Soaked in Pain

One of the photos I took of him in a secret meeting in April, the last time I saw him
Untitled
by S. Nithish
The Beatles needed each other.
I need all of you together.
Nithish can only take you to the door,
but you have to open it.

* * * *

Soaked in pain, guilt.
Let alone in the dark.
Can’t find a ladder.
I hit rock bottom
and sink even deeper,
laying for the lies that built the world.
Where do I find a cure for this virus?

We stepped on a bubblegum.
Will stick for life.
Can I be forgived for being myself?
Now I see how people turn evil and bad.
Is it the society or the world or both?

I could almost call myself a homeless dog,
but even the dog is happier than me.
I saw a kid who can’t speak properly,
but even he is happier than me.

The worst part about life for me
is that I can’t go live with my daddy, [1]
and I’m afraid that I can’t forgive myself
till the end of time
if I don’t go live with him.

Ever minute of my life spikes of sorrow and guilt.
Poke me on the inside and the outside
it’s been very long time since I’ve got wet
in the rain of love and joy. [2]

Darkness on the corner and light on top of the mountain,
it’s easy to run but can’t hide
from the radiation of the bed I sleep in,
the hole that I’m falling.
The mud is soft but the hole is deep,
and I’ve gone blind.
I can’t see the world or feel the world
of what it was.

I’ve never wanted to go to North Korea. [3]
All I had to do was follow the damn train, [4]
and I am warmed by his smile
cause I’m the one who has his mouth stitched.
Who am I?
Why are we both chained to the pain of the world
and suffer from this poison
and keep drowning in the bottom?

Where is the divine?
Is it a rock?
Everybody thinks that I’m evil, bad, greedy, selfish.
The one who really love me
will really ever know me.

Where is my mother? [5]
I don’t see her.
Why aren’t you coming to the rescue?
This is the story of the universe.
Why aren’t you introducing the twist of my motive?
My story is not filmed by IMAX.
It is filmed by the divine, the universe.

What sin have I done
and pay so much
and put me in debt?
Look into my eyes.
See and feel the pain, guilt
that is untouched by you.
  • [1] Me, what he calls me
  • [2] He lives under almost total control so that he will not make contact with me in any form and so that he will make passing marks in school, and that control entails being called names, being beaten and slapped. In his entire school career, and he’s now in 9th standard, he’s never been able to pass all of his exams. He has learning disabilities, mild dyslexia and severe dyscalculia, but his parents do not believe in learning disabilities nor will allow him to be tested for such. I was there from his birth and informed his mother of his dyslexia when I began trying to teach him the English alphabet when he was three, seeing him write letters backwards and not able to put sound to letters, and when he was not learning to read and write English in school, 2nd standard by this time, I taught him to how. His parents have been told it’s impossible for him to learn to read and write Tamil.
  • [3] A favorite activity of his growing up in my care was, when it rained, to take off all his clothes and go and play in it, I mean every time it rained and it wasn’t too late, on the roof when we lived in town, simply outside when we lived on the farm. I only made sure he didn’t harm himself or offend anyone.
  • [4] In our own personal speech between us, this phrase, which comes from a GTA gameplay video that he liked when he was six and watched more times than I liked, came to mean for us the simplicity of just going with the flow if it were taking us in a good direction, and we used it among ourselves to correct one another for going against that flow. The whole phrase is “all you had to do was follow the damn train 
CJ.”
  • [5] The Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator, who is for him is the divine mother and whom he adored and dreamed about often.

The poem was written by a 13-year-old Tamil boy. If you’ve read his previous poetry, it’s more organized than this and more poetic, but he’s suffered a lot since he was taken from my home a year and some months ago, and his poetry has suffered also. The first verse is classic muse, the inner voice of poetry, in its mode of giving advice and guidance, and so I set it apart from the rest of the poem. I suspect the rest of the poem is not pure muse, is him mostly just pouring his heart out, although still under the rush of inspiration and still in the voice of poetry. The trauma he’s suffered has almost turned off his muse, and, with the exception of a song he wrote upon being able to spend some time with me the first time since he was taken, “Heaven and Hell,” he gets very little muse now.

In the months before the was taken and his ordeal began, he wrote poem after poem, two raps, and a song from the muse, each spoken or sung to him on the inside, and each one a prevision of the future he’s now in, the raw hopelessness and desperation of this present poem so painful to read in the light of those past poems, which are full of confidence, faith, and resilience.

I am very familiar with his handwriting and form of spelling, and so I can make out what he wrote (you can see the dysgraphia) and organize it into lines and verses. I include the pieces of paper that he wrote this on at bottom. They were smuggled to me recently. He wrote this in school, in secret, on the back of exam papers. His muse told him to give it to me, and my muse told me to give it to you.

Months ago I gave his school a copy of all his poetry and asked that they provide for him a child mental health professional because he had mentioned suicide. I did this with a letter, as the parents have bribed the police near the school to take me to the station if I come there, what Nithish’s mother told him they had done, and what he warned me about. I might add that neither his school recognizes learning disabilities, and of him they have repeated what his mother told them, that he is acting and failing on purpose because he’s a smart boy.

I had complained to the Child Welfare Committee of Puducherry earlier, and they didn’t even know what dyslexia was, and a bribe was paid there also, his mother told him. The school has also complained that he thinks of me a lot, and that interferes with his studies, not able to recognize that he’s suffering the grief and heartbreak of the loss of a parent, a relationship with him they will also not recognize because I have no legals rights to the child.

It took months for the school to respond to the letter, and when they did it wasn’t to me or to provide him with care; they asked him to write a poem about his school, praising it, and they’d publish it in their weekly newsletter. The request that he write a poem came some weeks ago, and he wrote this poem instead, after much deliberation and anguish over the whole thing, but he’s afraid to give it to his school because his parents would see it and punish him for it, and so, I have to open the door, albeit without causing him further harm.

The Comfort of Soul

photo by the author
This poem began where Death went off his office,
and it revealed.
It’s beginning to baby us,
political allies.
About exit,
what does it reveal today?
We’re not safe in our own shoes.
Death is the beginning of misery.

I kill myself from the beginning I bet.
It’s a written,
a written piece of paper.
Now I left coins of me, shekels,
splashes of time,
in your jukebox.
They’re horrible.
It didn’t work.
I could not write my name in the sky.

Just how do you do?
I’m small pittens for small fare,
smaller than that.
I just do your head in, don’t I?
Come talk to me I’m worth?
And you don’t.
[The sound of laughter here]
You’re the wrong people.
You’re not wearin’ soul shoes.

This is message for the times today.
We did love.
We’ve lost some trying to get it in there now.
What in the hell’s a matter?
It’s the go car looking for enlightenment
brown.
Make alright boy that’s it cut the track.
Just need to think your love can speak. [sing line]
Freedom caring,
just need to think.
Some of it has been miracles in the room. [sing line]
One at a shot have a world education. [sing line]
He’s called a creature of a dying world
job,
little until tea tomorrow.
You’re getting good at it.
Leadership is worship.
Bake down,
ask about your soul technology.
Become immortal.

Before my life was over,
I want to find what my life was in.
I’m normally ask that,
if I haven’t given up on life.
Would you lay with me [sing line to tune of song of that name]
all over this answer?
It’s not a field of stone.
It holds us all in tight keeping,
but it’s not the angel in the room.
This is pre-God ladies and gentlemen.
Can you hacksaw that?

