theories, the creation
of a clever ruse to hide my disdain.

And karma? What was that to do with me?
My actions, like a pebble in the pond
sent waves echoing outward, far beyond
my line of sight. In my sad vanity

I imagined that being the center, source
from which this negativity bounded,
it was the ugly world that surrounded
the force for good that was myself. Of course,

I was wrong about some things, and yet right
about a few others. Like what you get
being what you deserve; if you forget
that one, your world view becomes wrapped so tight

a light, little touch can send you spinning
into a void of angry self-pity
where your soul's balance and integrity
are lost in cruel games, and no one's winning.

Sometimes, I think that I have borne a lot;
but then, I look at where my life is now,
looking back on the bitter weeds I plow
under, those tares I sowed in my own plot.

I realize my misspent days of youth
were but a preamble to my real life,
and that by reaping then that field of strife
I have prepared the soil to grow some truth.

28 JUL 2003

It is sometimes quite odd the things that happen when you are on a journey of self-discovery. Take this weekend, for example. I was sitting around, minding my own business, meditating and updating various computer things, and the telephone rang.
The voice on the other end asked, "may I speak to John Litzenberg, please?"

I responded, "this is he."

The man on the other end replied, "so is this."

Apparently, about two years ago, this man's son was visiting in New Orleans, and was his wont, he looked up other Litzenbergs in the phone book. Finding someone listed with his father's name, he wrote it down and gave the note to his dad when he returned home to Elkton, MD. While going through his desk, John Litzenberg found my name and number, and immediately thought to call me up.

We talked for a while about ancestry and family history (we had never met, but I informed him if he wanted more information on me, that I was in the big Litzenberg-Litzenberger book [compiled by my cousin Homer L. (whose father was Blitzin' Litzen, the Marine Corps Brigadier General in charge of Marine forces in Korea, BTW)] as entry 3778), and shared pleasantries and such for about 15 minutes. He is apparently in real estate; I am in project management and information technology consulting. Both of us lamented the high cost of the reunion trips that are planned every year to Gemunden, Germany for persons of like name, and noted that while there seem to be a great number of Litzenbergs active in the States, probably keeping their numbers at no more than a thousand or so is a good thing, as we seem to be a rather "ornery" bunch (LOL).

As he is in his early sixties, he of course had the name first. But it is still quite odd to talk to yourself on the phone, is it not?

Money is not wealth. Wealth is the accomplished technological ability to protect, nurture, support, and accommodate all growful needs of life. Money is only an expediency-adopted means of interexchanging disparately sized, nonequatable items of real wealth. -- R. Buckminister Fuller, Critical Path

How wealthy are you? What is your treasure? I know that sometimes I think I have so little to work with; and yet, in the overall scheme of things I have indeed an abundance. And what we have, that is what we have to give.

I have been a smoker for a long time. You know, I've been watching these Philip Morris legislation required commercials advocating parental communication as the method for preventing children from smoking...and I've been thinking...while it is necessary for parents to communicate with their children, their words mean very little in comparison to their actions.

So here's my idea for the new Philip Morris ad:

Parents
if you want your children to be non-smokers
don't just talk about it.

Quit smoking.

As long as we're in business
you're wasting your breath.

If you are angry about violence,
hate the war-mongers who destroy and kill,
use guilt as a weapon for innocence,
you may think to win, but you never will.

Because these tools that you use are the same
that you rally against. To shout speeches
filled full with such rage is to play the game
you claim to despise. For true peace preaches

to end all vitriol and harsh attack:
an absence of malice against perceived
enemies; its purpose is to give back -
not belittle or shame. You are deceived

if you think fighting changes the system;
all it does is make you look just like "them".

23 JUL 2003

for Sogyal Rinpoche and Dylan Thomas

Go forth gentle into that coming night,
for a new world to come, the old must give way
Know this: there is no dying of the light.

Though we may grasp at things still within sight,
Because the wise make peace with this world, they
Go forth gentle into that coming night.

