Three Farmers and a Dog

King, Judson's coon-hound King, eats loaves of Wonder bread, nothing else. I watched the old dog squatting in the manure. Judson says King is in excellent health, but when I went to the farm with him one afternoon I saw King hardly had enough energy to snap away flies.

Judson's son uses King to run down coons.

"Rest of the time he just sits around, doin' nothin'!"

-:-

Judson had his other leg amputated recently. In spite of this hardship, he turned down one hundred thousand dollars that was offered for the choicest seventy-five acres of his land. His sons all wait. When he dies, they will all be rich.

"They are whittling me away, they are." Judson uses a rope to pull himself up into his tractor where he goes to sit, although it no longer works. The house is failing. The tractor tires rot on rusted rims. King eats Wonder bread, and the last of Judson's cows hang, slaughtered and sold for meat.

"I can't imagine eating those cows of his," Dad told me.

Judson eats woodchucks, wild cats, squirrels, and geese that have decided to winter on the icy pond.

"Ever eat cat? It's terrible!" says Judson.

Who has time to wait for a diabetic alcoholic old farmer with no legs to die?

-:-

Frank Johnson, the Swede, who lives closer to us than the Judsons, remembers one of the times he went to New York.

It was before they had parking meters. He brought his father in to get him a wooden leg from a guy in New York who sold wooden legs and arms and feet from an office in a building on Broadway near 64th St.

Frank said it was incredibly easy to park the truck. No meter, you just parked and got out. He carried him upstairs and then they picked out a leg. The old man strapped it on and then they walked down to the car.

"Hell of a place to sell wooden legs," Frank said.

-:-

Later that same day I ran into Eddie Lizauskas, our first selectman, another dairyman left in the area. He was operating a backhoe, at the town dump.

"I've known Frank a long time," said Eddie. "He's always worked that farm alone. Frank's just a dumb old Swede."

Eddie returned to his work. All the roads in our town were maintained by his crews. His farm was a profit center. Two milk trucks a day roared up and left full. The milk check got bigger. The manure pile outside was as tall as a mountain. The piles of corn silage covered with black plastic weighted down by old tires were even higher.

Eddie ran for first selectman and won.

Dad Explains

Dad explained his mechanical abilities: "I am limited by what I can see, touch and feel."

What is unseen, or hidden does not fascinate him.  The astronomical, the microscopic, or the logical computations of an electronic computer, its polymorphic languages, mind constructions, which are neither tractable, nor traceable by eye or hand, nor are ergonomic in design, have no appeal to him.

He is visual, and tactile, completely.

Technology, and science, relate to man's sensual experience, by extending it. Instruments extend the gaze of scientists into realms larger and smaller where human senses cannot follow.

The mechanical pencil sharpener, the airplane, the movie camera, these are mechanisms we can watch and understand, and interpret the meaning solely with our eyes, ears, and sense of touch.

My eyes follow Andy going aloft in Byrd's airplane on the fire watch, north to Potsdam. I do not go, though there is a seat offered. For some reason I refuse it, now partly I regret it, though I do not know why. Byrd taxis the airplane halfway down the lake, turns and takes off. He is a hundred feet in the air as he passes over our heads. The wing dips, we wave and make motions from the ground which we we'll talk about later, when they come down. To reach them now would be difficult. A radio would be needed. They are in a different time, now, for this hour and a half, their world is a different world.

Long talks with Andy about computers, programming, the inner world of the integrated circuit, command languages and massive data storage solutions. Long conversations about processes that take minuscule bits of time to be completed. The inner world of the computer is a man-made world, whose time is different from our own. The micro and nano seconds are children of our minds but those children goes where we cannot. They must return to us something unusable in our time, which is slower.

Now it is quiet. I have used the airplane to gain peace for myself. Andy and I cannot resume our talks until it returns.

The battery driven electric clock ticks on the wall by the breadbox.

I hear white throated sparrows chirping in the tamaracks at the front of the camp.

I hear swallows twittering as they dive for insects.

I heard the wind whooshing in the grass and branches of the trees.

I hear my own typewriter keys, each with its own sound that comes from my fingers, and my thumb beating the spacer bar down between every word. I hear the bell ding at the end of every line.

