Saturday, September 30, 2006

I Didn't Want To Get Lost Except Inside

rlgreenfield1@netscape.com


9-30-06 I Didn't Want To Get Lost Except Inside



I had plenty of other second &
third-best opportunities
but they were so lame
when I saw her face I knew
I could get sweetly lost inside her
even though the store was crowded
with thinking people blabbering
as I was at that very moment
but I saw her face & clean body
through all the babble
& everybody disappeared from my
mind
except her lips & hips & eyes
it's always like that
or at least for the last 25 consecutive
years
life is always loaded with irrelevance
except for one lovely woman
& she has a boyfriend but she doesn't
she's mine
she has a husband but she does not
I own her
yet I manage to ride the bus home alone
one more time & get lost in the idiotic
blare of my television set
while I might scrutinize some book
lying on the floor waiting to be swept
back to the library
another piece of non-necessity
reminding me of the lies of book reviewers
& other people on the make for "the arts"
there is so little necessity in the human
world, almost none
where are those secret messages
of Essentiality I have heard dwell inside
the pages of a few great books-----
where are they: I never found them

RLG copyright 2006

Thursday, September 28, 2006

The Abstract Bedroom

9-28-06 The Abstract Bedroom


I am the loneliest man in the history of the world. Why is this? Because I slept with the Abstract Woman Silence
and she bound my tongue in concrete so that whenever I encountered the beautiful woman my mouth turned to
marble. The words I would speak to Beauty stayed frozen inside my tongue. And thus day led onto week and
week led to month and month evolved into year and year into decade and I became a monster of silence so that
only the sun welcomed me into its midst and the blue sky alone wooed me. The women turned their eyes toward
me but they never spoke the fatal words I love you. They never invited me over for dinner a movie & sex. They
pretended we were living in an abstract world just as the Abstract Woman had engraved inside my skull. Thus every night I slid inside the covers of my bed alone & beheld the universe in silence & abstraction. And I penetrated the abstract woman before I went to sleep. Every night we performed coitus cogitatis according to the book of abstract revelations. It was all laid out for us. And we followed the guidelines to divine perfection.

In the meantime I gained no new wisdom of the beautiful women. I did not learn if they were real or merely fantastic. Once in a while I reached out to touch a woman on the shoulders or put my hand gently on her head to feel her hair & let my fingers sink down inside the magic to take her Reality Code. But immediately the glass partition would slide down & click into place and my hand would hit the smooth unbreakable glass window
and that would be the end of that. The beautiful woman always smiled at me then & revealed her irresistible lips.
They were kissing lips I always said to myself. And they certainly looked to be so---inviting irresistible lips. But I
had no way of testing their reality.

So I got on the bus and headed back to my digs one more lonely time. And I report this now in a slightly refracted manner suggesting almost a hint of levity. But it was never funny or light. This was always a dark depressing even shocking & traumatic event. The long empty ride on the bus & then the walk home from
the bus stop one more lonely lonely time. A totally solitary isolated individual again bereaved of the arms of love and sensuous beauty. I felt the sting of lovelessness slap me in the face with the horror of recognition one more time that I was alone on the earth & barren of the miracle of female tenderness. And I would feel that coldness crawl through me as I approached my stark rooms unwarmed by Eros to sleep with the whore abstraction one more night. And then wake up in the morning alone in an empty bed forlorn and set to start another doomed day of redundant abstraction on a blank canvas. And there was never one iota of new information to stun me into wakefulness from the quiet nightmare of perfectly preserved regularity.

RLG Copyright 2006

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

GW Bush's Private Invasion Of Iraq

RL Greenfield
127 Orange Avenue #6
Goleta, California 93117
ph. (805) 964-9436
rlgreenfield1@netscape.com