Good deeds, their sparkle faded, seem not bright,
as the lamplight from our wick fades away;
Know this: there is no dying of the light.

Release your wild and worried fears in flight,
the doubt that lingers, let it fade today;
Go forth gentle into that coming night.

Each of us sees in death distress and fright,
imagining this chapter's end is gray;
Know this: there is no dying of the light.

So now, my friends, perched there on that sad height,
No curses give, do not this life betray;
Go forth gentle into that coming night.
Know this: there is no dying of the light.

22 JUL 2003

Sometimes it seems that words are so inadequate to describe the true nature of things. As a poet, I find that lack of expressive ability most trying - particularly when what is being described is seen, but not so much with the organs of sight, but with the entire being. English, I think, is limiting in that there are so few ways to clearly illustrate the perceptions of all the senses and translate those experiences and impressions to a world that seems so caught up in the way things look as a means for definition. As a Musician, I can appreciate the sound of things - in fact, it is the tone in a voice that conveys to me so much more than the words that voice is using. Perhaps it is an identification with a more "animal" level - dogs, for example, don't really much care what you say to them; they are more interested in how you are saying it. They understand the underlying intent, maybe, more clearly than we do at a conscious level. Definitely, the medium for the message affects us in often unnoticed ways, but it is seldom that we make the immediate connection between our perception of tone and the way the speaker makes us feel.

One of the dangers, of course, with using any language well is that one can appear to be extremely knowledgeable about something by merely putting words together in a "recognized" cohesive pattern that seems educated. How deceptive that can be! We live in a world where the manipulation of language for the purposes of coersion, conversion and consumerism is a phenomenon that barrages us on a constant basis. We place so much trust in a speaker that can complicate an issue beyond our grasp. Simplicity is seen as a flaw, something to be avoided except when necessary to communicate with the "lower" classes, the unwashed masses, so to speak.

Of course, I am guilty of this as well. Perhaps that is why I tend to relate my impressions of the world in the metaphor of Poetry, in the distillation of images - trying to capture the essence of a thing, rather than explicitly describing its characteristics. As you can see from reading this voluminous discourse so far, it is very easy for someone with a command of the language to say very little in a long stream of words. But on an intellectual level, I think this is how we all operate. Not necessarily to convert, or to convince, but simply because the idiom of written and spoken language requires it in our exposition.

At this point in my life, I am floating between two worlds - the world that requires thorough documentation, and the world that operates on the ephemera of innuendo and suggestion. But what is it that I am trying to explain, and to whom? When I look back at the Musical ambitions that I have for the most part abandoned, it seems that lyrically I was trying to make things as dense as possible, while Musically I was seeking more and more simplification. But is that like putting old wine in new wineskins? Or visa versa?
So many questions. Are they all necessary, or are they merely a myriad of manifestations of a few, straightforward, simple queries? Behind the flurry of activity that fills the mind, the basic necessities of life being hidden. The common, ordinary, rudimentary requirements for continued existence. To think of it as a shared bond that unites us as equals is to think of it as a set of fetters, that tie us, so that, in the metaphor of W.E.B. DuBois, when one crawfish tries to escape from the barrel, the rest, being intricately linked by virtue of being so closely crammed together, claws and tails and antenna intertwined, pull that single probing creature back into the mire of their common bond. So often, we think of "common" and the image is of boring, everyday, lowly and plain. But that is our humanity, isn't it? That which makes the "other" our mirror.
There is a journey that I must make, that we each must make, absolutely and completely alone. But we do not make that journey in a vacuum. Our path is in this world, where countless others have tread and where multitudes of others also walk and will walk in the future. Like Thomas More said:

"Each of us is in this cart, headed for execution. Who then should I hate, or feel angry towards, or despise?"

Pursuit is chasing after, without loving to run -
not enjoying the wind whipping through your hair,
almost forgetting the purpose the race has begun -
just looking for something, you know not where.

