Add-a-Poem

[phantasm]

I think life would get old after a couple of hundred years or maybe sooner
If I couldn't get out of this stinkin' town of my birth
If there was nothing interesting to do or see
If there was no one interesting to meet
Or anywhere interesting to go

Existence is a riddle
What are we to do with it?
You can obliterate poverty and need, you can cure death forever--
We all need something meaningful in our lives to give us grit

The human heart longs for eternity, but also needs renewal
At what point do our choices become our prison?
Routine can either anchor us or fetter us
Are we becoming more ourselves, or less?

Salvation is in the alien
Sometimes darkness shrouds the light
What's the difference between who we are and who we're becoming?
We can't imagine that we'll ever think any differently than we do now
or like different things or music or whatnot

Live a life of discovery and you will learn to regenerate yourself like Dr. Who,
You can rise up and become a better person than you are now.

Old dogs can be taught new tricks.

[anirbas]

Old dogs can be taught new tricks
Oh, damn! Hope my master doesn't hear
this. He'll be ready to teach me
some more demeaning postures
like rolling over
just to get
a damned
store brand
scooby snack!

[aims]

scooby snack
in a sack
grip gone slack
Homeless angel with a dirty face
how did you end up in this place
eating dog treats after grateful grace . . .?
Ah, well,
there but for the grace of, chaos without meaning,
go I.

[aims]

There but for the grace of, chaos without meaning,
go I,
to forge a path
that meanders
wanders
and is full of earthly pleasures
and if I am lucky
and I do it well
it will resonate
with rich, and gentle meaning!

[phantasm]

With rich and gentle meaning
The Divine attempts to communicate
The problem is, to plumb the meaning and dredge up wisdom
And then we all ruminate

We ask, "What's the meaning, what's the purpose of it all?"
Interpretation begins to grow, crystallizing, hardening,
rolling like a snowball down a snowy hill

Those who disagree can evaporate the snow, but still get bowled over in the process
Interpretation spreads as long as someone thinks about it, but leaves a residue as it sinks further into the mind

until all that's left is a question:

"Why do we believe this again?"

[aims]

"Why do we believe this again?"
That everything always works out alright in the end?
It may yet hold true
but the devastation
in the wake of the latest election
may well call into question
whether the sum
makes all it's parts worth suffering!!!
Even if we end up abolishing the electoral college
Trump get's Impeached
and Democrats come out in full force from now on
and it all manages to make a few converts
after they see what their vote has wrought
what we have to go through with Trump, Pence and
that dreadful man Steve Bannon
may be too high a price to pay for those results!!!

[aims]

Too high a price to pay for those results,
is what people sometimes think
when their gift is not well received
that's what happens when your focus
is really, covertly, possibly even unknown to you,
on receiving, because you want the gratification
that you get from their appreciation
okay maybe some of it is anticipating their joy,
that doesn't come to fruition,
but even that is something you get in return for the gift.
You know how people are always saying life is the journey not the destination
well in gifting,
maybe it should be all about the desire to bring joy
the intent of your heart,
verses the confirmation that you did something good.

[aims]

The intent of your heart,
verses the confirmation that you did something good
If I were the master of the universe
this would be the criteria
that all would be encouraged to use as a base!
Because not everything we do has the desired result. . .
You know what i mean(ex.)
Give the homeless guy standing near Mcdonalds a $5 bill
hoping he'll get a desperately needed meal
but instead he spends it on a dope deal.
Were I God, . . .
what would count is your desire to help your fellow human
not what they decided to do with it!!!

[phantasm]

"What should count is your desire to help your fellow human, not what they decided to do with it."