9-27-06 A Brief History Of U.S. Invasion Of Iraq

The U.N. inspectors were in Iraq and doing their job seeking secret nuclear weapons projects. Bush II did not
want the U.N. inspectors in Iraq. He wanted war with Iraq so he invaded against the counsel of CIA & the
Pentagon and U.S. Allies. There were no terrorists in Iraq before Bush's invasion. But Bush
wanted this nightmare of bloodshed to prove something about the power of U.S. weapons and military muscle.
Since then the U.S. Treasury Dept has been essentially emptied by Bush's insane tactics and by the Congress's
impotent half-assed response. The USA is in hell right now. We have no defense program. Education has been
essentially sucked dry as the national budget has been turned over to the Pentagon. Pollution under the present
administration is flourishing both literally with respect to environment & metaphorically with respect to payola to
Bush cronies in the weapons industry. An economic collapse is under way. I don't give a damn what the latest
U.S. Wall Street prophets have to say on this subject. These are the facts. Things in Iraq get worse every day.
And the USA is fanning the flames of anarchy day and night in its mission of madness. There never were any
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Though why shouldn't Iraq & Iran & North Korea have nuclear weapons
as long as Israel & England & USA are all loaded to the gills with them? We are in a world state of absolute
chaos largely brought about by the Bush Administration and its immense incompetency and corruption and its
no bids contracts and criminal war acts. This goddammed illegal war totally unprovoked by Iraq is handing over
billions of dollars to Halliburton & other Bush-Cheney cronies with idiots like Senator Joe Lieberman calling for
crazier measures. The US Armed Forces is at point Zero And Bush has lost the support of the Allies. What the
world is now faced with is a sick triumvirate of US Israel & UK waging war against the rest of the universe. And this triumvirate cannot possibly win this war. They can't even wage it. It is time for Human Being to assert
control. But for GW Bush & his delusional advisors the U.N. inspectors would still be in Iraq today searching for weapons of mass destruction and at same time neutralizing Saddam Hussein. And all the bloodshed caused by
the Bush Invasion and the gathering of terrorists in Iraq would have been sensibly prevented without costing
human blood or one dime of American money.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Ecstatic Moment At Bus Stop

rlgreenfield1@netscape.com


9-25-06 Ecstatic Moment At The Bus Stop


Sitting with two young ucsb women
Jenny & Maddy at the bus stop
across from Albertson's at Camino Real Plaza
about 2:10 monday afternoon
the temperature & air flow absolute perfection.
Calm & halcyon moment of untainted ecstasy.
Feeling it inside every cell of my body
as we gaze at the small elegant buildings past the trees
& the pavement & we make conversation
strangers in the middle of the radiant day.
These young ladies are both chemistry majors
awaiting the beginning of classes.
The world comes to a complete halt.
I am amazed.
Then the bus comes floating in 18 minutes late.
Amor Fati, wrote Nietzsche ("love of one's fate")
to wish nothing other than it is:
this is the ultimate human attitude.
Nevertheless I wish for one lovely woman
to take home with me & spend the night together.

RLG copyright 2006

Monday, September 25, 2006

The Elvis Presley Blues

RL Greenfield
127 Orange Avenue #6
Goleta, California 93117
rlgreenfield1@netscape.com




The Elvis Presley Blues




I've Got The Elvis Presley blues
I Have The Memphis Tennessee Born In Tupelo Mississippi blues
I Got A Real Bad Case Of The Heartbreak Hotel Blue Suede Shoes blues
I've Caught The Southern Fried Chicken Aint Got No Religion blues
I Believe This Disease Is Called The Rock & Roll Special Sexually Promiscuous blues
I Am Coming To The Conclusion These Are Actually My One & Only True Blue Grand Ole Opry blues
Dammit, I Forgot My Raincoat & I Can't Afford An Umbrella blues
Do You Hear Me I Need A Shave And A Haircut blues
But I Wouldn't Dare Ask You For Your Telephone Number blues
Because What Would Your Mother Say If She Knew I'm The King Of The Rock & Roll Los Angeles, California blues
I Believe In Taxes Raindrops Sunshine & Roses & Don't Treat Me Cruel blues
I'd Like To Buy You A Cup Of Coffee And A Cigarette But I Don't Smoke blues
So Why Don't We Instead Get On The Horn & Call The President Of The Jazz Factory blues
I Hope She's A Lady And Can Dance Because I Want To Get Out Of These Pants & blues
Please Don't Tell Anybody I Said Any Of This (It's All Confidential) blues
I Am Beginning To Worry About Our Possibilities For Romance Since This Is The Last Dance & Our Last Chance for blues
Do You Have Any Extra Oxygen Tents Just In Case I Lose My Breath & Die blues
I Know You Think I'm Just Kidding But Believe You Me I'm Hyperventilating blues
So Let's Get This Show On The Road & Keep It Down & Dirty blues
Or We're Liable To Attract Attention From The League Of Puritanical Prudes & Pusillanimous Blondes & blues
And I Don't Want The Holy Bible On My Conscience at 4 O'clock In The Morning With A Loose Lady In My Lap Eating Potato Chips & blues
Whattaya Say We Light Up The Fireplace And Make Some Strong Blueberry Punch & blues
Just To Put Us All In A Chary Mood For The Week After The Week After Blue Christmas blues
Because We Don't Need No More Of These Empty Bedroom Lonely Lonely All-Night Weekend Jazzless blues