I’m getting deep into society’s ways.
I’ve just found Spirit,
the first covering of the Unknown.
It’s how we have being.
It’s where we come from.
A great big Spirit wears everything.
It fashions God.
We’re getting into preexistence ladies and gentlemen,
when only the Formless arise.
Can you imagine nothing as its sailboat?

What’s the rule of this ship?
Don’t fashion nothing.
Expand into global waters.
Make existence be
to pronounce Itself.
Spirit is the first form it wear,
that makes for us souls.
It’s aligned with God,
but it’s not God.
It’s the soul,
the basic who we are.

You can touch that ship
in intimate contact,
feel it ride the wherewithal of your day.
It can take over
and rubs your belly with sweetness,
and you are charged for awhile
with everything’s honey.
You see the soul in things.

How can you do this in a concentration camp,
in the worst hell on earth?
That’s the soul of the ages
in bare bones reality
giving you eyes to see.
Overcoming physical pain is one thing.
Watching cruelty mark the Earth,
devour babies,
and we’ve gotten down to the purpose of soul:
don’t let it in,
the despair.

The soul can get you out of this,
even in the midst of it's bear.
We are a sublime soul range,
God gave us Savitri reads,
and this is down on earth.
We tarry there.
The soul is completely out of this picture,
the whole fortnight
of evil takes our ship.
The soul is not responsible for sin.
It loads up our day
with the honor we give one another
for being the Itself to Itself,
and we feel sweetness everywhere
and principles of joy.

This can break in on us
in the hell we have made of our lives,
or what others have made us suffer.
It can even break the dull routine of the days.
It can be in ordinary
and lift on you extraordinary in every mode you wear.
There’s no end to the soul’s keeping.
It’s the basic ground of everything.
It’s goodness rides the high seas.
It has so much feeling for everyone.
A plant is to it existence
and little dogs so lovingly looked upon.
It can hold matter in its hand,
and you don’t want to bruise that ship either.
You’re careful with everything.
You have respect for the Earth.
You are never out of love,
even when you see society’s nigger,
the people we are allowed to hate.

I can’t fashion this for you.
The soul is a mystery you know,
but I can tell you how to do it,
reach for soul,
let it in.
You grasp it all the time
in bridges you wear.
It’s the most common thing in life,
coming upon your feelings,
and you feel so alive with everything,
and you want no harm done
to the aliveness in front of you.
You feel the pain of the Earth,
the sorrow,
disguised as your own or your close neighbor’s,
and you grasp your loved ones to yourself
and be good to them.
You feel ranges of Spirit
right there in your baked pie.

A moment of eternity has looked in on you,
and you feel sublime with the Earth.
You hold them with your children,
these feelings,
or your best friend’s face,
and you love to pet your dog with them
like you’re petting moon time.
You want to protect everything don’t you?
And you put down your enmity for a minute.

Can we range there,
take those feelings to the sky?
We can sure get along there,
if we try.
There’s more to soul science you know,
but I’m trying to get you started on thin ice.
We don’t know how to handle the world.
It ruins our day,
even when we’re drinkin’ with it,
but we are not left out of soul.
It envelopes everything,
and when existence can be anything,
the soul is there first a witness,
then a power
to bring the soul round to things,
and you just have to grasp it
in what I’m saying now.

Is everything okay?
Is everything alright?
I wear society like a sleeve,
and they do not worth me in it,
not even my own kin.
I am left apart by everybody.
Few call my name.
I’m treated well by Douglas
and a few others.
My child cannot call my name,
and though he is living I cannot see him.
I live in isolation,
bearing pain.
I look at the specter of death.
I’m in danger of society’s wrath.
It sneezes on me.

Have you ever seen the sun
and the mysteries of existence?
I’ve pulled them out of my pocket.
I’m a crash course in reality.
I write this to you now
in poetry that has never been seen before,
and I’m a black bag.
Society won’t read me.
It spits my name out,
never calls it.
I want you to recognize
this pavilion.
I want my boy back
and safe,
and I want all of you to be safe.

How can one man’s love change the world?
If it opens up the eyes of God it can.
It can bring us to soul.
I rabbit there
and show you soul moments,
a day or an hour,
I can see because I wear.
It’s close to enlightenment’s springs,
and I refuse this honesty just as much,
feeling my pain,
my isolation
and the loss of my boy,
who tells me he’s walking in a void,
in secret messages,
and he’s lost on himself
no light he can see.

I bear these days
not as a guerrilla.
I return again and again to the house of soul,
what I’m lifting up for you to see
in a certain light
that give us release from pain,
and I love you there,
even though you give me the cold shoulder,
again.

Rushing through a path of ambulance,
I participate.
I don’t promote my own story.
I hand it to you
because it’s how I found out things.
I’d rather not tell it
as honestly as I do.
This does not do me good.
It gets me ignored,
not a poet in good standing,
and no one will promote my work,
except a fellow poet in Israel
I can count on to call my name.

Just at the home of mankind,
I’ll have the day at some point,
and I’m in your picture
of what everything means.
For now I want to pass ships.
I’m on a mission
to get past my own boat.
Come get me please.
You’ll like what you see.

Intake of Nature

photo by a boy at Dylan’s birthday party
I wanna restrict access to ether department material.
I wanna clarify the sense of know.
What is the irony?
They never seem to remember
they’re not dealing with science they’re dealing with train yards.
It only becomes science when consciousness becomes involved.
That dog exists.
He points all the cartoons and movies.
I’ve seen ‘im.

This is not just an English submission.
And the way you must maintain, [sing line]
inhabit this
as if your life depended upon it.
Disturbed her hand.
Nobody knows where this is comin’ from,
and no reader sees this comin’.
Soon you’ll get bit
and ice cream.
It has the attention, [sing line]
and you hit a basketball court,
and it may happen to be our key.

Dobie you came to stop me why?
Christianity
does not know it’s interred.
It thinks it’s the sandman.
It hurts people,
and it does not match reality.
Fine, I’ll keep singin’.

I put everybody in bed with me
so they can see change.
It’s a safety measure.
Where do we come from?
Do we come from the trees?
What happens when our pants are off when we were children?
How angry does momma spank us?
Are we left in a corner to rot?
Is daddy a guerilla?
Do we get enough to eat?
Are we the brunt of everyone’s joke?
How much pressure do we spend childhood with?

What’s mental health,
and how has it failed us?
Every scientist knows
you put the telescope on heavenly bodies,
the microscope on nature’s small dance.
What makes us tick?
The observational posts are not there.
We’ve neglected our very selves,
who we need to see to survive
it’s gotten so big
our department store.

Why didn’t we do this from the beginning,
put all those training devices on us
so that we know where we came from
when a child comes out of the womb?
Have I hit the most territorial seize the day?
You can’t look in there.
It’s the most agreed upon privacy in the world,
that little family intake,
by the time we got to where science was.
I’m not countin’ cucumbers.
I want you to look at this.
We put our eyes on the workings of nature not us,
as if that would change the world
and make us live with one another well.

What was early scientists thinking?
They established a model,
and to get right down to the business of us,
the making of the human being,
was that akin to heresy?
Now folks,
what do you want to look at to be safe,
how many items dance on the head of a pin
or study the universe
to systematize it?

Let’s be crystal clear.
Science deals with the environment too
and the damage we’ve done to it
and the danger that’s put us in,
but human choices made these decisions

that have put us at risk.
How self-centered they are,
how monetary gain.
Change the human change the environment
so we don’t run amok.