I confess I don't quite know what to do with this notion
I'm all for charity, if it's practiced with clarity

The human race seems to have wandered into a maze built on illusions
Some of us are trying to get to the other side, but the destination is the center
Others are trying to get to the center, but the destination is a distortion that sends us sideways
The nature of the maze is paradoxical, twisting and ever-changing

A guy or girl asks for charity
I decide to give it or not
I've played this game dozens of times
Sometimes I wonder if I'm being played

It's my money-- it's my business-- until I fork over the cash and it becomes the property of the beggar
When I'm in this place I'm caught between the silence between the question and the answer,
Wondering, "What's the right decision?"

What if that one dollar puts just enough cash in their hands for crack or something worse, and that's the dose that kills him or her?
Is it ethical to give someone money if you have the slightest suspicion it could take them one step closer to doom?

Results matter. Some people make a tragic choice. That choice owns them for the rest of their lives, unable to break free to make a better life.

I have no desire to be complicit in the bondage of others. I'm already waist-deep in the muck, anyway.
I buy clothing, shoes, food, electronic devices. And that's the legal economy. We don't know those people personally.
Yet they live in bondage themselves, under crushing schedules and who-knows-what-else, probably in a foreign country.

We don't have the means to practice charity with inerrancy.

I wish I knew  how to build a better world.

[aims]

you make some very good points!! When i worked as an archives technician in washington dc in the early 1990's I used to give money to the homeless on the streets when we'd go out to get lunch and some of my co-workers would comment that "their only gonna buy booze with it, that's really what mine was about, those co-workers didn't really have any evidence of it, they just believed stereotypical ideas about those people, me I was like: "naw, that old lady she's gonna get a hotdog from the cart on the corner so she doesn't go to sleep hungry on the park bench tonight!!"

Jan 4, 2017 20:11:30 GMT -6 phantasm said:

"What should count is your desire to help your fellow human, not what they decided to do with it."


I confess I don't quite know what to do with this notion
I'm all for charity, if it's practiced with clarity

The human race seems to have wandered into a maze built on illusions
Some of us are trying to get to the other side, but the destination is the center
Others are trying to get to the center, but the destination is a distortion that sends us sideways
The nature of the maze is paradoxical, twisting and ever-changing

A guy or girl asks for charity
I decide to give it or not
I've played this game dozens of times
Sometimes I wonder if I'm being played

It's my money-- it's my business-- until I fork over the cash and it becomes the property of the beggar
When I'm in this place I'm caught between the silence between the question and the answer,
Wondering, "What's the right decision?"

What if that one dollar puts just enough cash in their hands for crack or something worse, and that's the dose that kills him or her?
Is it ethical to give someone money if you have the slightest suspicion it could take them one step closer to doom?

Results matter. Some people make a tragic choice. That choice owns them for the rest of their lives, unable to break free to make a better life.

I have no desire to be complicit in the bondage of others. I'm already waist-deep in the muck, anyway.
I buy clothing, shoes, food, electronic devices. And that's the legal economy. We don't know those people personally.
Yet they live in bondage themselves, under crushing schedules and who-knows-what-else, probably in a foreign country.

We don't have the means to practice charity with inerrancy.

I wish I knew  how to build a better world.

[aims]

I wish I knew how to build a better world
but I fear my solution would probably fail,
were it up to me,
the obsession with dominance would be erased
from the human race.
Here's the problem, though, with that:
I beleive it may just be the human perversion of the survival instinct.
Since mankind is cognizant
we think. . .
some of it is logical
some clouded by emotion
and some I fear;
to be the convoluted translation
of what is in the animal kingdom
a very uncomplicated survival instinct.
but mix a little animal instinct
with cognizant thought
and you come up with, to some extent,
a very different and insane kettle of fish.

[aims]

A very different and insane kettle of fish,
that's what you get when you go fishing for compliments
for you latest pornographic production
at a local meeting of the prudish proper ladies club,
thou bawdy bat-fowling barnacle,
you should have known better!
And that is precisely why i may change your descriptors to:
Thou froward boiled-brained bladder,
either that or mad as a hatter!

