trial and error

when young, i dreamed about a beautiful, dark-haired witch with black eyes, who, everytime she kissed me, sapped my strength. i'm still living in that land, and this is one of my favorite collection of poems.

LUCK

The fool falls on his feet,
that's for sure, and the wise
man breaks his bones, that's
how it happens. For example,
a fool and a wise man decided
to go on the road. They bought
a cart. The wise man wanted
to put the horse before the cart.
"No," said the fool, "that way he'll
get tired, and besides, he might
fall in a hole." So they put the
horse behind the cart and began
their journey by going backwards.
They were halfway around the world
when the wise man said, "This
is getting me nowhere, I'm,
going home," and he set out
to follow their tracks back. Now
what he didn't know was the
Devil disguised as a huge worm
had eaten a hole in the road
somewhere between here and China,
so he fell in the hole and broke
his neck. The fool went ahead,
singing songs and having a good
time. He came home yesterday,
and I'm marrying him tomorrow.
Marry somebody lucky, I say,
and you'll never go hungry.
The Devil can't second-guess a fool.

read the rest of them at www.pbase.com/wwp/fairytales
more poems: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/poems
pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

escape

yes, leaving town is one of the best ways to escape chores! in 1992 i spent four months in europe, two of them with my travel partner, berta gardner www.pbase.com/wwp/berta (the picture from mexico on another of our trips)

here's a few notes i wrote after coming home.

3. Whatever makes the present everything makes us live: an accident, love, travel.

4. Because everything is strange when we travel, we look with children's eyes, hence renewal.

5. It's strange that what makes us comfortable also makes us miserable.

12. It's a fine line between feeling alien and feeling refreshed.

15. He searches the world for intimate spaces. The grand did nothing to comfort him.

17. All our lives it's a battle between buying a house and taking a trip.

19. We search and search for the place that feels like a mother to us.

20. Only when he knew the whole world would he feel safe at home.

32. In becoming spiritual we often desire to escape life.

33. More often we are in love with the idea of liberty than liberty itself.

47. We take ourselves seriously until confronted by the inevitable.

54. Just the motion itself, the rocking of the boat, the clicking of the wheels, it was enough. He'd returned to his mother's womb.

60. The only freedom is the love of change.

74. Travel grants us the freedom of ignorance. In a new culture we don't catch the subtle signals telling us what to do.

79. Why do I always end up having a cultural experience when all I want to really do is lie on the beach?

89. After being bewildered by people it's a relief to turn to books.

95. He ruined his body, but had a good time doing it.

108. Hidden from the world he could be what he wanted. As long as he could live without an audience he was free.

144. It's not that we don't know what we want. It's that we fear what we want.

160. When he took his past back from her he, at first, felt empty, for she had confirmed his existence, even as she seemed to steal it.

169. The child reaches for a glittering object. This is the history of humanity.

176. They loaded up the trucks. As Lenny Bruce said, when he died his precious possessions had become junk.

201. Too often we mistake changing the world for changing ourselves.

231. Love or coffee, take your pick. One or the other will give you inspiration.

if these have made you curious, you can browse the whole collection www.pbase.com/wwp/zen

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

thanks for listening!

messiah

alas, sometimes the best of us can't resist the temptation to save the world. take the story of poor murphy.

THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY

Let's go back to the beginning. Way back. Before the bloody battles and terrible insights. Before the flag filled with bullet-holes and the demise of Murphy's machine.

It all began in an industrial town in the middle of the country. Work went on as usual. Black smoke poured into the sky. A hundred thousand hands punched a hundred thousand clocks. Steam-drills pounded in the mineshafts. Automobiles creaked down assembly-lines. Two old ladies walked along Main Street, looking for the perfect mushroom. And Murphy, in a blond wig, sat under a hairdryer, reading Karl Marx.

Murphy had had a hard day.

He had ridden into town on his high-level chopper. Stopped at a diner. Ordered ham and eggs. Had even reached for the relish - when he was recognized by the waitress. Luckily, he had finished his coffee when the police walked in.

Being a man of action, Murphy ran into the Men's Room. Locked the door. Climbed out through the skylight, grabbing some woman's clothes hanging on a line. He leaped onto the street, was on his chopper and gone before the police could get their pistols smoking.

Murphy felt oppressed. As the girl worked his nails over and added a bit of polish, he read the words, "Bikers unite, you've nothing to lose but your chains."

The woman sitting next to Murphy coughed nervously.

"Young woman," she asked, "why do you wear black boots?"

you can read the whole sad tale at: www.pbase.com/wwp/murphy

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

unfortunately, even the best of us sometimes feel we were destined to save the world. take the story of poor murphy:

THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY

Let's go back to the beginning. Way back. Before the bloOdy battles and terrible insights. Before the flag filled with bullet-holes and the demise of Murphy's machine.

It all began in an industrial town in the middle of the country. Work went on as usual. Black smoke poured into the sky. A hundred thousand hands punched a hundred thousand clocks. Steam-drills pounded in the mineshafts. Automobiles creaked down assembly-lines. Two old ladies walked along Main Street looking for the perfect mushroom. And Murphy, in a blond wig, sat under a hairdryer, reading Karl Marx.

Murphy had had a hard day.

He had ridden into town on his high-level chopper. Stopped at a diner. Ordered ham and eggs. Had even reached for the relish - when he was recognized by the waitress. Luckily, he had finished his coffee when the police walked in.

Being a man of action, Murphy ran into the Men's Room. Locked the door. Climbed out through the skylight, grabbing some woman's clothes hanging on a line. He leaped into the street, was on his chopper and gone before the police could get their pistols smoking.

