Sunday, April 27, 2008

religious people

“The interpretation of religion, as here advanced, implies a dependence of science on the religious attitude, a relation which, in our predominately materialistic age, is only too easily overlooked. While it is true that scientific results are entirely independent from religious or moral considerations, those individuals to whom we owe the great creative achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect and susceptible to the rational striving for knowledge. If this conviction had not been a strongly emotional one and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired by Spinoza’s Amor Dei Intellectualis [the intellectual love for god], they would hardly have been capable of that untiring devotion which alone enables man to attain his greatest achievements…Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them strength to remain true to their purpose in spit of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious workers are the only profoundly religious people”

Einstein

“Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles. Then I will them PLAINLY, I never KNEW you, away from me..”

Jesus



the most religious people I know
hate god
and
especially godly men

what are you thinking about

nothing, they say, thinking all the time
about Nature
and human Nature
and maybe about how they hate god

but they’re thinking
like the church man is prayin
except
they pray with their eyes open
and their mouth’s shut

staring at walls and tree bark
and spun bicycle tires

thinking about bugs or stars or words or numbers

all live long day

not sure of what they know

the religion of a child
is rebellion and brave

youth’s withdrawal from itself

and

the religion of man
is conformity and cowardice

man embracing man

religion of a child
is the beginning of thought

and

the religion of man
is the end of it

the religion of a child
will bring the stars to man

and

the religion of man
will dismiss them,

the religion of a child
will shake the world

and

the religion of man
will make more it firm



the knowers say
god can do everything
except change

and they go on thinking the
same things
sayin the same damn things

not changing

not loving god enough
to hate ‘em

The most religious people
I know

hate god like
an ex
they love more
than life herself

like saying
fuck you god
like god did
on the cross

the finest mind

at its finest, genius
is pissed away.

it leaks thru the ears

like diarrhea of the brain.
dribbled on carpet black on muck.

forgotten because it did no harm.

Meta Turd

is masturbation afraid of lonely or alone?

in those clouds, I worry over

the self that others see,

the self that I see,

and the self that is seen by the self that I see.

Not really, but that is about as philosophical as it gets

Link the racist

The other day at the bookstore I was
startled by a black guy

he came around the bend
out of the quiet
and I jumped

I used to say,
I’m shy, I’m shy
with everyone. don’t
take my shyness for racism.
I clam up around all you people
I break eyes

On my friendly days,
boy am I friendly to every one

But the other day at the quiet bookstore
When I jumped

that was unacceptable

it was clear to me
what I’d done
who I really am.

I second guessed

Some are made racist by their parents

Some are made racist by the races themselves

None are born racist [a]

In fact, I do not even believe in the concept of
race. [b]
just as a theist believes in God
and a materialist believes in matter
and a dualist in duality
and a monist in unity
etc

A RACIST BELIEVES IN RACE.

I don’t believe in race and even if I did
I am a mix of so many.

So how can I be a racist?…

Then it happens again.
He rounds the corner and I jump.
He says--’Me again.’
I smile and he smiles.

I can think my way out.

but I jumped.

be afraid.

then

we do not know
exactly how much
the believers in race have taught us.



a- for example, a child born in the early seventies had to be taught about segregation and the holocaust and slavery and the inquisition etc.

b- a man may be more genetically similar to a member of a different ‘race’ than his own.

c- aside from a handful (7) alleles for skin color [out of 30,000 genes in the human genome], a handful (7) of branches in the mitochondrial DNA, and the similarities of Y genes for incestuous peoples, I’m not aware of any proof for the concept of race, that blood ugly hypothesis.

d- all of this will take generations to sink into the common sense of the family.

Goya and your Mama

Goya and your Mama

Noncommittal spittle
the mothers of genius have large breasts
and geniuses feed well into puberty
which ends at thirty

it is like fuzz, mommy, but what is it?

you were born a man and now you have thickened up into a nice monkey
god added a hint of flour to your mind
which is slowly gelling into a brain
conscious condensation


lactation nation
he rediscovers the droop and swagger of the boob
in the figure of the swelling
universe
convention of reinvention

my body is becoming a skin tag
really.
soon I’ll be asked to
believe in
the mind/skin tag duality
really.

an alcoholic mother is
cheap beer’s way
of having misbalanced
babies.