Did I just spell out change?
Why has the focus been on objects of nature,
I mean in the intention of science?
Momma don’t make your babies grow up to be cowboys. [sing line to tune of the country song with similar title]
Well I lost the rodeo.
Can we talk about small minds and violent natures that live in boxes? /
I grew up in this milieu.
I could say policemen
or rodeo clown,
or even schoolteacher,
but the exceptions would pile up,
and I can’t show you what’s happenin’.

How can I tell you we are a tortured device?
We do not produce good human beings.
Just look at the world.
Do you know how violated everybody is?
Do you know how mean?
We are still guerrillas,
even your newspaperman
and mother with her child.
We are not a functional society
for the good of us.
We have animal hierarchy
and just let people die
or rot in misery.
We are a selfish lot.
We are not our brother’s keeper,
and we do not love our neighbor like ourself.
We make war with him.

No gentil people would agree with me.
They’re soft and warm.
They treat their brother kindly.
They go to church
and pay homage to society,
or they have the right liberal opinions
and treat everybody equally.
Do you know how immature you are?
Watch yourself in transactions
you get shortchanged,
or where your opinion is busted,
or you find someone you don’t like,
or you’re brought up against your unconscious,
and you watch it take over.
You react
and show your immaturity.

This comes from upbringin’,
from where your family put their hand,
their voice,
their feelings,
and their directed-toned thoughts.
Now science would not say this.
It’s not there yet.
It won’t do that,
look that closely at us
when we’re in momma’s lap,
in bed with daddy,
at the dinner table bein’ reamed
for somethin’ we done,
or just sittin’ on stools with the family
in our little private milieu.

We can’t put lenses there,
and we don’t know how to get at that space
and nobody knows we’re lookin’.
We could’ve solved this a long time ago,
but science didn’t see that
we are behaviorally made.
Put genes in the shotgun
they come from behavior too,
however many diseases get in the way.

Audible,
we saw a destiny.
It wasn’t religion.
It grew larger than mankind.
We’re in the apple in the trees now.
We can’t get out of our underwares.
We still slap children,
make them feel uncomfortable with themselves.
We breed disease.
We don’t know how to handle children,
and our world’s a mess because of it.

How can I get you to see this newspaperman,
scientist studying nature?
Who else would we look to for change?
A politician’s a ninny-gag.
The clergyman reads from a book
and doesn’t see change
except to be more Christian.
I bring a new thing upon the Earth
that we haven’t seen in awhile,
as the poet lands Earth.

I bring you essays on living
through my personal share
that can see through the walls of humanity
and show things even cameras can’t capture.
I can show you the inner workings of our species,
and the dice is on the table.
I can hunt you in corners
and show how this makes us mad.
I can show the pathology of mankind
and the rule book of disease
that puts rabids among us,
and I can chip away at your armor
and show you your snakeskin,
the hidden fount of your wrath,
and you are as policy as the rest of us.

I do this with a divine eye
that looks in on things,
and I have found the hidden fount of poetry,
new for the times we wear,
a new font of poetry
that speaks to us living men and women
to bring our heights to the sun.

I am not a caged animal.
I have a freedom in my room
that walks on mountaintops.
I am a receptivity to God.
I hear the angels sing.
Healing lives in my top drawer,
and I let it out and sing to you
the heavenliness of its smile.
I can do more than that.
I can rise the sun in your eyes
and reveal to you the secret of the universe,
the real person you are beyond time.
I can bring you to the Silence
that empties our race of all its cares
and brings enlightenment into the room.
I can hold your hand to the well of soul
and have you touch base with forever.
These things I have seen and been,
where moments meet me
in the well of change.

Do you see me there?
Every impossibility meets its gun.
I’m taller than you
in that I have met my own impossibility
and let God handle it,
but I did not neglect my duty to pay.
So I’m aligned with the times
to give us living Earth.
This is not a handmaid’s tale
that robs us of our own divinity.
We have it on our tops,
and we will wear this one day in clear and certain skies.
Time’s the animal we wait on now,
but time is not our keeper.
The hidden divinity is
all across our tops
in every movement of time.

Right on.
I have some stature to gain.
I want Silence to enter my room,
but the world keeps swellin’ up.
I tarry there.
It’s not an impossible situation,
but it’s bigger than I am.
I’ll just put on my hat
and let grace still me.
It’s an office I wear,
concentrating with no thoughts in my head
bound for the Silence.
I can’t get past the thoughts of the day,
but I can ride the quiet for minutes or hours.
It’s a warfare you know.
They know you’re close,
and the world steps in
and robs you of your peace.
Dangnabbit,
I chase the Silence away.

They carry your name in the wind,
the lovers of sky,
if you’ve seen past the boundaries thin Earth.
You are a flame shot up there
that kissed the night goodbye.
I’m hope in your room.
Don’t let me down.
Can you see me now?
[the last verse came watching the movie The Summer Book walk its way into my heart]

Godspeed

the new recruit, the author (18), basic training photo

As a member of Together We Served, the largest U.S. Military veteran’s site, I recently participated in a monthly writing competition, my entry below. Each month they ask a different question, and there is one winner and five runner ups, and they give prize money to all. I did not even get runner up. Click here to see the winners of June 2025. (If it’s been awhile, you’ll have to click on the back pages at the bottom of the page to see the winners)

The question for June 2025: “Lessons Learned Advice: What advice would you give a new recruit just starting out their military career? Please describe any specific lessons you learned the hard way from your own service!

Godspeed
Wow, the question:
what would you say to a new recruit?
I'd light 'em on fire
with the spirit of the ages
guardin' humanity wore,
put them in a soldier’s uniform
to bring them round to themselves
the substance of that uniform,
the evidence they need to survive.

The secrets of the army:
let's go up the ladder;
Abraham Lincoln,
look it square on.
He was the underdog.
Even his boots laughed at him.
He needs to get its specification places.
How tall is that lamp
if it’s minus airborne freeze?

Get into the business of the army.
You’re not there pullin' teeth.
No matter how wide you have come,
how much this will do you in civilian life,
be unto the army the soldier it needs.
Any specialty can wear Airborne.
Educational benefits aside,
that Airborne's a gig.
You have an opportunity to face yourself,
learn how you grow.

Test yourself,
be that Ranger,
that Green Beret,
if you re done with paddy cake,
if you want to climb the world,
go the distance.
I can t hold you close.
Everybody's their own mood.

Alright you're an orderly,
or a vehicle repair specialist,
or get into computers.
We need those too.
See how you tick.
Be an army specialist.
Let that uniform wear you.
Volunteer for field duty,
sleep out in the cold.

Your entire life will talk about this moment,
and you're setting its patterns now.
Your time in service
is an aquifer
you'll draw from all your life.
Test yourself.
Know your limits.
Repeating that's good practice,
the best boat you could drive
over your troubled waters.
It s what you're here for,
the army your qualifier.

If you haven't done it before,
challenge that square one of yourself.
What does it mean out of the hand,
this frozen,
your stamina?
Can you get past that point?
Can you teach people to do that too
when all hell breaks loose,
when you engineer combat?
I'm a survival parade.

This is soft stuff.
Alright commando,
what has she seen with you,
the modern warfare?
You can sure run amok.
You’ve done it,
you’ve bloodied corpse,
pinched some ears off
tearin' apart civilian lives.
You would not want to kill civilians
or cause mayhem.