Murphy felt oppressed. As the girl worked his nails over and added a bit of polish, he read the words, "Bikers unite, you've nothing to lose but your chains."

The woman sitting next to Murphy coughed nervously.

"Young woman," she asked, "why do you wear black boots?"

you can read the whole sad tale at www.pbase.com/wwp/murphy

poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

throwing stones

since i've spent most of my life living in glass houses on the top of mountains, my view's definitely skewed. here's a page from my diary created in the 90's.

THE EIGHTEENTH DAY

Nothing's right this morning. I've a crick in my neck. Even a pain-killer pill doesn't help. Hanging blankets to block the sun, I sprain my finger. I cry, "How will I support myself if I'm disabled" I shout, "Mama! Mama!" That's what happens when you make the organization your parent. Thirty-five years of paychecks have transformed me into a dependent, emotional cripple. I overhear an ad for my hometown radio-station, and I'm homesick for life in the Sacramento Valley.

Thunderheads loom in the southern part of the forest from Rainmaker Lake to Priam's Valley. Dry-lightning strikes outside the rain-shadow at Scott Summit. Flies tap at the window. Two red-tailed hawks circle in an updraft, mounting higher. Dispatch sends the recon-plane to canyons the lookouts cannot see.

Isabella Nigrido, my erstwhile psychic, maintained I'd been a Tibetan monk meditating on mountain-tops in a past life. Even today when a head lama succumbs, the remaining proselytes travel the land, peering into each newborn baby's eyes to discover the body into which the master has been reborn. As the chose tyke occupies the throne, does he feel like a fake, five thousand disciples falling to their knees, or does he feel ancient tears form in his eyes? I expect a bevy of anchorites to trudge up the road. Now, that would be an act of destiny, myself the head of monastery in the Himalayas! The question is: is that a job I would want?

Once at a youth hostel on the Island of Skye in the sixties, a fellow said, after I'd tendered a long-winded philosophical monologue, "Oh, no, not a child guru!" (I must have been all of twenty-five.) And concluding a class with Josephine Miles at Berkeley where I'd read a couple of poems, a professor's wife said, "You should publish a book." "Good God," I thought, 'you don't do that until you're past fifty." Now I'm fifty-nine, less capable, less knowledgable, than at nineteen. When I step up to the podium, I feel shallow, an imposter, ill-prepared. I've insights but no philosophy.

Silenced by my father as I squirmed in the front pew and disrupted his sermon, I've always gotten in trouble for talking - chastised in school as I played the class clown, easily embarrassed when overruled by a teacher. I prize my intellect above my heart, yet if someone thinks too much of me, I despise them. How can they be so wrong? Don't they see through me?

When Isabella explained I'm reluctant to accept a postion of authority, a scientist who once blew up Atlantis, I thought, "Whether actual or a metaphor, I find it only too true. Let those with thicker skins assume the savior role." So much for being the next Dali Lama!

have no fear, this manuscript "Cloud Watcher, a firelookout's book of days" remains unpublished.

Pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp
Poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

evolution

i've a million theories. one is that as part of evolution human beings are learning to live on artificial substances in human-made environments. here's a poem on the subject.

SPACESHIPS

What a painful process, this
learning to live in spaceships.
Artificial food, flourescent light,
tiny rooms, video-games and other
such adolescent passions. We
have to become fascinated by
models of the world, weaning
ourselves away from grass, trees,
picnics, the steady influence
of the moon. We have to shake
up our body's timetable, punishing
it with clocks, drugs, passionate
thought instead of passionate
action, not to mention hypnotizing
ourselves with electronic dials
that glow in the dark. What a
frustration to live in such an
imperfect world! We have to
drive ourselves crazy with concrete,
riots, recessions, crime, all in
order to shake our love of this
existence, to seek a new
heaven far beyond the stars.
Alas, we have to raise our energy
level to mostrous heights beforee
we can blast off from our love
of each other, our love of mild
summer nights, baseball, icecream,
swimming in mountain lakes,
listening for the echoes to come back
from other human hearts. Going
to the stars is not for the faint-
hearted. You have to get used
to the infinite spaces in low
doses so they don't kill you with grief.

personally, i plan to be a doctor on a spaceship in my next lifetime!
see more pictures at www.pbase.com/wwp
and more poems www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

the sun's coming up

hi folks,

welcome!

this is the first day of smokysun's heaven. since it is a new adventure in an unknown universe, it will take awhile to establish the laws and design. i would like it, of course, to be joyous, a celebration, and fun. alas, my black humor's bound to come through, and i'll start with a poem, despite lao tzu's warning, "The wise one who values his/her life refuses to become famous".

When dancing, we try to
shake off our genitals and be-
come angels, that's what a char-
acter in the movie said last
night. And just the other day
I read, "I try not to make the
angels cry." I thought that the
right guide to a good life. But
I make the angels cry all the
time, probably as much out of
laughter as pain. They must
be saying to themselves, "Look
at this guy, he's almost fifty-
five. He's had thirty-five lovers,
he's travelled in almost as many
countries, he's never had to
break stones for the road, yet
he thinks there must be an
easier way. He envies the married,
he envies parents, he envies
the golfball when it's been hit
hard and true. Given the life
of a poet he wants to be a
singer, given a song he wants
to play the races, winning
at poker he wants to go home
and make love to his sister."
Yes, I try not to make the
angels cry but I do it all the
time, and as I dance, trying
to lose all lust, I watch the woman
next to me, knowing she's no
angel either.

welcome to smokysun's heaven, the dawn of a new/old day!