Seeking is visiting a thing where it lives -
not wandering a hidden, overgrown mew,
almost losing your way as the underbrush gives -
just remembering something you already knew.

There is no joy in pursuing, unless your quarry
truly wants you to catch it, and gives you the chance -
and then, in a meaningless bother and flurry,
you imagine yourself and it, partners in dance.

But with seeking, you approach with an open heart,
bearing gifts for the host of the place;
knowing not what you will leave with when you part,
only sensing the truth with an honest face.

22 JUL 2003

My religion is to live - and die - without regret. -- Milarepa, 1052-1135 CE

An interview meme, in which I am asked five questions by LJ user saturnalia22:

1: Is there any particular song (or songs) that you feel is (are) so amazing that you wish to kill or severely maim anyone who interrupts you while you're listening to it (them)? If so, what? If not, what song(s) come closest to this sentiment?

Strange, but this and many of the other questions I would have answered so differently just five years ago. Not that even then I would consider killing or severely maiming, but definitely getting hot under the collar and irate ... usually it's the long songs that one gets into the mood of ... like Ravi Shankar's performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, or Pink Floyd's "Echoes" ... those would come close. When you have kids, though, you get so used to being interrupted in the middle of anything that if that were to cause thoughts of murder, there wouldn't be any future generations. A whole song? LOL...you must be joking.

2: Tom Waits once said, "Don't you know there ain't no devil, that's just god when he's drunk." What do you feel is god's (or fate's, or fortune's or mother nature's or whatever your belief may be) most cruel or creative (your choice) joke played on the world? What about the most cruel/creative joke played on mankind?

Ah, Tom Waits - so gifted and yet so bitter. I think it is possible that Tom Waits has a Bukowski complex, if there is such a thing. But at least the question is straight-forward. I think the cruelest (and also most creative) joke played on the world was the introduction of the human species. By whatever means it was accomplished. I think the most cruel/creative joke played on mankind was the ability to use intellect and compassion separately. That possibility for the separation of church and state has resulted in both evil genius and ineffective sentimentalists.

3: Define "reality" in your own terms.

The world as it is. Not as it should be, or was, or will be. Traveling at the speed of now. Energy borrowed, energy returned. Not what you see, because there are so many words in language that relate to the lies of the eyes. What you hear the world to be. The song you have to learn, or be mute.

4: Name the character in a book, poem, song, or movie that you would most like to be. What about the one you'd least like to be?

Strange question, in a way. The problem with choosing a character from a work of Fiction is you already know how their life is going to end. You'd have to give up that mystery to switch with them. Don't know if I've ever really considered that a worthwhile proposition. But, when I was a kid, I wanted to be Remo Williams in the series the Destroyer. Because, frankly, I thought it would great to have an ancient oriental guru. LOL. But I think it is probably closer to my reality now that I would choose Siddhartha or Magister Ludi (both from Herman Hesse). I guess I'd least like to be Mr. Potter (the banker from "It's a Wonderful Life").

5: If were offered the ability to, just by thinking it, cause anyone you wish to die instantly, would you accept it? If so, who would be on your shit list? If not, why not?

Of course, that's assuming that we each don't have the ability already ... No. I would not accept it, nor if I had it, would I use it. The responsibility is too great, and life is too precious. I am not in a position to judge ANYONE. Besides, people that get on my "shit list" eventually clean up - after all, it IS water soluble. There are a lot of people that I have a great deal of compassion for ... and worry about ... and wish would get their lives together ... and recognize their own potential (whatever that may be, not up to me to say) ... but nobody's been on my shit-list for probably 10 years.

Here's something I would consider for mine, lo those many moons from now:

I have had my invitation to this world's festival, and thus my life has been blessed. My eyes have seen and my ears have heard. It was my part at this feast to play upon my instrument, and I have done all I could. Now, I ask, has the time come at last when I may go in and see thy face and offer thee my silent salutations? -- Rabindranath Tagore, from Gitanjali

And of course, Pink Floyd's "Great Gig in the Sky" would HAVE to be playing at the recessional.

