(“The Night Sky”, 2014, original oil)
Lila, at Play
The world conforms to the wishes of those in it
Not necessarily to what we want
But certainly to what we need
Mirror-like in reflecting all we bring
Yielding to all we project.
And so cultures throughout history
Create their own world view paradigms
For the next to build on
Or tear down.
The modern world is still the age of reason
Ruled by logic and mechanical processes,
But it hasn’t always been so
And it won’t always be so.
The world as it is
Conforms, mechanically or playfully
And that depends on us.
I don’t know about you,
But all things being equal,
I’d rather live in a playful world,
Not one devoid of reason
And immersed in magic and mystery,
But one in playful balance.
Where plants can talk and animals listen
Where sunlight heals and sings
Its ancient song
Weaving lattice bridges
To distant stars
Across time and space, mind and matter,
Linking then and now, us and them
Together.
(9/14/25)
Memories lost within a frozen mist
And dangling in the static atmosphere
Of muddled recollection of things dear
Haunt the backwoods of the years she has missed.
Through foggy glances, blurred thoughts that persist
In the dim haze, shapes of the past, appear;
These flittering figures, some far, some near,
Skitter through her mind, meek and shadow-kissed.
But soon they drift to a fathomless past,
A time she can no longer touch, just hear.
Rocking mechanically, her face austere,
She searches, brow stuck in a furrowed twist.
As I watch her eyes wander vacant space,
I wonder, “Will she still recall my face?”
Fog unravels its gray threads to smother the sky
and numb the mind,
words slip away to find other mouths
to fall from.
Wallowing in a low funk,
enveloped by a dull dislike
of these sprawling hours,
and this gun-metal sky
shuffling along
as a ghost in carpet slippers.
Into a deep glass of wine
shrinking spirits sink,
listless lips sip mechanically.
Words wriggle away as if escaping a fire.
Idiom and phrase morph into clichés.
Too few words arrive
to pin down or hammer onto a page.
The wine has no taste
it was poured too early, drank too late.
A mist lingers in that headspace
where creativity slumbers listlessly.
Daylight grows old, the mist turns red
it's not the sunset painting these thoughts -
it's a sullen anger.
That anger began to grow around 3pm
with the realization that I really have been
unplugged from myself,
and that today no eyes will see
those lost or found words which appear
when I allow a white electronic page
to turn me on
and not off.
Millions are bowing to a mushroom God
who guides them down paths of pyrite and blackness
Minds falsely expanding into an unexplainable universe
with things mechanically terrifying and satiny glorious.
Sprouting waxy wings, soaring into new unrealities
searching-always searching for that elusive something.
With the infinite textures of war and flavors of human suffering...
who can blame them for at least trying.
I fear for my friend and his diamond mind
he's cracked the shadow of this mushroom God
I fear that after his great mind expansion
there will come a greater mind contraction.
His softening mind slipping into a jagged rabbit hole.
Meanwhile a million holy books are garnished with
coffee ring halos and the stench of miracles ignored.
Not a room for the waiting
or the receiving of the waiting,
but a room for a liquid thinking
a turgidity
that trickles through plastic tubes.
Is this where doors remain jammed
forever between Hospital floors?
Unseen, a wall clock drops
heavy packages of time
into narrow chutes,
latex handprints are shaken
from sterilized surfaces.
The regularity
of beep and whir mechanically
sucks light in and out.
The yoke recalls it shell.
Desiccated fingers
squeeze a phantom pain-ball,
morphine as cold as ice
is delivered
to an unknown address.
A swish of a starched presence,
fingertips retrace
scorched fever-lines.
Eyes creep toward the voice.
Consciousness
scratches a self-portrait
upon a white neon sun,
a hesitant, primitive etching.
A nurse adjusts the electronic pulse
of a free-floating mind.
Space expands under her hands.
"blind iris"
my ire is
i'm not Eyre
to be loved
mechanically
molded mason
maiden made
methodically mad
can't you tell she
is a she
demon not
a demon
is she
for
she
frantic
pray
prey on
dreams of
dreamt of what
you were and what
you would like
and love to
be
me
There once was a man named Ike
Who purchased an AI wife
He thought it best
To give her a test
Before warranty ends midnight
He programmed her to be unique
To sing to cook to clean
He did forget
The naughty tricks
She made love most mechanically
Mere repetition
With no meaning
As though romantically
Went on mechanically
It seems to be better than
A hypocritical canon
Wherein love corrodes
An atom bomb of lies explodes.
We no longer need this.
What remains is a mere kiss.
Why should the same jail-like cell
Continue like hell.