I hear floorboards creak, and the stove tick as it cools off, having just heated up my water for tea.

I heard the wind beating the side of the camp, a soft mattress thrown against the walls.

I saw the sun come from behind clouds and restore the lake to a brilliant blue and the lawn grass a bright yellow green, and put the shadows beside ever tree on Baldy Mountain.

I see it go behind clouds again, an all is restored to slate grey.

This is blackfly season. Though I would like to I cannot go outside to the porch swing for a nap, I would wake up badly bitten. The insects are the reigning force at this time of year - they are in command - because of them we do not venture outdoors for long.

Dad comes into the kitchen. "Don't move that lamp," he says, pointing at the brass oil lamp that sits in a stand by the kitchen sink window. "I love it," he continues, "But I fear that the oil lamps are doomed."

He is right. Now there are battery driven fluorescent lanterns. An integrated circuit inverts the direct current of the battery and produces a low current high voltage AC. "Ginny has one, it puts out so much light, it's great for guests."

I have entered a period of not recognizing my own work. I do not know if this is good. I'll be honest and say I am somewhat frightened by it.

A tiny insect screams in my ear. I waved it into the air in front of me. How it resembles that airplane when it went above our head, and disappeared from view! A distant speck, an outline of a miniature symbol, that holds distant for us, a world to which we are denied direct access. Alas, we are not, nor cannot become insects. We can peruse them beneath microscope objectives, imagine their genetic codes with the help of computer analyzers, we can even inject into their bloodstream organic molecules that will affect an entire generation, bringing death, or a promise of new life. Yet we are not them.

The piano in the living room has finally gone out of tune. I no longer take pleasure in playing it. Yet why should there be only one tune or adjustment to a piano? Does that not reflect more on my own mind, and my understanding of music? Don't I insist to myself that music should sound a certain way, and when the instrument is totally incapable of sounding that way, no matter how well I play it, I give up? This piano is unplayable, I say, until it is retuned.

Is not this my opportunity to invent a new type of music?

prev      next

As I do my Yoga

I thought if I rush, it'll all turn to mush.
So I'm not in a hurry, to make my words into curry.

The Self needs a door to a new Metaphor,
Since rhythm's about keeping up time.
Spelling doesn't matter, just makes the Devil madder,
A misspell invokes the Divine.

That's why dear Ben doesn't want you to audit his bank,
You'd find all the stocks that he’s dredged out of the tank!

It would have gone lower if it hadn't been for the Fed,
Who stepped in to buy stocks, from the friends in his bed.

No glitch caused this rout, you can be sure of that
Or a trader in doubt, whose finger got fat.

Who's been nibbling on my fruit?
I have no siblings, nor have I brood.

The death of what's great, or the loss of what's wild,
Reminds us that we're late, to pause for our child.

Tomorrow, I'll live a swing-in' state!
It would be nice to vote, but would be better to date!

I'd set a course around the world,
Without remorse, with sails unfurled.

In light I see your light, In dark I see your dark
I long to hold you, At dawn and at dusk.

A pretty girl will always go far,
Especially curled up in a convertible car!

Selves may be cast like elves,
Only the Self is the way out of Hell.

Your Physics of love, breaks my subatomic Quark,
Strange Up on the Bottom, and the Top has to work!

Patience and curiosity both tend to flee,
But a ration of passion won't go out of fashion!

Sentiment in art, obscures what is true.
I leave my heart in the pavement, without turning it blue.

Let's make our love for twenty-four hours,
Let's make our love for a week!
Let's make our Love in a bed of flowers,
And allow it to make us weak.

Why keep messing with our photos online?
We're kids changing clothes, dressing down all the time.

My writings got black, like ink from oak,
Then I got some sap, from streams of young folk.

As I do my yoga, invoking symmetry.
I'm read to by my ogre, in lines of poetry.

I thought life was simple, but I know it's complicated,
Maybe time got wrinkled, and I'm somehow implicated.

Some say love's inspiration, or inspiration's just dumb work.
They even say that perspiration, makes love a lowly clerk.

Isn't Twitter great? Isn't Twitter sweet?
We're all free to write, but we don't even have to read!

