An atheist is just an existentialist with no style or artfulness.

Those who seek to make crooked trees straight end up with broken, dead or destructive things:  faith in life is of far greater importance than faith in dogma.

The dimensions of unconsciousness are much larger than those of consciousness.

Metamorphosis

Ragged clothes adorn the frame

That hunches over the cane, propped

Like a mass for which there is no longer use.

A crown at his feet is slandered with mud

And his contorted visage and dark eyes

Seem like the firsthand account of travesty and travail

Imparted as if by a mythical bard on the aged skin and bone.

Before him span the ruins

Of a once triumphant city on which the sun

Was wont to festoon transient sparkles and glimmers

As if kissing the edges and the contours of architectures

With love and ardor.

Memories like ghosts or possessing spirits

Animate his mind briefly as he recalls

The marble and the gold and the happy citizens,

Young, lithe, beautiful and strong, but

Just as the sun behind a rugged mass of storm clouds

Will impart no light to the destitute land below,

So his eyes and face remained set in their sorrow.

His gaze returned to his cold brain

The images of destruction: the broken buildings

Frozen in the chaos of their dissolution like ancient animals

Encased in ice and forever echoing in their poses

The howls of their deaths.

Bleak, imposing mountains rooted with naked

Tentacle trees surround him,

And a ceiling of dark and turbulent clouds

Prowl above as if chess pieces in some timeless

War in which the world was winning.

For many days he remained stationed there,

An anti-yogi meditating on Satan,

Until, saturated with the doomed past,

He turned his head downward in coincidence

With a ray of light that somehow infiltrated

And bypassed the storm fortifications.

He saw encased in that beam a small

And humble flower, like a delicate image

Of a glory contained in that star flesh and light spirit

That warms from beyond. His eyes as if attempting to mimic

That star, began to twinkle and he knew

That death was not the only victory.

A child walked away from a series of ruins.

Two Cents on The Islamic Center - hopefully of more value than the counterfeit bills accounting for a majority of the current commerce.

There has been a significant amount of discussion lately concerning the proposed Islamic Center which is to be built two blocks from Ground Zero. The issue of its construction has sparked a conflagration of oppositionist sentiment. The argument against it seems to be based mainly on the notion that it is offensive to those who died in the 9/11 attacks. This, in my opinion, belies a misinformed and somewhat ignorant interpretation of the enemy that perpetrated those attacks. To be against the Center on the ground that it is offensive is tantamount to considering Islam the responsible agent behind the 9/11 attacks – this a logical consequence of considering the center offensive.

Though the comparison of al-Qaeda with the Ku Klux Klan and the corresponding imperative of separating each from the respective religions they claim, (or claimed)  to represent has been stated numerous times in the media, I think it is important to reference it here as it relates to my assertion that a belief in the offensiveness of the Islamic center is derived from ignorance concerning the nature of Islam. The reason that most Americans have no problem in separating the Ku Klux Klan from the Christian religion in general is because the majority of Americans have been exposed to a more benign form of Christianity. Therefore, the average citizen can perceive quite clearly that the Ku Klux Klan’s interpretation of the Christian religion does not represent the Christian religion but is rather a radical interpretation maintained by a minuscule minority. Because the majority of Americans have had little exposure to the religion of Islam they suffer from a dearth of knowledge concerning its true nature and the type of behavior it can foster in the more moderate majority of its practitioners. As such they can easily recognize the difference between their neighborhood church and the Ku Klux Klan, but find it hard to discriminate between an Islamic center designed to educate and bridge cultures and the organization of Al Qaeda.

To be against the center is to hold, on however subtle a level, the religion of Islam responsible for the attacks of 9/11. If the opposition succeeds and is able to remove the center from the area, the next logical step is to ban Muslims from the general area. If an Islamic center is not acceptable, then how can an Islamic practitioner be acceptable? The principle informing the opposition has unforeseen and immensely undesirable consequences. Maybe it is just me, but the more I think about it, the harder I find it to see a legitimate reason for wanting the Center to be built somewhere else. If it is agreed that Islam is not responsible for 9/11, then what reason is there to be against the Center?

The first amendment guarantees the right to a free exercise of religion. The essence of America is the constitution: it is what America is. We are not defined by a single man or religion but by a body of laws guaranteeing representational government and a series of liberties that we have come to regard as sacrosanct. This Islamic center goes straight to this issue. To maintain the constitution, and therefore America itself, it is necessary to respect the first amendment and the rights it affords citizens of any creed or religion.

There is not only a moral and constitutional imperative to allow the construction of the Center, but also a strategic one. As 60 minutes reported some months ago, one of the primary recruiting tools of extremist terrorist groups around the world is the dissemination of a narrative in which the United States is portrayed as having, as a critical component of its foreign policy, the objective of eradicating Islam from the face of the planet, (one can see how this fabrication is able to gain traction, given the United States’ invasion of two Islamic countries within less than two years of each other). It is therefore in the best interest of the US to show that we are a nation defined by a constitution that does not discriminate between religions but guarantees every individual the right to practice religion as they see fit. The more the United States can illustrate to the world that it is tolerant of all religions and has absolutely no intention of denigrating or diminishing the religion of Islam, the more we reduce the potency of one of the more subtle and powerful weapons that various extremist organizations possess. Education and tolerance is here an effective military stratagem.

America suffered a heinous, terrible and unjustified attack on 9/11. It is important to remember that this attack was not perpetrated by a religion, but a by a small group of radicals determined to portray the US as an enemy of Islam. The more we hold the religion of Islam responsible for the attacks, the more credence we lend to the assertions of our enemies. An America that singles out and discriminates against Islam is an America involved in bolstering the proliferation of terrorism. It is an America both contradicting and fighting against itself.

