photo by me of one of my only real friends on the island
I’m telling you the birds and the bees. It’s way over your head? Come on now slow down and read. This is the biggest thing on earth where we whip up ourselves. I’ve revealed the times, any way you look at them. See that dog standin’ there? It’s the same for him. Now let this poem unfold before your eyes a poet where you’re sittin’.
All about bears and livid nature just feed the worm. They just didn’t do it right, be themselves in a public crowd. An exaggerated sense of self led them through the day. This is the human worm. I think this plagues everybody. It’s baseline bein’ human, when we encounter each other. I am so big in my eyes. I need to show this to people. I have to feel good about myself and expose my difference. I am just one in a crowd, and that hurts.
A social hierarchy makes everybody sting and just messes up bein’ human. Everyone is just falling all over themselves to be an item. Your boss said no. Now, what’s at fault here? Everybody’s just bein’ human. Let me give you a hug. I’ve just arrived on the scene, and I think we met once, and I have to show this scene my Jesus imitation mi corazón, or I just sit back and judge everybody pretendin’ to be bigger than everybody else with my debonair, so they see I’m the one important here.
Can you stop? Nobody can. These are the facts of life. I’m a hole in one. I see everything as the center of me. My senses place me dead center. I hear everything inside confirm that. I feel it on my skin, and you can be my child, and I am not your senses to you, and your inner life is dead to me. I don’t hear a thing. I infer. I gather. I learn to empathize. I don’t know where you’re at as you see me. My world is so big you understand, your world pressin’ in on me. I’ve got to show yah I’m worth.
Here’s the deal. You don’t believe me, unlessin’ we mean for each other. There are just too many of us to care about them others. This is such an exaggerated posture, however much noise we make to show our worth. We feel ourselves so deeply. We are ever-present with ourselves, and we want so to be liked and loved, not made to feel bad about who we are. Oh man please listen to me. We each and everyone of us hurt so because we’re ridin’ the world right upon its seat, legitimately the peddlers of existence, wind in our hair, fire under our tires, and not a person sees that but us.
Oh my God that hurts. It’s downright mean to arrange a world bottle this way. Is it a Creator laugh? We’re so on ourselves, little children at the handlebars, peddlin’ for all it’s worth. Who can blame us for bein’ mean? Now you know that’s not right, and God is not a son of a bitch. We’re workin’ out a plan too big for us to see. We have to take the impossible and pump it on our bikes, not live in a storm of I am the you, the me.
We have to do this ourselves, realize every Dick and Jane is the center of ourself too, and they feel the world out there the central event in it, just like everyone of us does to our existential eyes. Oh my God all life fits there. Oh my God all the world fits there.
Can you see the change in identity? There you are identifying with everything. Now you can still get your work done, but with radically changed hands and thought process, and your heart beats in everyone’s so that you can feel them like yourself. Even if you fumble this someone really does you in, you climb back up there because it’s how you see.
Now am I livin’ wart? I have the apple in my hand. I’ve explained to you humanity, right there in social dice. I’m the cows come home, and I’m different you see? I’m posturin’ so you’ll give me worth. Is it all a game? Do we just bury our heads in sand dunes we are so embarrassing on each other? Oh no sweet brother, sweet sister, puppy dog, pussy cat, we are so much more than tumultuous sees. We are bigger than stars, just immature infants that’s all to how fucking big everything is and meaningful. We have a role to play in an unimaginable creation’s purpose, these little animals that we are, but we grow up you see.
I’m speakin’ from that tall noon far off in a shimmering distance. Inevitable we arrive. A chrysalises our dumb selves, and we’re just waitin’ on that greater light to open us, and this poem has eyes on that light. Is that okay? You sent me the email to shut up. I’m sorry I can’t. It’s what makes me tick, right here: see that me there? I’m lookin’ at the world poet my number. His editorial number God central that’s you.