Get a Mohawk, or a Celtic cut,
Or spiky collar to go with your mutt,
Wrap the ends with feathers or beads
Weave in some ancient Peruvian seeds.

They don't teach love in college
They make you read about it.
So the rest of life you barely manage
To take full advantage of it.

Comfort music comfort food,
Some get booze sick, others get stewed.
Take your pick, I’m not in the mood,
I’ll do some yoga, whilst I'm nude!

Just say tantra - think lust and laugh!
On the contrary, tantra's just craft.

What's done in error's not always waste . . .
If made with flair, can remake taste.

Who are you behind that sheet?
With a kiss that's pink, and eyes so sweet . . .

Carve me a leg, or slice up some breast!
Singe off the hair from the hairy guy's chest!
From the hairs on your head, to a lone alligator
It all comes to me dead, sooner or later.
Even the planets I gobble, like black eyed-peas,
I swallow everything, even distant galaxies.

Coffee is tomato’s noble cousin,
A nightshade bean that keeps us buzzin'.

I went out West, I felt an ocean or a sea.
I felt motion in my heart, And felt a presence next to me.

The High Cost of Vision

Vision, seeing, and understanding in the most profound sense, bears an extremely high cost because it entails exploration and data gathering in some of the darkest corners of the individual and collective subconscious, and it also means returning whole, so that the experience may finally be 'seen', shared, summarized.

Exploring the subconscious requires a partial relinquishing of consciousness. Not totally, never totally, but nearly. The bright beacon of the front of our brains must be turned off, given a rest. We must repose in darkness, and then, when our third eye has 'adjusted' to the dim light, we are free to roam.

Revelations are useless, if you are about to drown or be eaten. Heroic myths of facing the beast depict in most graphic terms the epic confrontation of the one with the many. History, memory, our past, everything life has ever done or become, in fact everything that matter and energy has ever done or become is reflected in us.

How much research should we want to do?

Vision, by definition, means entering the swim of a great amount of data, and capturing something useful. A fish perhaps. Simply seeing, as in guiding a plow, or shooting an arrow, or focusing on one or two words in a book, is easy compared with the tasks of today, yet in yesteryear such tasks were difficult.

How could that task of vision integrate into something capable of making sense of the increased complexity of today's world?

Evidence abounds we do and have adapted. For intelligence to be able to 'dive down', journey into darkness, requires a new kind of ability. A temporary cessation of consciousness. Silence must be listened to. Darkness must be seen. The multiple must be admired. The many must be remembered. Consciousness must be spread out, dissipated across a broad dark forest. The key is knowing how to reassemble the light once the journey is over.

That journey back to consciousness is equally epic. An integration of things seen in the dark into notions that may be used, seen, shared, understood, pictured, or written about requires a massive computational analysis and simplification. It is almost an algorithm, the closest analogy I can come up with would be the conversion of a massive 20 MB jpeg image, into a tiny thumbnail. Our hardware extensions, the net, computers and digital cameras, with massive servers to store their images are brimming to capacity. We're responding by building more servers, smaller higher resolution, and ever cheaper cameras. We simply are not able to cope, logically, with all the content that man creates. Logos, or rationality, is useless when faced with such a deluge. What effect is this having upon the evolution of our minds?

Is the myth of Noah not about rain, but a prophecy about data?

It is inconceivable that the human brain is not evolving at an exponential rate right now. Faced with deluges of data, images from every corner of the earth, the collective unconscious has become a mindfill fast approaching galactic proportions. Somehow each of us work daily to resolve a piece of that into usable actions, conclusions about what work to do, who to contact, who to love.

If one accepts momentarily that digital cameras now represent the 'eyes' of the vast and ever growing computer network, consider for a moment the computational requirements placed on the handling of all those photos worldwide. The power consumed, the vast quantities of memory, on site storage, remote severs such as Google, Facebook and so on. And while our computer manufacturers, at the urging of our Department of Homeland security, are using face recognition software to 'offer' you a chance to tag your friends, what really is being offered is a voluntary way to help out with this, and other nation's security requirements, by scanning these reams of photos for faces. 