[aims]

Mad as a hatter,
but what does it matter?!
in a short few days. . .
he'll be president anyways!!!!

[phantasm]

He'll be president anyways
The political process may be out of the hands of the people,
But we still have control over our own lives
We still have choices: what we eat, what our minds absorb, what we do, who we hang out with
Bide your time. Choose well, when you can choose

When you find your heart in despair, nourish your self, feed your self, don't let yourself give in

The human soul knows nothing of politics.

[aims]

The human soul knows nothing of politics.
Yet the heart and the mind do!
and of the anguish of other things too
Thus do the human spirit and soul cry out to God
on behalf of the whole person!
Our little finite temporal troubles,
are then,
heard by the heavenly and eternal.
I know when the pain reaches fever pitch
and I scream it loud enough
I do get answer.

[aims]

I do get answer,
but it isn't always clear
exactly what to glean
except that God has heard my anguished cries
and offers solidarity
if not sympathize
the main message I can clearly discern
is a bekonning to me not to turn. . .
away
"come back to me and stay"
no promise things will go my way
but I usually get something that could be called a positive turn of events
at around the same time
I might be screaming for dollars
and all I get are dimes
yet somehow it's enough.

[phantasm]

I might be screaming for dollars and all I get are dimes,
yet somehow it's enough. I don't need much to live, my needs are small.
All I want is enough to live. Unfortunately that has proven to be a moving target.
Rent jumps slightly higher every few years. Soon some people will be priced right out of
the lives they wish to live. As they say in New York City, "Rent is too damn high!"

Money is a sticky illusion
It has a feel and a smell; it is also an abstraction
This only causes consternation in our nation
Money was made for man, not man for money
(Maybe Jesus would say that if he were here)


Why do we fight over abstractions?

[aims]

Why do we fight over abstractions?
because we are always placing value out there,
or more specifically on aquisition and accumulation
instead of on what we have within ourselves
and our intangible bonds or connections to each other. . .
indeed to every living thing,
and to nature which sustains us in this life.
The miracle of our cognizant existence
is so severely under valued
as is what we have or could have in each other
if only we would all join hands
instead of trying to climb over and trample each other
in our haste to reach that lonely and precarious spot at the top of the heap.

[aims]

That lonely and precarious spot at the top of the heap
exacts a cost that is way too steep
and it's not even a spot one could hope to keep.
The cost is whatever ruthless harm to others
your fellow beings, your sisters and brothers
and also the neglect of each precious moment of the now
that slipped by un-noticed somehow
in youy race to obtain the label of best
placing yourself above the rest
in hopes that it will finally render mute
that insecure part of you that refutes your high repute.

[aims]

Your high repute,
is nothing,
just this worlds intangible loot
a horn toot
by your own lips or anothers
colluding sisters or brothers
that consider ranking legit
know why I don't buy it?
because it always puts someone else down
and because its volatile based on fickle vote of another clown
who hopes you'll vote him or her also reknown.
In ranking, in hierarchy someone always gets the shaft
the short end of the stick
we're all daft
we're all sick
and the one at the top of the heap
either is,
or becomes a prick!
the cost is too steep.

[phantasm]

The cost is too steep
If the means of your being well-off hurts someone else,
If they're wounded and twisted and your body remains unmolested
The justification of our world is contested
By the people at the bottom

Where does the cycle of wounding others end?

[aims]

Where does the cycle of wounding others end?
I fear it shall take at least 4 years
because impeachment does not relieve
it only passes us on to another horror
and so on
and so on
hopefully the horrors will not be so catastrophic
that it takes us many years to get back the progress
undone!!!

[phantasm]

To get back the progress undone
Seems to be the goal of everyone
The world goes someplace new
Some people embrace it, saying, "This needed to happen sooner!"
Others complain and say, "Please, make it go away!"

We just can't seem to agree on what progress is.
Everyone seems to have quite separate notions of bliss.

