christmas Eve day - the sonnet ·

Last year tonight i insulated pipe ;

this year they froze , and for that i’m glad .

Family thinks i’m mad , i guess i fit the type ,

that or they think frozen water is bad

My body's filled by water - some think’s theirs .

" Frozen " after the month's hottest ever - s'good .

Hot’s what comes next ; “ they survive - who shares “

i’m old , i’d share what i’ve seen if i could .

This morning a witch said “ only hearts speak “ ;

so true that many just read “ lonely hearts .  . “ ,

others will cry “ witch ! he must be a freak “ -

and be right , for “ good sums “ exceed their parts .

i know as certain as my hot bath grows cold

“ save love for holy days “ is what we’re sold .

(˚ ㄥ _˚)    

jts 122413

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Leaving Bali - the sonnet

Sang Made Budiasa - artist

I am leaving Bali, and I am sad,
that’s my own damn fault, same as when happy.
Being torn from illusion can make one mad -
odd, such nonsense can come from being 'sappy'.

How can holy-hoards, 'Boarding' be snappish?
Limitless yoga won’t quench some rages;
You love being served; not asking 'what's your wish?'
What do 'boolays' find that's not on stages?

When the world will not help Bali be well,
no one will care - “where are the resorts?”
The demons had been loosed - all Bali hell ...
funny to see 'retreats' turned into forts.

When i am gone, i pray it won’t get worse;
if so, still my blame, it'll be a good curse.

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts 15/11/2011

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going down the road - the essay ·

My father was a man of vast experience which often revealed itself in lessons or entertainment, one was never quite sure which was which. He had so little interest in dogma or doctrine that the respect reserved for elders was often as not bestowed upon him laced with a patronizing tolerance of his unremitting eccentricities - the perfect “taoist.” Reflecting back on my own unkindness and lazy respect for this complex and in many ways inscrutable human being, I struggle to reconcile the remarkably high standards for personal integrity which he nurtured and his unorthodox instruments - a mix of curiosity and accommodation informed by an unflagging allegiance to the most tender of human emotions - love. His concept of love was not found in the hothouse of modern advertising or cultural whims but through a devotion to learning about the whole of human history as explained in the written word - any word: good, bad or banned. He was well-described by Camus’ quote “ The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. ” However, he was not defined by any real struggle - yes, a paradox.

My father committed himself deeply to his beliefs which often set him apart from - wives, children, community standards - armament of the conventional; nor did this resistance to the status quo manifest in culturally destructive behavior almost as though he anticipated John Lennon’s “ Imagine “ and was conducting his own war on hatred and cruelty while developing concepts for a better world. That he was an high school English teacher, very nearly gives credence to the deepest fears and convictions of the rigid right about the cause of our nation’s fall from grace. The dilemma for any zealot attempting to frame this argument is that my father had no doctrine I knew of, outside the principles of decency and love. It sounds maudlin and sappy; it is not. When the big tent revivals were becoming institutional in the conservative bastion of Southern California he spent years as a member of the American Indian Church - a decision which would put him on the fringes of both congregations but closer to his concept of g_d. His understanding of love was not based on paid admission to the “ love show; “ his knowledge was gained in the battlefield - matrimonial, patriarchal, romantic and professional. He was mortally wounded by love and brought back to life by the same, so much so - he could not be denied.

I know, I tried - I ran, I raged, I blamed. I did everything but accept the superiority of his strategy which had nothing to do with politics, affiliation, assertion or occupation. You could talk shit with him, but not at him. He had the good fortune to know selfrespect as well as his own heart - he was a writer, a poet and an inveterate reader impervious to anything that did not directly further understanding about anything. I asked him once in my best snide Young Turk voice, “why’d you become an English teacher?” I said this not to learn but to elevate myself at his expense believing if I had to be in the wastelands, so did he. “ I love words “ was his reply. His focus was intense and unrelenting in pursuit of this love and he used words to good end - craftiest of the crafty - seditiously Socratic without a morsel of bullshit because he was driven by curiosity rather than certainty, hubris or supposition. His constancy took the form of loyalty as long as you took the bit in hand and worked out your own solution, the capacity for which I’ve grown to appreciate enormously as I move toward my own end. His support was often in the form of quips; He anticipated “memes,“ and it was from his last most persistent homily which prompted this essay. “Going down the road“ had become the universal solvent to most every existential dilemma or query - “ how ya’ feeling Pop ? “ . “going down the road“ . . he’d smile.