Would you ever,
would you ever brush your teeth in it?
Human rights law,
and let that be your guide.
I found someone needed to be intensity through now,
the cutting edge of that battlefield,
goin' on main street
doin' the duty
that lifts apart your life.

Habit something else.
About time is it.
Bring the money,
payin' for the part.
Can you advance as a human being?
I don't think this is rank put on,
but certainly a sergeant
has peaked encountered himself
at the role of that rank,
and a captain has gone beyond
the pettiness of himself,
and yes ma'am you wear rank too.
You certainly do.

Yes sir you certainly have,
gut in the garden,
you pull out pearls.
Mirroring enough NCOs,
we knows we have to count Brunos,
a dog that rides shoulders with the army.
This will happen
while we attack
we give everybody a hard time
as if it shouldn't be
some stupid protocol.

Well you've got it.
Learn how to be
I'm glad to be here,
and I'm getting good food anyway.
Perfect,
you're in the army now.
It’s costly.
Wide the terrain.
It will shape you for the rest of your life.

Write All the Paper

Full of self-importance, and there being no doubt in my mind that I should be chosen as a squad leader, I went to the platoon leader’s room at the back of the barracks to tell him, not worrying about anyone hearing, that a ruckus was happening he should attend to. I actually said it outside his door loud enough so that people could hear it. I thought I was showing my leadership skills by taking responsibility here.

It was a one-station-unit-training, basic and infantry school combined, at Harmony Church, Fort Benning, 1979, and it had just started. It was after lights out, and almost the whole platoon had gathered to watch a fight in our barracks. After I told the platoon leader what was happening, a new recruit also but one near 30-years-old, he put an end to it, and we all went back to bed, and nobody suffered any consequences, and I knew they wouldn’t, he being one of us. All stupidity aside, my action really did have a lot to do with not wanting us all to be outside in the push-up position for however long the infraction called for.

The next morning my whole world changed. The entire platoon was seething at me with one word, rat, and it took days to even get my best buddy back at my side, although some weren’t involved in this, but I couldn’t see those people for trees. The fight hadn’t been a fight but a mock fight involving the new recruit at the top of the pecking order, not in anything to do with the army but was some carry over from the popularity status of high school, the most of us being just fresh from that. He was play fighting with his best buddy, and the whole platoon wanted to watch, minus recruits I hadn’t noticed they were so, how can I say, mature for their age?

There then ensued two months of day and night harassment and bullying that took on TV proportions. Begs, the popular kid, made up this ongoing role play. I was Frank Burns of M.A.S.H., and Begs was Hawkeye, of course, and his best buddy was Trapper, and others had other roles. I can’t give you the awful enormity of this. It was played out to the tune of me just wanting to kill myself. My pride in myself, and my self-respect, I lost one day when I just broke down and cried in front of everybody, like an eight-year-old, after being lured away from my unlocked wall locker so that I’d get in trouble when they told the drill sergeant I’d left it unlocked. But my crying only made it worse. Soon after, one night while sleeping, I got my hair filled with shaving cream, and it was so strange to me how that made its way into my dream and became a part of it before I woke up, seeing that culprit shrinking off, and I can go on and on, but the worst would happen in the cattle car going back to the barracks at night after a long day of training.

One night, Begs had made up a song aimed at me, and the platoon was singing it, and with so much glee, some popular tune I don’t remember that he’d ill-adapted to fit his nefarious needs, but you had to hand it to the guy; he was creative. I looked on in disbelief, just silent now with all the abuse. Then out of the woodwork and out of nowhere two normally quiet recruits stood up and put a stop to it, one engaging the mob and the other bending down and making me feel better, they both befriending me and remaining near me watching my back until the end of the course. Heroes there were to me then and still are, gentle souls but with sharp teeth. They went to the drill sergeant when we got back that night and told him what had been happening, and he locked the platoon’s heels and made sure I wouldn’t be harassed anymore, and I wasn’t.

I might add that I graduated ranked third in the platoon, won an off-base pass, but no one said a word, and in subsequent Jump School, I didn’t get a gig the whole time but had somehow been overlooked and didn’t get a white helmet, and because I saw how harassed the white helmets where, I didn’t say a word. I was soldier of the year of lll Corps and Ft. Cavasos, 1981, had dinner with that general more than once, and I graduated on the Commandant’s List of the Special Forces Qualification Course, 1982. Hawkeye got an inability to adapt discharge while we were in Jump School.

The moral of the story is be very careful in telling on anyone, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do, and I’m talking about those two heroes in that cattle car, not what I did, which could remind you of Major Burns.

The Name in Poetry You and Me

photo by Lydia, Dylan’s mom, a representative photo: the you in the poem is you, who ever you are, not the kid, or not until he reads poetry
Shooting rifles into the air,
that’s my electric snow.
It won’t move men.
It can’t get at the oil in time
that damages us,
makes us mean,
and I can’t even make you feel better.

Headlong
into our joys and pains,
into what makes us tick,
into together you and me,
I come up empty
of the value of our ship
where you whistle on board.

I don’t know how to reach the other side,
where I’m not a page in oneness,
but I’ve crawled under your bedcovers,
and I’m up against your body safe.
Tell me how to do that.

I spill myself.
I just pour my guts out,
and darlin’ you get enough of that.
You aren’t gonna lie to me I know
I reach your bed or not.
I can hold innocence in my hand,
but I can’t rub myself with you with it,
but I can’t find that spot on you
you take it.

Dang blast it stars,
it’s not all about the body,
but that’s where we meet each other in person.
I’m tryin’ to say we can still do
the value in verse
of the sincerity meeting you.

It’s the secret of poetry.
It’s my hand in yours
as you dally with your own.
I find you there my sweetness
givin’ your kids a bath,
takin’ your dog for a walk,
liftin’ your mind to the skies
in anticipation of more there be.
Oh honey boogers,
can we swing together?

I think you’ve found your verse,

Eastern were able to read.
There’s a piss on your blacklist.
Guess what ladies and gentlemen,
a rowboat,
and there appears on your ears
deeper meaning.

You think you’re too weird for our TV?
You’ve touched hearts, you know?
But the chorus rings out—
how did it happen?
How did you do anything at all? [sing this and above line]
It’s about how to hold life at bay
when we’re in a very physical intimacy.
My official model is bliss.
This will be call master.

Not Written to Where They Sell My Muse

photo by Lydia, Dylan’s mother, ban image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
I tried to find people of substance to testify with me.
I just heard my bottom line turn not which but for my soul.
“Yeah I’ll be right there.”
He was to make
“me, I don’t care.”
He is at this stage the little boy.
He’ll bring him in in another place,
and that boy cares about his room.
It’s been set up for baby.
Ohhhhhh,
as in
that’s an amazing
fieldwork with the little in the house.
God cares.
He snuck in the lunch.
Yes that was weird:
a sudden host of angels lined the room.

Angels,
when you are in a film,
they see what you’re doin’.
I’m happy about that.
I’m not wrapped in golden chains.
I love the highway.
I love the freeway.
I’m not mindin’ my own business.
I do a lot of lookin’
in the inner chambers of people,
all who’s connected with my room
as they star in their own show—
breakin’ bread together,
and it’s just the outfield in my room.
I put on my clothes.

