Best and Worst

 

Best and Worst
 
We are blinded by hatred; we are blinded by greed.
We are blinded by what we've been taught.
We are swift in our anger, slow in our love.
Our minds--they are sold and are bought.  
 
The worst of the west, the worst of the east,
And the worst of the north and the south
Are the things that we take, from our births to our graves,
As burdens on paths that we walk. 
 
The best of the west, the best of the east, 
And the best of the north and the south
Are forgotten, my friends, as we near to our ends,
In our thought, in our action, our talk...
 
Let us see what is worst, let us find what is best, 
Let us drop then our weights and our chains.
Let us find then the peace and the wisdom we need,
And the light on the path that sustains.
 
2024 Nov. 30
Berkeley, California

History and Reality

 
History and Reality
 
A watchful trek through history reveals
A landscape that is dual in its forms—
With false facades—resembling those in sets
In Hollywood—and then the fields of truth
That stretch through time and space, but out of view
For all except the ones who persevere
And find their ways, beyond the obstacles,
To glimpse, however partly, this terrain.
 
And so it is with much that we perceive
As real, based on trust in what we’re sold.
It takes some effort—and a stillness deep—
To start to see, in part, realities
Beyond the here and now and all that we
Have gathered through our lives—by each alone—
While blessed or cursed with sight of heart and mind,
And all our senses, sharp in clarity.
 
The “knowledge” that’s beyond is second-hand
At best—and often very far from that.
We cross a border—and the headlines change
For those events that happened yesterday.
How different are then the histories
We're taught from those of near and distant lands?
We can't go back in time—or even be
In more than one place at a given time.
 
2024 June 26th, Wed.
Berkeley, California
 

Barking Dogs

 
Barking Dogs

We’ve bred our dogs to bark, so they
Alert us; trained them to obey.
But this has made some infantile.
And humans too, we’ve made this way.

How many might the layers be
That form the full reality!
Impatiently, we skim—and judge. 
What lies beneath, we rarely see.

How easy, then, with swift surmise,
To demonize—and heroize!
Ignoring all that's intertwined
Has led us long on paths unwise.

******

There is, around us, misery—
That’s plain enough for all to see—
That’s caused by being in a rush—
Not taking time to pause—and be.

For if we did, we’d realize,
Perhaps at first with some surprise,
Our “demons” and our “heroes”, both,
Are naught but us—when stripped of lies.

We need not take the gangster’s side,
Nor cast the victim’s pleas aside.
We each should act, with full resolve,
Yet know there’s more than just a side.

****** 

To better see then, in the round,
What other ways have seers found?
I cannot say. Some delve within;
Some harken to the softest sound.

In times of peril, beings act—
But even then, there’s still the fact
That guidance comes from sight—and not 
From blind obedience to a tract.

The calls of prophets, ideologues—
Are somewhat like the calls of frogs.
So music too can touch the soul—
And yet be used to rouse the dogs.

2023 March 25th, Sat.
Berkeley, California

To Be What We Can Be

 
To Be What We Can Be

Should we wait around for leaders, so
We then become the sheep we'd like to be—
Or even dogs that bay—but still obey?

Or should we be the ones who lead the way—
As others follow, turned to hounds or sheep?
Or should we find the wisdom to refrain
From leading or, by others, being led?

******

Should we join, with glee, the surging mob—
Or like the cows and horses do, stampede?
Or should we recognize that this can lead
To things we later view with deep regret?

******

How hard it is to think and then decide
And know that we alone will bear the weight 
Of error or the lash of consequence?
It’s easier to follow than to lead—
But harder still to be what we could be.

******
The dogs, the herded cattle, horses—these
Were once as free as our ancestors were—
Until we bound and bred them to obey, 
As we have even done to full-grown men
And women. Stop. Let’s be what we can be.

2023 March 18th, Sat.
Berkeley, California
 

Numbered

Numbers, essential as they are, seem to have taken over our lives. 

Even our seers have to watch their watches—currently perhaps the digital ones on their smart phones.  Time is money and money is all. 

This view might have first gained currency in England, during its industrial revolution, but in the centuries since then it has spread to every country.  Those who do not live by it swim against the tide.  One might as well be in denial of gravity.