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Heliocentric

rlgreenfield1@netscape.com



9-21-06 Heliocentric



She was a master of the sesquipedalian,
& sexy.
The world was outraged by the presence
of Man, the alien.
Poetry is The Grail.
The grim utterance of a bank clerk in London
an insurance litigationist in Hartford, Connecticut
& a preacher's boy in New York City.
The sun stood on its golden legs & laughed
brutally at the center of sky.
Laugh, little children, with your sleek new
school books & your shining lunch buckets---
laugh your clean jocularity
into teacher's noodle.
Your laughter is innocent of mean motives.
It is the superfluous outburst of
divine habit.
The world is bigger than this tiny rotting
oyster earth.
The world is sublime.
This minute soggy poisoned clod
grew tumescent with appetite
lost in the sun's after-laugh.
At age 68 T.S. Eliot married his 30 yr old secretary
& they lived happily ever after.

RLG copyright 2006

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Making Love With The Light Bulbs

making love with the light bulbs



he was making love
with the light bulbs.
he was.
he was making love
with the large round
globes of light in the
restaurant at the park
in the dark.
he was fucking the light
bulbs to death. & what
can i say? a man who
copulates with light bulbs
can't be all evil.
i was fucking the light
bulbs. i was. it wasn't
he. it wasn't his wife.
it wasn't the old lady.
i fucked those light bulbs
myself.
i know.
it's friday night ten
o'clock. i'm fucking
light bulbs for a living.
six for a quarter. ten
for a dollar. the more
the better the higher
the price.
i'm gonna get my quota.
just tell my love in los
angeles if she wants to
find me look under a bulb
(25, 50, 75)---O, baby, 0,0
baby---100 watts of pure
burning unadulterated love light!

RLG copyright 2006

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Adding & Subtracting

9-12-06 Adding & Subtracting



I added up all the women I slept with.
Couldn't remember all their last names.
Then in a separate column all the
women & girls I kissed. This latter
column had to remain incomplete.
I have forgotten many of the names
& faces & no doubt several of the
experiences. Why was I performing
this mating ceremony on the white page?
To get my mind clear of the chaos of
the present moment & to find the most
valuable element if possible---the one
thing that remains uneroded by history
& consciousness. Consciousness
itself is a great storm of images.
Provides more confusion than illumination.
It never stops working. Even in sleep
it labors under the darkness. Taking
the measure of all of one's kissing life
& the interpenetration puts something
in place & immediately calls for the light
of comedy. As if all this frivolous
behavior some of it lit up with fires of
amazing desire should add up to something
significant & substantial. At the same time
as if this rehashing of life on the white page
is my sole appointed role in the world:
To put into order the chaos & anomalies
of my romantic experiences & thereby
render integrity symmetry and radiance
to that distinguished thing: 'My Life.'