I have to have a storm to peddle in emergencies, passage mean, this business of losing my job. A cute muffin is my horticulture, a grassroots revealing poem. Now think on this. What’s so weird this is Candid Camera. We’re bein’ caught in ourselves, because as luck would have it we are the One lookin’ out at the world through everyone’s eyes.
We get caught in ourselves seein’ that, and there’s a host of pile-ons. We’re creation’s niggers, little hapless animals breastfeeding on life, not knowin’ who we are, not knowin’ where we came from. We’re a little window on time, unaware of the All inside. It’s spurs us on. It gives us courage. It’s not bound by time or even existence. We are there you see in the front of ourselves too close to see.
What a Hollywood. It’s wonderful really, and validates all our notions of look important me. To discover that in yourselves you would have to remove the Earth from view, see brighter than stars. Can you do that? That will be the day you will count forever as the starting of your see. You would’ve seen Earth laid bare in all of its miracle. In several seconds sums it up for me. I’m seein’ all those pile-ons a poet describin’ time. Is that so bad? A referee man, I’m tellin’ yah how the cow ate the cabbage. Am I invited to dinner?
The most precious thing on earth, your dog loves you so, and you can treat ‘im like a dog, piss all over him with your human control, shock the shit out of him with that play-button shock collar, and he’ll lick your hand and throw away all his pride at your feet. Now how do we help that dog? It's not abuse you get arrested for, but you don't wanna look at it. There’s better hours his master can spend with him. Well I found out theys do me dog here too. Comin’ in didn’t see that. I thought I was a pedigree dog. (The sound of laughter) He gets embarrassed and shy we share identity. Get that puppy so much better than scoldin’s. Honor that dog.
If you are reading this poem on a phone, note that the integrity of the lines, a major feature of poetry, is not displayed properly. Many if not most get cut short because of the small screen.
The captive adult, I’m not that bad. Dated immigrant, 21 years in India, and I didn’t have a form to fill out, and they called me illegal. Are you kiddin’ me? Human beings are wrong, nasty, and evil, if they’ve overstayed their visa. Everybody says so. Look at Trump.
I’ve got a million dollars. I’ve got hair in my ICE, and my hair in on fire lookin’ at the human being. I judge is my luxury. I’m not as tall as I am, and I get downright small on the issues group think.
Now murder me some, the I now the poet, who can say I to anyone. Okay we’ve called down Congress, hopin to find some expediency to keep tyranny from happenin’. I mean we’ve wrote a poem, maybe several, that ask government to be government and not make us bow down to nationalism and be a dictator over our lives.
No British government can force the crown on us. We are all we are in the halls of independence, and everybody who signed the paper put their lives on the line. Protest is useless. Give a government what it wants, total dominion, you stupid s.o.b. Let it take over Auroville and rule with an iron fist and remove the international scene if the people resist.
To point this out to people, to use poetry to stop it. Now let’s get on with it, movin’ Heaven and Earth to get our dogs. No, no, no, you can’t do that, ask the community for help, the man at large, the woman with the telephone. Get second jobs you fools and pay for your dogs yourself.
You selfish points of contact with the society in the bag. You are supposed to work, work, work and create no art, write no poetry, or go on your little round abouts and discover the community. You are of no value to us as a society, and you cannot ask for a thing. Asking the community for help with your dogs, you’re throwin’ pies in our face. Get your act together and stop asking people for help. So many millionaires on this island, and please don’t bother them. They’re makin’ money.
I think we’d need to ask the millionaire. We find some kind, nice, and warm, open to humanity, especially dog lovers, and we’ve gotten a lot of help. Thank you. But the thing most profound in all this mess, in all this criticism, concerns our way of life. We are digging a well into the meaning of life, and every decision is based on that. We live our lives to a spiritual plan and put that first. It’s not lip service. It’s the reality of our lives.
Even our dreams we hone in on God and seek to find the higher consciousness. We do not base our lives on survival, making money, or anything of the sort. We are not here to have a good time. The consequences of that are huge. We get attacked constantly. Jesus died on the cross, and you think it was for sin? Poor bugger got caught openin’ up God inside himself.