Monetary values are attached to most things, including living things.  Even human lives have actuarial values.  It is the same with activities and occupations.  Those with lower monetary worth are devalued. 
 
Finance and economics had naturally been born from numbers.  Humans, corporations and entire nations are ranked and described by these.  

The physical sciences, engineering and technology have of course been based on measurements and calculations.  But now, even medical science increasingly rests on measured numbers.  

More generally, anything that cannot be measured and so cannot have numbers affixed to it is is disregarded or dismissed.  Such things are viewed as inconsequential and are even rendered invisible.

The revolution in information processing and communication has of course been a digital one, based on numbers, most commonly in their most basic, binary forms.  This has made us even more dependent on numbers and even more enslaved through them—and seemingly to them. 

We are now routinely identified by our numbers, and those with power over us, including financial institutions and governments, literally have our numbers. 

Here are some metrical reflections on this phenomenon. 
---------------------------------------------------

Numbered 

From yes and no and repetition rise
Our newest wonders and our newest lies.
And streams of these, that merge at logic-gates,
Predict our futures and decide our fates.

From one and zero, is the world construed—
With all its shades and subtleties imbued?
Or are these primal numbers mere devices
With which to breed yet more of human vices?

We look around the world we’ve made and see
That Number is indeed a deity.
We count our money and we strive for more.
In learning, as in soccer, there’s a score.

We rank the players and the jobs we do
And happiness has now its index too.
A war is gauged by tonnage dropped and deaths—
And driven by the “windfalls” that it nets.

And money is of course the number that
Knocks all the other jousting numbers flat.
So income, wealth and GDP and more
Are numbers at the center and the fore.

******

But “wealth and power” are the twins conjoined
(And so that phrase in earlier times was coined),
And what is power if it lacks in force?
So arms and numbers never seek divorce.

Investments, in a war or in the land,
Are things that lords and bankers understand,
But now this Understanding Old has spread
And been, with Streaming Digits, duly wed.

There’s number, number, number everywhere.
It rules—and runs through ocean, land and air.
Our bodies and our minds have been reduced
To numbers that are measured or deduced.

The doctors now consults the oracles
That know our numbers.  Seeming miracles
Are wrought by robots that can operate.
Our numbers get the job and find the mate.

In science based on mathematics, counts
Are needed—and, in finance, the amounts
Are all that matters.  All our new machines
Subsist on numbers—though behind the scenes.

******

But can sensation and perception be
Devolved to measures of a quantity?
And are the qualities that we perceive
No more than mere constructions that deceive?

Are colors such as reds and greens and blues
No more than wavelengths that we see as hues
Or oscillations in a neural field—
And not the qualities these pulses yield?

Can all the vortices of our affairs
Be mapped, like those of galaxies, in stairs
Ascending and descending, on a scale
That has in it a point that is a whale?

Who dares to pause, within the lines of labor,
Will find, bestowed upon her head, no favor
From overseers—or even from her peers—
For pausing lowers numbers, raises fears.

And pausing might permit reflection, thought
Among the ones in mills and numbers caught.
And thought, that wonders why the numbers reign,
May question things we’d rather not explain.

*****

Could numbers be as blinkers to our visions
That force us to be focused on the missions
To which we each have duly been assigned—
The tasks to which, like asses, we're resigned?

For fears, desires there may be measures, yet
Are loves and duties fishes in the net?
Are there dimensions that are qualities
That can’t be reached by measured quantities?

We each need meanings in the lives we live.
What meaning can a mark that’s measured give?
To ask such questions is to be a fool.
We’ve made a word in which the numbers rule.

We’ve been conditioned by our jobs and schools
To follow orders and to follow rules—
And one of these is to always strive for worth
In grades and cash—until returned to earth.

The numbers certainly have uses, friends,
But numbers surely cannot be our ends.
Let numbers be our tools and weapons, braves!
But let's not be, to all these numbers, slaves.

2019, March 29th, Friday 
Brooklyn, New York

The Walls of Sin

 
The Walls of Sin

I can weave my words in verses.
I can try to write in prose.
But until I see some action,
I will never find repose.