But who cries for God? -- Ramakrishna

If you see the Buddha by the roadside,
stop, and ask him how his day is going,
inquire if perhaps he might need a ride ...
if you do not, there's no way of knowing.

Give him a break, for a minute - don't just
ask for yet another explanation,
without even smiling - you know, that must
make his a depressing situation.

After all, he's here 'til we are all free -
judging by the state of things, a long time;
at night in his motel watching TV
does he shake his gold head and wonder why?

Of course, being beyond all the drama
helps; at least he's not still just a lama...

('cause nobody thinks they need hugs, either)

17 JUL 2003

So much pain and sorrow, so little joy!
It seems to me the world is full enough
with ugliness and the things that annoy
and irritate - why carry all that stuff

with you in a place where you can let go,
where appearance and local convention
don't apply, where you can speak what you know
without fear, pressure or apprehension?

Why catalog the ways in which your life
has sucked, when the real world carries that news?
While it is good to find a caring ear,
does filling it with just darkness and strife
seem like the most productive path to choose?
Life is so short, and each moment so dear.

17 JUL 2003

Into the crumbling chasm we fall,
past expectations and preconception
where rational mind's great gift, perception
turns out to be not too much use at all;

and the comforting thoughts of our blindness
(great faith in dogmatic institutions
giving us outward form, but no solutions)
seem so useless, if void of some kindness.

When you accept a single lie, because
it makes your own state easy to swallow,
your search for truth is weakened and hollow;
and you may cure symptoms, but not their cause.
Ah, how much effort we each spend to solve
mysteries that do not help us evolve!

16 JUL 2003

a pantoum

Hello, I told the ladies at the gate:
Come in, I'd like to hear of your good news.
But first, and on this I'll hear no debate,
I'd like to offer some good news to you.

You'll need no chapter or verse for this news;
the Word of God is not inside that book.
But listen, to this truth I'll share with you:
The Word of God is life - listen and look.

It says the Word became flesh in that book,
that that flesh died so you could live more full;
and so, in truth, the world lives, and then, look -
the carrot dies, the chicken, fish and bull.

With life, in each second, the world is full,
and too, with death, for each must turn to dust;
to think it otherwise is purely bull -
for we have eaten, and give back we must.

Now our time is so short, then turns to dust,
So ladies, please retire, and shut the gate;
I hate to bid adieu, but fear I must,
and bring an end to our pleasant debate.

15 JUL 2003

Encountered at LJ user arisbe's place ... much like the Burroughs Cut-Up Generator found elsewhere on the 'Net, but this one doesn't interject Burrough's words into your own, simply cuts up your journal entries and combines them in random ways. You can refresh and it gives you different things...quite interesting, and in fact, if you subscribe to Burroughs' notion, a very accurate mirror of your inner most thoughts.

So undone by wishing, though its hiding shore, I saw
No there are work for whom has love, so doing one should not a madman's fate!
As to find it all of the
Most men come across my are a figure in the things heart's wisdom,
Existence is the sky that where pulls itself in particular and bright and heard, in fact, or that you'd tried to blur
Away
On a sense of the surface: where I don't want to birds,
You for the washing of very the map there's a way these words.
Only the surface where it better poet and clear, and
Nowhere, in the bliss this or that few can see smiling, would look at the plate.
I waited
On
Having borrowed a shadow place and also does so much
For this information, it in the just images: spirit for interpretation where it: took only one's own religion to fool in images; just one should not made by narrow throated, whiney, high pitched singing,
but on the road to other believe that moon's
Full state: and cursed and drink
Deep and sound: one should not made by the windswept wet hot
Night.
With light of me, that looks like a lost.