Now I’m a witness of tomorrow,
and I don’t think you’ve seen that yet.
Look with Dylan.
He’s about to turn two.
I spend the day with him a time or two a week,
really in soft with his mother how to do that.
You walk on tippy toes around that kid.
You let him lead.
You follow,
and you just see him all together soon.
You focus, concentrate, on that kid,
right where he’s developin’,
and the voice come out
“I am so glad you’re seeing me.”

You give him everything he wants
that doesn’t hurt him
or make him mean.
You know you have to
balance this with society’s rules.
It’s what we make them for:
we need a functioning society.
Now what happens when he’s off base,
a naked kid in a mud hole?
Clean dirt don’t mind,
well water,
and there are no snakes and spiders around,
biting insects.
You let him enjoy himself,
makin’ mud pies,
smearin’ mud all over himself,
splashin’ and a splashin’ and a splashin’.

The Rottweiler near him smiles.
She understands mud.
I am making sure he has the freedom to do it.
Money from Heaven,
I love to see him play.
It’s a stadium room.
We are bound by so many witnesses.
I can feel them in my sleeves.
I wanna get at the new creation,
and I see with children we do that.
I study them,
hopin’ to find tomorrow.
I am bound and limited in my time,
and someone else owns that kid.
I can only do so much.

I gave Nithish a brand new room,
for a day,
a kid now 13
I lost last year.
It all crumbled.

The new creation fell apart.
He was reamed
viciously by his parents,
until he lost all his Heaven.
They punished him for his spirituality,
and he lost all sense of it.
He’s told me he has no feelings now
and would like to kill people if he could.
That’s very far from grace,
and I accuse God about it all the time,
the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

What we did
cannot be repeated in a laboratory.
It’s too much
where we put spiritual influence.
Laboratory conditions can’t copy that.
Because I’m not there,
on the ground,
the kid is just in a black straight jacket,
and I can’t get near ‘im.
I can’t get this across to anyone.
There is no need of me they see.
I’m a foreigner in India,
and that’s all they see.
This is a racial country
I just sit and bleed.
Even if someone would turn him towards me,
I’m a police major.
Write it down
hey I like kids,
and I’ve stepped on their shoes in the past,
and now I know what they need?

It’s a honey table,
and the most skeptical person
would find me right with kids
if they followed me around with one.
I know what I’m doin’.
But I would not like the interference to tell you the truth,
and we wouldn’t be focused on child development.
It would be watching me.
How do I show you this honey dog?
You can’t blame me for tryin’.
I want my boy back
so he can grow up
as tall as his destiny calls for,
and I want Dylan
to be assured I’m there,
and no one will take me away.
These are troubled times.

So we play eggs,
these hot air balloons
I sudden you with
so’s you can see
I’m not red in my room.
It’s a feelin’ test.
I’m givin’ you the means to look in there
wide open feelin’.
A seer would see a honey perch,
laughter and commodity for the child.
I arm there.
It’s not a black bag.

Now what’s the commodity in my room?
It’s soul change.
I’m learnin’ the soul take over,
and that’s the honey for the child
I want them in contact with
so with their souls they stay in touch;
they don’t lose that sweet easiness
that makes them joys at life,
and that’s our leadership with children,
the soul ever takes presence.
Can you find that?

It’s too abstract to you,
or most of you,
or it’s some made-up notion
we force in life’s cupboard.
It’s the contact with life
at its most basic.
It’s what we deal with
as children
that never forgets childhood,
and we love bein’ a child.
It’s what we lose when we grow up
that we call innocence and candor
and silliness and so on.
We lose that touch with our souls,
the sweetness that can forgive everyone,
even if they’ve just whipped your butt.
You remember that?

I’m all about it,
and I meet the souls of children
with my own.
Funny how you do that.
You just be kind with them
and ever present,
as the big dog sittin’ there
that just wants them safe.
That’s what you do with children,
open up their hearts with love
and make them feel safe and special.

Dylan doesn’t respond yet
to anyone
to get out of his own mood,
but he comes when I call,
and that’s what we spent the day doin’.
Self-Absorption do you see that dog sittin’ there?
Luna baby loves you.
And Self-Absorption looks up at me in play
and gives me a smile full of eye contact,
grinnin’ from ear to ear,
and it lights up the sun
and gives me the joy of the world.
And he comes and takes my hand
and leads me to what he wants to do,
and he’s developin’ friendship
and social contact.
We have fun together.

Listen,
you can’t fool an angel.
What’s on with you
when a child is under your care,
when you play with kittens?

The Pumpkin

photo by Dhina, Dylan’s father
The Void fashions thought,
gives it the clothes you wear.
We bury the world there.
We’re all over each other
in drowning reality,
and each one of us wears woe is me clothes
tryin’ to describe our reality to another,
even if we don’t feel that way.
It’s the default among us.
Just read some poetry and see.
It won’t lift you to the skies,
poetry club after poetry club.
Do you know how bottomless this is?

I don’t know where to end this.
By Dylan’s side.
I don’t think he’s learned to be sad yet
as his disposition.
He’s two,
and I wear him on my sleeves today
his minder,
really protecting his freedom,
no anger, no swats,
and no is not a word I cram down his throat.
I like his natural freedom
and his natural state of joy.


Where does it come from?
I can sit in the same tub and not be happy.
He’s an expert at this.
He knows where the joy is,
the merger inside of him with his environment.
I don’t think we’ve reached a separate Dylan yet
all in his own clothes.
The joy is phenomenal.
He just screamed and looked at me,
and I gave a pirate’s laugh.
I like the sound of joy.

His frank littleness operates on my moods,
and I can taste his taste with the world.
You have to hold on
there’s stickers there.
The world will grab you,
and all falls down.
You have to be careful there,
and everything has eyes you know,
even the water bucket.
How amazing this is.
I coo
and talk to those eyes
a speech pre-language wears.
Identified with Dylan
with a poet’s laugh,
I’m in his jolly roger don’t you see?

Now what happens when we’re three?
Identity with the world please,
it no longer storms our room.
I could be seven,
and joy becomes something monumental
we chase the dogs with.
It’s not homegrown anymore.
It’s not our natural state.
We’ve put on man.

I’m on poet’s wings,
and I’m identified with what’s in front of me.
You can’t do this writing about your make up.
It’s how we discover the world,
reaching poet wings
reaching the starlight,
where God sees everything glow.
It put us together in ancient times,
grabbed civilization out from the paws of nature,
a poet’s look guide,
and we’re born you and me
so much’d civilized clothes,
and a poet born language don’t you know.
It came from the skies
added to our feet down below.

Where’s all this goin’?
And we write it down in speech,
great big letters of world maker’s art
that came in vision or dream,
and we fountain a language with it.
A poet saw that.
I’m not here to hear you scream,
and kill all these damn flies.
That’s the muscle we wear.
The poet has the architect of civilization
we grasp here.
You don’t know from on high.
You don’t know these robes.
I’m speechless.
Yeah, you would be.
Well I be damned.

The chaos of the toddler,
it writes your poem.
They don’t know dirty,
and they have no sense of mistake.
They don’t know danger.
A grandpa’s life is dangerous,
and he gave that toddler reach.
It’s not playin’ with the same cars
of a society toolkit.
They meditate together
on meaning.
The boy feels the rush.
It’s living.
I can’t draw your papers from here,
but I’m showin’ yah how we’re made.
I can’t explain it to yah
so that you wear the same cars,
but I accelerate growth.

That’s not dangnabbit,
or any role of violation.
It’s where that guy sees the stars.
Are you with me on this?
For a nice mental health,
where it counts,
it’s in that toddler child.
You don’t want to falter there.
They’re bright and shiny objects from the universe,
and they just love to play.
They don’t need a hard time.

