Rest by The Million Things

A single rock is born;
born into the world.
Born of exploding, or flowing and cooling, or carving.
It is raised up. It rolls and falls; is buried or crushed.

A seed of crystaline growth is nourished in the damp and
the dark of a cave somewhere,
small like the grain of a grain of sand.
It grows maybe for hundreds, or thousands years
that it doesn't believe in.
Is it waiting to sparkle as a precious gem someday,
bidding its time until it's taken out of the dark?
When it's found –
since we know it is –
And broken loose from its root,
and polished, and cut, and set,
It doesn't say anything.

Rain is falling out from the great sky onto
a mountain top. Gathering in rivulets branching
backward through time.
It carves and sculpts and cuts through the land,
And meets with itself in the sea.

In the spring, nearly two years ago now, a maple tree
began growing in my backyard.
Growing up from a single point where
the Earth meets one wall of an abandoned building next door.
There are some elms too growing nearby.
One of them grew up from the old fire pit i haven't used
since the Fire Department came one night
to tell me to put out the fire that was burning there.

There are apples on another tree, not far from the
elms and the maple, at the back of the house where.
They mostly fall to the ground and rot.
Only one person i know of ever ate one.
It had worms in it.

My roommate Horatio sometimes fights with the
neighborhood cats.
I know because i sometimes see fresh scratches on his head.

Some friends of mine have a roommate who drew a picture
of his own suicide. Drama arose because he'd drawn it;
everyone wrapped up in how they felt about it being drawn.
I don't know if he depicted a rope, or a knife or what,
but mine would've been a gun just back and above
my right ear. I wish i could've, but the moment passed,
and i was already annoyed, and wondering what their suicide
pictures would look like if any of them ever bothered to draw one.
The picture was gone last i was there.

There was a beetle sitting on a leaf in a picture on the web
on my computer screen when i wrote this.
It was yellow and black.
There because i wanted to see what an elm leaf looked
like before i wrote about one. It's shaped like something i wanted to call a “Sandfish”,
but that wasn't right. Its most distinct lines radiate at 45 degree
angles from the leaf stem, or just about that, and the edge is serrated. I'm talking about
an elm leaf, the beetle was gone, replaced by many rectangular pictures
of Sandfish.

A gem that sits in the necklace of a beautiful woman doesn't know
it's a gem,
But she still delights in your praise.

To You, the Unstained,
Who delights in their delights,
And sorrows in their sorrows,
No words are necessary,
I can see that. But i thank you anyway
For your emptiness; that breathtaking quiet
which sounds for the world, and gives place
to the beating of my heart.

There are many lusts in the swirling dark.
Great belief in lusts arise. Oh, very great!
States clinging to the transparency of nature.

Every affirmation is denial.
Untruth on untruth buried,
dormant in the strata of the soul.

The appearance of the markets in which we gather,
and affections we exchange,
are consequent of those tombs
laying in the present dark.
All our histories inscribed on coffins and coffers of stone,
gilded in gold,
waiting there to be read by someone still who speaks those
ancient tongues.

The stale anger and muted despair my constant friend.

In the clear light of the snow-sun which penetrates
the black topped streets.
In the glance of a left-hand church that might've doubled as a schoolhouse as
i drive west on 26th.
And in the warmth of the 2:58 sun on my cheek...

Every special thing seems meaningless to me now

Rapid honesty closes the switch of another's
lie.

Living the feelings of each other
not knowing.
I reject, and shoulder the full weight of them.
Crushed to the singular point of the worthless,
unloved.

Identity fixated by waves of discord
sounding,
whenever another is stuck.
The impact tremors ripple violently in the water of me.

My transparency is muddied by the rejections
i accept
colured to swirling browns by the decay of traumas
unmet
near the layered oscillations of childhood,
or the codependencies of a corpus of pain

Sharp violence in the smallest of gestures
i retreat to the smoldering embers of bitterness and despair
in the pit in the cave of my life
“Hello old friend.”
An edge.
Or crack in my voice signals
that my waters – scented with fragrant herbs – be
poured steadily onto my seething bones
now white-hot with rage.

Steam rushes up at first
then spreads,
sounding out in a million tiny eddies
over-patterned like lines of force
and presses close again to the single point
where the absent hand pours
the fog huddling closer in the cavern's dark.

“I can't breath!”
A splinter of panicked bone erupts in the singing of the cave walls.
They seem to sing a death-song,

Hello there? Them who make the dew?
Such loveliness! Nameless accords of such-as-it-is
happen these tiny droplets, and disperse colour
to the four corners of the world.

What seem to be great meanings
come in meditation,
but while the words that arise then linger,
the meanings want no part of them.
And, apart from their own state,
they flee.

Identification itself, the gate,
neither open nor shut.
Self-consciousness? The crux of fixation
that keeps this from that. Experientially,
what is it like?