14 JUL 2003

for Pietro

For whom has Love so undone you?
I, smiling, would look at them and say nothing.
-- Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova

Ah, could I be quite so fully undone
by that which being shown me made me whole,
Love? To see it in just one place, begun,
then its ending, elsewhere, would leave my soul

lost. To pine for that which in visions lives,
but cannot manifest in fact, or clothe
itself in flesh: such limitation gives
new life to heaven and hell, being both.

Dante, were you truly in love, your eyes
would behold no other sight save that state,
and your undoing would be undisguised

delight - called by some fools a madman's fate!
Ah, to be so undone, to find magic
in the world as it is, is not tragic.

14 JUL 2003

You never told me that you'd tried to change;
all of this time I just thought that you were strange.
You never said those magic words
that turned our hearts from rocks to birds.

You never tried to understand:
all I wanted was the promised land;
you never saw those tears I cried
when the phonograph broke down and died.

Ah, you're living in another world
Ah, is it easy to laugh at me, girl?
Have you found the things that make it all worthwhile?
Have you touched the sky, or seen an angel smile?
Is it better to have substance, or have style?

You never reached inside and felt around
while you were floating high above me on the ground;
you never stopped to cut the strings
that tied me to your rhinestone wings.

You never promised me the stars,
but drove me, often, all around, in fancy cars,
to visit lost and lonely souls
who lived in broken, plastic bowls.

You've lived your life in another world
Is that anything to be proud of?
Is it easy to imagine that you're anywhere
When the circus of your life comes around?

You told me that you never learned to dance;
what is anything worth if you don't take a chance?
If you never learn to look around,
how can anything that's lost be found?

1986

Sometimes, I wish it took only these words;
like a simple spell cast out in the sky
that turned hard, jagged rocks to gentle birds,
gave the stubborn wingless the will to fly.

But "fish gotta swim, and birds gotta fly";
reality's not made just by wishing,
though there are those who think that to just cry
out "catfish" is a method of fishing.

Still, in a way, these words are work enough;
Alone, they move no mountains, as they drip
along the edge where the finish is rough -
but winding their slow way, they too may slip

to the sea, and wear away a whole coast.
Perhaps, by seeming least, they do the most.

14 JUL 2003

There is a soft glow to the world tonight,
and the dark, dim lit streets, beseiged with rain
these past three weeks, shimmer silver and bright
while the clouds are wispy and on the wane.

For a brief moment, between summer storms
the sky is clear, and from its hiding place
where it has grown big and full, the moon comes
into view, the features of its round face

sharp and defined, like an epiphany
that fills the dull world with recognition.
Enlightened souls are like that moon's full state:
While others absorb light, separately,
they, by their actions and disposition,
like mirrors, reflect and illuminate.

13 JUL 2003

I have looked for long hours across the bay,
sensing in the coming dawn some great sign;
after my simple chores are done each day,
when each minute spent does not seem so fine,

along the windswept shore I roam, my eyes
scanning the horizon for floating birds,
seeing the joining of the earth and skies
and in that union, peace beyond words.

Today, there in the mist I thought I spied
upon a raft, a man who looked like me;
our glances locked, and with my hand I tried

to steer his way across the stretching sea.
He waved, and in the wind his hair was wild;
I waited on the rocky shore, and smiled.

11 JUL 2003

What do you think of this?

First: Liberality, generosity, charity. The representative should not have craving and attachment to wealth and property, but should give it away for the welfare of the people.

Second: A high moral character. The representative should never destroy life, cheat, steal and exploit others, commit adultery, utter falsehood, or take intoxicating drinks.

Third: Sacrificing everything for the good of the people, they must be prepared to give up all personal comfort, name and fame, and even life, in the interest of the people.

Fourth: Honesty and integrity. They must be free from fear or favour in the discharge of their duties, must be sincere in their intentions, and must not deceive the public.

Fifth: Kindness and gentleness. They must possess a genial temperament.

Sixth: Austerity in habits. They must lead a simple life, and should not indulge in a life of luxury. They must have self-control.

Seventh: Freedom from hatred, ill-will, enmity. They should bear no grudge against anybody.