RLG copyright 2006

Monday, September 11, 2006

Writing Is The Only Destiny

9-11-06 Writing Is The Only Destiny




I know how to write. It is self-taught. Like almost everything that matters. You pick up truths here & there. You
recognize them. I suppose it's like Plato's theory of reminiscence. Knowledge is remembering that which is buried
deep inside one. Or like finding the right woman. You know it by instinct. And it certainly has nothing to do
with what your mother said. Well, I imagine you can prove me wrong. But not to my satisfaction. I don't know
how to pick up girls. Especially the ones who attract me the most. They always send me home alone from the
bus stop or the store or cafe. It turns into a long gruelling process that is 99 percent anxiety 1 percent ecstasy
and no sexual intercourse. Not even any good making out. Women are as goddamed selfish as it is possible to
be if you don't open your eyes to reality. The best way is not to take any one of them too seriously ever. That is
essential. Do not overestimate any woman. Especially her looks. After all, what does that have to do with
anything essential? If her beauty is part of a good kind character then I am in business with the real thing. But in
my life cruelty is a fact that needs to be faced. A woman is capable of destroying one's career if one gives over
his own Power without making any demands in return. There is no point in overrating any particular woman.
Flattery can only bring inflation which leads to grief. And this is a sure sign of inaccuracy. I am a writer. I know
my business. I know what stands up on the page. And I have plenty of beautiful pages of prose and of poetry
here in my house. And I mean first rate writing that demands to be seen by readers. My writing has Power. I
also know that when I get in front of that microphone I exude authority. That separates me from the rest of the
herd. And I know it does. It always has since the first time I got behind the rostrum and read my own works.
What has held my career back pure and simple is uxoriousness-----excessive fondness for women. It will kill you
to like anything too much. Because at some point you will exaggerate your fondness into adoration or worship
which almost always means loss of The Reality Principle and giving in to an hallucinatory view of your
relationship with the woman you adore. At that point you might as well be dead as spend one spare minute
fantasizing about any woman who is not giving you equal time and equal feeling-----genuine emotion for genuine
emotion. Falling in love is fine. Just don't ever give up the reality principle. Make sure you get something back
that is valuable to you. Like money. Or sex. Something solid. Not a bunch of crazy passionate in-love gazes for
instance. Never lose your sense of humor. The minute you do the game is lost. Remember these words. If thy
right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee for it is profitable that one of they members should perish
rather than thy whole body be cast into hell. Jesus was no fool. He understood the deadliness of uxoriousness.

RLG copyright 2006

Sunday, September 10, 2006

True Sexual Satisfaction

9-8-06 True Sexual Satisfaction



No, this is not another workshop charging you fees to discover phony mind-jerk methods of sexual manipulation.
This is the Real Thing. And you may not be ready for it. Every iota of sexual gratification that occurs during the
love act is actually written down in your interior consciousness clearly & unmistakably. I've only known this
definitively for maybe 5 years. It has always been the case. Of that I am certain. The very moment the sperm
begins its descent one can feel the exact tenor of the movement its intensity & its clarity its volume its pure
sensational existence. And one knows exactly where it is coming from and why it owns these very particular
characteristics. Because the mood of the specific sexual encounter is always determined by the sexual attitude of
each partner. Obviously. Yet is it so obvious? I can feel my own intensity in her eyes and face and lips. There
should be a little shock of recognition here. An explosion of the inner senses at the excitement of seeing her.
And she must experience the same gentle but thrilling explosion at her first sight of me! I can measure the exact
depth and the velocity of my charge of desire. I mean I feel it & know it & declare it to myself. ('I'm so excited I
just can't hide it!') Writing this down here seems a miracle. Because this feeling is so exact and so pure a thing.
Every single instance of sexual intercourse is registered precisely in the psyche and we can trace the exact
journey of the flow of the sperm and the egg. I only know of the voyage of my own sperm. I cannot feel her exact
sensations as she gathers me in her arms to receive my semen. Yet each instance is so totally unlike every other
one that I am amazed at that difference now that I've been paying attention to the thrill of sex after years of
lackadaisical thrust and bang & droop & then the sadness & turn away and fall asleep. And there is absolutely
nothing wrong with sadness and turn away & fall asleep. This too is nature. Openness is everything. Without
openness and forthrightness there can be no beautiful satisfying thrilling sexual intercourse. One "I Love You"
flying out of the throat of one lover to the other can set the partner into blazing fires of passion & surpassing
tenderness & receptiveness. Or any other genuine and utterly surprising passionate deep throat utterance can
make a man or a woman come alive inside their own bodies and open up in some totally one in a lifetime way to
the other. Making love is a crazy crazy crazy thing. And God keep it that way. A mediocre encounter is also
good I have noticed. Who wants ecstatic sex every time? Not me. I like a few cloudy days mixed in with all this
brilliant California sunshine & blue skies. I'll tell you a woman can have hot silent eyes and speak casually about
the weather or about movies that have nothing to do with sex. The movie may have a priest in it. In fact has. But
the tone of the woman's eyes rules like an imperious goddess and sends the blood flying to the groin to arouse a
magnificent tumescence-----and vice versa, the woman is opened and enflamed with desire & tenderness. You
may ignore this half your life. I did a lot more than half. It became known to me only when I had to know it. As if
a voice was calling to me from deep inside my veins & tissues and corpuscles. My very cells began to speak to
me and reveal the true power and bliss and the thrill of sex. The kiss the flavor the texture the aromas. This is so
real a thing. In high school I remember those powerful long first deep passionate kisses. What tremendous
potency and yet delicacy they had for me. Such tenderness and at the same time such fire such lust. O, my small
but sensitive hands and fingers found every tender iota of her softest skin. I searched her face, her head, her ears
with my vigilant and hot fingers. I felt my way inside her hair which I loved to do. To feel the miracle of her scalp.
Felt the interior of her ears then her mouth teeth nose. This was a blind passionate sexual investigation suddenly
blitzing into kiss after kiss after kiss and constant hugging and smelling her face her hair her skin. I loved her
shampoo her perfume and the taste of her kiss. You understand. Now I am talking about something else. The
interior experience itself as sperm and egg begin their separate voyages in our separate bodies as we feel
eachother in eachother's arms. One woman can make me grow into a different shape & intensity than any other
woman. It happened only two or three years ago. And it stunned me to feel this sudden actual growth of my root
stem. How did she do that? Did she touch me in some fascinating sexual way? No. This has nothing to do with
mechanics. She was there speaking to me & dressed in such a pleasing manner with her eyes darker and more
surprisingly beautiful than ever before. And she told me once, only once and many years before---"I Love You."
When it didn't even matter to me. But the words caught hold in my memory. And this time her looks caught up
with her words. She looked different. More ready to make love. She looked Romantic. This is only partly selfish.
This narcissism I am here expressing of the body for the body and by the body. This tracing of your body fluids
through the sexual channels as you come into consummation. But who cares what it is. It is so real I cannot
ignore its power. And there are ways to prepare. The best way is to be thoroughly honest with yourself always
inside your own mind before all other things. That's where it begins. That is where true love begins. There is
something pure about telling yourself the whole truth in all its complicatedness. Give yourself that honor and
that utter pleasure. The honor of revealing to yourself and therefore to her the 360 degree View. What a different
animal you will become. A sacred animal. A generous animal. And a whole one. A happier animal. And even a
witty animal. A listener. A man or woman who is given to pauses. Yes. Say yes first on the inside. Let yourself
know. Don't be afraid of any truth. Never flatter a woman (or a man) with half-truthed compliments. You can
speak a quieter purer more complete truth. And sometimes an unspoken one. That is satisfying to myself as well
as her. There is room for silence here. O yes there is. There is always much room for Silence in the bedroom.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Steroids Imbroglio