A Tendency

There is a horror – it’s alive -

Concealed behind all knowing eyes –

A tiger stalking in the trees,

A jungle prowler stealthily

Emitting low toned growls that are

Like visions from the dark afar,

Like winds that carry in their hands

The riches mined from hellish lands –

A predator that knows the art

Of menacing the human heart

Of waiting in his dark abode

Evincing but the fiery glow

Of two stark eyes that never sleep,

Like windows to the forest’s deep,

Undying, dark and ancient soul:

The binding law without parole,

The hungry night ablaze with storms,

With lightning’s spears and thunder’s roars:

The crazed, unflinching chaos that

Reduces the proud world to ash.

The tiger lives in every breast,

A wild form: inhuman crest

Of that which seeks indifferently

All glowing light - to feast on beams!

Saturday Morning

?

Lawn mower mowing

Across the Street

Instruments! Instruments! Instruments!

Doings

A man at the helm,

A man at the man;

What causes?

What moves?

What drives?

Women live in my head:

Distillations, essences,

Prismatic

Projections,

Charms that will

Like a sun

The ocean’s mighty pulse.

Where is the intersection

Of spirit and matter?

How did we, as humans,

Climb out of the dross?

What is this hubris

Of ego and

Free will?

Why is there this fire

That can transfigure

And redeem

And liberate eternally?

-

The Ladder

The body is a ladder.

Nothing else.

I want to climb

Higher and higher.

What is life

But chance, opportunity,

Flakes of consciousness,

Snow storms of desire:

The blizzard of the self.

I want only

This ladder -

To go higher

And higher

Than ever before.

-

Tornado

Come tornado, come.

You are a chaos,

A vortex, a hunger

Without stomach,

A mouth with no self.

You move and cull

And crack and break.

You turn a world to ash.

An ephemerality,

A flower without substance,

A rage that pulses latently

Through the world –

There is a beauty

In your wild song,

A remembrance, a shadow

Of my home.

Can I hate you,

Tornado? -

You blind fury

You crazy and

Temporary cancer

To that which life

Has formed:

Human houses and cities,

Bird’s nests, trees, plants –

There is no reason,

Just a path

Of destruction,

A footprint

Of something old and

Eternal.

What is this world?

The storm stricken multitudes

May cry to the heavens –

The place where any good

God

Naturally has to live, for

He could not be here

In what is, no,

The peace of sky blue

Pretty perfection

Is the abode of the Lord.

Oh damned man!

Oh human consciousness,

To be born, a self

In a selfless forge,

A theatre of powers,

A combat stricken universe

Of life, death,

Storm, sea, space, time.

There is a hallelujah

Some sages have found,

A brightness, a sun

A human path

Away from pain

And primal war

Called love,

The vapors that propel,

The home forgotten.

Contingency

What was it that propelled

My ancestors

To Drive, Drive

Their wind drawn chariots

Across the deep, blue violent chasm,

The storm hungry sea?

What caused the flocks

Of humans to fly

In great migrating droves:

Wave after wave of egoistic

Flesh falling like promethean comets

On these American shores

What was it but the desire,

A personally distilled impersonality,

To improve –

The selfishness of souls

Whose bones lie scattered under

The tulip spilling ground

Of this glowing continent.

It was freedom and fortune,

Dreams that spread like fire

Through European brain cells,

Calling from a fabled shore:

Enticement strong enough to tempt

The unforgiving ocean.

They came for life

For gratification

Of hope,

For realization,

For escape;

They came and built

And didn’t stop but still

Continued westward

Like a tide,

Implacable, a hungry flood

Of house builders

And city crafters –

Phenotypes of Man

They came and built and thrived and grew,

The countless souls

That had no thoughts beyond

Their ken

But yet produced my life:

A spark sheared into being,

A thing which is and is not.

A Primal Hymn

The world is a fantastically energized, writhing mass of fucking, eating, dying, and being born - with a most uncanny capacity for contemplation.

-

The hunger, oh the hunger,

It animates all forms.

All life possesses hunger –

It drives the wild storm

-

Of plant consuming Earth

Of beast consuming plant

Of beast consuming beast

Of Earth consuming all.

-

The world’s a great abode

Where hungers interplay,

Where Wills compete with Wills

To taste another day.

-

What is it that I am?

A world embodied soul,

A rider on a steed,

An organ of the whole

-

Organic based machine

Where bodies are effects

That carry in their cores

A fire that reflects

-

That flame of primal source:

The furnace wherefrom life

Derives its motive force,

Propelling Darwin’s strife –

-

I am a form of flesh

That wants from other flesh

To sate its appetite

Or else to intermesh

-

In potent, ancient sex:

The garden where the fruit

Of naked ecstasy

Is magically induced.

-

Thus I exist upon

The universal strains,

The currents of both sex

And hunger to remain.

-

My body isn’t mine.

It is a brazen car;

It’s pulled by nature’s force:

The animals that are.

-

And if I contemplate

And briefly find respite

In realms of airy forms,

In temporary flight,

-

It soon must be snuffed out

By fleshes gravity

For even birds that fly

Require ground’s reprieve.

-

The mighty hand of Earth

Is where all life returns:

It granted every birth

And permanently yearns.

A Metaphysic

There is a vase

Unerringly shaped

Continuity of glass

Balanced realization yet

A crack

A slender line of chaos

Is somehow written there -

The water

Drop by drop

Is lost -

And that makes all the difference