substance – Page 2 – radical druid

No Shaman Left to Heal Our Tribe

Published on October 3, 2005

Come, dig the grave, but not too deep;
the eighties were a shallow time.
We spent a decade just to learn
how to maintain appearance’s sake
and delve with questions, off-the-cuff,
in cocktail conversation bluffs.

Come, dig the grave, the shovel’s mouth
will gouge the earth enough to serve
as depth-gauge for the swollen corpse;
besides, the scavengers we bred
in boredom need not work too hard
to find in us their daily bread.

Come, dig the grave; it’s only death
that by necessity is born
and like a cancer spreads throughout
the tender tissue we have formed
to shield us from the sunlight’s glare
and make believe there’s nothing there.

Come, work the soil and lay the sod;
the garden must be fed anew
lest what fruit has escaped the rod
be left to rot by morning’s dew.
What harvest plenty still remains
is just enough to clog the drains.

Come, dig the grave, but not too deep,
lest toil and sweat destroy our youth.
Let future generations weep
that they’ve no gravestone for the truth.
Besides, it’s almost happy hour —
we should arrive by our own power.

for Jim Morrison

03 OCT 2005

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Cause Without a Rebel

Published on June 28, 2005

I have no cause to champion
that’s worthy of a flag,
bedecked with symbols meant to stir
like-minded souls to arms;
no psycho-babbling sycophants
pore through my work to find
some mystic key that might unlock
their esoteric core.

if taken quickly, just skin deep,
there’s no euphoric high
to titillate the rebel throng
who seek a new messiah.
My generation does not struggle,
nor is it oppressed
by more than its own aspirations,
which don’t add to much.

We seek to decode messages,
enamored by their form
but not impressed by their content;
besides, who has the time
to contemplate some foolish scrawl?
Besides, as we all know,
all knowledge worth the knowing
was old news some years ago.

Our elders? They resent the way
we skulk around and wait
for them to die; we will inherit
naught but scornful pride.
The younger generation
we already do not like;
they simply fail to listen when
we outline our great plan.

In part, because there is no plan,
no underlying glyph
that seeks to make the parts a whole;
instead, we ask “What if
there is no point to anything,
no future, and no past;
therefore, there’s no good reason
to build anything that lasts.”

28 JUN 2005

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The Chalk Lines

Published on June 27, 2005

The lines were drawn some time ago;
they framed the fallen corpse
where it was found to be expired
and removed, in due course.

Its owner left it vacant there,
having no further need
of its method of transport,
or ability to read.

One might imagine that the chalk
by now would be long gone,
what with the traffic in this place
and all the goings’ on,

but there it is, as sharp and clean
as when it first was lain;
it’s neither flaked away to dust
or been washed down the drain.

The permanence of some things
seems a little bit off whack;
for instance, the sidewalk beneath
the chalk, no longer black,

but softened to a misty grey,
is cracked beyond repair
and only held together
by the chalk line drawing there.

27 JUN 2005

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On Discussing John Searle

Published on June 8, 2005

The problem with your kind of thought, he said,
is that it often leads to idleness;
and what could be productive time, instead
is spent in useless ponder, more or less,

on how the world’s become the way it is,
to what degree which species is to blame,
the perils posed to culture by big cities,
or which phenomena are rightly named.

Where science may concern itself with how,
you spin your wheels in seeking after why;
resulting in the loss of here and now
exchanged for some perfected by-and-by.

Philosophy may the sport of kings,
but in the end, it means little or nothing.

08 JUN 2005

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What good is art

Published on May 16, 2005

What good is art if it does not instruct,
or for our “better angels” cast new wings
beyond utilitarian design,
reminding us that beauty without form
is doomed, under the sheer weight of itself
to force its rigid framing to collapse?

Art is like all religions, in that all
are but a generation from extinct;
the evolution of a form requires
that it do more than simply change its clothes,
grow gills and fins to swim in altered seas
or learn to hunt new game to feed its young.

What good are schools if they do not provide
a context beyond simple black and white,
and offer views of different paradigms
where parasites are not the food chain’s end?
That corpse is sucked of marrow, and its bones
are far too fragile to host us for long.

The arts are an essential to the whole:
without creative outlet, we are chained
to follow, sullen, on pathways not our own
in search of some elusive, unknown truth
that if found, will be meaningless, or worse,
to our imagination’s limits, dead.

What good is any dogma that insists
on praising uniformity’s facade
while damning the poor souls behind those bars
whose torment is to see outside the cage,
and fed on lies of common brotherhood
to mutate into monsters, thugs, and whores?

True culture does not denigrate the arts
if it intends to do more than survive;
and Beauty, unappreciated, dies,
its empty shell an ugly, barren waste.
What good then is mere rhetoric that claims
some great prize as its end, by any means?

16 May 2005

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When Twilight Pales

Published on May 3, 2005

When twilight pales your umber locks to grey
and lines the apples of your cheeks with care,
takes the wind from your merry laugh, so gay,
and makes your step less sturdy on the stair,

remember this: I loved you from the first,
not for your youthful smile, nor supple limbs,
but instead for your spark, and constant thirst
to seek for substance beyond passing whims.

Who cares what strikes the fancy of the fool
that prizes most, and loves, at just a glance?
The mine is worth more than a single jewel,
whose value is determined just by chance.

For surface beauty is a passing phase;
it blooms in early spring, and then is past.
It will not warm the hearth through winter days,
nor serve as fuel to fire a love that lasts.

05 MAY 2005

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Wanting what you have vs having what you want

Published on April 22, 2005

I paraphrase the Dalai Lama a bit here, but the gist of it is that most of the world focuses on having what you want— which is a constant state of acquisition, of needing to augment with more, of rampant consumerism that ultimately ends in devaluation of anything that is not imminently disposable.

If you find satisfaction in what you are, where you are, who you are right now, that is peace of mind that is not illusive, transitory or subject to entropy. Wanting what you have is the ultimate expression of living in the moment. The goal is to be here now, not to dwell on how much better your life could be if only …

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Tag: substance

No Shaman Left to Heal Our Tribe

Cause Without a Rebel

The Chalk Lines

On Discussing John Searle

What good is art

When Twilight Pales

Wanting what you have vs having what you want