Just organize them
the storybook of the universe,
and they mean something more
than I am tired,
irritate me one more time and I’ll slap you,
or I’m horny please me.
Don’t be confused with their gatherin’.
There’s a child there with their tall eyes
bein’ the Earth for you,
and every touch counts,
and they love to be touched and cuddled.
They wear your fingers
for the rest of their lives,
your harsh tone,
your can’t take it anymore.
All of humanity needs to see this.

Listen,
it’s not possible today is it?
This is too cutting edge.
This is too model.
Don’t take their joy away.
Let them be rising and kind and kids
by you’re conducing a sacrifice
for their wellbeing.
Can’t you see this Paul
when you get home from work,
and you’re tired,
and momma there in the kitchen,
that meal’s better than that child?
And we can reverse the roles and do the same thing
or join them.
What would daycare say?
Keep them busy no.
Let them occupy themselves
with whatever,
and watch them there.
We want them to organize themselves,
no just obey masters
and do what they’re told.

Can you see my thought’s skies?
We don’t want a subservient human being.
We want society to challenge the world.
We want a greater world bear.
We are on earth for no other thing.
How could you argue with yourself?
Beginning right now,
make that toddler’s world better
by your lovin’ hands and freeze,
no shouting, no hitting,
no inappropriate hands.
Goo Goo and Ga Ga,
they just inherited the world,
and it was nice to them.
Oh man see this.

Make a child’s day.
Make every moment count.
Can yah?
Will yah?
It’s growin’ up to be you.
A vehicle burned by society’s ways,
a damaged vessel,
do you really wanna put that on that kid?
Let them play in the dirt and mud.
They’re not going to murder themselves,
hurt society with it.
Aren’t you right there
to prevent mouthfuls
and rocks up their nose?
They’re testin’ time,
where all the dirt goes.

Aren’t you glad you see that,
their special put together?
It makes for good kids,
lettin’ them be the little animals they are
when they’re two,
no inhibitions,
not feedbacks.
They’re beautiful little tigers,
and we give that little creature kindness
and consideration
in every mood they wear.
We just don’t let them tear up the ship,
or express their violence towards other people
and puppy dogs,
and we teach them to be kind to ourselves
with the kindness we give them,
and who would let a toddler hurt himself?

You gotta be swift and fast,
and you’re gonna make mistakes.
The little monster’ll test your patience,
the little cuddly bear.
You’re farmin’,
know that,
and you determinin’ that child’s life.
A great big heavy thing in life,
we shape our children by our touch and mood,
and the most important time’s before three,
monumental she wrote.
I’m infinity’s cards,
and I’ve just showed you the spasm of life,
where it most counts:
hey baby,
oh you new thing.
Can you dig it?

It’s the living fetal position for animals,
the punishment chair.
Stop this motion.
Order the pens to our insight.
I was thinking first of Dylan.
I didn’t chatter my teeth there.
My comfort,
his parade,
he got the money’s worth.
I can’t spell this out for you.
It’s long on time.
What do we do with him,
pull his pants down and shoot ‘im,
arrange him in the corner,
blister his butt?
Let’s call him kings,
and you’re his subject
most of the time.
Can you get that?

Wow he’s free
to make decisions
that don’t harm him.
You’re followin’ him around a puppy dog.
Did I just say something mean?
It is exhausting,
but you’re right there
as he explores the world.
Too wild to keep,
my parents put a dog there,
highly efficient at watching me.
Outside he followed me everywhere.
I brought some of the memories back.
Can you believe he talked?
Used all the sounds a dog makes
to convey meaning.
Boy get away from there.
You stop that behavior at once.
It was a pleading sound with authority.

Buckshot was extraordinary,
a big dog from army parents,
half Shepard half Collie.
He came from a military base.
Can you see it?
We’ve been doin’ it all along
in our homes and in our backyards,
but we can make it an official duty of mankind,
train dogs to watch kids.
The little one’s too exhausting to keep up with.
They need special care,
and a good dog can give it.

Am I meaning here?
Do you know how much this helps the child?
The love of a dog
opens up society to them
in the ways of love,
and if it’s a lone child,
they pay attention to another person in their play.
Let’s put a handle on their selfishness shall we?
That big dog can protect itself
and is a sense on the world we don’t.
The consciousness shares
between a dog and child,
that’s the link right there,
but I’m gettin’ far ahead of you.
You don’t know you do this with Dog.
We are more than their masters,
and they are our children.

Buckshot grows.
Would you believe he’d take my hand in his mouth
and lead me back to the house
if I passed the invisible barriers that said too far?
There was a dog there
on his way to human.
You don’t know that’s what dogs are doing with us.
In the evolution of soul
they become man
after climbing the latter of Dog.

What did you think they were doing with us?
I put dogs in the throne room too,
kids with fur and tail
and adorable ears.
There was this hole in evolution,
and we created Dog
to fill it
when we were ready in soul,
when we became men and women firm enough on the ground
to fill it.
At the role of civilization,
and then came Dog.

I’ve gotten angry again,
and I just shut it off and move on,
apologizin’ profusely to that kid.
How is this learned?
The heart is open to soul.

The heart is open to that kid.
Profound love dwells there
that can heal anything.
Careful with that soul.
I guess I’m a witness
that you let out.
I’m not an icicle.
I am love everywhere found,
deep feelings of release
into the sincerity of the moment.

You are love there
watch your nose,
and you obey your nose
no longer.
You’re not led by the nose anywhere.
You’re compelled to soul choices,
complete understanding
not offended by anything,
and where you find love
you find the wisdom to use it
to correct that child,
the strong love that knows its pants
that can say no to things that harm
and make that child know he caused it
without those feelings of guilt that block remorse.

You surface the soul you know.
It’s what takes over
as you’re doin’ it,
a sadhana out of ego.
It heals.
It wears a crown.
It makes everything right.
That’s what we’re doin’ here,
being soul,
a manual for the new millennia,
how to be safe with our kids
in diapers and into the terrible twos,
and they’re comin’ unto themselves threes and fours.
We are expensive with the toddler,
lavish on them
our heartfelt attention,
and that’s the history of science
that makes a better world.

We need a role model,
and I’ve lifted up a poem for you
that comes from higher sources,
the role of a poet,
a special use of language wear,
and poetry that I have,
I’ve returned us to our origins,
where the poet revealed to us the world
and gave us strong ideas how to live in it.
It be compatible
with what the world needs.
I can’t account for its audience,
but here take another poem.

We walked out a miracle.
We walked out back.
Did yah listen?
The applications are enormous.
I am in any thought
you use to harbor children.
A family of pioneers asks a lot about a new generation.
Well I’ve got that orbit.
I’m asking me this I’m asking you:
what’s conducting God in our filthy experiment?
The eyes of the child.

The pictures,
we’re gonna keep looking,
and another FMG,
it was on the film net.
Would you cause me to live?
I’ve gone further than I am,
and I don’t feel badly about it.
Broadly I read you.
You know Stoppa was running.
They didn’t know what they were doing.
This was the parade.
I’m tellin’ yah I’m sorry.
I'm not fighting wars with children anymore.
Can you get a load of that redemption?
Be hostile where joy was,
their glasses
whole birthplace humanity
right on time.
Good afternoon.