What’s this I say? Jesus was on a tree, castigated and torn, murdered, because he showed men how to change their lives in spiritual substance. He gave men and women a way to be free by breaking the bonds of consciousness and being born again into the higher type, and you think it’s a wish-wash hangin’ on a prayer, and you’re clean and good, religious for the rest of your life? A radical transformation of our whole life Jesus envisioned. Now shoot me for saying that he did not die for our sins.
So anybody we’re up against, as we try to change, base our life on this mountain, is either put off or keeps us at a distance. Few come inside our home or invite us to socialize. We are too weird for TV. I think you’d find us warm and very human to be with. We know you’re God starin’ back at us, a startling revelation we challenge ourselves with every day.
Now kick us and be mean to us because we are different from you, and you need validation that only your life is true. Have I said enough? I’m on time I think to be Who I am, a man in search of himself that his divinity timeshare wears, a man tryin’ to change in his higher type, and I’m doin’ that in normal life. I got kicked out of India.
Now say I keep my nose to the grindstone, work a 40 hour week, pay my bills, keep my mind to myself, unless someone asks— I’m talkin’ about at work. Can I be in America and do that, or is conformity the rule of the day now, and if I don’t conform I’m fired, lose my home? Will I be chased off this island for poetry like I was India?
Do you understand what’s your doin’? There’s a radical change of consciousness ahead, how we evolve out of this mess. There’s a new society of ourselves waitin’ to be born. There’s human survival in the balance. Let’s huff and puff and blow it down because we cannot tolerate change out of our satisfied little lives, and these two beggars, Don and Doug, we need them to straighten up and be just like us.
Now all you good people, can you get your head around that? Can you please? “Douglas at the Watering Hole”, another joy for understanding. It’s so true yes. All the whiles are looking at me. You raise your hands among yourselves. Why should I be any different? Another two weeks before bylaws are stated. A bunch of people, a bunch of people on this island support, are lookin’ at this way: I approach the bench, and there are good vibes there.
You’re on dissidence you’re on daily bread, you just take a deep breath and keep on goin’, confirmation code casting problems away from your human beings and comin’ to yourself for the love of man. Are there any other spring rolls? An island bright in sunshine, and all those puppy dogs— the love of animals too. Well they’re on our diet. Would if they’re off in time for us to renew the Earth? Yeah I know. I got a ways to go, but our dogs are our children, and I don’t eat those.
For the love of dog, they’re honored guests on our island too, and who are we but guests on bright and shiny seashores the power of Nature rules? What causes earthquakes? Well, we might have something to do with them greed takes the shore, if we honor our pocketbooks more. Help was health insurance, but would the Calusa listen? There are no more creeds for the Calusa to close. It was 30 miles an hour, their hunting season, who put other peoples out. I pointed it out. Pointed it out wind, we do it, no socioeconomic class below the poverty level.
It’s easy for me to say. I just got here. And they’re real deep in there so be good to them Harbor Island. Ed the reason an algebra drive, if you wanna get past your schoolbooks. We are representative creatures ourselves hook, line, and sinker. An actor plays a part, you and me, and you don’t save your soul. Your soul you find it and rise above yourself to Who you represent in time. Find Yourself to believe in. That’s good news and that One is all of us, islands and dogs included.
Now believe in hell as a preferable option for most people, and you really need to examine yourself, don’t you think? I’m just talkin’ islands. Now you hear them speak. Rise power to Nature, or we’re not gonna make it. Will you listen?
Well legalized in a fiery seal, we’ve moved mountains on Fort Myers Beach to get in there. Would you welcome please Doug and Donny and let them have their dogs and spiritual life? I need to put poems on it, this startup page. Rock me gently, rock me slowly (sing to Rock Me Gently by Andy Kim) for the love of the island. It touches yah you know and helps people along like us. Thank you island.
Come on Jim, we’re just here for a little while. We’re off to the mountains in springtime. Not now. When we put our time in on the island. Meaning we are open to the island. Can you gauge that? Just let it be.