The Steroids Imbroglio



I am in favor of steroids at every possible level of competition in every field of endeavor. Steroids enhance
human achievement. And that's what we are here for. (I do not speak for General Electric or any other phony
outfit profiteering from wars initiated by USA. I speak for The Divine Right of poets). This is America, land
of unlimited opportunity. No exceptions. No child shall be left behind in The Greenfield Administration. I
celebrate the average child---Mr & Missus Average are typical gods or goddesses. Everybody is a god in The
Greenfield Administration. You want your child to hit a home run? Done. I advocate steroid use starting at age
4. And steroids be made available free for all kids in the American ghetto. No, The Greenfield Administration
rejects all police tactics of interrogation and incrimination. These steroids must be made accessible to every
family. Not only so your child can play baseball basketball football track tennis & golf, but also the violin and be
an ace in biology lab and at the Big Game of Romance. Steroids will soon give every high school student in
America a date for The Prom. Thanks to The Greenfield Administration. Hey, wake up. This is America where it all happened first. Anything is worth trying once said a great man. Was it Voltaire who said once a
philosopher, twice a whore? Not so fast there Volt. Twice may mean Genius. May. Depends on other
extenuating factors. For one thing I'm sick of hearing about I can't. ("My son is so near-sighted he can't see
the baseball when it comes over the plate.") No problem, Madame, we have special baseball-enlarging pills that
cure this problem immediately & effectively. Sleep well tonight. Your child is about to hit his or her first home
run. Guaranteed.


What I want to hear is We shall. In the Greenfield household there is no "babying" of the kids. My son comes
home from Little League several weeks ago and says "hey, dad, I went 3 for 4 today---a double a triple & a
homer." How disgusting. I teach my boy to slam a homer every time he steps up to the plate. And if he does not
produce, no supper. Back to the diamond behind our house with the flood lights on facing the electronic 100 mile an hour automatic pitching machine. Did that help? Not much. It gave me a certain amount of satisfaction for
doing my job faithfully. But the kid still only hit 2 homers and 2 triples for every 4 at-bats his next few games.
Practice isn't worth a damn without steroids. The night we started popping steroids into his koolade everything
changed. Not only did he start smashing home runs every time to the plate. He started getting interested in girls!
For a while there the wife and I were worried he might end up another Liberace stroking piano keys. Steroids
protected us from that nightmare. We do not tolerate disease. And therefore we do not spread it. I advocate for
starters 100 billion dollars/year Federal Funding for steroid use & development. Our goal is nothing less than
universal steroid availability world-wide. No more weapons to foreign countries. Give them all the steroids they
can eat. We want World Democracy.