Eighth: Non-violence, which means not only that they should harm nobody, but also that they should try to promote peace by avoiding and preventing war, and everything which involves violence and destruction of life.

Ninth: Patience, forbearance, tolerance, understanding. They must be able to bear hardships, difficulties and insults without losing their temper.

Tenth: Non-opposition, non-obstruction, that is to say that they should not oppose the will of the people, should not obstruct any measures that are conducive to the welfare of the people. In other words they should rule in harmony with their people.

-- Guatama Buddha, Jataka text, the Dhammapadatthakatha

Ah, are there ANY of our elected officials (or those we propose for such a task) who can measure up to THIS standard?

I have lingered long by the endless shore,
voice lost to the surf, that infinite shift
that pulls itself from the littered ocean floor
and upon which my thoughts float free and drift;

for many years I saw only the edge
of it, against the long horizon's line,
and heard, in the haunting seagull's solfege
a wistful song that sounded much like mine.

I could construct a raft, I thought, and tack
against the wind and storm, to other shores;
perhaps there I would find what here I lack -
a quiet port that the busy world ignores.

But now, upon the distant coast, I see
A figure in the wind that looks like me.

10 JUL 2003

Existence is a sea; man's speech its shore; Letters its oyster-shells, pearls of the heart's wisdom. With every wave a thousand pearls of price Scattered around, of knowledge, of imagery, New facts to grasp, conclusions fresh to draw, A thousand waves with every breath arise, No less is in one drop than in them all. Wisdom, existence, doth that sea contain; Its outward envelope is speech and sound. Here understanding halts; and more, Save in a parable, may not be given. -- from The Secret Garden, Mahmud Shabistari, 13th Century Persian sage

One should not honour only one's own religion and condemn the religions of others, but one should honour others' religions for this or that reason. So doing, one helps one's own religion to grow and renders service to the religions of others too. In acting otherwise one digs the grave of one's own religion and also does harm to other religions. Whosoever honours his own religion and condemns other religions, does so indeed through devotion to his own religion, thinking "I will glorify my own religion." But on the contrary, in so doing he injures his own religion more gravely. So concord is good: Let all listen, and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others. -- Emperor Asoka of India, 3rd century B.C., Rock Edict, XII.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.

She lies hidden there beneath the surface
where waiting in silence she gives no sign;
then all of a sudden, without warning,
she comes, and just as soon is gone again.

When the quiet mood of dawn has lifted
and only tattered scraps of mist remain,
she whispers softly of secret longings,
too sacred for the light of the new day.

As the bustle and bursting energy
of conscious thought engulfs the waking world,
she lingers laughing in the soft shadows,
and watches as the frantic sparks collide.

She winks an eye in a lost, dreamless sleep
and stretches out in her langorous skin;
seeped into the pores of an gnarled old oak,
she seeks the core of all living matter.

While the senseless chaos of daylight sounds
its bright, feverish song through her ancient bones,
she breathes out, in her dark and dulcet tones,
a current of energy that few can hear.

Until, as the last light that lingers fades,
she wakens, and through the ink sky, ascends;
Even then, though we glimpse her illusion,
she lies hidden there beneath the surface.

28 FEB 2002

OK, so I've got a great head voice (albeit reduced somewhat due to years of smoking), and have done first and second tenor singing, but my natural home range is straight on baritone. When placing natural baritones in history, there are only a few memorable choices (but, my are they memorable). Based on this information, it leads me to believe that where your voice falls when compared to the cultural milieu of popular Music during your formative years decidely puts you into a certain mindset. I, for example, could never really relate to Led Zeppelin, but naturally fell to Deep Purple (ah, to be able to scream as I used to ...). Likewise, so much of the seventies and eighties rock was dominated by narrow-throated, whiney, high-pitched singing. So who were/are the great baritones (at least in rock/pop):

Johnny Cash
Elvis Presley
Jim Morrison
Barry White
Isaac Hayes
Ritchie Havens
Doug Ingle (from Iron Butterfly)
George Jones
Stephen Stills
Paul McCartney (sometimes, although he uses/used a lot of head voice)
B. B. King
Otis Redding

Is it any wonder I turned out the way I did?