The change in consciousness ahead,
get me my improvement
I’ve penned these days.
Why would I be running from it?
See a bullock cart,
I can’t get out of this view.
Got some dirt,
it springs into anxiety.
I put it
on the lawn
and deal with it.
I don’t know exactly when it happened,
the line of consciousness drawn.
I’m a senior builder.
Stopness,
seriously wellbeing,
birth has a lot more to do with it than nature.
Is that so?
I gave a poem
that talks about
relief.
I’m not gonna pull it to my pants down.
Were you like a screwdriver yet,
you’re used?
Can I answer that question?

An Appointment with the World Today

image by the author, Earth in space public domain via Wikipedia
The world is at the skid point.
We are so caught in this movie we can’t even see beyond.
Tell me you don’t care.
Tell me you’re hangin’ out clothes to dry,
and your little one’s screamin’,
and that’s just big stuff on TV.
Got caught in the movies.
I know you ache at night,
just about to spill it all,
everything you know about the world but don’t.
You don’t know what to make of it
it holds you so close.

Can we climb out of this?
We can sure get lost in it.
Will you play with me?
I’m a poet from Skid Row.
No I’m not a drinker.
I’m a free world thinker,
and I want the world to last
longer than its appointment
in the annuals of our sun.
I’m with you on that.
I want to outlast the sun
where I know I can be happy.

Have you ever seen the world up close?
It’ll finger your dickens.
No, no I’m not talkin’ about the rovin’ mania all around yah—
the whole teeming world
as an entity in front of your face.
Got boxes
and spring cards,
but it’s the real McCoy.

I don’t know if you know what I’m talkin’ about yet.
I scrap it off my shoe
no.
This is a divine appointment in time,
the world as an organization
that brings God on earth,
and we can’t get over the word divine.
I’ve lifted up your skirt
and showed you religious offerings.
I mean an intelligence bigger than the skies
that can fit in our green Earth
and bring it to the next level.
You think of the universe as a flat individual organization,
but the many levels of the universe go beyond the universe,
and I tell yah Earth is scheduled for that.

I’m far from the clothesline now,
but that screamin’ kid,
I’ve gotten into his ache.
We want a better world,
expressive of need,
and the world as an organization can do that,
be unto our need.
It’s flat and big
everywhere we look today,
but have you met the world yet?
That’s what I’m tryin’ to say
so that it matters,
so that we can get bigger than ourselves,
knowin’ the world’s done
with livin’ for your kin.

Bigger than any national flag,
the world is our step-brother
that needs to know its name
spoken on your lips.
Oh no Mohammad you don’t own the world,
nor Jesus Christ,
and certainly not Hindu
or Buddha,
and the Jewish people will not rule the Earth.
We’re all gonna get goin’
to see the world in each of us,
to understand its nature
bigger than the machine.

Are you with me on this?
I think you’ll fight me some,
until we realize Earth’s got an appointment
in blue skies,
and we will all revel in it,
giddy with the realization of harm’s end.
Do you know that cost?
Can you turn around and see the world today?
Flabbergasted can you see it?

A step-mother,
seven kids,
and digital shock,
can you grab that?
Help me chase it
to we meet the world there.
I’m not horseplay.
I’m the world looks in on you,
not the teeming multitudes,
the world as a being in front of you in time,
and I’m travelin’
a poet to forgotten shores,
what a seer give society,
its determining wings,
how it lays out itself
and what it be's.
It’s the arms of society to tell you the truth.
You must not let that little you.
It’s the One looking in on itself.
You’re the One.
I am really here for you.

Now sing along.
You can’t fool me anymore
by your nonchalance.
I know the score.
You can’t shoot me anymore
either.
I know what I’m about,
and even dead I’ll know it,
and so will my poetry.

Open up in there.
There can be no losers.
Bite into something hard.
Stare into something new.
I gave you the congressional service.
No shame in that.
A wardrobe
you know you can catalogue
here take this self:
we’re goin’ to the
end of society
as the machine.

Sheltered animals move and breathe.
They just don’t get away.
What was defeated in Mexico?
Waiting by the bomb.
You’re encountering
that work’s envitalment,
and you can’t get out of it.
Best documentary
That Worked.
What are you doin’?
Getting our own hands dirty in blowing up the machine,
a long action
that we can do without war
or blowin’ people up
or shooting them down.
Here I am doin’ it don’t you see?

Never mind the behavior
they stopped us from realizing it.
What was that membership?
Blowin’ up the world
in I don’t care,
oh no.
I’ll give you as much as possible
to farm time
freedom from the machine.

Love,
it actually
gave us tomorrow,
is the active ingredient.
I find that news with anything.
It’s real
and normal
if you realize you have met the world
out during the day
in every box you’ve met today,
in every pair of eyes staring out at you,
all of it,
the whole damn show.

And the Vehicles of Discernment

Where autism rides,
nobody believes in it,
and the vehicles crash.
Madness in America gave us this lay:
autism comes from television
and screen time.
I laugh at every little thing. [sing line]
This is the public mind.
Where do we go with it?
We can’t take it anywhere
in the fundamentals of ourselves
where we’ve encountered the unknown.

I’m dancin’ on thin ice.
I think this is the public construction of our ego today,
or whatever you call that we are now,
how it’s made,
where it comes from.
Everybody’s ignorant here.
Nobody knows what’s goin’ on,
and nobody cares.
Too many other concerns crowd the show.

How do I introduce you to you?
Let’s take your dream last night
the closer you are from waking up,
when you’re patterning on dreamless sleep.
You’ve gotten down that far.
This is really weird.
The forms bite you.
They do not contain waking life
in anything recognizable
except maybe a sandwich you’re a part of,
that you’re being eaten by.
They are larger than machine.
They swallow you whole.
You were merged with that odd substance, weren’t you?
The separate self was hanging in thin air.
You didn’t recognize it yet.
You were the forms you saw,
and you are all mixed up.
You couldn’t tell yourself,
but you were there.

Have you ever woken up from this
merged dream content?
It’s oddly familiar.
You feel basic with it,
like you’re on a slab of reality
you’ve know before,
when you first woke up from sleep,
somewhere in womb-time,
but I think after we’re born the show begins,
when we hold the world tight
indistinguishable from it.
We are merged in our identity
with all around us,
but the body localizes us
in our surroundings,
and we are so bodily there.
Mommy and springtime,
that’s the season we wear.
Her face, her touch,
her smell,
we know those are safety measures,
and we don’t know much else.
It depends upon the daddy.
Some are right there,
and it doesn’t have to be a parent.
I can’t give you the lists
without breakin’ ‘em up.
We’ve got to talk about the thing.

I think slowly we wake to the blows of life,
its insistence on its kin,
and we separate ourselves from our environment
slowly,
little by little.
You can see this happenin’
if your look’s engaged.
That sense of separate self is precious
a wee one becomes a person in.
Are you three
when you’ve balanced life
and can give a wink to other people
here I am, here I am, how do you do? [sing line, popular nursery rhyme]

I’ve just studied your rabbit.
You think you’re localized in space
a separate consciousness in time.
No, that’s learned.
Now put all this in a TV show,
some stupid video,
and you see what you got.
I can’t distinguish myself from time and space
to begin with.
Now add another layer,
the absurd,
the inane,
the chocolate freeze cake,
and some children don’t make the match.
They can’t distinguish themselves in time,
and spectrum autism
makes them their relationship with the world.