Ellipsoidal Voidal
smothers child
with breast
during soap
says she
fell asleep
that he
fell asleep.

‘Do you see Allah
now! motherfucker!’
mr. rosacia
wags at brown prisoner
‘We’ll just have to suffocate you
and resuscitate you
until you do.’

Torture whore.
teething on
bitter nipple

stopped on a corner
the nod of a cripple

her entities
became
parasites
sucking in
eyes

baby smiles
sucking milk from some bitch’s tit

/stop light poems, because there’s only time
to wait around/

flop around

drool tool

I can’t go in there that I don’t
steal at least $1000 of something.
especially when mr young & old boast war

born, bloody, half killing our mothers
we are so hardwired to kill; murder is
so much in the blood
that some of us
are not killers
is inconsequential

Now…!

the image of a grown man
sucking milky blood
from the tit of
his elderly mother
the real artist will
have to do a
family portrait.

Go now,
it is you,
artist, you
are the only
I write this for.

His best friend left town w/o telling him

I didn’t go home but
went to visit Neal at the bar

I’d overstayed my welcome at Grant’s
and killed his beer

I smelt cheap
and irresistible

I should go home and eat with my wife & mother
; dad was about to go to bed from
15 hours of bus driving

He had to come out of retirement
so my mother could have health insurance.
She is rotting away at the ankles

She has weeping ankles
& diabetes
cellulitis &
morbid obesity
& medicine she doesn’t take

I will never see dad again
because if you could die from tired eyes
dad died

Years back mom died
and is the puppet of a smile

Wife is 23 years pregnant
and going to die at birth

I didn’t go home but
went to see Neal at the bar

I caught him in the parking lot

he treated me like a stranger too

so I went home

Buzz Kill

It’s funny how the little cracks become big ones.

That’s what heartbreak is, thrombosis, nervous breakdown, death: when the little things that’ve been getting to ya, get to ya.

when all the little drunken Lilliputians sober up and get a mind

there is nothing they can’t overcome
when they work together

we call them bad genes, virus’, STD’s

the little things gang up on the big things
and always end up winning.

little asteroids kill off big dinosaurs

black holes swallow giants

ego jobs with their little peckers fuck up the whole world

one ugly person ruins a good crowd

the small is big and the big is really so so small

the petty win in the end

the nuance takes the day

the mountain isn’t dangerous

the pebble that hasn’t budged in 200 years
that makes you slip and fall
and wind up ground into
the scree
that pebble there, that’s dangerous

little words kill love

the atom splits

guerilla warfare wins every time

today’s terrorists are tomorrow’s revolutionaries

it is the small leak in a thick damn

as bold as the lava that fist made Hawaii

it is small, and it is going to fuck us in the end

it’s all the careless worries we tuck away

we pretend we forget

that get us in the end

it wasn’t the fire that consumed us but more like a teamwork of sparks

but that’s later, too far down the road to worry over now

Diatribalogue

I couldn’t get it up. I, with pale skin, reptile eyes, 80 grit face. Fresh air blew thru walls and past my space heater at the speed of 9 degrees below zero.

I shake her awake to apologize.

“Knock, knock”

“Who cares?”

Honey…it’s a joke. Have a little sympathy.

A little sympathy is what I’ve been trying for all night.

Knock-knock

Who’s fucking there?

Limp penis

Limp penis who?

You’re no supposed to say limp penis who. its my condom joke

oh I see, a joke without an orgasm. that’s supposed to be like three hours of heavy petting without a punch line.

