Your disillusionment does not bring your promised liberation only further pain. Your search for succor, for water at dry wells, following specious creatures down pathways to revelation is naïve.
Draw up all the beauty, the gentleness, awe, kindness, and tender love into an elixir, a panacea, a bulwark. Yet the world, spinning mercilessly, its monumental forces quickly, blindly, overpowers your haven.
The world is a war; a tsunami; a Munchausen by Proxy mother who scrubs her child with bleach.
Look heart, at your companions as they make it through the days largely unaffected and calm. Shout, cry, or surrender – you are gossamer: torn, emotionally raw, and afraid. Stoic soldiers will put you to shame.
What can be left of you in the end, when every breath is gone, every word spoken, every feeling spent, every silken thread severed?
Miyamoto Musashi Killing a Giant Nue by Utagawa Kuniyoshi
‘I have not followed the paths of other men. I have lived without the benefit of a teacher and by my own devices I became master of myself and thereby master of the sword and the brush never differentiating between any of these arts.’ – Musashi (1584-1645), Japanese Kensei, author of the Book of Five Rings
Fierce Shout: Before battle to unsettle the enemy!
Book of Earth
No man is invincible
there is only honor and dishonor,
his death written in the calligraphic ink of his study
Endeavor to know all things
becoming more aware of the world
an essential strategy to defeat the enemy
The work is more important than the worker
you are the spiritual conduit
become one who sees what cannot be seen
Book of Water
All life is the battlefield, focus your intent
the brushstrokes and strikes of practice
are not separate from their execution in life
Man and brush have one purpose
communion with the spirit of the thing, this is the
way of the warrior, sword embodying the soul of the samurai
Be as falling leaves, with no preconceived notions
Stab the heart with your expansive mind
Extend your spirit above the enemy
Fierce Shouts: Each time you strike, to maintain your resoluteness of spirit!
Book of Fire
In mortal combat you must fight to win
mean what you are doing, otherwise
you are performing tricks
Always control the enemy
keep him on the defensive, draw him to you,
be stronger in spirit and resolve
Cross the ravine with the courage of your convictions
impress your attitude upon the world
force imbalance, taking others by surprise
Book of Wind
Clever people do not understand
temperance of spirit, their tricks and false attitudes
are very dangerous to the uninformed mind
Do not be afraid to get in close
attack with power not strength
with quickness not speed
Your attitude at all times is to attack
practice with the spirit of killing the enemy
meditate on this way of strategy
Fierce Shout: In victory to honor the spirit of the thing itself!
Book of Mu (No-Thing)
The spirit of the universe is an emptiness
which is no-thing, man can have no
understanding of this place
Everything is revealed
to all men as they desire it to be revealed,
by their own definitions alone
True no-thing-ness is Mu,
the universe in relation to your art
and your art in relation to the universe
Everything is within, everything exists,
seek nothing outside yourself,
you are the spirit of the thing itself!
Tomb on Mount Iwato
‘With every note
of the mountain temple
sunset bell
sorrow arises as
day turns dark’*
Experimenting mystic
at the junction of Cyberia’s culture
two notes/one sound
imitating nature’s call
Tuvan Khöömei youth
encounters Soviet Union
classical music education
creating a Lamaist jazz mantra: I am the shaman of my life
rumbling spirit timbre emotes
through a seven octave range
the space of meaning and feelings
beat drives the insistent vocalizations
like wind echoing in Artic skies
forming the transformative art
of an intoned sense
groaning, guttural sound
grandmother city dweller
revisits the tundra of childhood
‘tender bird of timelessness
touches me with her wing’
intuiting secret sounds
that would not be taught
‘hidden chords of thought’
woman on the outside
even when looking within
bodhisattva cries as
‘my sleeping pulse awakens,
trembles in front of my eyes’
how can I keep from singing
resonating frequencies that pierce
illusory aspects of the self?