Yes there is software built into this very Mac that I am working on that can recognize my friends, once I tell it their names. My point is only that the cost of all this is astronomically huge, and still a human component is required. The government simply does not have the computational resources to scan everyone's photo contents and learn the details of who attended what events, what took place, and if some of the unrecognized faces in the backs of some pictures might be a threat to national security.

Understanding one's own direction in life is complicated enough, without having to compute the direction and intentions of other entities, such as companies and governments, which are having an equally difficult time coping with the new media.

All creatures make some effort in this direction, whether large or small, but for any individual being to open it's lens wider than for which it has been evolutionarily designed, is costly. What do I mean by costly?

Costly in terms of money. Costly in terms of physical and mental health, costly to the environment. The world economy has devoted huge and significant resources to computation, the recording and storage of massive amounts of data. The waste, the destruction of forests, fisheries, the health of the oceans, all of it, seems overwhelmed by this data expansion. 

What's the point of it?

Given the sacrifices all human beings are currently making, indeed the entire planet, . . . what tug of evolution is urging us in this direction? Why is humanity obsessively fattening its portfolio of raw undigested memory? What is to be the fruit of this current information age? How shall it affect our future?

Mankind it appears has placed an all or nothing bet on chaotic darkness. On data, and information, without understanding to match it. Species have died so that we may run our computers.Why? What is the pull? Now that we have found darkness, what about the return journey? What will we have left in our sacks, once we make it home?

I'll pick up this thread again in a week or so.

See Actors

See actors, sharp on stage,
'Neath clover, dark in shade.
Above them all, a sequoia forest,
'Neath them all, a fawn adores us.

Simion Le Mieaw

How well do you know Simion Le Mieaw?
He'll walk through windows, to cuddle with you.
And shortly after he's sprung from your sack,
A neighbor might notice a cat that is black.

Photo: Niki Rubin

                                   

Painting the Muse at FunkBox

FunkBox is in one of those West Village downstair spaces. It's a roomy venue, not large, not tiny. A painting stage in one corner, hides behind a stout brick column which gives a false impression of privacy. Artists feel comfortable doing their work.

It's easy, gazing towards the back of the stage, to imagine we were given an old corner of a large European living room, to do our work. Punchinello clowns, wearing Raven masks, cavorted behind a trompe l'oeil tear in dowdy wall paper, a lived-in corner of forgotten theatre.

Look the other direction onto the dance floor and there are hundreds of gyrating athletes, crowded shoulder to shoulder, taking turns doing full flips, spinning on elbows, hips, knees, sacrum springs. If you can imagine a difficult yoga pose, spun into rapid gyrating motion, then you have an idea of what the dancers at FunkBox are up to.

Our first piece made use of day-glow colors designed to reflect the pulsing black lights that hung above the stage. The painting came alive - the lines seemed to dance as orange, green, blue and pink all alternated with the electronic beat. Niki seemed immersed in a fantastic sea of luminescent weeds floating like a snake, a cat, a whale . . .

Niki's worked with me for years. I direct, she acts, energy from both channels into the painting. At each moment I feel I'm venturing further and further from sanity as I work. I must navigate turns. It's like entering a cave - will I be able to get back out?

The use and choices of colors are absolutely everything, since color ignites the energy of the chakras, reflects. strengthens or represses. Color choices are very difficult. So is all the bending over the floor with the brush. Luckily I've been doing more yoga since my neck injury, and I'm able to bend towards the work in a variation of Parsvottanasana.

After a series - sometimes they have have a ritual or yogic structure, sometimes not, we begin work on poetry. We throw words into a dramatic situation, and then see how they orient themselves, and what they mean. The painting leads to the poetry. Image opens the mind to metaphor.

During this part of the performance the Muse called me "Glorious Doctor", "Brother", "Sponge-faced Madman".  It sounds like she's angry at me for some reason!

Niki was addressed as "Model", "Sister", "Marvelous Blossom", also "Wench"! She refered to my beautiful wife, alternatively in loving and derogatory tones.

If we ask questions, she answers. This time she even requested that I ask her more questions, reminding me that I had called her up with no request. I was so busy preparing for the performance that I forgot to think of things to ask her.


This is serious. The connection will be lost if it is wasted. She's busy. "You called. What do you want. Get to the point!" She seems to shout at me.

