A Sermon to You

Transcribed from an oration this afternoon, to my dog:


It’s not just leaving a sanctuary, it’s not just returning to a sanctuary, or feeling that you are suppose to be in some safe haven, some reserved area for contemplation or awareness. It’s not being in a space or avoiding some space, it’s about being in the absence of space. It’s just being, getting outside of what you feel is confining, what is suffocating you. And it’s not anyone or any thing; it’s just ‘it’: being suffocated. And it’s getting out of that realm which suffocates you, getting out of that existence, moving beyond, knowing that you’re more than that, knowing that you can’t let anything limit you, or anyone or any…place. Cause your sanctuary is not where you live, it’s not where you hole yourself up, it’s not where you lock the door and put the world on hold; it’s inside you, man. Fuck churches, fuck any of it. Fuck mosques. Fuck schools. Fuck your mother’s house or your father’s passenger seat. Fuck all that man, it’s not about a warm fire; it’s about not being anywhere, except in yourself. All you can do is reside in what you have, find your perception. It’s nothing else, nothing more, nothing less; it’s all it is. You can’t assume that one thing is influencing everything, that one instance, one motion, one decision or indecision is going to have a play on the rest of your existence or maybe just today’s. Because that’s not what it is; everything is in fucking cycles, everything comes and goes, everything is beautiful and ugly. Everything is moving so fast; you assume that you can’t handle it or it’s too much, or you need to slow down but…it’s not gonna slow down, you can’t slow any of it down except the way you perceive it and how much you’re willing to except what is there and what’s gonna be there regardless of you acknowledging it. It’s what it is, it’s what we are, it’s what everyone is. And you can deny it, but your denial is not gonna be accepted, not even by you. So settle with that. Settle with whatever you think it is you are suppose to settle with. Choose whatever battles you want to fight and fight them to their erroneous and irrelevant end. Cause it’s nothing more than pen and ink, nothing is, and that’s just it.



And if it was an invasion of some privacy, or some imperial standing, I apologize. You know, I had no idea there was such sanctity among those quarters. It was never made apparent to me that this haven was restricted from serendipitous beings. But you make the calls on what you want to do with everything, if your existence is that and your sanctuary is being there and being consumed in contemplation or the lack of, then that’s the hand you’re gonna play, and that’s the deal you’re gonna get. And no one can complain, especially yourself, because that’s what you’ve chosen. But you mustn’t come around in weeks’ time wondering what could have been or what wasn’t or what you’re glad you didn’t do or regret not having done. Because that’s it, everything passes, everything is in cycle, everything moves, and nature takes the easiest path possible, water will choose the path of least resistance. And that’s what we tend to do in our natural wanderings, but that’s not what is shown here man. I couldn’t find more fallacy and obstruction then what’s been present. It baffles me, absolutely baffles me; it’s fucking crazy, man. Who would have known this would have been the mission of someone that I assumed so differently about. And maybe that’s just it; maybe assumptions are the plague of everything that’s wrong in this world. Maybe assumptions are what lead us into such dark recesses, believing we will never see sunshine again, assuming things won’t get better or they always will. But whether assumptions are bleak, or ambivalent or rewarding, they are there and we will keep making them and keep faulting from them. I just hope it’s a lot less, and I hope we are made aware, whether we continue or not. Because it’s all we got, time, it’s all we’ll ever have, and we just try to make the best of it. And I hope you can, I hope this world can. I hope we can reconcile everything we have ruined, that we can have some chance of getting out, getting by, and getting on and making due. But I don’t know if it’s possible, I don’t know if anything is possible anymore. But I know that I’ll move on to…something else, something worse before better, then better before going back again. So is life, and so is reality and everything we’ve encountered and will encounter again, until the time comes when we stop assuming and everything will make sense and be without reticence, in it’s place and proper and beautiful…and ugly and real. Because it can’t be right and it can’t be good, unless there is pain and unless there is some ugliness. Because otherwise everything is beauty and everything is empty. And that’s it.