Our goal is certainly not higher wages for ball players. Players and owners need less money. We do want our
first 100 homer/year man (or woman) next year. And, like I say, eventually we will find a dude who hits it out of
the ball park every time he/she gets a hold of a baseball bat. Our goal is perfection. This is America. Land of the
buffalo and cheap white bread with nary a nutrient in it. If we can put out a perfect loaf of white bread with not
one iota of protein in it we can do the same with a baseball player or a drummer or violinist or, come to think of it, a housewife, a president, a banker. You name it. Our goal is perfection. Yes. This is the country that gives you a whole police force that lives off free coffee and donuts. Have you ever heard an American citizen bellyaching
about children being legal coffee drinkers? I haven't. A 6-year-old can bring coffee in his thermos to any
elementary school in the USA. And this is as it should be. Freedom for each to pursue his own life or death---so
long as he/she isn't killing anybody else. Suicide has always been a divine right of kings. And in a democracy it
should hold for the entire collection of atoms. One final point. In the USA anybody can become President and
has. A moron can be President (I.Q. between 50 & 75). An Imbecile can be elected President ( 25 to 50). An Idiot can be voted The President of the USA (between 0 and 25). This is exactly as it should be. This is a democracy, small d. Home of The Divine Average. God bless that woman or man or child who leads us out of our chains with a tender I.Q. but with a dresser full of the best steroids money can buy.


RLG copyright 2006

Telegram To The World

Telegram To The World



STOP sending money to Israel
START sending support to needy
peoples in states of deprivation
no racial or biblical considerations
get rid of american bibliolatry
forge new vision of international
human relations outside the
Judaeo-Christian vise
try the super information highway
no more us-against-them
demonization of persons outside
the bible belt
Create new species of humankind
nourishing The Love Wish

RLG copyright 2006

Monday, September 04, 2006

Confession

8-29-06 Confession



I loved her skin the first time I saw her. Face first. Then the smoothness of her legs. She was kind. Although I always wonder about that later. Going back to the beginning I mean. Where all the primal elements were first revealed. You find out things later you didn't want to know that were not obvious at the outset. But they must have been there inside the skin and bones & tissues at the very beginning in some way. I do not believe they were later superimposed from without. Though again stranger things have happened. For instance, what is the source material for our dreams? Do they come from within or without? I contend some dreams come from within and some come totally from the outside. The latter are implants. Thus there may be superimposed values on the psyche also. Values that did not originate in the organism itself but came from without. Though now that I have written it down on the white page I am helpless to defend such seemingly unsubstantiated processes. I doubt it. Big deal. How will we ever prove any of this to everybody's lasting satisfaction? That is the question that must be answered with authority. For therein lies the cure to the problem.
A man confesses to a major crime and is promptly arrested on the basis of much innuendo---most of it spouted by the suspect himself to many and diverse sources. He has a need to kill? No. He has a need to believe. He tells of his love for the victim. Never does he suggest he had violent thoughts against her. Perhaps he believes he keeps her alive by putting her name back in the headlines after many years of silence. Putting her picture back on the front pages of all the tabloids and splashed all over cable news television screens. The dancing girl is back and he has been her Easter, the source of her resurrection. She has a kind of life again. She lives inside the mind of every viewer who has seen her photograph and heard the lurid details of her death. And then heard the gentle telling of this man who claims to have been her lover and liberator. She died by accident he says in his very presence. Did he kill her? No. But is he guilty? He says yes. He feels responsible. It is a long and complicated story. He cannot release the entire tale to us now it would take too long he avers.
Jesus said if you've thought it in your heart you are guilty of the deed-----adultery, murder, theft. Whoso has commited adultery in his heart the same person is as guilty as the actual perpetrator. It is the same thing in the eyes of god. Well, the legal system takes a slightly different view on this. You confess to the priest. He sits in the box silently and listens to you confess your crimes. Then he offers you forgiveness via The Divine Process with a rejoinder or two. You must perform some functions of the church in order to clear your conscience with the Almighty and the church. Is there forgiveness for crimes not commited but confessed to---wanted to be in some way commited? Perhaps he just wanted to be there---at the scene of the crime watching and sympathizing with the victim. This would appear to be the case. Thus he is guilty of lying. But the lie was composed in order to conceal a desire for reconciliation with the now deceased victim of a crime he regrets he was not at hand to witness and experience. An aspect of The Fortunate Fall.