‘artificial addendum of the human voice’
making sense in this divine game
‘aural quintessence of the spiritual world’
giving voice to the sacred fire
developing the capacity to imagine
fullness arises from emptiness as
‘absolute harmony is born into silence’
*All quotes are Sainkho Namtchylak’s; Cyberia is the name of one of her albums
You enter my thoughts in a
rush of sensuous imagining
I hear you speak my name
with that gentle knowing tone
Energy flashes through my body
in waves of heat and longing
engulfed in the softness of
your tender touch arriving
creating such pleasure
from so very far away
A monumental attraction
inventing calculus to grasp it
each excitation mode a plucked string
ringing the notes of elemental particles
Tension in the string defined by alpha prime
a theory of quantum gravity
involving strong coupling constants
dilation of oscillating modes
Force and matter in supersymmetry
curve in the geometry of spacetime
where our lives intersect
miles collapse, spirits intermingle
Deep level where the separation
between large and small distance scales
becomes fluid, alpha and omega
parallels the intimacy of souls
New dimensions of mystic bliss
intoxicating artistic flourishing
ecstasy entwining the core of being
expansion and contraction reaches the plateau
As supersymmetry breaks forth releasing creative force
awe, more than a million books could ever detail
fragments of delirium spinning into
a tapestry of mutual love
Light floods the rooms of the soul
we are everywhere and forever at once
As promised I am reposting from the archives once a week. This poem was originally posted on the collaborative poetry site Carbon Noise: http://kshawnedgar.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/theoretical-physics-fantasia. If you missed the explanation of my blogging break you can find it here: http://chromapoesy.com/2012/08/01/extended-absence/. Also, I am not visiting other sites with regularity so if there’s a poem you’d like to call my attention to please leave the link in the comments section and I will visit soon. Thanks!
‘to introduce among them the habits and arts of civilization’
FADE IN:
Scene 1 EXT. DENVER, COLORADO (1864) – DAY – ESTABLISHING
BLACK KETTLE CHEYENNE CHIEF (Voice Over)
. . . we came to the conclusion to make peace with you . . .
we want true news from you in return . . .
Scene 2 INT. MAYOR’S OFFICE – DENVER, COLORADO – NIGHT
MAYOR WYNKOOP to MESSENGER
We’ll release our prisoners in exchange for the release of theirs
tell Black Kettle’s Cheyenne and Left Hand’s Arapaho bands
to go to Fort Lyon and camp 40 miles outside at Sand Creek
there they’ll be under the protection of the United States troops
Scene 3 INT. FORT LYONS, COLORADO – DAY
CLOSE ANGLE ON COL. JOHN MILTON CHIVINGTON
Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians
I have come to kill Indians, and
I believe it is right and honorable to use any means
under God’s heaven to kill Indians
Scene 4 EXT. ENCAMPMENT OUTSIDE SAND CREEK, COLORADO – NIGHT
The camp is full of soldiers drinking heavily and celebrating the victory to come
CAPTAIN SILAS S. SOULE
He means to attack a peaceful settlement
all to further his political ambitions
LIEUTENANT JAMES D. CANNON
He risks court-marshall
what are we going to do?
CAPTAIN SILAS S. SOULE
Refuse to let our companies join in
I don’t see any other way
Scene 5 EXT. SAND CREEK, COLORADO – DAY
MONTAGE:
A) Bodies are strewn through the creek and along the banks B) Women, children, and elderly are clearly among the dead or dying C) Cannons have been used against the civilian population D) Small bands of soldiers are shooting unarmed people pleading for their lives E) The tribes horses are either dead or let loose F) CHIVINGTON’S soldiers are looting the gifts given to the tribes in the peace treaty G) LIEUTENANT JAMES D. CANNON and CAPTAIN SILAS S. SOULE return to the white encampment
END MONTAGE
Scene 6 EXT. SAND CREEK – DAY
Several days have passed, the soldiers have left the survivors have fled
CAPTAIN SILAS S. SOULE (Voice Over)
The massacre lasted six or eight hours (beat)
it was hard to see little children on their knees having
their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized (beat)
they were all horribly mutilated . . .
Scene 7 INT. CONGRESSIONAL HEARING – DAY
LIEUTENANT JAMES D. CANNON
Men, women, and children’s privates cut out
I heard numerous incidents in which men had cut out
the private parts of women and stretched them
over their saddle-bows and hats . . .
No charges were ever brought against any soldier
Scene 8 EXT. PRISON YARD, FORT MARION, FLORIDA – DAY
RICHARD PRATT (Prison Commander) to HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
The end to be gained is the complete civilization of the Indian
his absorption into our national life (beat)
to lose his identity as such (beat)
the sooner all tribal relations are broken up
the sooner he loses all his Indian ways
even his language, the better it will be
for him and the government
Scene 9 INT. PRISON SCHOOL, FORT MARION, FLORIDA (late 1870s) – DAY
MAKING MEDICINE (CHEYENNE WARRIOR) now DAVID PENDLETON OAKERHATER
You remember when I led you out to war
I went first, and what I told you was true
Now I have been away to the East
I have learned about another captain
the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is my leader
He goes first, and all he tells me is true
I come back to my people to tell you
go with me now in this new road
a war that makes all for peace
where we never have only victory . . .
