Looking Up, Looking Down — The Darkly Spectacle

Looking Up, Looking Down — The Darkly Spectacle

Day 315, Year 11 (by the MagicDuel calendar :D)

 If the waters shimmered downward

and we were looking up

would the times at all be different

would they be less rough

yes, a line was drawn below

based on literary taste

those preferring newer wisdoms

outside the line were placed

but a line was drawn above

no less vicious, though it lost

I don’t think the leader mattered

both are driving, though we’re lost

a line of taste in instinct

shunning those who lost its thread

do not think that this was better

or left any fewer dead

nor believe it was erased

(if you took the other side)

we are still in awful danger

of two kinds of slaughter

Where The Mountains Meet The Sea

Where The Mountains Meet The Sea

December 4, 2016

Dolores, your image reminds me of me

and a story I once drew

of where the mountains meet the sea.

(sound familiar?  Then we agree.)

the tallest peaks, the cracks of the earth

deeper than most of her many flaws

long after a conflict has ended

they still stand so proud of it all

and hand-in-hand

the sea and the sand

such a different story.

rocks that yield to the waves

shattering, falling, rounded out

made by forgetting their maker

till each is like the rest

so strange that the stories are one

just as the mountain is proud of its past

each grain of sand, so proud to be tiny

and yet to be strong, since it’s like all the rest

The wheel becomes stronger

whenever it bends

the mountain is stronger

when history rends 

Let us be like the wheel

let us stand till we bend

let our hearts always reel

at the pain we will send

Let us build and be broken

resisting our end

let our love be like water

and turn us to sand.

--

(yes I've been watching Westworld...but this image predates that)

Where I Sit

Where I Sit

November 25, 2016

Where I sit, the air is cold

winter is here.

The air is dry as dust.

The ground is forgetting its warmth.

But elsewhere, the sea is warm

and the cold air touches the sea.

Elsewhere, the air is wet

and the warm air gathers to me.

And clouds are forming

it’s winter for me.

The snow is falling

and melting away.

The colors are hiding

falling away

ground cloaked like a baby

from every display.

The drink is coming

I wish I could stay.

I lift 

a precious drop

of water to my lips

a long-thirsted song

on how the water drips.

We are 

not alone

whether or not

we like it.

We are

who we are

and also

who we are not.

The sky

and the sea

what is cold,

yet what is hot.

(inspired by Elad Nehorai’s “Jews Are United, Whether We Like It Or Not”

and by Aryeh Kaplan’s Sefer Yetzira:  The Book of Creation in Theory and Practice.)

—

הורים — הרים — מקום קיבוץ השלג.  מקום המעינות.

The Prince of Gems

The Prince of Gems

Burn like a candle fierce.
And when your foes the tzaraath pierce
shed the sister's slanderous lies
lift each vale, and each disguise
prove the sage's words were true
and that the gems turned into you
with kindness turn the clock anew

(centered on a story from Rabbi Nachman, by the same name)

Soul

Soul

 "Your bloods are red," I have been told.

"And over top them rides the soul.

Forever bought, it's who you are, whether shy or bold."

But time and again, I feel like gold.

I am neither slaughtered, encouraged, nor stilled.

Forever lost, never bought, forever sold.

I am neither recognized nor roled.

"Alone" is not even the word.

Not a soldier, forever a sword.

Drawn across time like a cuckoo bird.

But then I closed my eyes, and all I have seen went red...



(updated 6/24)

from freshman year (late 2012) in reaction to a school shooting...sadly there have been enough that I don't know which

School Shootings

The blood of the fallen is scattered. 

 It calls from the hearts of students and a teacher standing in the schoolyard. 

 It screams from the tiles and from the ground beneath. 

It burns in the eyes of a country.

The eyes of the fallen are closed now.

They do not see what a witness saw and they fail to take in the schoolyard.

They stare back at the years woven, the parents who made them.

A pluck broke the strings, strings of time

The tiles clean, the soil hidden from view.

Under the yard where hopers breathe abandoners air

voices from above shout all mistakes and breaking human mind.

There isn't any music.

Buried in metal that is witness to nothing

And it all seems so simple, a world displaced from a world

or an item moved from a store shelf

a lie transferred, hand to hand

and the soil ironed with a sprinkler.

Falling lead, the sound of nothing

the collapse (very old poem, ca. 2011; maybe even 2008/2009)

The collapse

I threw myself, hurtling, out of the dark cave

Where I had been hiding, imagining flights

And asking questions about a strange world.

There outside the cave, I found a set of books

Each striving to fill my brain, to prevent

Any other book from reaching in.

But I wouldn't have it.  I kept them all out.

I kept their knowledge where it was, and

I opened them when I needed to.

And what seemed like hours became days,

And what seemed like days became months.

As I became filled with the knowledge

Of what each book could tell me

And of nothing else.

One day, I grew bored of the books

And descended back into the cave.

here, let's type some stuff

I won't act as we've seen, I'm not like
the person who did it, I saw
and won't dare to say "because I'm not like you"

that person is not you
he is not like you

I don't know he is a person

you are not like that
you are better

you aren't that person
you wouldn't do that

there is something unseen, I am certain

Money (poem)

Money

There is this funny number
that shows up in the inbox every week
a reminder from the bank
they want me to be responsible

it says how much I can use others
who would rather not be used

or maybe they would, but if it were me, they would not
they'd have something else better to do.

Money, I hate you, I need you, it seems
because I am confused
because we are confused

because I don't know what the other wants
or if I know, and maybe I do
(some days, not up to me, nor to you)
my heart won't admit it.

