FALL 2023
9:22:2023
This weight is not metaphorical—
It’s a billion little nothings
Who add up to one large something,
It’s a billion different arrows
Ricocheting off themselves.
There is a scale so small
That one can witness the births
of new symbols;
There is a scale so massive
That it no longer detects any signals, and yet
This weight is not metaphorical—
Or else, all of my atoms would quickly party ways;
They wouldn’t even bother
To flash a sweet smile at each other
Should they happen to pass on the street,
They’d just look right on with hard-earned ease,
Only missed connections, please.
And they’d all skip out on the family reunion again
Out of fear for where they pretend
They’d rather be; you see,
This weight is not metaphorical—
And what goes up
Must then double back down,
And whatever luck would have
Must enjoy having luck around,
and a billion tiny nothings
Add to one unholy hero—
You can always set your scale to zero.
X
Metaphor filters; being filters; body filters.
Trickle-down, derivative divinity:
Origin,
Rapture,
God,
Abstraction,
Sensation,
Material.
Trickles back up, too—
tricky like magic,
trekked as any journey,
dragged and bruised and
tragic and rhapsodic,
threading together
what tapestry wants be revealed.
Translation as filtration, as
space through time
and time through space, as
physical through mental
and mental through physical
sensation, as
you through God
and God through you.
Consequence as translation;
as filtration of in-for-mation,
of that which is in formation.
Change your metaphor,
Change your under-standing,
Change your prayers’ landings,
Change.
9:26:2023
Do not rise
like the sun,
for the sun,
as the sun—
for the sun is not actually rising.
Rather, be
where you are
how you are
as you are
as the world ever-narrates, revising.
9:27:2023
Words as false prophets
of that immutable realm;
Words as false idols
of God’s wordless Idea;
Words as tools,
as weapons,
as vehicles for current;
Words as carriers of pathogen;
Words as symptoms
of that incurable Truth;
Words as entities
acting of their own
righteous accord,
distracting the “what”
from “what for”;
Words as the
under-lying-meta-phor.
9:29:2023
You have nothing to prove;
nothing worth proving belongs to you.
You have nothing to do;
all that's worth doing is following through.
You have nothing to say;
nothing worth saying is ever true.
You have nothing.
You are saying,
You are doing,
You are living,
You are proof.
10:10:2023
It all seems perfectly impossible,
yet here it all seems:
the most probable reality
(because it is so undeniably already),
the impression of knowledge
funneled through knowing,
sensation of sensations
in-formed by being, by growing
older, more time witnessed
by some lent continuity,
committing to learning one’s self
when all you’ve really learned so far
is who you wouldn’t be:
a series of small gratuities
etching you out from
Philosopher’s Stone.
You are known
as each number knows
his own reducibility;
never alone
sure as all data points to infinity
and all roads lead to home:
insofar as probability foresees
(i.e., presently),
irrefutably,
entirely,
(apparently,)
prone.
What Most People Get Wrong About Magic
Here is what most people get wrong
about magic:
it has nothing to do with what you know.
Rather,
you take what you know,
surrender it to Nothing,
and then just like Itself,
the Magic appears.
Here is what most people get wrong
about magicians:
there is nothing special about us.
Rather,
we tend to the sacred,
the Power of Nothing,
and then just like Magic,
the folderol clears.
10:26:2023
My ignorance
(VIII of Cups)
is as tepid as cave water:
chipping away at pitch-black nutrients.
My intelligence
(The Hanged Man)
as ironic as a martyr:
dead, set, and hanging staunchly on.
My vice
(The Wheel of Fortune)
is as turning as the wheel:
steady as momentum’s boastful upkeep.
My virtue
(V of Cups)
as vital as calamity:
begging new stories to take to its shape.
Be or Lie
Many claim we were created in God’s image
only to criticize those who dare return the favor.
Go on, pass the torch:
pretend that you reject idolatry
while erecting more effigies,
worshiping letters
instead of what names represent.
That is your idol;
these are your Gods!
ब्राह्मण;
Brahman.
Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka;
Great Spirit.
ٱَللَّٰهْ ;
Allah.
אֵין סוֹף ;
Ein Sof.
; 氣
Qi.
; יהוה
I Am That I Am.
Language has no choice but to blaspheme!
Our options are be God or lie about God—
Be (God) or lie about it!
11:1:2023
Tiphareth! The smile brought to my face
from music brought to life—
Tiphareth! A leaf falling so temptingly,
daring me to indulge in pleasure’s strife—
Tiphareth! The chills who let me know that
space is damn cold, and my body knows full-well—
Tiphareth! How easy it is from way down here to
mistake my design for Designer,
mistake my provisions for their truest Provider!
Tiphareth! My precious inter-face,
my access point to grace,
my thrill in chasing chase,
my time for which there’s space—
beauty for ugliness’ sake—
the blood in my veins ‘till the day it feigns Death—
Tiphareth!
To Become
It's exhilarating, isn't it?
You don't know what's going on,
But there's only one of you.
Certainly, you know that:
No one seems to know the same
Connotations as you do, and it's
Getting weird— but weird as in
The weird sisters, as in
Weird (adj.): denoting fate.
You know, the one that you're
Addicted to, that bleeds words into
Your mouth, symbols into your cognition,
Strength in your opposition.
Yes, you can read my diary:
I gave you permission by being born,
and sealed the deal by not killing myself
Every time I had the chance. Against
Better judgment, I'm alive and, well,
So are you, reading, I suppose, but
The exhilarating part is that, somehow,
Both of us know the ending and yet
Neither of us will live to tell the tale.
12:3:2023
Grief is a love
who's afraid to surrender:
curiously careful,
a calloused pretender.
Love is a grief
who gives in to time's splendor:
battered and guileless,
beaten and tender.