My words may lull my readers, 
Or wake them up from sleep,
But until the deeds have followed,
Their impact can’t be deep—

For words are far too easy,
And deeds are often hard.
For every verse I fashion,
I find a broken shard.

It tells of visions shattered,
It speaks of things undone.
How many are the losses
For every battle won? 
   
Our spans are so uncertain—
Except in that they end.
We seek some satisfaction—
Before we are at end.

What action do I look for?
Should it be yours or mine?
It’s an ebbing, of the madness,
That might need a grace divine.

But no god will come to aid us
And no leader, heaven-sent.
We can wait for gods forever.
We can follow—and repent.

I am looking for the vision
That can see the trap we’re in.
I am waiting for the action
From the heart that’s cleansed of sin.

For long, a tide’s been rising
That brings us more of lies.
We can work towards its turning,
But only if we’re wise.

We are busy with our duties
Or sundry pleasures, so
We limit heart and vision—
And query, even more.

Can truth be gleaned from fiction,
Or virtue born from vice?
Can warmth be found in beings,
Whose hearts have turned to ice?

If we see the faults of others
But not our own, we sink
Towards a dark suspicion
That stems from how we think.

If we note the act of evil
But not the ones of good,
We feed the fire within us
With more of kindling wood.

The anger and the hatred
Can burn away the soul.
Could Yeshua or Gotama
Make such a being whole?
   
We sicken from the slaughter.
We hide our hearts away.
So darkness is ascendant.
What hope remains for day?

But see, the ones who're shielded
From mayhem and from worse—
They too have lost their senses,
And they can't be cured by verse.
  
When people cease from hearing,
A deafness then prevails.
The orphans may be screaming,
But all their pleading fails.

When people cease from seeing,
Then blindness is their fate.
What end is there to hatred,
Except in more of hate?
 
We need a gentle cleansing
Of body and of mind.
We need to turn from hating
To relearning to be kind.

Towards the ones we care for,
We might be soft and kind.
But what about the others—
That we’ve put out of mind?

We can’t be saints or angels,
But should we yield to rage
That blinds us to the spirals
That churn through every age?

Should we close our eyes to madness,
Be cocooned, within our nest?
Should we tend to duties, pleasures—
And wave away the rest?

Do first, that which is local.
But then, look up and see
What's past and what is distant
And how they came to be.

The future is created
By what we now will do.
And all the past is present
In thought—and feeling too.

Can a being, who’s conditioned,
Be free of habit’s snare?
If we’re driven by the madness,
Can we learn again to care?
 
We are trained, from when we’re children,
By the candy and the stick.
So we grow up to be zombies
And we make each other sick.

But as those who are discerning
Grow in number, it will turn—
This tide that has been rising—
This fire, in which we burn.

Can we find an end to conflicts,
When we’re not at peace within?
Can we see the pain of others,
When we’re blinded by our sin?

It is feeling that will free us,
But not what is expected.
It’s the heart that is within us,
Whose call we have neglected.

It is thinking that will lead us,
But not the thoughts implanted.
It’s the sense, that was within us,
That the nonsense has supplanted.

It is action that will heal us,
But not the kind we praise.
It’s the action of refraining
From running through the maze.

This maze is our creation.
It’s the prison we have made.
When we cease from blindly racing,
The walls of sin will fade.

Observe your own reaction
That traps you even more.
Inhale, and see it rising.
Exhale, and let it go.

When the cattle are stampeding,
The one who pauses dies.
So also truth can perish,
When all around are lies.

But when there is a slowing,
Proceeding one by one,
Then truth is heard and spoken,
And sanity has won.

2017 May 31, Wed.
(parts in blue added 2017 June 4th, Sun.)
Brooklyn, New York 

Maya’s Mist

Maya’s Mist

It’s claimed that humans have advanced and those
who dare to question this are filled with gloom
for reasons other than reality—
that they have conjured, out of progress, doom.

Are there directions, foreordained by gods,
or chosen as the “forward” ones by those
among us who are wisest? Or are we
conditioned by what those, who gain, propose?
 
For we’ve been told and told and told
so many lies, and lies on top of lies,
that we confuse the true and false, and so
we rarely bother still with asking whys.
 