Of course I wish it wasn’t so, wish there wasn’t a vendetta against…those who admire or those who want to be a part. I wish there wasn’t so much hatred and misunderstanding that came with those assumptions. Because it’s not all hatred, there’s so much beauty in it all, if we’d only take the time to not overanalyze, take the time not to explore. Just let things be for what they are, nothing more, nothing more. We can’t go on predicting what we want; deterring what we think is bad. Because it’s all gonna arrive, and fall and ascend and climb, produce, regardless of whether we extinguish it, it’s gonna happen. And denial, I guess, is part of it, denial is part of understanding what we are, and what we have and don’t have; denial is part of growth, denial is part of everything, and it’s death and birth incarnate. But there is love unbridled somewhere in the world and I try to seek it out. I try to find it in anything, in what was and what we can’t explain, because it’s out there; that’s all we have, knowing there is something out there unbridled, that there is something wild about us, about all this. Something that’s beyond classes and work, waiting tables and tips, and emails and phone calls, and late night ramblings, lonely well-wishings; there is something beyond it. And there is something that makes it all seem alright, that we’re not just striving for something that is empty, something that has moved on, something that is extinct or has evolved. But fuck, evolution is everything; evolution is why we’re here, evolution is what made us, evolution is the most beautiful thing we can conceive, and that’s it. Once more, that’s it. It’s death and resurrection, it’s evolution and mutation, it’s beauty…unbridled. Cause the hemlocks can’t arrive without the limestone eroding, and the roots can’t reach the water without there being a surplus or deficency, some reason to keep going, some reason to keep growing, some reason, I guess, just to believe. And I’m trying, like anything else…



So take it back, whatever consequences serve you. Take back whatever keeps you afloat or makes you sing. Whatever serves the dichotomy you are trying to make due with. Whatever odds and ends make your transition. Everybit, take it.

Take the well-wishes, the good intentions, the kindness, the happy smiles, the orgasms; take the gestures, the anger and sadness, man; take every part of it inside and out. Take the little kisses and big embraces, take the warm and cold, take the sheets and fan. Take the foil that keeps it warm and the hands that keep the ticket. Take the petal and bloom before the bud, cause if you never wanted it, it shouldn’t have been planted. Pull the plug on the drain, and take it with you, in case you need to stop up something else down the road. Because this one has drained, and it will be seasons before it returns. But you seem to have a good grasp, a good understanding; you seem to know what you want, and maybe we just don’t.

If this is it, call off the guard and throw in the towel. Return the books, but keep the rest, for whatever sake it might serve. Maybe it will give a reason to hate, or hope, or love.

Waiting

It needs to coalesce
before it can arrive,
expire before it may
exist.
it won't be, until
recognized
make sense
till passed.

You can't appreciate or
taste anything till
you've finished it, or
it's complete.
And it's terrible, waiting,
it's the worst passage
of all.
Waiting;
Fucking,
waiting.

Patience is a virtue
we must swallow
but what is a virtue
unless revered by all?
Otherwise it's a pass,
a move of hope
an impression of ... desire?
Wish the words just
weren't so harsh.

But it's the only reason we
keep on
keep knowingly failing
to get the front
the acknowledgment
of dismissal.

What else is there
when we're alone
but to be overt
and a contagion,
oppressive and
playless.

God dammit,
just a minute would be
enough,
at least a press
of chance.

When you've only had
emptiness, anything
foreign is empty, and
all that fails you
is sustenance.

more finite than we wish

When the fuck did
you get so pious,
Sir Lancelot?
You act as though
you've never been
there.
Go ride another
horse, Juarez
the hills are closer
than you think

Give it a day
a week
let it settle
in the leachate
There ain't a whole
lot more to
wait for.
It's all legal tender
whether she touched it
or not
The American Disabilities Act
can't put an access ramp
in every niche,
bunk, or building;
we're more finite
than we wish

I want it in my living room

Is she an american
American?!?
mound the mass,
the scope
the lunge.
Where do they arrive from
suck unattainable
effervescent silk
Predict how you must
make those 'gressions
the timely transgressions
progressions
I hope it works
I hope it convinces
the lender the
decider
You're protector

I'll be on the wire
whether you are
in or not.
Spit on you hand, just
in case, you let the
lion know

What is any degenerate
suppose to do
How can you justify
any such behavoir
Deplorable is the
epic notion of the
times, seemingly
attainable, yet the
same as its title.
It's tragic the energy
wasted. the synergy
that was possible
God bless it. Every lasting
fucking bit of it. The
semen, the
Sechilles,
I want it all in my
living room.

