The Ox Herding Poems II: Paysage Postmodern

The smell of used book shops with creaky chairs. Diagrams of movement. Mind. It must be through some relative thing that the truth lies. Where to look? What to believe? Foucault or Krishnamurti? Hesse’s drama? Lao Tzu? Maharshi’s silent beckoning? Rabindranath quotes the Upanishads. Perennial philosophers peer through cathedrals of time. Einstein’s staggering glimpse. Wilber steps off Derrida’s carousel. The Lama quips. We all laugh. Eckhart whispers Now, for god’s sake. Breath. Following paths in search of a self were fear dissolves into a million lived illusions and a state with no end.

It is not a place. A space I can scarcely imagine and only sense. Blind seeing. A life without sign-posts. Where no one resides and beings flourish. Beyond parched ground. The smell of burned wood in farmers’ fields. I see ox paths to eternity, but fear I might not have the courage. An ostridge shell around my heart. The mind stands with shredded maps. I begin to see it is past the signs that freedom lay. But where is it? Unlearned semantics. Only a sniff will send me off. Or is it hiding right inside of me. The self- mirage. Unsettled. I sit back down. Touch my knees.

____ Paths
ration
signs ____ signifiers
nihilistic kisses in the mirror
subjective adherence
doubt

parched
knowledge ____ ciphered
stumbling leads of infinite direction
aortic trust
undoing

hierarchy
chains ____ stages
Nietzsche’s stubble on Faust’s sink
reflections dissolve
lines unfold

axioms
dangling ____ with irony
narcissistic confessions on archetypal muses
give way
to sitting

witnessing
a self ____ as object
in sober recognition of a thousand epochs
of faceless déjà vu
and empty breath