The well-schooled might take exception to this facile approach to wisdom - a wise decision, for the consequences of applying this pat answer reflects the difficulties of implementation for any of the philosophies predicated on the simple: buddhism, taoism, christianity or islam. For Pop, implementation came in the form of a contradiction - how to go down the road in bed with a broken thigh knuckle and alleged dementia. A preexisting heart condition precluded any reparative surgery rendering him incontinent and at the mercy of today’s “ best medical practice.” What would be the difference between having the cards my father was dealt and ones we are all dealt daily? - water poisoned for profit with the remaining water sold to those without lifeboats; a national election where I gambled +/- 1% of all I had saved to help elect a man who now wants to take back 1.5% from me to support the unmanned murder of grandmothers in a war without end, which pales compared to the previous; or previous to the prior - my father’s predicament, after all what are the masses without the individual? The notion of going down the road is not novel per se, only rephrased from one of the many human anthems - Sol traversing the heavens by chariot; Perseus paddling the river Styx or even Lao Tzu’s “ The Tao.” It is the scale and commensurate utility this oft sung procession is capable of expanding to which might prove useful, especially given the let-it-ride stakes to which the least responsible amongst us have exposed us all.

My interest today is to mobilize what remains of my life. Like father, like son - I like to write, but I carve stone, paint and draw as well. To get to one or all of each of those daily is a busy day, so if I’m not getting in front of one or all, am I stalled? If I was that same Young Turk sassing my old man; not a problem, plus I’d have drunk like Bacchus for good measure before I passed out a 1,000 miles down the road. I’m not that kid; it’s a chore for me just to get in 40 hours week, but the more difficult task is acknowledging I ain’t Sol ambling over the heavens, and I’d have to see the terms before I paddled any river Styx as a hired gun hunting Medusas. The more I’m disabused of fantasy and distraction the more I can create - fucking paradoxes. The most that can be said on this trek is that I’m not alone. Bob Dylan has sung recently “gone walk down that dirt road ’til someone lets me ride.“ Mr. Dylan learned it from somebody, who learned it from somebody else, just like I learned it from somebody . .  . Though there is a great effort afoot to inhibit our collective abilities to individuate or be apart, much less learn, from: parents, peers, education, or assimilation - we are all making our own journey, and we have been from the beginning of our recorded history. We may not like where we are, but the possibility that we are not on a spirit quest of some fashion or another is not likely. Whether it is marching downfield with 60 seconds on the clock; searching for lost America armed-to-nines ‘cause lord knows what kind of commie pink-o bogey man has been placed in the highest office of the land by the liberal illuminati elite depriving the rest of us, good G_d fearin’‘Mericans our “manifest destiny,” or even Mr. Natural “just passing thru,“ we is on the move, going down the road . .  .

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

solidarność 

jts 11/08/2017

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muse - the sonnet

She commands my interest this great woman
To see , to contemplate , to make wonder .
All those joys , wounds - the many parts of man
That skirt or shrink from light are known by her .

Yet flesh and bone the mortar of this home
Pay fealty to reality and age
Which explains why fantasy tries to roam 
While he begs for help just to turn the page .

How much more emptied be this vale of tears
Without a heart so tender or so kind
As those who help others share their fears
Or fight the numbing " no never you mind . "

She's all these things and many times more
That's why i sing what fun is this - Alors ! .

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts 08/11/2013

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Value

Cogito ergo sum . spirits with parents - parents which odds say cannot provide more than food and shelter for a violent childhood , if that . So how does value emerge as a fiction in a world drawn in such bold relief by poverty, despair and violence, or put more simply - how do you constantly fool 7 billion human beings into believing what they see on the screen is more real than what they experience in their lives - when the maintenance for the car which was supposed to be parked by 'nightlife valets' bankrupts single fathers; the tropical cruise to find the right husband costs half as much as a semester of school, or the evening of Reality TV becomes 24/7 for which the cable costs more than preschool, much less, time away from family. We are now facing a "turnkey tyranny" which requires little more from you than brand-name loyalty paid for with your freedom, health or possibly even the future of our species.

The people yoked to this unrelenting screen of corporate marketing are not stupid per se; however, we live in a world where the consolidation of data into the hands of a tiny number of people renders a massive disconnect between the real world and market concepts based on nothing more than Return On Investment ( ROI ) - The game of "Money Ball" writ large. Unfortunately for the human race, and commerce in general, these corporate objectives utilize the infinite growth paradigm which commandeers everything in service of "The Economy" which in turn guts eons of human craftsmanship; rules of conduct; even that minuscule shard of personal time dislodged from the shackles of our former royalty by that spark of Free Humanity we'd been, for a heartbeat. The hitch, and irony for our new masters, is we are also the consumer fodder. People, beasts crafty enough to climb out of the crib; avoid chained pit bulls or pissed-off camels while making their way to and from school dodging bullies, their knives; a teacher's corrosive rebuke; or regional war and then find work enough to pay for that time it takes to memorize all their favorite sport-hero's data oblivious to the fact that as humans they will spend the largest part of their lives and disposable income floating the elite on a film of opalescent opulence barel dreamed of by the wealthiest of the early pharaohs. When old these same persons are pharmaceutically rendered into a steady-state decay yielding the last farthing of insurance profit and preserving enough flesh for the morticians' final tally - 'blood' from you, the turnip.