I’ll give you a punch line

anything to know you feel something. you’re an amphibian. off in your little swampy semi-autistic fantasy world, and lo and behold, you join us, finally, after hours of holding your breath on life, you emerge all slimy and funky in the folds.

oh yea, you ever heard of the reverse hoagie shack?

what?

its where titty fuck you while I rub my ass in your face.

nice, you come up with that yourself?

when it's all said and done, my lovelies, i let everyone down

the big news

engaged already?

shit pal, you move fast.

you move.

then you move fast.

there's fast.

then there's......FUCK!!!!!!!

sorry man i'm always doing this. on and on.

he slips the cock in, and, another christmas miracle, she falls in love sure as a sweaty blush.

then rent.

the fights.

pussy acne.

she smells other women on your fingertips.

better to bleed on the street than be a coward among cowards, you say.

she slaps you red in the face.

love.

there is love again.

you end up knocking the bitch out.

you quit being boy and girl to rush into red tape.

marriage forgot to be friends before becoming roommates.

but this is all pisspoor hypothesis anyway.

where do I go to pick up the tux?

BUZZ the gold miner

buzz has pen light all inside his cap. he makes $20 a week and
lives in a shanty without electricity. He has worn knees and
is so dirty

it’ll never wash off. he is forty, i am sure of it, under seventy years
of dust laid in cracked skin. his dogs look cleaner

“you have to be reincarnated into this. when one of us dies, another miner comes along, exactly one.”

“I lost my dog in the split. My ex is the cook at this here bar. Mary’ll go into heat in six months. We want to breed her, but I come here because I’m a drinkin man”

buzz doesn’t know where his children are. he works at
Phoenix mines in Idaho Springs. In the winter

the mines shut down. he is sitting so close to the tv, he
can hear the history channel over the jukebox. he is
grimier than a bum, he is a mountain man.

“if the hole is grey we’re diggin for silver, if it’s gold, we’re dealing in
tons. the boss stands to make millions, i do
20 a week, sometimes a hundred
in tips from summer tours.”

buzz’s dogs roam the bar. he drinks his beer and
smokes his cigs. the ex brings him chili.

“my water pump is on the fritz. just tried to raise her live but she’s dead. can’t leave my car here either. now all’s I got is a gold nugget I stole out
in the truck, hell I got lots of’em in the shack
but I don’t have the duckets for a new pump, so

i’ll havta sail into denver, 30 miles to flat land, I’ll follow
the river dodging the mountains, until it
disappears at the beer factory…’

Agnosis

A free thinker is so flexible she is stubborn too.

She is so free she cannot choose.

The Professor of Life says
we are constituted of matter and only matter.

Next class.

The Physicist, scarce embarrassed of God,
preaches that
of matter there can be no solidity,
of light there can be no mass,
and that gravity itself weighs not.

It is a hot day and between classes
at the university

I notice that the same sun shines on the philosophy and math and biology buildings.

It is hot, real hot.

real

My tongue is glued to my palate.

I am matter.
Matter is capable of consciousness.
God is that consciousness man speaks of.

Some days I do not believe in greater or lesser beings.

Today I am a common miracle,
bound to the corpse of the universe,
exceptional furniture because, of all the fineless wood, a fragile embryo kicks in me.

Death is the only gesture of motion.

Only the old man who owns the warehouse sits in one of its many chairs.
Tomorrow he is sunk, out of business. He’ll move his fat ass and I’ll join the rest of the heap.

My atoms on consignment….

I am the semiotic of threadbare mechanics, lamely flagellating

Border Wall

walls keep us
in better than out. t-

he weak have to escape,
but the really weak
have nothing to escape from.

the wall is just there
to remind us that

Trombone

I used to moonwalk
until I got so fat I can barely walk.

Puberty doubled my (m)ass
in the short jaunt of a sophomore year

the arches fell
the IQ fell

,intellectual flatfoot that I am.

This means I've taken to water:
dancing is easier under buoyancy,
only lateral motion is a bitch.

The soft swirlee's I pull off with my toes are
at the expense of tendons in my knees
and 360 degrees is the new 90 if it was a day.

And no,

spinning in the other direction will not undo dizziness,

it enhances the queasy sense of invulnerability
that has become my stick-to-itiveness.

gravity hurts.

Is it possible to have given up while at the same time having refused to quit?

Is it possible to give up while refusing to quit?

Is it possible to not give up and quit?

Can we quit and not give up?

Fuck it