Time is reality
A deck of cards
with a joker
Coincidences
does make a difference
Draw the ace
don't be picky
Steady steps
mechanically driven
Time, a macabre prank
sinks deep
The night train maintains its route
Start your revolution secretly,
don't tell the priest,
he's a blabber-mouthed gutter-skite.
Don't tell the cat,
for at might he whispers to Alexa,
and she listens always
to the political tenor of your snoring.
Your body must be mechanically sound,
and on speaking terms
with every loose nut in society.
Trust the crazies, they have eyes everywhere.
The banks need you to deposit blood,
as your plasma will be useful
to power your electric doppelganger -
then they can go after your soul
Revolutions need money, mainly for dope and drinks.
No great movement can long survive,
on stale guacamole pilfered from city dumpsters.
Hail to the Chefs at Wendys
who surreptitiously offer cold fries,
to the snooping Feds.
Long live the freedom to carp and cavil,
never surrender your constitutional right
to watch, the 'My Pillow' Man,
revolutionaries need soft pillows,
to dream upon.
The Dutch were
1 of the first
To voyage , journey and discover
The high seas because they used
Windmills to mechanically power saws
Enabling them to built ship's quicker
faster and more efficiently
So had a far superior naval fleet
New York
Was
New Amsterdam
Dutch East India Company
Tulips were the 1st commodity traded
Ergo the Stock Exchange Market
The Carrot was is in fact
Purple in colour it's a bulb
They made it and turned it into
Orange in colour
Most of the majority of the Netherlands
They reclaimed built canals in order
To take the land back
And also in the process
Made it fertile afterwards enough
To farm and live off prosperously
And is progressive and religiously tolerant
Not bad and pretty impressive
All things being considered
For ages man turns prayer beads,
Mind roams the ritual as proceeds,
From fingers turning prayer bead,
O let your mind lead, not recede.
________________________________
Mala pherata juga bhaya, phira na mana ka pher,
Kara ka manaka dara de, mana ka manaka pher.
There is no point in chanting mechanically with the help of rosary beads, when the mind is not in what you do. Mind is a monkey, this couplet means to say. Let your heart and soul be in whatever worship you do, or else it is useless. The poet has used a pun when he says: mana ka manaka…the beads of mind. Elsewhere also Kabeer has used some imaginative puns in his couplets.
Who knew you were so mechanically incline
My cardiac specialist, you fixed the broken in mine
Who knew you possessed such a green thumb
Growing feelings in a salted heart that was numb
Who knew you could build something out of nothing
Filling the void, the abyss, the hole with your everything
Who knew you could be a blanket wrapping me
Without disillusion, with you, I am who I want to be
Star-pod, Ashanti, all aboard ya'll!
We're penetrating space-time's inpenatratable wall
Floating & flying through space-time atmosphere
Where the unknown is crystal-clear
So all aboard, ya'll, it's the 2nd call to see
The mysteriously darkened space-time!
Come aboard, Ashanti, come see the best prime
Don't stray too far from your pods
'Cause if you do, your lines will snap
And it will unhook from ISS's rods
Casting ya'll to your scariest doom
Your bodies will stay flying dead forever
Floating & decomposing for all of eternity
All this information - for certainly
If you float & stray far, you can simply die
If you don't wanna die - I suggest you comply
Or your 700 million dollar pod will be auctioned
That is, if you unhook, get lost, & possibly die
At any rate, if you cease to exist - consider this
A fair warning I sang
A riddlized riddle
A rusted fiddle
Come now & don't dwiddle
And with that as the door slams
& mechanically locks
You're all of a sudden in zero-gravity
Flying in Ashanti's trapeze
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Space-time is where I'll be
Sorrow lies within
My heart, heavy.
Weighed down as if full of stones.
My soul, restrained.
Cuffed to the bottom of a seemingly endless well that is this shell of a body.
When did the light go out?
When did my life essence become so shrouded in darkness that I know not who I am anymore?
In a blink of an eye I have become a prisoner of this monster called Depression.
Begging for mercy, please let me feel the warmth of Sunshine's embrace.
Denied.
How can you be so cruel.
Deprivation slowly turns into familiarity.
Settled into my bones like an old friend.
I know this.
Mechanically routine.
I hear Depressions laughter as I use the last bit of strength to fight back.
Question, are you okay?
Mustering up a smile, I'm fine.
Trying to cling to this lifeline.
New feeling, hope?
Trying to convey with my eyes that I'm not
Fine.
Walking away, insides screaming, please come back.
Help me! Please
Save me.
Too late, I am defeated
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