There’s somethin’ Earth husband, but can we be accepted not being gay doing it? We don’t have to be gay, do we, to be two husbands and a wife? We’re celibate you know, but we don’t live inside an egg. I don’t like it. You guys are doin’ great. Good riddens. Well we’ve heard from the crowd. It’s nice to be accepted, ain’t it? We’re just a laboratory. I’m doin’ the laboratory. Could you stop threatenin’ to kick me out? I wuv you.
I suppose you can read the writings after the fall, but I was really hopin’ humanity wouldn’t fall. Is there anybody out there? We don’t have to fall. Now I’ve taken on the voice of the world, but who believes you can get that done? Now you know the spirit of Old St. Nick, and it shows by a red light. Build for sunlit paths the stadium of our Earth. Is that today’s date? I have found good shit to faith, but we’re at a watering hole, and we have no sense of each other. Love others as yourself, that’s precious to us now.
Sure, are you singing the song, or does your music just get drunk island hopper? Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues. (sing to Honky Tonk Woman) Let the big sheet guests know that the grassroots can do it themselves, move Earth towards our up stand. Now gotta get to work. You have a great day.
If you are reading this poem on a phone, note that the integrity of the lines, a major feature of poetry, is not displayed properly. Many if not most get cut short because of the small screen.
How do we know each one of us is a liar? How do we know each one is true? We’re not criminals anymore, those of us thinking the worst of you.
It’s just procedure, the inhumanity of our times, despite all the books that say so: let’s get our humanity down to a science, the feelings test, the look in the eyes, the agreements made by hand and not the machine.
The ones who take our humanity to the test crowd us up upon ourselves the attitude of you are a liar until proven guilty. We would just make them mad writing poems on their behalf.
Just to get a library card you have to take a lie detector test, and you live right next door, can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt you live there, without paper-wiping the machine.
Oh God give me a break you’re playing trivial pursuit— the one who looked me in the eyes and needed confirmation they were true. / I’m as tall as grass, and this is buggin’ the shit out of humanity: prove you’re a human being.
It’s everywhere apparent we’re crowdin’ in on each other, and you have to prove the rule of the machine. Oh my God bylaws, and I’m a derelict for sayin’ so?
We are all too common now, the gateway to total control the way we are with each other. Can I sing this to you where we bake our bread? Poetry doesn’t have a shoreline. It’s unhanded. It’s not the way we have with books.
Now they’re for leisure time. It’s not to challenge us in our thinking. It’s not to make waves where we meet each other to take us back to square one in mutual trust.
How do we lift the veil and get yah to read a poem? Any poem points to the human being getting higher than themself. Can you copy that? It can be in an estuary along a manatee’s spine line so glad you’re there leavin’ them alone. You feel better highin’ their part with you.
Now give that to everything you need to look at. Home owner’s insurance, are you sure you got a poem there? It’s the poems that take on life and better us with ourselves, and you’re not whistlin’ Dixie. Wow, I’ve landed a poem.
If you are reading this poem on a phone, note that the integrity of the lines, a major feature of poetry, is not displayed properly. Many if not most get cut short because of the small screen.
For both a ride on me, ageless against you, and the age of the suns, I’ll be thousands of fallin’ underneath my mind, startled by the springs of enlightenment, and the cards are in play but too grandiose for my design.
Involved in the history, I’m not chuckin’ wood, but let’s face it I’m this little man in a little play. Now look, even in my beach job parking lot the herald of swift event patterned life. I saw the nuances of things to come, and I was a bearer there.
You can’t grasp this in your hand. I held the Earth in impossible lilies. I knew it was a steamboat. I handled it carefully every damn day. Can you imagine sleep without it? It held me at night, working on its intricacies.
I saw the world comin’. It held my gasping hand in its own. It was a birthday kiss. It was a holocaust of things known. I did not put all my rocks there. I had bigger plans than Earth.
Can you starry enlightenment? It will do you away. You’re not there seein’ it. You’ve disappeared, standin’ right there in the middle of it, and you’ve gone father than the world.