The moon is as full tonight as my heart;
it hangs low in the sky, brimming with light
that cascades in dimming circles that start
to lose their focus in the wet hot night.

Only half filled, and yet it seems so bright
and clear, despite the shrouding, cloying fog
that seeks to blur away the line of sight,
the soupy air laying like an old dog

panting, too worn out and winded to bark;
My heart, too, is tired, but satisfied
to sit under the carport in the dark

and ponder the world, beautiful and wide.
Half full? The rest lies in a shadow place,
and forms the smile that fills my face.

08 JUL 2003

Life is suffering disappointment good bullshit not a noun.

for Starlight Dances

The things that you love are a part of me,
each butterfly that brings a laughing smile;
Our community grows large because we
share every moment and each traveled mile.

I can touch you here and now, feel your lips
against mine, your scent on the morning breeze;
and if for brief times the world fades and slips
away in mist - I say, do as you please,

dear Maya, for there are two of us here,
beyond the veil of time. It matters not
whether our past lives brought us so near,
only the bliss this small moment has brought.
While we are on this precious, living path
Let us pause, and drink deep, and love to laugh.

08 JUL 2003

Most men come here broken,
but you appear undefiled
despite the years you must have spent
out roaming in the wild;
and when I asked you for your name,
you offered up naught but a smile.
No, you are not mild nor meek at heart,
for you are your father's child.

Most men arrive hungry,
but you mention only thirst,
as if you'd come across the desert,
scorched by sun and cursed;
and when I looked into your eyes,
I saw no dam had burst.
Though your mother tried to shape you,
you were your father's first.

You wonder of the lesson?
well, it's already begun;
and we will speak again, in time,
when this lesson is done.
No, there is naught to give you
save the space and leave to run -
for you are complete within yourself,
you are your father's son.

07 JUL 2003

Sometimes, life is simple, clean and pure lines
like the woodcuts in my edition of
Chuang Tzu; there is a sense of stillness that
permeates the busy scenes of action,

that slices right through the day's busy-ness
and yet is un-noticed, like the soft pause
of the flute when the oboe's line plays through;
in the epiphany of rest, the soul,

often against the mind's better judgment,
finds the vast, empty spaces between breath,
where there are no ancestors or teachers,
no lessons or ways of becoming whole.

Now that you have finished up your dinner,
what remains is the washing of the plate.

06 JUL 2003

You can't hang those outside our house, she said,
looking at the string of fifteen small flags
that I carefully unrolled and held out,
stretched to full arms length across my big chest -

it will look like an all-night Buddhist pub -
and everyone who passes by will stop
at all hours for a cup of jasmine tea;
or, she said low, those Monte Carlo boys

seeing blue and red colors in the breeze
will cross the street, seeing competition
for the mind-altering stuff they pander,
and maybe bust a cap in someone's ass.
I laughed. The mind of a fifteen year old
is quite a strange place to visit, sometimes.

06 JUL 2003

Now, don't get me wrong - declaring your independence, staking a visible claim for your emancipation, raising your individual voice to separate yourself from the faceless crowd, seeking to differentiate yourself from the chains of slavery of any kind by stating your status as a free and noble creature, all these things are wonderful, necessary and absolutely empowering epiphany moments. But let us not forget that declaring one's independence is not the same as achieiving it, proving it or sustaining it. Just like getting a job is usually the easiest part, compared to keeping it or doing it (or getting to and from it).

So, on this Independence Day (which of course, was the day that we as a nation declared ourselves independent, in 1776 - it wasn't until 1783 that our independence became a reality; we are, in my opinion, struggling at present to retain our independence, in the face of special interests, war-mongerers, ideas of national grandeur, and so on), I suggest that congratulating ourselves for the first part, for saying we are independent, is not a bad thing. But think about this: how often do we work at sustaining, reviving, and bolstering that independence? How long, if we do not do this second step, this important work, will that independence continue to survive?