My mind frequents glimpses of its own unique potentials,
And attempts to live in true intimations
Of truths that are yet to live in me.
Cleverness moving my fingertips and flapping my lips,
Hoping on my account to be accepted
For what i might be
At some unspecified point in the future.

Have i ever been experienced?

Do i act from self-consciousness? Or,
does something else act in my place?

Is the identity-maker the same as identification
itself? Or different?

Am i a unity? Or a chaos of momentary intents?

You overdosed on heroine, my once a year acquaintance.
You were here, but briefly, in my dream.
You passed from this world as a rainbow passes,
And leave a trace on my heart.

I don't remember you; Memory places you in me.
She writes the deeds of you indelibly,
And softly reads you when i come.

I don't remember at all in fact; Memory mes,
And draws me into shape; into the Realm of its Displays.
I can call to it, to Memory,
And draw the drawing of me,
But only when its attention is undivided
Does it project me into its soul.

I am not remembered, Memory mes me;
Displays me in the heart of him who calls.
We are one he and i.
Arising together in ecstasy; arriving together as one,
And together departing,
Fading like the meaning of a dream put to rest.

I am remembered now;
In insight of the artistry of Dreams;
Painted in oil colors of interpretation and projection
On the waters of Seeing.
Are these the same paints which portrait Memory?
Is it the same Water?
Is there no portrait there without me?
Nor me without the pictures i paint?

Those images arise from habituation of gesture and stroke;
Not from a freely chosen act unfettered of conditions,
Nor even from a studied repetition that might be made to grant
Some minor claim to credit.
No, if i paint at all,
I paint together with the multitudes before me;
Not more than a fingertip on the Invisible Hand
That paints.

But of what does it paint? And for what purpose?
It paints me of lusts and retributions,
Of claims to heroic deeds undone,
Of my prides it paints, and of my pains and pleasures,
And to imagination of the sweetest release
It paints of me.

Its purpose is unclear to me.
Perhaps there is no purpose but those i can
Imagine,
Or those Imagined in me.
But, like sandcastles, all imaginings crumble.
Or like spirits on oiled canvas (so as not to mix metaphors)
The image is washed away
Leaving in its place gestures of changing colors.

I don't understand the meaning of that Abstraction,
if any,
But my mind intimates the freedom to create,
Or to withdraw.
Withdraw from colors and ideas to apprehend the
Unformed Hand of the Formed.
“It is because form is not form that it can be called form.”
“It is because form is not form that it can be called form.”
It is because form is not form that it can be called form.

In between 7th and 8th consciousnesses is reification as “self.”

Every affirmation is to me denial;
A reproval which causes suppression.
My mind can't function well like that.
But works more by suggestion and
Simple recognition
Of the impulses passing through.
Gentle moves of guidance,
Fine adjustment of word,
And subtle perception with curiosity and delight.
In a dream just last night
I was shown aversion to my own body
Conditioned by Ridicule
The father of my non-acceptance
And a need to be liked, my mother.

Reconciliation is the movement of me.
I want to be conciled to Truth and Reciprocity together with another,
Even you.
But a comergent deference is required, which most can't seem to imagine.
So anger, fear, and grief act as the counter-movements of me.

Anger argues for my hopes with what intellect it can maintain
On an impetus of judgment of how things should be.
Or conspires with grief to think all effort a waste.

Fear makes a sacrifice of Truth in the hope of the conciliation of Reciprocity alone,
But soon grief comes to take the hand of fear and bring it to anger
And together they arm in self-righteousness,
And clad in the burnished armor and morion of resentment.

And grief alone? Grief pleads.
Pleads for understanding from anyone who'll listen.

We were much alike he
And i.
Easily irritated/annoyed/drained
Overly critical and quick to
Judge.
In absence of that compassion born
Of a great depth of intimate understanding.
And having little humility since we were
Smarter, subtler, more intuitive, or finely discriminating
Than most everyone we'd meet.

They called ours pride and arrogance.
And we called theirs conceit; presumption.

So much for a role model;
So much for a saint.
I'll find my own way.

Anger is empowerment
When i hold to it rightly.
And humility an insidious
pride. Pride can be humble
Honestly. And identity gains
Truth when it dies.

Affirmation suppresses an impulse
Where absence can cut to its source.
And judging as wrong an action of
Fact adds terrible strength to its force.

Resistance isn't an act of me
It's an invader from a foreign land.
Like some virulent species appropriating
Resources for its own purposes.

And what of the finity of words?
One can never speak the whole truth.

The yellow shadow of my cigarette smoke
Is contained in its blueness.

The music in a passing car
Contained in me.

And what of the finity of words?
One can never speak the whole truth.

Empty is the absence of thought in a moment.