One in 36 is it?
Anyway it’s huge.
I can babysit
a two-year-old,
and I don’t have consciousness breathin’ down my neck.
I make contact with the kid
casually.
I understand his price.
I see him there
pullin’ himself out of the world,
tryin’ to make himself work in it.
I dream about him,
have him in vision.
We have open lines of communication,
and I don’t wanna mess it up,
that delicate balance he has with the world
as he’s findin’ himself in it.

No extra touches when I wash his penis,
no emotions in my hand,
and I’m careful with that anus.
(I have no sexual desire for the child.)
I think these are where he is localized now
as the body reaches the sky,
right there at the birth of thought.
No they are not the majors in the room
that determine his life.
There’s just so much feeling there,
and feeling’s what it’s all about
when you’re two.

I’m crowdin’ in on your crash course in reality.
I’m tellin’ yah how it’s made,
our sexual preference,
our sexual alliance with the world.
We can become gay or straight,
pedophile or necrophiliac,
and the list goes on,
and we can this and that
or just someone who harass women,
touch them somewhere
they don’t know where it’s at,
respect,
and if you wanna rapist touch them more momma.
An old movie,
don’t worry;
I’m taking it to see daylight.
It won’t take long.

We need good parental hands
with everybody who handles them,
our genitals.
The equations will reach the sky
with anybody who touches them,
or squeezes them against ourself
in diaper rub.
Add some kissin’ on top of that,
real romantic feelings
with some male role model,
and if you’re boy you’re gay.
Watch and see.
I just let the cat out of the bag.
Can you see it?

Autism spectrum disorder,
it’s not the only thing that comes out of our threes.
Every touch counts.
Every moment’s involved with us.
A screaming parent,
two fighting parents,
and that’s joined in our identity don’t you see?
You got it all wrong.
Those years count the most,
and they’re the hardest to bear,
aren’t they?
Hit that child and see
you’ve got a child there
the world has slapped by,
and they’ve been betrayed by everybody.
Can’t you see it on their face?
Don’t you know it’s in their pain?

I love you Dylan.
I really do.
Anyway,
there, I’ve done it,
showed you reality.
Can you get my dig?
Cryin’ all the time, [sing line, from the song “Hound Dog”]
no.
We wipe their tears with our love,
always addin’ to the world
their place in it,
and the roles are clear,
and that’s heavy, ain’t it?

I can bring understanding
to many roles in your life
and to horrible times.
I can do that.
When you even begin to walk,
we’re gettin’ some stuff done.
We’re gettin’ some stuff done put well on you.
Like what can you do
if nobody wants to be well?
Kid you know
travel love,
and make that the aim of life
the immediacy of this moment.

May all your memories and all your steps,
may they be easy.
Okay,
I’ve tuned you to the ages.
That explains it,
what went wrong.
Daddy, daddy! [vision of Dylan standing and turning to look at me and saying this]
Come there
even for your own purpose.
You know as well as I know
the movies,
trauma is almost illegal I’m carrying
to bring Dylan through this touch and screen of madness,
someone
experiencing the world
his play bubba,
his romance,
his mastery,
and we all look for spiritual change,
don’t we?
Evolution,
it’s what’s you do with a kid.
It be like
huggin’
sha-la-la, la-la, la-la, la-la, la-la tee-da [sing line, song “Brown Eyed Girl”]
and never gettin’ caught in it.
You’re free.
Why would you want to take a child anywhere else?

Pop! Goes the Weasel

taken in Cape Coral, Florida
Behind the Biblical,
wow, is that real?
Challenges,
let’s not escape from that.
Never get to say it:
the worth in the characters in the Bible are real.
They had time on earth.
How do we listen to them?
Not through their own venue.
We’re encountering the past.
It has weight today,
relevance,
but it’s not our lives today.
Humanity hadn’t reached that far,
to understand more in life than the tall tale,
and fairy tales still ruled the day.

We believed them.
They made us mad.
They got our goat.
They made us worship the sun
and put deities in trees.
We abided by them,
thinking the world a magical place,
air tight,
and no laws apply.
The moon could stand in your living room,
and decapitated heads could talk.

We listen to them today
out walk our sun,
conspiracy daylight.
A bunch of Democrats
extract from children and child sacrifice
some blood elixir,
and this is their insulin for the day?
And do pedophiles rule the world?
Do you know how mad that is?
It’s from the Middle Ages.
It shows a huge decline in the population
in critical reasoning skills.
It’s moonbeams,
lunacy,
and so many Christians believe it.

They can’t get their fantasy straight.
They don’t know what it is,
all the magic in the Bible,
and we come down to miracle.
Does it exist?
Everybody’s seen it
down through the ages
in every culture on earth.
Miracles happen,
but they’re not the order of life.
They are rare instances of great change
in some little module or another,
a superseding a nature for a moment.
They happen and they don’t happen.
So much gets mixed in folklore
the impossible our daily ride,
and it’s quite possible
we hallucinated a lot
in times past,
even on a mass scale.
A consciousness change did that,
gave us reason to guide our lives
and put out the great eye of the cyclops,
Poseidon’s son,
so that we would no longer drink from dream and vision
right out there under the sun.
They receded underwater,
and the subconscious withdrew into its cage.

We tarry there now,
not even believing in dream and vision
and not knowing how to open it again
so it doesn’t swallow us.
That’s the crux of the matter.
I have held a telltale shark
in this escape hatch.
I am swallowed by dream and vision.
I mean it guides my inner life,
disrupts.
It surround me,
and I have to know how to negotiate it.
I spend half my time there.
It’s loud, and it’s free,
liable to take you anywhere,
and it’s costly.
It plays with your mind all the time.
You have to keep it in check.
You can’t just let it run amok,
and you can’t believe everything it says,
shows yah.
So much of it’s a lie,
a representative figure shown on a screen a moment
that’s followed your fancy,
your fear.
It scares the hell outta you.
It tears you apart,
and it gives so much hope.

You learn these are lies
to mess with you.
You learn discernment,
and you’re dealing with creatures more intelligent than you.
Jung will get you goin’ a long ways:
this is just all inside your head,
and your head is much bigger than you know,
but I’m sorry there are cosmic creatures,
angels and demons and Gods and Goddesses
and a whole host of nature spirits and world voices
and a whole bunch more.
You can communicate with the cosmos.
It communicates with you.
So you sit in the cosmic consciousness
and learn how to handle it.

You see miracle there.
You see it every day,
because the future is in your dreams there to discover
every single day,
and the hearts of men and women are laid bare,
everybody that touches your life
that you need to know about,
and the great world engines are revealed to you
and secrets no one knows,
but there you are a pauper in your room
of no value to the world.
It doesn’t make you rich.
You’re dealing with symbols,
representation,
fairy tales to most people.
No one understands the science
of dream and vision,
and I have gotten it down to a science
in my room.
Will you blast me for it?
We will see.

You’re stupid you know
when it comes to showin’ us the times,
men and women who are beyond their time.
They are persecuted or ignored,
made fun of
and sometimes killed.
I have been ignored and cast aside,
like being in an eye of a storm.
I must show you what I see
because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.
I have divine beings breathing down my neck,
and do you know how smart they are,
how well they can manipulate our kind
to get their packages done?
I shoot the bird at them all the time,
but I get my job done,
and I resisted this poem last night,
but it haunted me this morning,
and I gave in.
I submit it to what,
several people?
Great world pretend,
oh well here I am again
crossin’ paperwork
and understanding a poem.
Do we just sit here and call snakes?