She's the Goddess with the razor tongue, the third player on our stage, and the speaker of the poems we invent.

Do we invent them, or does she? The poems keep realigning, refining, and shifting. Her meaning will not compact into a single perspective. She supplies us with infinite dreams.

She's an Oracle.

How do we write these? Do 'we' write these? Ah grasshopper . . . come . . . observe. You may ask questions if you ask politely. But you must remove your shoes if we allow you onto the stage. If not I may have to throw you off!

Who is this voice that alternatively berates, then praises?

I've decided she is the Muse, the original Goddess of Europe, In India she is Shakti-Ma, Shiva's female aspect. She shares qualities of Kali, Putana, Hera, Artemis, Gaia, and the Delphic Oracles. in Greece, after Zeus took the pagan pantheon, the Muse became the Goddess of Poetry. This and other literary and artistic talents, she passed on to her nine granddaughters.

The 'she' personifies her as a force. Personification brings one closer to understanding. Neither science, nor conscious elaboration of quasi-Jungian theories of what the Muse represents can explain clearly what she is about. I'm after what she says, about my work. It's why I do it. I'm hungry for feedback.

I want to thank Melanie Aquirre, and Khahim Johnson for the opportunity to perform at 'Funk Box'.

Good Boy

Good boy! Confront thy wench!
Rob all nature's thought. She's all electric. All ways.
Glitter Man, why cunning lunatics influence lions at home.
Mail, if loosed, rapes character yet.

Swine! Improve your black-headed silhouette.
Brother, watch through cat fragments.
Understand your absurd innocent wife.

We measure, Glorious Doctor, ancient childhood,
when a wild slave's instrument demanded more.
Sculpt dirty Death.
Be hearted.
Always ink is Sin.

2/16/11, with Niki Rubin, 1, 2-1, 2-2, 3

composed during a live performance at FunkBox, in NYC.

The Muse Poems:

   1  2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

Puny Companion . . .

Puny companion . . . chisel me,
choose, your concrete childhood,
Don't sour, until we've shared ancient thought.
try to be a girl.
Man, you do serve some fast rump . . . mellifluous . . .
hence never attach a watery silhouette of sound.

Marvelous blossom, forget him!
You howl! Soft, faithful drudgery is no threat to a young poet.
Try scandal, absurd color.

Model, investigate Peace!
An overbearing surreal fragment of original woman.
Sponge-faced Madman, compose questions!
Imagine sodden, trotting cuddles . . .
Scum! Try some positive desire!
The tedious weasel's secret measure.

Think and discover some degenerate form,
Out from your most respected parasite,
Stroke my mechanical nature.
Understand diversity and observe a way to follow your monstrous street.
It knows grandeur.

with Niki Rubin, 2/16/11, composed during a live performance at FunkBox, in NYC,  

66, 67-1, 67-2, 68

The Muse Poems:

   1  2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

Note: This painting incorporates only part of this poem painted in white. The words in dark red are a separate work. Why combine? Ah . . . she loves having her utterances in print,and watching me work them this way and that, listening for other meanings. She enjoys celebrity, and utilizes every opportunity to let loose with a roll of curses, followed by doses of healthy advice.

Intent

I saw four arrows in the clouds, 

And as they soared, I wondered how?

Shot by Eros, with pain of love? 

Or loosed to kill, by aim of Jove?

If truth flew free, what message should it carry?

Where each is going, to which each gets married?

Blessed, by whispered prayers,

Best or worst, through particles of air,

To strike or bear upon intent,

For what targets were they meant?

Lead Her

Later you just might score, 

I never said you are dead. 

We buried this over animal music. 

Our stand-in event, was passive, that much I made,

at home we could have slept about space,

Jokers said, "But are you clueless? I have assets."

But he, day one, was not imagining,

We all have been beasts.

Muse, I see Miss Ivy!

"Expert!" I meant, "Heart care actor!"

Is this how we versed of Moon?

A poor tune, tie'd down to come, a Husband.

So he cared for them,

Before my bovine smoke party.

with Eva Moll, July 21, 2006, 58, 59, 60        Part I, Part II

The Muse Poems:

   1  2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81