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Month: June 2025

About a Horse

I’m writing a book. Now if that’s not the stupidest idea I’ve ever had, I’ll eat my hat. Not because I’ve run out of words, but because the book I have in mind doesn’t solve anything, teach anything, or have much nutritional value at all. It’s a recording that when played back includes the frequencies that will destroy the playback device. It’s a song that hits the notes that will crumble the human vocal cords as they vibrate them. Not that it really matters. I can’t sing it anyway, and even if I could I’m not sure you could hear it.

The point of writing a book is communicate something, right? To share an experience, whether that be instructive, cautionary, hypothetical, or just diversionary. To pass on something you’ve seen, heard, felt, or maybe even learned.

But the people who write books use a certain “voice” to tell the story they think needs telling. A narrator, whether reliable or not, live on the scene or relying on a delayed broadcast of from anywhere to a few seconds to thousands of light years away. They may break the third wall, or not. A story either shares its secrets with you as soon as possible, or makes you work for it like a last case before retirement detective in a bad suit and sensible shoes.

A lot of that depends on what the writer wants to say. No matter what, the author wants you to take them seriously. The subject matter may be light and airy, soft as eider down, or smooth as Tennessee whiskey, but the act of reading is serious stuff. So much depends on the wheelbarrow you use to haul the flotsam and jetsam away, doesn’t it? Without a willing reader, someone to engage on all cylinders with the premise and the people in your book, the great American novel, whether it’s about gangsters, spacemen, big or petty business, true love or false hope, the real nitty gritty or a real soft soap, doesn’t make any more impact than a gnat flitting across the Mississippi River, if nobody really reads it.

Of course each reader picks up a book for a different reason. Some are always questing, whether in their actual lives or only in their imaginations, for some single grain of sand that will explain to them the entire beach. Others are simply bored and want entertainment, titillation, or electric shock therapy. Another might be looking to learn something that will make them interesting at cocktail parties. Never mind that being interesting or cool by imitating interesting or cool people is like learning to play guitar by listening to Eric Clapton and wondering why you don’t really sound like him. No one who thinks about, obsesses over, or worries that they are cool or interesting will ever be either. But that doesn’t stop millions of lemmings from finding just the right cliff edge for demonstrating their individuality.

So, a book. A story, a narrator, a tone, a message or underlying moral. A sales pitch. If you read this book, you’re going to get something.

Problem is I’ve got nothing to tell you. Because no matter what I say, there is no story. This is happening in real time. And as we’ve already learned, to relay the story, to sing the song itself, is to reproduce the frequencies that will destroy the teller.

There is no story. No guru, no method, no teacher. What I’ve got to say in a book can’t be said in a book. That doesn’t mean it’s important or even needs to be said. It’s not like the Tao that can’t be spoken and therefore ip so facto could never even drive through the neighborhood where the Tao rents a weekly room. What is it John Cage once said? “I have nothing to say, and I am saying it. That is poetry.”

So here goes nothing.

15 Jun 2025

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The Recipe

You want to see the world a different way?
They say you only need a different light.
You choose to flip the switch, or change the bulb,
or light a candle. You get to decide.

You may choose colored filters to compare
the view that might be, from the one you know.
Another person might increase the watts;
or point the lantern differently from you.

There may be something hidden in the dark
that great illumination brings to sight;
by contrast, what is washed out by the sun
may in the darkness share some secret code.

Of course, despite what source of light you choose,
the critical component is your eyes.
No matter how much shadow you dispel,
you see just what you want to see is there.

You want to see the world a different way?
Perhaps all that you need to do is look.
It’s all inside your head, in any case.
The recipe dictates what dish you cook.

13 Jun 2025

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The Eyes Have It: Chaucerian madrigal

If we can see a thing, we call those blind
who claim that it is nothing, just a dream,
and ridicule each other’s faulty eyes,

imagining the great truths that we find
are the exclusive provenance of “mine”.
If we can see a thing, we call those blind
who claim that it is nothing, just a dream.

But is it all just a trick of the mind,
a clever ruse of being that just seems
so real we use its spider webs for beams?
If we can see a thing, we call those blind
who claim that it is nothing, just a dream,
and ridicule each other’s faulty eyes.

13 Jun 2025

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Another Marionette: light verse

Please tell me: just who pulls your strings?
I’d really like to know.
I see you making pirouettes
and flitting to and fro,
much like a butterfly, who lights
on flowers here and there,
and samples each one with delight
not getting anywhere.

Myself? I am a puppet too,
I dance a merry jig,
although I found out years ago
my role is not that big.
I’m just a nameless extra;
call me Dancer 24.
Someone will play me in a week.
Another’s come before.

What music shall we choose for it,
if we may choose at all?
My preference is for comedy,
or something that they call
an incidental piece of work
best suited for the stage
between epic and throw-away,
mere notes upon a page.

So tell me: when you learned to dance,
who taught you how to fall,
before your clumsy feet learned how
to leap, parade, and crawl?
Whose shadow did you hide beneath
while trying to perform
the act you’ve now perfected,
taking the whole world by storm?

Me? I found books and magazines,
all filled with words and stuff
that in time helped me realize
we’re all just useless fluff
designed to be distractions
from another’s main event:
a small piece of the puzzle.
That’s become quite evident.

But still we must keep dancing,
at the far end of the strings
that out of sight, maintain control
and keep us at our thing:
pretending that we are the show
that people pay to see,
instead of dumb mute puppets
who imagine we are free.

12 Jun 2025

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Anthem: kyrielle

Who is it that makes up the rules
for peasants, leaders, sages, and fools,
who builds the narrow seats in schools
to educate a growing nation?

What hand dictates the right and wrong,
transcribes the loyal subjects’ songs?
Who peals the bells and sounds the gongs
for evolution of the nation?

How do we choose the road ahead,
denying self, where we instead
trade in our swords and rocks for bread
to feed all of our great nation?

When does the better day arrive,
that distant future, when our lives
are more than scrimp to just survive
and we become a whole nation?

12 Jun 2025

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Close the Book: haiku

I follow no book;
I recognize no guru.
Truth is not written.

Some may point the way;
others show by example.
There is no method.

There is right and wrong;
either can build or destroy.
Both sides are losers.

You know what is true:
the path is not so easy.
It is not a path.

Words may nourish me,
but they are not food.
No one eats hot air.

I do not follow,
nor do I want to lead you.
Our paths simply cross.

Wake up from sleeping;
I am right here beside you.
Let’s see what’s out there.

11 Jun 2025

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Untitled: tanka

Have you seen the wind
as it kisses the ocean,
setting the salt free?
There at the edge of the world,
seagulls compose serenades.

Have you seen the dawn
as it sneaks up on the night,
its arms soft and warm?
There at the start of the day,
the grass tears are moist.

Have you heard the sound
of the trees in the sunshine,
stretching to the sky?
There in the warmest embrace,
the world is made whole again.

11 Jun 2025

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