Such a girl when it comes to women

It's not the specifics
the hair, curves or hues
and it's different with each

The first time it was easy
We were nine and she had doe eyes
With my sweaty bangs, not much seemed better
Even then we knew it was more
than a bullet point
or conjecture
usually wasn't realized till it was gone
like most things of the sort

And it's still the same
ever elusive, but there
and prominent
The grad student can call it Achilles's great dichotomy
going to war with a shield of farming
of family
of love

It's when it's harder
to muster the courage not to call
to restrain from checking the phone
between each lonesome paragraph

When they serve whiskey in to-go cups
you would think the journey easier
the saunter more in tune
with the cogs of grandfather clocks
But if we could just ring the bell
just let them know that we're around
then maybe we could overcome
the moons' alignment
and estrogen unbridled

We're a turtle, on wind-swept shores at dawn
hoping the pigs haven't caught our scent
pleading the rain's abundance
won't wash our fledglings
out to the salty sea

The moon carries so much uncertainty
when the clouds have returned
and the gray-scale becomes our pallet
Like a bag of wheat thins left out in the rain
we nod our hat to the ambivalent cat

In avoidance we strive to be noticed, thinking
in absence they'll long for us
That unknown notion propels our irrationality
our estranged decisions
We can't reach the hilltop
without dynamiting the foundation
or descend without balding the dome

It's inevitable that it will progress as such
That we'll continue with the guesswork
ineptitude, inability, ignorance
It all goes back to that rib
it's removal and loss
it's our innate emptiness
born inside the Gates of Eden
In creating their beauty
from us
they are us
And maybe that's it
that elusive entity
that keeps our leash taut
It's all we seek, 'our' calcite
'our' rib
and it's theirs

Just wish Sunday school
hadn't been so boring

The Yearling, Portland, and Misgivings

I miss the rain, the looming clouds and misty ponytails along the morning bus rides; the spit from bicycle tires seemed so pure and timely, appropriate for my longing and warm enough for my yearning heart. I hope you haven't forgotten; forgotten my yearling eyes and fanciful yawns. I'll always be waiting by the wire, in hopes of hearing your tenor call my name. The mountains arn't as high as they once stood, though the glaciers keep time with the tears of spin-the-bottle and missed opportunities. I pray your love is as pure as I remember, and that your smile still heats the air of basement wanderings. Though we can't live in the breath of past pains, it's nice to know they are remembered, and that reminders only hurt initially. If your find the time, let those in heaven know your name and remind the garbage man that not all the trash should be dismissed. We all get soiled from time to time and my rag's still wet.
With love from the Grotto,
Stella

If it's love, he will know

Somehow the absence always makes the heart seem weaker. How a day missed can make one assume that beauty now empty, removed and displaced. It seems it’s been weeks, both since he saw her or introduced himself; years since he first absorbed that warm embrace, as if he’s praying for a hug just for old time’s sake.

He can only wake up alone so many times, so many more late evenings and early morns before something grows, or dies, or ages beyond memory. In all this quest for sempiternal existence, to continue rolling in that eternal wheel and hay bale of yearning. They tell him it’s only the rain and the stain of those olden pains, that he’s just tired and crazed in the mind. He wishes he could be silent, that the times didn’t propel his guessing, his hopeless wanderings.

But I hope he finds it, whatever it is he’s been rambling about, anxiously sweating with. I wish the pain didn’t help so much, the emptiness didn’t restore with such grace. I hate that she knows, that he has to ascend that hill in fluorescent effervescent quilts to cry for shelter, and warmth and the lupine. If resistance didn’t fail, if only guilt was painless and straightforward to ascertain, it would be better or seem as such.

There is only so much he can do before it’s gone, before the drain empties and the flag quits wavering and is silenced. Each string is forever tuned to remain quiet, atleast enough to cool his brow and lessen life’s reverse. Maybe he’ll stand up for his one chance; maybe he’ll stand up for love. We get no second chance in this life, but if it’s love he will know.

Epistulary Wanderings III

Hank
Make the call you wack
Merrily gay in fact
I can't call the judge
Those bugs take it all these days
Greedy knats taking the cake
and not eating too, fools
Find the cut cliff, stiff
on the face side,
the pretty view.

Golden Jimmy

It makes you wonder

But I still wonder, wonder, question and ponder. How can such grace arrive so fittingly, like water at crest, snugging the sky's womb. Such purity wasn't meant for ignominious Sapiens like we. The grackles, carrying SO MUCH HATE, enough to kill a school or any of you. Such cherubic grace was not our destiny, or pure utterances meant to fall from our ugly, clumsy jowls.
But we're here. And it does.
Such wondrous whisperings were meant for the others, the monarch winging it homeward again; for the doe and yearling, waiting for echos of the dwindling wildfire's screams to drift south. Like a back road in winter, when the sheen is neither ice nor water, and you can't tell whether it's a wake or a birth.
It's the stuff that failed redwoods and built arks, a beauty of the highest accord, that somehow fell in our wicked paws. What vengeful god would bestow such an atrocity upon his children, would give such crude implements to manage such purity. How is one to exchange gifts when the rain blinds like stars?
You would think only a right hook, from a tortured soul, would be able to carry and deliver such weight, or that only planks of cedar would carry such a strong scent. But a week has now passed, and the wonder remains. All that subsides is the fear; all anxious nightmares abandoned and dismissed, for every arising cold sweat is just the exit of terror, the past trying to rekindle what we've moved beyond.
I hope she isn't in situ, that she's ready to strap her boots and step off the porch. My palms are likely rough, and my soul weary, but there's a bluebird in my heart that want's out and the stars are too bright to hide in the shadows.
Let me take you along and throw your experience and wisdom to westerly winds. Because I can't stop without running, and this is no place to hide.