Exchange one set of chains for another,
cast aside those worn, past preconceptions
for new ones, that as yet do not smother
under blankets of self-satisfaction

the ideals that you preach but cannot keep:
notions of freedom and free will and peace,
the brotherhood of man; while your neighbors weep,
your prisons and graveyards fill without cease.

Has might proven your way right, or time?
Does history prove it self-evident?
And on whose stiff backs will the next wave climb
with no gracious thanks to their precedent?

Claim your independence and make your stand;
Then live by your principles, if you can.

04 JUL 2003

What five books would you reccomend that others read to best know who you are, and where coming from, and what aspirations?

Be Here Now -- Ram Dass and the Lama Foundation: I've said many times before that this book saved my mind. It was there when my dad died, it was there when my first marriage was falling apart, it was there when I did my last hit of acid. The second half of the book, Cookbook for a Sacred Life, is a beautiful guide to getting your head together, and the recommended reading list (Sacred Loaves) is by itself worth the price of the book.

The Seven Storey Mountain -- Thomas Merton: When I was waffling on whether or not to have faith in anything, I picked up this book. For some reason, I was reading Catholic auto/biographies - John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius Loyola, Augustine, Aquinas, and so on. Somewhere I found a reference to this book, and subsequently read it. It is a beautiful story of having no faith, discovering the part it plays in life, and finding it, regardless of your religious persuation. And it certainly doesn't put the monastic life in a bad light, either.

Total Freedom -- Jiddu Krishnamurti: Ah, Krishnamurti. The ultimate non-guru, non-teacher, non-methodologist. Any work by K. is likely to sever your tenuous hold on reality like a razor, and leave your illusions dangling. My thirst for reality, for Truth with a capital T, really initiated with reading Krishnamurti.

Tropic of Capricorn -- Henry Miller: Henry Miller re-introduced me to the joy of living, through his writing, and ultimately, to the joy of writing. At the time in my life when I encountered HM, I was shiftless, drifting and directionless - and perhaps not coincidentally, also 28, the age at which HM really started writing. Witnessing his savoring of the marrow of life, the details of common, ordinary events that he expanded into joyous paeans to existence, I too began a revitalization that continues to this day.

The Tower Treasure -- Franklin W. Dixon: The first in the Hardy Boys series, and the first book I ever read on my own, at age 5. By the time I was 7 or 8, I had read all 58 of the original series. There is nothing like mystery, adventure, doing the right thing and the cameraderie of brothers to sustain the ambitions of a young boy. I suppose that sums up my life now...

So often, it seems when we look for things to quote, we search for those negative, capricious, self-debasing, or cynical quips that reinforce our own limited, limiting world view, words of wisdom from the "great thinkers" of the past, who may have done a lot of great thinking, but always seemed to lead such pathetic, miserable and ultimately unhappy, un-bliss-filled lives. Why is that, I wonder? Is seeing the true energy that lies behind all things so difficult, that we automatically assume the world is out to get us, and that it is filled with pointlessness and constant sorrow? Why quote something that keeps you down? Isn't that like a slave thanking their master for the nice, shiny chains?
On Quoting Nihilists and Naysayers

Who cares what Nietchze said, or Sigmund Freud?
Is your world confined by some sage advice
from dead thinkers who lived their lives annoyed
that despite their constant effort, the spice

of life was beyond their grasp, and they could
only observe what should manifest joy?
All those long debates on evil and good,
have they sought to build up, or to destroy

the human condition? Just because your eyes
cannot see the simple beauty of life,
does not mean it is not there - just disguised,
beyond the prod of your surgical knife.

Will you swallow whole another's myth,
Or use the eyes and ears you were born with?

03 JUL 2003