RLG copyright 2006

Conversion

8-28-06 Conversion



Since my radical transformation at age 30 in Santa Monica, California I have been unable ever to sustain even an hour's worth of absolute tragedy as my companion and philosophy of life. Here is why. I am always seized by the awareness that I am responsible for doing my part in the continuous war of the worlds that goes on non-stop and doesn't give a damn in hell about any person's beliefs in tragedy or pathos or how terrible life is. One cannot retain the luxury to grieve for one's poor perishable self simply because a moment given over to admitting defeat is the devil's victory. I'm putting it in metaphors here. But the fact is this happens to me every time I begin to falter emotionally and feel sadness concerning my own status in the world. My conscience simply won't put up with it. Something jumps into life inside me and orders me to get back in the game. As long as I have a mind and a body in operating condition I have no excuses. Because whatever I actually put into conscious form inside my mind has a destiny in the present tense of the world---whatever publishers decide about my prose & poems & books. My thoughts at this very moment have moment in the world---are potent instruments and indeed influence the very history being made every moment of my life. This sets me apart from every person I know. It also fuels me with a scorn for the mediocrities being paid money for rendering verbal services vastly beneath my standards and below my every day output. "There is no fate," wrote Albert Camus in The Myth Of Sisyphus, "that cannot be surmounted by scorn." And when all of my other energies and imaginations fail I always have at bottom that scorn and rage to fuel my efforts against the liars & frauds & polluters & weapons-makers and war-mongers that threaten to turn this beautiful earth into a garbage dump. Underneath my lethargy and depression and the loneliness of unrecognized genius there is always that Life Force (as I now name it). I don't even know it's there until it announces itself once more to arouse me from my coma as it did a mere ten minutes ago and reminds me once more that resignation is not a possibility for me. I experienced this same amazing phenomenon when some years ago I visited a doctor's office. What went on in that office convinced me the whole operation was a fraud and a delusion and that sickness was not an alternative for me. It simply was not a viable option. That is how radical my conversion was in the amazing last week of November 1968 & then on through December at 2721 Third Street in Santa Monica, CA at age 30. I do remember the cleansing of my mind that took place and the physiological miracle of those days. But how can I explain that after that I no longer had the option of copping out and "giving up"with respect to any vital matters whatsoever? I can't. It just happened that way---outside the jurisdiction of my will. Whatever occurs I look about me and what I hear from my interior is: so what? The world is going to go on going to goddammed hell & murderous rot and the only person who will look after you is you. You are responsible for every iota of your own existence, amen. There are no explanations ever. Not even Love explains. Least of all love! So, yes, I'm climbing up off my knees and I want to beg somebody to get me out of this jam. But everybody else is locked in the same house of flesh and bone. So it's back to numero uno.

RLG copyright 2006

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Utopia

Utopia



I got lost in the wilderness among the sand
and the toads and the lizards and the lepre-
chauns and don't forget the mirages of the
flat-bellied desert that tell of other lives lived

on the outside of the ozone. After a while I
was numb with nothingness which was
strangely satisfying. I laid among the striped
tigers in the sand at midnight. The ferocious

tigers and their insane eyes. How could they
not smell my terror as I clung to my quilt and
my bottles of water. I could hear them laugh-
ing in their sleep as they ground their teeth

and moved their great jaws like mighty diesels.
I didn't care. I was bone tired and happy that
man had finally been expunged & air was now
victorious-----air and a sky full of celestial won-

ders. The sand and the sea and the green lawn
were synonomous. Their synonymy made me
laugh wild at the white beasts of midnight and
the lightning of the stars. Those sublime son

of a bitches can dance, I thought to myself alone
under the carpet of that vast black canvas with
a few white windows smashing the monotony
of darkness with the first sight of ecstasy. Hel-

ium is my name. Oxygen is my game. And Hy-
drogen is the horse I ride to accomplish my mis-
sion. Let it rain then, let it pour, and let light fly
up and down the mountains & valleys of Utopia.


RLG copyright 2006