everybody loves resurrection
the surprise happy ending
that makes us think of spring
green shoots bursting up
from the cold and barren earth
ducklings and baby bunnies
everybody loves resurrection
because it’s so easy to forget
that in order for resurrection
something always has to die
There’s a tale of a frog
who was sunning herself
on a river’s soft bank
in the woods.
She was humbly approached
by a scorpion lad.
“Lady frog!” hailed the one
with the sting.
“I’ve got business, my dear,
on the opposite shore.
Could you possibly
give me a lift?”
So the affable frog
(who was kind to a fault)
said, “Hop on, little friend,
let’s be off!”
The arachnid complied,
and the innocent frog
set off swimming toward
the far bank.
As they reached the midpoint
up went scorpion’s sting,
and then down again,
into the froggy.
“Why, oh why did you sting?”
wept and wailed the poor frog
“Now we’ll both surely die!
Why’d you do it?”
“There was no way that I
could inhibit myself!”
said the scorpion boy.
“It’s my nature!”
Now, this story is told
metaphorically
to advise on the essence
of humans.
And yet, rare is the man
who is scorpion-born.
Rather, men must be taught
to betray.
my eyes keep playing tricks
why do clouds remain
steadfast and still
lazily misbehaving
never drifting across the sky
like clouds are supposed to do
while stars also transgress
giggling unhinged
jiggling and leaping
a glittering dance
far beyond mere twinkles
i’m not even high
Master,
when I’m awake,
will I still love you?
Yes, child,
you will love me then
with the full potency
of your unlimited compassion
for the soul of each living creature,
for the vibrant community of atoms,
for every shining, ebullient star.
Your love will be infinite,
and it will encompass all.
But Master,
that’s not enough.
That’s not big enough
for you.
‘Hope’ by Emily Dickinson
There once was a birdie called “Hope”
who would sing when the soul couldn’t cope.
It would tweet in the storm
keeping so many warm,
yet did it ask a crumb of me? Nope.
‘This is Just to Say’ by William Carlos Williams
There once were some plums in the fridge.
But your breakfast rights…I’ve now abridged.
Please forgive! Don’t withhold!
They were SO sweet and cold!
I enjoyed them much more than a smidge.
lil snek
snekkin by tha pond
a squigglin an a wigglin
widda yello stripe on
long come me
stompin in ma shoos
givin lil snek a scary
givin lil snek tha bloos
lil snek
disa-peerin in a hol
i so sorry lil snek
didn meen disturb ur sol
Stop.
I can’t take it.
It’s too much!
*snap*
Go away.
Let me be.
Leave me alone!
*snap*
I’m done.
I give up.
I want to quit!
*snap*
Think of the times
when your stress
has been unbearable.
*snap*
You know you’ve wanted
all that stuff
to just disappear.
*snap*
So tell me: can’t you
sometimes imagine
why Thanos might
*snap*
i am nothing
my so-called self is no-self
an amassment of unallied neural networks
fractious factions fighting it out in my modular mind
an amorphous heap of skittering skandhas
i search frantically among them
tossing aside
body feelings sensations thoughts consciousness
yet i find no permanent “me”
i am everything
an expression of the unity of this uncanny universe
one with the creative currents that give forth galaxies
united with poplars presidents puppies
yet with gifting that is utterly unique
i hunt for any division between you and me
trying to discern my edge
or yours
yet i find no real separation
i am nothing
i am everything
one with the dust
and the divine
i am whole
When I was in my twenties I moderated
a horror role-playing game for my friends.
Vampire: The Masquerade, it was called,
and it was set in a world much like ours,
but darker: more poverty and cruelty,
a deepening of the usual societal decay.
Plus, of course, there were the vampires.
Vampires and werewolves and witches,
all playing their power games, employing
supernatural powers for blood and profit.
It was all very gothy and grim – an ideal
proxy for our privileged yuppie angst.
I set the game in a crumbling version of
Rochester, New York, where we lived.
Dark fairy godfathers ran crime families,
making the Lilac City run with crimson.
Romani caravans camped in the suburbs,
and the impoverished masses trembled.
And Rochester’s favorite corporate son,
the Eastman Kodak Company, was dead.
The area’s premier real-world employer
had failed. Its vast properties lay empty.
In the industrial complex of Kodak Park,
voids echoed with the groans of zombies.
Inevitably, my dystopian fantasy ended.
I got depressed and had to leave the dark.
I got more depressed and moved south,
and our vampire-haunted Rochester, with
its warlocks and were-tigers and despair,
faded to shared, ghostly memory. Except…
Before I left Rochester, I worked for Kodak
for a period of several months – the time
during which a C-level Kodak exec was
reported to vow: “We are a film company!
Our future is not in digital technology!”
It wasn’t. They filed bankruptcy in 2012.
Last month I visited family outside Utica,
and they’d been to Rochester recently.
They said it was not in very good shape.
They said there was poverty and cruelty,
a deepening of the usual societal decay.
Like our 90’s Lilac City, but much darker.
I don’t know if undead feet shuffle through
the abandoned gloom of the industrial park.
I can’t say whether vampire lords have filled
the vacuum left by fallen corporate giants.
But I’m troubled by reality mirroring fiction.
Our nightmare wasn’t meant to come true.
In the beginning was the One.
And the One was cold.
Cold as forgotten sepulchres.
Cold as the void between dying stars.
Cold as a father’s absent tenderness.
Cold and alone.
Then one day there was an Other,
and the One was no longer alone.
And the one was no longer cold.
Now, the One was hot.
Hot as a fiery arrow of fear up the spine.
Hot as a volcanic core of anger in the chest.
Hot as a blazing barrier of self-protection.
Who is this Other?
What will they take from me?
And many times, the story concludes there.
Except that in time (despite the wall of fire),
the One grows cold once again.
The End.
But in a few tellings, something else happens.
The tales disagree about the cause.
But in most of them, the One,
peering out between the flickering flames,
glimpses something in the Other.
Something like Humanity.
And (in these stories), the One begins
to wish to taste this Humanity.
Not to take it from the Other,
but to understand it,
to savor it,
and perhaps to share it.
And timidly, tentatively,
the One lets down the flaming wall,
and reaches out a hand,
and discovers that Humanity
is neither cold nor hot,
but warm.
No, that’s not right –
some fables do make that claim,
but the wisest ones say they are wrong.
Humanity is warm, yes,
but it is also cold
with loneliness, isolation, and distance.
It is also hot
with conflict, challenge, and fear.
But it lives all of these things
in relationship, one with another.
In the beginning was the One.
Now there is the One, and the Other, in relationship.
Whole and hurting members of humankind.
Cold, and hot, and warm.
Mostly warm.