I know this land. I can’t describe it to you. It’s taken the world away in perfect seeing. I am not sure of its moorings. My times there have been brief, but you hear it in my gifted speech.
A whole field’s to play, famous hotel, unknown to the world. Can you imagine seeing the impossible, a world where none is, sights and sounds that not be, thoughts where none be? A whole world arise from the Void where nonexistence is. What arises now?
I don’t know if I’m worth this. I don’t know if it’ll come, the springboards of the Earth a seer’s grasp, the passive in God’s hands, the no-self of enlightenment, the end of suffering for individual man.
The floodgates are open for this puny start, a beach bellhop boy liberals through the strong right-wing the doors of enlightenment, contentment and peace, where the wild things are. I carry that trailer. I tarry there.
It’s worth it, no firecrackers in the belly. Wish you that payment. I started looking at shiny objects. I realized there was a behind the behind in every word that’s true, when you touch base with reality.
I wanted a bridge. The vehicles of enlightenment silence the world, engineer reality to make the grand crossing. Uh-Huh, there’s a reality there enlightenment leads to, the nature of reality, where we come from.
And you think you’ve stalled on enlightenment? There’s a beyond. It studies the world for you. It’s its master design. The roads ever get deep. Another universe holds this one in ours, and we go on from there.
The All-Encompassing All-At-Once is the study of the game, and we’re on flat level Earth, the first rising structure to pick up This land. How can I get this across?
No sight can show you it. No mode of thought gets there. You can sit in the All-At-Once of the sun to use a metaphor, and there you can see the dynamics swiftly over your head in a secret passage to our Source.
Now bring enlightenment into the picture. It’s stills the world for you to get to the other side into the reality beyond the universe, into the reality that made us.
Glory in the spoken word of poetry. One bad dream is this universe to cross. Right this minute, can you get the sense of creation? Can you see it larger than the book?
We went past it. What happened? We got services hello Cape Canaveral. One accident, it’s gonna be close. Till Hunter gets back we don’t leave reality to the fishes. We get out of these beach suits, the mere survival looking for enjoyment, the group mind. I’ll be right back. And it was a hunter for spiritual dawns.
Can you see that out of the routine? Bonanza, we’ve established this fact on earth again. The pilot’s license, where we start. Oh my God my head on my shoulders, this is like the bus you know.
Me at work at the Roxie, photo by a kind tourist lady named Eleanor, taken just after writing the poem
If you are reading this poem on a phone, note that the integrity of the lines, a major feature of poetry, is not displayed properly. Many if not most get cut short because of the small screen.
I sit and toil all day at the heart’s sky, laboring meaning into form that won’t surprise me with its despair.
I unhand time. It seizes me. I believe in miracles. It’s all a wonderful of the All-Look’s gaze. I labor to see that.
I can remember it happening long ago. All the sights I see hide God. Can you hide God? It’s a revelation in a day, the abruptness of creation organizing time.
I can see through the forms cloud my mind with meaning. That bus that just stopped there, it stayed a bus, but it carried mystery.
The people at the bar getting drunk next door, a singer sings their songs. I can’t find the music or the melody they become more than sharks wetting their nose on freedom.
I carry them in time, the little guy at the Roxie station wagon tourist information center, seeing past the show into metaphor’s play.
Bathing suits and butts don’t know what they mean. Their wearers are proud of them. They walk past smiling don’t look stirring sexual desire.
I don’t know how to do this, be a Roxie concierge and assign God to the role. I just mean somethin’ to everyone. My hand is ever on time’s grasp, “Yes ma’am, can I help you please?”
I study tourists tryin’ to find time a meal on paradise. Can I help you folks? Every meaning gets bigger than time and be what it means for.
Can you see that? Every meaning we look at wears the face of God, but every dog knows God is horribly attentive to things you don’t understand.
I will find meaning there. I will reach beyond the Earth and sit at the Roxie and be myself guiding tourists to their destination on Fort Myers Beach. Yah get me dog?
Harm's End 