in the sheer concave terror
of outstretched mind
like a sky like a vector like a mirror
we invite to our door
all that we think it all becomes possible
the right and the wrong
the bliss and the bomb
the stutter and the song
Byron,
What we have created here since our first poems is beautiful. The problem
with powatree is that communication is limited to the higher, airy realms of
life, and when the winged words pause in their swooping they lose their
loft, and ordinary earthy words flow in to fill the vacuum. What is lost in
the vertical of deep space understanding is gained in the horizontal of how
are you and how is me. No problem there, even sadhus defecate.
Whether you know it or not, my friend of a thousand gripping images and a
mind the weight of Jupiter, you have been one of the main actors in this
summer’s production entitled, “Saving Andy from the Pit of Permanent
Malaise”. I have hinted at my renaissance since leaving my workplace
choked with conservatives last December and starting school in psychology
and joining the brother- and sisterhood of youth on campus full throttle
toward a new horizon like a tight end with the goal in sight but struggling
to throw off the vivs and the chags of my past who would drag me down and
claw out my eyes. They owed me over $15,000 in unpaid overtime compensation
and it took me till June 30- a full half year- to bring them to justice,
even then only receiving for three years by law. But I also received the
last installment of my freedom and have been chasing that goal line ever
since, the only tacklers my own created demons.
This is the time to clear the air and thank you for your part in the play.
I’ve written more poetry this year than the preceding six or so. And I
couldn’t give a flying fuck whether you agree with me or not. I’m not sure
if I agree with myself! I think it’s great that we’re each on our own
wavelength. What you say is true: we’re each from different stock and
might have to return to the throbbing corpuscles of Brahman to find a
sharing of the same vein. But we’re close enough thought wise that Hagbard
would acknowledge that communication is indeed occurring. I don’t know that
I’ll ever see Bill as more than a tie-dyed Republican, but I might come
around to liking the British, although I doubt it. Like you said, I’m a
Scot and the wounds run deep. But I agree, the French are out of the
question. As you said, you’re a techno-hippie and I love you for it. I
also love Joel for it but will probably always use my shovel to cultivate
goodwill here on Earth and never to terraform Mars. But as far as an
identity, I’m not sure. I’m partly a Siddha yogi, but not as intensely as I
used to be; I might be a Buddhist, for Gautama and I share the same
birthday; I’m only a liberal when the fascists start screaming for genocide;
I’m really kind of a cosmic hedonist, and I guess it’s there in space,
either inner or outer, where the techno-hippie and I the cosmic hedonist can
meet: “we’ll trade wild trips through the All-One like we trade poems and
we smoke”. But the horizon that I seek, so full of promise and fulfillment,
is also full of the suffering of others. There is a fire and the air is
thick with smoke and I cannot see the faces of agony only hear the moans of
lives gone awry. But I get a glimpse through the confusion of an empty
chair beside the flames, the seat of a shaman who can use the fire to purify
the hearts of humanity. Whether it is my destiny to fill that chair I don’t
know-my own smoke is still too thick through which to see.
As far as the current crisis, my poem was true to my feelings, but only the
tip of them. An event like this is tailor-made for the fanning of my
cultivated suspicion and distrust of my own government, or more accurately,
the institution called Corporate America that runs our government. Not only
do I, along with thousands of others, see the attack as a natural reaction
of non-Americans (whoever they might be) to our imperialistic/jingoistic
economic, military, and political meddling, but I think, as outlandish as it
may sound, it is within the realm of possibility that the truth of the
attack is even more insidious than somebody getting pissed off, but may be
the trump card of Corporate America/government in their game of domination
and control. Yes, I think that it is possible that the whole thing was
planned years ago as part of a conspiracy that, among other things, frames
the Muslims and specifically bin Laden in order to provide a pretense for a
Middle East takeover of oil supplies?, labor markets?, tighter surveillance
of us at home?, or who knows what other insane objectives that these aliens
might have in mind. I wasn’t kidding in my poem when I said that I felt
like Big Brother was in my living room that night. I think he’s in
everybody’s living room every night that we have our TVs on. I see TV as a
direct conduit into our homes and into our minds for the transmission of
government, corporate, religious, and other institutional propaganda. But
he had an especially palpable, frightening presence the night of the speech.
I could go on and on about how democracy took a hit last November in the
presidential election fraud in Florida, our history of overthrowing leftwing
governments to install and support rightwing dictatorships to serve our
agendas, etc. Honestly, I think that through the use of Occam’s Razor such
a backdrop for the Attack is improbable and it was simply Muslim
retaliation, but for some odd reason my mind isn’t capable of anything but
extreme thought. Perhaps someday I will perfect the art of moderation.
Poetry is dancing in the light of the moon. Keep on dancing, brother, dare
not stop and break the spell. We are simply resting to speak our minds, but
our hearts hunger for ethereal food. If the tartan intrudes, just see it as
dancing in a kilt. Wear your bow tie if you wish.
Love, Aldous Mack
P.S. Never doubt yourself. You may have roots in the Heimatkunde but you
are walking the skyroad of wisdom. Remember what Blake said, “The road of
excess leads to the palace of wisdom”, and “The fool who persists in his
folly becomes wise”. Rave On