I think it's my heart, at least
and I don't know how to show what's true
to the other, the world, my heart
without being cruel

Just in Case (poem)

Not my proudest creation, but it belongs here.  Shared elsewhere first.  I wrote it for one person, but ended up writing it in a way that only G-d or someone close would connect all its parts to me.

This email was written as a result of reading this.  It was not sent.

Just in Case
February 23, 2016

I don't think you know

don't know if that's OK

better write this for you

maybe seen, maybe not

I want you to know

I wish I could say

Your kindness is true

whether meant, whether thought. 

:)

Truth is what's everywhere

You're in one place

when I feel underground

(such disgrace)

it's only a feeling.

Forgetting it sees

your kindness is here

guarding us in its place.

It spreads out its wings

and reaches

pulls up and up

till the grounds below slip

till it and me, we dance.

How to give this dance sound

how to make your words sing...?

I want you to hear it

I want it to ring

--

On bad days, and good ones too

I'm glad if I remember.

Hopefully, I thank the One who reminds me

(naturally or personally).

Hopefully, I also thank you

since you made the memory.

--

The fact you were here

after all this...

after madness and running away

and lost patience

and what could have been threats

after getting excited and pushing too hard

and forcing, using, the wrong hand

and maybe things worse than that 

-- I don't know -- you know --

still willing to say hello

every so often

still out loud to admit

we have something in common.

--

That is enough.

It lifts me up from the pit

and we fly to reach every place.

Even if you forget.

Even if you regret.

That is your kindness

still here, it's you

everywhere.

True.

--

The rest of the email:

(Every once in a very rare while, someone keeps me company on a day when I really know I don't deserve it.  Not just that I don't (that'd mean a much higher frequency) but that I also know I don't.  

It is impossible to know what it seemed like from the other side, but...those times have a special place in my heart.

This is for you, [name].)

The Colours of Heaven (poem)

A poem I wrote to share on MagicDuel, yesterday or the day before.


The Colours of Heaven


Shadows burst up from the ground
reds and blues show and vanish...

...the colors have lost their crown
they are not known, not now.

as dreams of spectrum die
as light grows less intense

my embarrassments unhide
and like the shadows, upward stretch

here, before my eyes,
where rest is not, not yet...

--

was it ever not a lie? No
But it's fact,

real even false,
real unknowing, unforgiven.

the shame is here

--

here in the shadow that moments past was a colored tree

here in this eye we call the earth
as real as you or me...

--

I don't see the tree, who could
Dark blue covers my world

I don't know the way, I should
here under my blanket curled...

...the way up through the window
where flow body's mental streams

belief allowed for life,
but my fact allows a dream

--

In a dream I was unclothed
couldn't see that while awake.

In the dream I finish robed
I hope that isn't a mistake.

--

I'll pretend it isn't real
I'll pretend that I'm a fake

I'll run and do what I will do
jump into the lonely lake

Because once I saw a map
and on the map there was an island

on the island was a path
and in the path my fact is silent

--

Swim till shadows burst aground
till colours show and vanish

till the day the heart is crowned
till the light my fact will banish

My Anger

Obviously not a good title, but the anger indeed tends to be there. It's just usually subtle :)

 The following are the stimuli to this post:

 1. Elad Nehorai tweeted: https://twitter.com/PopChassid/status/696450168032468993

 "Ever had an idea you REALLY wished someone would write about? That means you're supposed to write it."

 2. There exists a passage in Likutei Moharan describing how one kingdom descends into four evil ones. 

There exists a scene in MagicDuel, the Trial of Agony, where there are four trees, and a stump. Next to the stump is a skull. Hanging on the trees are three living, but tortured, humans.

3. In the story of "The Sophisticate and the Simpleton", in the end, the Sophisticate is in a quicksand pit, being tortured by the (Jewish) "Devil" and his assistants. He thinks they are human beings even as they exhibit inhuman qualities.

 "Fool! You still think these are human beings?" He requires special help to leave the situation he finds himself in.

4. https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/44i197/an_argument_for_strong_atheism/


 I know the refutation here, that no "creation" as defined can be true, and in fact the "creation" we are in is not true. If "create" is replaced with "exist", we have the exact framework for which Mur writes "To understand God, you must understand he doesn't exist".

Maimonides also says quite clearly G-d's existence is not like the existence of other things, i.e. really it should have a different name. Actually, the words he uses are "his being found". :D

But I can't write it in words for anyone else, only for myself.

"I wake you up by speaking what you cannot understand" -- The Tallest Man on Earth

---------------


There are fears about which we write "do not inquire"
"All who go to her, never return"

I was nursed on this truth from before I can remember
 I was nursed on this most useless, most crippling of knowledge.

 I can't move any more.
 I hope only to He who does Not Exist, only to He who is True.

 Is it your fault, or mine? I don't know what I did.
 I wasn't twenty yet, so I don't know.

Using the words of the dead man's skull, the only king I've ever met...
He escaped, he learned that some men are just trees twisted into a cruel face.

I don't need a giant, I don't need a tree, I don't need a beast or a bird or a wind
These are all too cruel.

 Take me to Where does Not Exist
Take me home again
Death is not enough today
I must live and forget life
Take away my time, give me yours...

I made some music

bs''d

I don't know who really needs/wants to hear this, but I put Mur's "Into Darkness" to a melody some time in November/December and have been playing around with it out-loud/in-my-head since then...here's my second or third try today at a self-standing recording; I decided it was good enough.

into darkness first acceptable draft