How is it possible that so many of the intelligent, feeling, decent humans I've met, and hope still to meet are effectively prevented from achieving a better life? Not only prevented but effectively diverted into a spiral of increasing pitch and agitation blunted by fatigue, entertainment and sensory stimulation. At what point did our 'vision quest' become a trailer in the movie theater, and our 'rite of passage' the nightmare of cyber bullying? We are sickened by our own desires - The inclination for belonging and relatedness is tuned to coercion and exclusion because we are so much more easily managed apart than together. Of our ineffable instincts is the reflexive search for good have morphed into - beer, sex, and profound bass decibel pulses substituting for music. Our ancient multitude of modalities for touching and being touched are lit up today like digital Bacchanals out of Dante's lowest rings. Food and family are now defined in the aisles of our "Supermarkets" which didn't exist 75 years ago - the same thing a Walmartarian will be saying about today's Supermarkets 18.75 years from now as she shifts her colostomy belt to make sure there's enough intravenous antibiotic to quiet the bacterial lesions pulsing close to the surface of her bare midriff .

Those who have "awakened" are little better off living on the fringes of a deteriorating culture and casting about for venues of approval marked by dress and orthodoxy of an often more strident tone than the insidious hum of the empire apparatus. But still the thread of value seems lost like a door whose key has broken off in the lock. Our knowledge is pinched and caught on the fly - snippets of sense; out of context and cast out like so much confetti or scribbled on a gutter with paint bought from the world's wealthiest chemists. We search for what has always been the human instinct - love, but our tools are no longer born of loving application and lack the quality necessary to build loving things , or even defend us from naked hatred . That we have forsaken the wonders of understanding from each other for the silicon siren out of the illusional internet aether may foreshadow the inscription for our species' headstone of our radioactively luminescent, thrice removed from the G2V star at the center of our fringe solar system:

"Here lie remains of a sentient life form animated by wavelengths of their G2V hydrogenfusionsphere - able to stride upon their closest satellite using buckets of ignition and oxygen to propel and protect their delicate biomass. This brief intercommunicating animation drowned itself in radioactive oceans, lit by hubris - oceans believed to have once been the origin of their life force. Rest In Peace" 

Our requiem is well-described by Bob Dylan in his 'Song to Woody': "seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired and it's torn, It looks likes it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born." However paradoxical, it is we humans who define value, not some glib capitalist stratagem scribbled on her/his cocktail napkin by the drunken industrialist whose greatest legacy would be the systemic neutering of that remarkable human capacity for growth. 

The universe may or may not care whether our damp blue ball becomes a dank dead slab sizzling in orbit around a dying sun, but as certain as hate is weak, we are doomed if we do not stand up on our hind legs and do as we've always done - climb out of the crib; shake off the mad dogs; dodge bullies and take their weapons; lovingly build much and find heroes to love - hopefully heroes looking more like each of us than those pasty-faced cranks floating on nothing more than oceans of opalescent opulence.

jts 21 October 2013

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Ma's Lessons · a sonnet

My Ma was a kind of mean old woman.

She was the sort there ought to be more of.

I know because i've done the best i can,

and still have not learned enough about love.

I know what it is, but not what it's not.

I have been so close that i was afraid

the reason it stayed was 'cause of a knot 

and far enough to know what i had paid.

In a world that can grind feelings to dust,

what i have learned about love is useful:

Find joy 'cause you can , not 'cause you must;

it's better to be, than thought of a fool.

Can't know if she's so wise 'cause i'm so dumb,

or i am smart because of her wisdom?

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts 12/4/2013

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suck it up sweet cheeks - the sonnet

It's sad to lose a job, worse still to lose,

so if when the ax falls, you opt to give up,

where's the good if that's what you have to choose?

Doubt me, ask the banker who messed it up.

Now is not the time to lament what ain't.

What you do now is stop what is bleeding;

get a brush and cover what has no paint

or paint over scribble that is breeding.

There will be time enough to send the bill

to those who have hijacked the public fund;

all can see whose fingers are in the till,

it's just memory lapse that gets rotund

Regard what's left of our humanity

and defend the future with dignity.

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

solidarność 

jts 12 February 2010

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