The empires rose and fell and yet the lives
of plants and beasts and humans still went on.
It’s only now that works of men devour
this planet’s life and threaten humankind.

We live in cities, filled with strangers, yet
we see the remnant tribes as backward, lost.
For much that’s primal and is gentle, sweet
we’ve now discarded—and we pay the cost.
 
Which emperor could gain the peace that is?
Which painter could replace the changing sky?
We sense that we have lost the art of bliss.
But who can tell us when and how and why?

Will we awake from this, our troubled dream,
and rub away the sleep, so we can see
that we’ve been racing on the way to hell,
while heaven waits for us to pause and be?

In truth, there is no bliss that lasts for long,
and neither do our heavens, hells exist,
except that we create them, through our thoughts
and words and deeds—while lost in maya’s mist.

2016 November 9th, Wed. 6:36 pm
Brooklyn, New York 

  

On Ignorance and Apathy

On Ignorance and Apathy
  

https://empathological.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/emotion-and-ignorance-and-anedotal-correlation/

Ah Ignorance, how sweet you taste!
It's said that you are bliss.
And Apathy, I sing you to you,
Though others boo and hiss.

We go to school and even go
To college, yet we are
As ignorant as one could be,
In matters such as war.

And truly, what can people know
Except the things they see?
So who knows what has happened in
A place across the sea?

And even in our cities, we
Now live secluded lives.
We're ignorant of what goes on
Within our busy hives.

We go to work, in offices,
But there, because we're busy,
We do not know what others do,
Unless we're types who're nosy.

And when we hear a worker is
In trouble, then we shun
That person—as, from insects, we
Now see our children run.

And as for other neighborhoods
Or regions far away—
We do not know. How can we know
Of such things, could you say?

******

I read, at work, the NY Post.
I’ve heard it’s Murdoch’s own.
I get my news from it, my friend.
The rest, I now disown.

The workers in the factories
Are surely useless bums.
They're lazy, like the migrants who
Now crowd the city's slums.

The workers in the government,
The teachers in the schools—
They’re feeding on our taxes and
They’re lazy, worthless fools.

And as for all those Hindus and
Those Muslims, Christians, Jews—
They're all a bunch of murderers,
According to the news.

And atheists? And socialists?
Do spare me those, my friend!
It's better that we're rid of those.
Let's pray their lives will end.

The world is full of primitives—
Not advanced, like you and me.
The others, they are jealous, so
We cannot let them be.

It's better that we take the wars
To them, than they to us.
The peaceniks, they are full of s**t.
To hell with all their fuss!

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-ignorance-and-apathy/

We're doing well, we're doing well—
With gizmos, buildings tall…
This business about nature, well—
You're welcome to it all.

For might is right. That's how it is.
This world is ours to use.
It says so in our holy books.
To listen, we refuse!

The species rise, the species die.
And so it always is.
So if we’re killing more, why that
Is just the way it is.

We need resources, so to hell
With primitives resisting.
It’s time they got more civilized.
What’s obsolete, needs fixing.

The forests must be cleared. With tribes
And critters, they’re infested.
In timber and in mines, my friend,
It’s time you were invested.

I’ve heard that water now is hot.
Privatization, yay!
The world can’t run on rum and Coke.
It now is water’s day.

And climate change? Organic food?
The ocean turning acid?
They’re hoaxes!  So invest in Shell
And BP and Monsanto.

*******

It's all a fake—a ruse, you see,
To make us number two.
But we are number one, my friend.
And that is me and you.

And some may raise, at intervals,
An issue out of history.
But since we weren't there, the truth
Remains, for us, a mystery.

We went to school and learned that we
Have built a land of glory.
So what if, as they say, the start
Of this was rather gory?

Let whiners whine. It’s onward, ho!
See other countries learning!
So what, if there’s a bit of smog
And forests razed or burning?

Ah ignorance, how sweet you taste!
And apathy?  Why that
Is what you need, or else this world
Will leave you knocked out flat.

We’re all conditioned to believe
And to behave by those
Who flood us with their ads and more.
But now, it's time to close.

And if you find I've contradicted
Everything I've said,
It's all because I'm ignorant
And will be, till I'm dead.

2016 July 26th, Tue.
Brooklyn, New York