Scene 10 INT. MISSION SCHOOL, INDIAN TERRITORY, OKLAHOMA – DAY
Indian children are learning English
OAKERHATER, an ordained priest, died in 1931 due to efforts by the Oklahoma Council on Indian Ministries he was named a saint of the Episcopal Church in 1985
FADE OUT:
Cheyenne was a name given to the tribe by the French from the word meaning dog the actual names of the tribes Só’taeo’o and Tsétsêhéstâhese mean ‘Human Beings’
Psalm 23
New International Version (NIV)
A psalm of David.
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
‘brought into being by nothing other than the look’*
using poetry to stitch the seams, painting them with vitreous enamel
burnishing golden orbs of beauty, enhancing the visual field
to make the world seem habitable
inherently empathetic to human existence
when does the illusion, this disembodied utterance,
enter firmly into the realm of futility?
jamais vu à travers
philosophical argument merely hints at a promise of liberty
floating upon the surface of psychological experience
a convincing conundrum that won’t unlock
inner barriers to designing boundaries of self-definition
societal viewing provides ample opportunities
to manifest cognitive dissonance, reinforcing the brute
that omniscient spectator-god within the man
emmuré dans ce paradoxe
feminine artistry is required to remain comfortably incarcerated
chaos churns with near indomitable force
why fight when you are forever outnumbered?
control may simply be a part of the disease
disempowering internalization of the oppressor’s abuse
replaying his semiotic position as the maker of meaning
whom I know is never she, never me
une illusion, un fantasme masculin
called into existence through the male gaze, the internalized observer,
objectified and exploited by possession and protection
filming my every move in art house cinematic style
encircled in an ouroboros of scopophilia
blinded to feminist themes, it traps what’s possible
entangling these hands, bloodied with struggle
incapable now of creating and preserving identity
une créature spécieuse, chose éphémère
scraping molded forms to sharpen focus
no spiritual value arising from inherent worth
only sculpting my usefulness in a deterministic role
voyeur’s fantasy allays the weight of moral consequences
fixing upon the screen the sanctioned story
i am a dissociated, breathing pleasure toy, imaginary signifier,
an unintentional participant living in a heightened state of unreality
Notes: *Christian Metz, French film theorist
Scopophilia or scoptophilia, from Greek “love of looking”, is deriving pleasure from looking. As an expression of sexuality, it refers to sexual pleasure derived from looking at erotic objects: erotic photographs, pornography, naked bodies, etc. It can also be described as intermittent desire of gazing at. Alternatively, this term was used by cinema psychoanalysts of the 1970s to describe pleasures (often considered pathological) and other unconscious processes occurring in spectators when they watch films. The term was borrowed from psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and Otto Fenichel. Critical race theorists, such as Bell Hooks, David Marriott, and Shannon Winnubst, have also taken up scoptophilia and the scopic drive as a mechanism to describe racial othering.
French translation: I am diaphanous/forever seen through/immured in this paradox/an illusion, a male fantasy/a specious creature, ephemeral thing
ངར་དྲགས གངས་ཅན
in the mystical Himalaya utopia of Gangkhar Puensum
I journey to the unexplored center of the earth
traversing the home of her thunder dragon
trekking the sacred mountain of enlightenment,
cosmic mother of inspiration and perseverance,
painted with the prosody of blue poppies
sambar deer and snow leopards twist with linguistic delight
beyond the nival zone where meta-language rains down
high velocity clouds upon my grand-design spiral galaxy
I pass orchids with angelic authority
producing quantum fluctuations
in these pleasure grounds of the immortals
searching cobalt, alizarin crimson, and marigold skies
to light paths to heaven limned by terre verte steppes
burnt sienna cliffs adrift in flurries of dioxazine peaks
here the spiritual embraces mythic potential
coruscant intellect entwines deepening emotion
melodies skip along jagged thresholds between worlds
intimating my life is an art form, creating meaning
in the liminal spaces, semi-permeable membranes
across a constitutive defensible line
poiesis arises in my being, an action that
transforms and continues the universe
transmutes experience into aesthetic bliss
in my union with the unknowable, a gestalt entity
forms upon this untamable, niveous mountain
a memento mori of ars poetica
23 nuclear tests to end all wars, you see,
There’s never been a woman like Gilda,
The first plutonium-cored, pin-up girl,
1946 femme fatal bombshell (she’s already killed twice!)