Some are ruled by emotions and nostalgia,
Pushed and pulled unawares by invisibilia.
They're malcontent and they don't know why.

How can we teach each other to be proud of our past without clinging to it obsessively?

[aims]

Without clinging to it obsessively,
I clutch my deepest dreams
my fondest wishes
and my secret sins
close. . .
for even I who claim to have no illusions
of privacy from the all knowing God or Universe
still think that hiding parts of myself
will somehow protect me
from the disbelief of others diluting my dreams
to a puddle splashed away by a stomping foot,
from the dismissal
of those who think wishing and dreaming a foolish endeavor
from the judgement of those
who may already be searching for nails for my hands and feet.

[aims]

. . .nails for my hands and feet
There are those people. . .
People who are so consumed by negative emotion or
the fear that is known to drive that bus,
that,. . .
that is what they want
a sacrifice
a scapegoat
to pay for their outrage
their fear
their humiliation
their pain.
Someone should have to pay
that they are so eaten alive by those
feelings that they don't believe they deserve to be eaten alive by.
No one ever came to their rescue. . .
no one put the fire out
no one ever apologized
for what they went through
and now someone should pay
just like they paid
and are still paying
being eternal food for those demon emotions
those feelings. . .
"If nobody is gonna help me, by God. . .
someone should pay!!!"

[aims]

"By God. . .
someone should pay!!!"
That is our scapegoat or sacrificial mentality as human beings
I'm not at all sure that God or the Universe ever demanded sacrifice
I think it was the human mentality from the get-go
it's that old:
"throw the virgin in the volcano to appease the volcano god" thing!
we cannot forgive ourselves for our own wretchedness
so we cannot imagine a God who could either, without some form of atonement. . .
something or someone's gotta pay
before the slate can be wiped clean!
It's a perspective or way of looking at things
that is not effective
that does not work well!!
Whatever made you
has to forgive you for
your built in weaknesses.
If I build a balsa wood model plane that should fly
but it doesn't because of an error I made in it's construction
I'm not gonna smash it, curse it, and blame it on it!!!
how childish irresponsible and dissociative, as well as futile
that would be!!
No one needs to pay for every mistake that is made!
Everyone needs to learn from mistakes that are made.
the learning is what is called for and useful.

[aims]

Learning is what is called for and useful,
in most situations we go through in this life
guilt and playing the blame game. . .
not so much!
Still this worlds usage of negative reinforcement
to keep people in line is so dominant
so prevalent
that we can hardly escape the result that has been so programmed into us.
So I guess the growth, the strides we make in this area
would have to be measured in
do we at some point realize the futility
and resolve to discard those results in favor of some
that are more constructive and beneficial!

[aims]

Constructive and beneficial. . .
that kind of Criticism
I can take with humble gratitude
as long as it is delivered
from someone who, and in such a way,
I feel it is coming from caring and genuine helpfulness.
But the kind that puts me down
that is meant to shame or make insecure the recipient
that kind turns my blood to ice water.
Meek individual that I am,
I may not say so,
but I will not appreciate it. . .
will heed it only for the sake of protection/self-preservation. . .
and will lose esteem for the purveyor of it.

[phantasm]

I lose esteem for the purveyor of criticism,
for those who do not  recognize the line between critique and criticism.
I'm already vulnerable to a less-than-stellar review of my work.
Some people think insulting others' work is a form of witticism.
How do I unify my mind and emotions and absorb
useful information without taking it too personally?
Here I am, on the raggedy edge of the world of artists,
trying to figure out how to slip in without the notice of the palace guard.
Will the denizens accept me once they do see me?


Perception in the eye is the intersection of outer reality and inner expectations.

[aims]

The intersection of outer reality and inner expectations,
is not really my problem at present. . .
No,
my current struggle is
the vast expansive chasm
that exists
between
my hearts desires
and outer reality
they are farther apart that east is from west
opposite corners of the endless universe!