We thirst for approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver

Ecclesiastes 1
Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher, [a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

What is there, but ascensions and endings? Is the apex any more substantial then the initial arousal, or the hope, an anticipation of guesswork? Kingdoms are slain over presumptions, assumptions and the demotions that arrive with the reality of our cyclic tendencies. Granitic intrusions are merely the Pharaoh’s sand hills, the delusions of ant lions. In conquest, in writing, in running, in consumption, all is tuned in the key of finites. Our thoughts are uniform, direct, intentional; but when we’ve gone mad, when psychosis wracks our senses, it seems there is no end, that we are absent of lines and lineaments. Distinction is the catalyst for assumption; as coitus is to tactic purpose?
“Original sin is not something man did to god but something god did to man, so monstrous that to this day man cannot understand what happened to him. He shakes his head groggily and rubs his eyes in disbelief.
The great secrets of the ages is that man has evolved, is born, lives, and dies for one end and one end only: to commit a sexual assault on another human or to submit to such an assault.” Walker Percy, Lancelot

What is this assault but a continuation of the wrath initiated in the original ‘monstrous’ sin? We propagate for an existence we’ll never see; Abraham IS Issac, as Jacob is Judah, and I am Krishna; the stray black cat: GW; the Sassafras: the cup of salvation. The leaves turn with the pumping of the rig, as CONOCO and Chrysler yet again reassess, ponder and probe for new ways to control waves, to reinvent the leaf, the detritus, to peat, to lignite, the coal, covered, subducted, exposed, evaporating, to salt to gypsum, consumed and covered, in sequence, the bouma sequence; all in time, all of cyclic exposition, it faults, it fractures, the salt plumes, moving like fire, like water, like nature, in taking the path of least resistance, in filling the fissures most apt., and again evolving, like Lucy, like Lepidodendron, like Coleoptera, like Nyssa Sylvatica, it arrives, subsides
and becomes…
it becomes and is and continues, the coal miners lament, the rice pickers waning twilight. We aren’t worthy or ready to ever conceive it, of it, about it. We are it, or were it, or will be it, worship it, smoke it, destroy it, love it, dig it and leave it.

“The one thing we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment.
The continual effort to raise himself above himself, to work a pitch above his last height, betrays itself in a man’s relations. We thirst for approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, from “Circles”


For the soul of man walks all paths
The soul walks not upon a line,
neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself,
like a lotus of countless petals.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

It makes you wonder if it's real. If such hours are truly existent, such gestures unfeigned. It seems unfair that such beauty can exist, that fortune could really be so nurturing. It makes you want to destroy ugliness, to ravage the rancid ones beyond the screen door. It's hard even to step off the porch, when you know the sun's brighter inside, and the snow a lighter pallid.
Innocence is only novel in retrospect, and it's naive to assume the world knows this. Or that she has cognizance of my wonder. I'm no innocent son. Ask my dog, ask the one's back east, inquire my dad and take in his revealing sighs. I wish it wasn't so hard to love a man that can't make right; that she wasn't such an unctuous sycophant; that she wasn't so pleasant at dawn. It gives me sickness, dissuades my hunger.
But people mean well and goodness does exist: the requisite condition for this is believing it. If mother's can still render altruistic affection after my atrocities, then children deserve Handi Snacks and Kool-Aid from used syrup bottles. It's ok for the mutt to swallow wholly the fat of the steak. But she'll never know how regal and succulent a finely seared piece can be. And the other she will never understand my doubts, as I'll never have a true conviction.
So I just keep writing and hoping, hoping she won't smarten up too soon, or worse, deny she's sensed it. The point in hiding out is to wait to be found; in eating, to pass what was just put in; in being kind so you're not remembered as unpleasant. You grin and roll down the frozen food aisle so you seem as kind as they assume themselves, and Jesus, and the Pope, and a cop, and the rabbit.

Run Rabbit Run, cause my den's a caving in.

Rice Ferguson