Stars in B-29 Superfortress, Dave’s (Wet) Dream
Her aim point Nevada, that focal point of sin
Painted whorific red, sex-toy fun for the bombardier,
Amidst 3 obsolete U.S. battleships (well hung),
2 aircraft carriers (top guns), 2 cruisers (playboys),
11 destroyers (bad boys), 8 submarines (spooks),
And 3 German and Japanese ships (losers)
She laps up the Able Target Array carnage
Gives atmospheric nuclear fallout head,
Spewing an ocean of emotional wounds Special Delivery propaganda porno flick:
‘Air power is peace power!’ hard on baby
Film noir fireball glory for a superheated Cold War
Operations Crossroads testing at Bikini Atoll
Depravity reaches the Atomic Ark tasting her full fury
Naval uniforms specially made, the animals dress the parts
She blasts goat #113 after tethering him to a gun turret
While swimmy little piggy #311 comes home sterile
167 native islander witnesses, however, cannot
Her encore will be performed by stunt double Bravo,
Another 15 megaton super dirty girl
‘Men fall in love with Gilda but wake up with me.’
Rita Hayworth, on her five failed marriages
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Denise Levertov
When words penetrate deep into us they change the chemistry of the soul, of the imagination. We have no right to do that to people if we don’t share the consequences.
Postmodernism is an intellectual, artistic, philosophical, and/or cultural mindset that questions institutionalism, hierarchy, power, and simple, knowable truth. Alternatively it embraces complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, fractured metaphysics, multiplicity, deconstruction, and diversity. In poetry it offers semiotic liberty.
Robert Anton Wilson
Semantic noise also seems to haunt every communication system. A man may sincerely say, ‘I love fish,’ and two listeners may both hear him correctly, yet the two will neurosemantically file this in their brains under opposite categories. One will think the man loves to dine on fish, and the other will think he loves to keep fish (in an aquarium).
Witold Gombrowicz
Here is the writer who with all his heart and soul, with his art, in anguish and travail offers nourishment – there is the reader who’ll have none of it, and if he wants, it’s only in passing, offhandedly, until the phone rings. Life’s trivia are your undoing. You are like a man who has challenged a dragon to a fight but will be yapped into a corner by a little dog. from Ferdydurke
I’m an Executive Director with a doctorate in education, a consultant, painter, photographer, composer, poet, and vocalist.
Gustav Flaubert
Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
Dušan “Charles” Simić
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.
Monique Wittig
Language casts sheaves of reality upon the social body, stamping it and violently shaping it… Language as a whole gives everyone the same power of becoming an absolute subject through its exercise. But gender, an element of language, works upon this ontological fact to annul it as far as women are concerned and corresponds to a constant attempt to strip them of the most precious thing for a human being – subjectivity. Gender is an ontological impossibility because it tries to accomplish the division of Being. But Being is not divided. God or Man as being are One and whole. So what is this divided Being introduced into language through gender? It is an impossible Being, it is a Being that does not exist, an ontological joke, a conceptual maneuver to wrest from women what belongs to them by right: conceiving of oneself as a total subject through the exercise of language. The result of the imposition of gender, acting as a denial at the very moment when one speaks, is to deprive women of the authority of speech, and to force them to make their entrance in a crablike way, particularizing themselves and apologizing profusely. The result is to deny them any claim to the abstract, philosophical, political discourses that give shape to the social body. Gender then must be destroyed. The possibility of its destruction is given through the very exercise of language. For each time I say ‘I’ I reorganize the world from my point of view and through abstraction I lay claim to universality. This fact holds true for every locutor.
W.S. Merwin
All the things that really matter to us are impossible…Writing poetry is impossible. I don’t know how to write a poem. A poem – there has to be a part of it that is not my own will; it comes from somewhere that I don’t know. There is so much that comes out of what we don’t know and what we don’t have any control over. I think that one of the only things we can learn as we get older is a certain humility. – from Doing the Impossible
Thomas Aquinas
Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
Chromapoetica 