MY NAME IS SURPRISE

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One problem with religion is its construction
Of sandcastles in the desert –
Waiting for successors to knock them all down.

Another trouble with religion is its professionalization –
Because only amateurs are authorized
To take off their clothes in public.

Then, with religions, there are “splits”
Where the fiercest enemy is a sizable portion of its former self –
Flying arrows – hearts turning black.

The final trouble with religion is the killing off of founders
Because founders, like Jesus, the Buddha, and Mohammed,
Are still too alive to be turned into museum sculptures –
So alive, that everyone runs away screaming:
“They’re alive – watch out – better yet – run!”

Of course, running out into the lonely night,
Eventually, you have to stop, turn around, and start to relax –
But it’s really not so bad without post-founder institutions to believe in –
After all, that feeling of freedom is wonderful!

My heart starts doing jumping jacks
In my chest
Out my mouth.

My name is “Surprise” –
Just don’t try sneaking up on me!

BLAZING BEAUTY

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How is it possible to grow more beautiful while aging,
Especially given all the recent dimming
Of eyes, ears, teeth, feet – even balance?

Is it only our memories that are getting somewhat sweeter,
Especially the recent ones?

Those recent memories – the brand-new ones –
Having just been born –
Are certainly the easiest to grasp.

Primarily, it’s increasing gentleness that I have recently begun to accept –
Especially a gratitude for small gifts –
The unexpected ones, that aging’s been providing me with.

I think a certain kind of beauty does arrive with age – but mostly from the outside –
A beauty we might never have noticed before
That we can carefully turn and store inside ourselves.

It goes without saying that this kind of beauty constituted the original name of God.

So, as we get older, it’s our ability to accept God,
Along with God’s primary attributes – love, truth, justice, beauty and freedom –
That’s the source of any and all blazing beauty in our lives.

DROWNING IN GOD

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Each year, a few more people attend my blog
So that, suddenly, it starts filling up
And looks like I’m getting noticed.

Then, one day, everyone goes away –
Was it something I said?
This blog is whittling away my natural optimism –
Coming and going – chips flying.

My wife usually remembers to support me –
But one day I made a mistake in repeating an earlier blog –
How could she not notice?
Yet no one has that kind of memory.

I don’t sign the blog with my individual name
Because that’s unimportant –
Instead, I’m writing little notes to God
Who, I hope, appreciates the effort.

Writing, for me, is like being underwater
Then, suddenly surfacing –
Waiting for a bit, and then going back down,
Hoping to reach ecstasy before drowning –
Hoping it might be the same thing –
Drowning in God while dying in me.

FREEDOM IS A BLANK SHEET

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To lose everything might provide total freedom
But it doesn’t usually happen that way
Since a person can only lose one piece of themselves at a time.

Writing is freedom on a blank sheet
Without even a dot –
This sheet appears as empty as God
Who’s been busily filling everything in.

Love is like leaving a window open
So that, suddenly, if a bird flies in –
It’s the symbol of your heart returning home.

I keep tearing off pieces of myself
And tossing them out into the dark –
Pretty soon the night will be all lit up with me –
How embarrassing!

After a certain age, sex and gender start floating off –
What’s left is much greater freedom –
It’s what you’ll see when you get close enough to look directly at God
While, later in life, you start filling up with so much love
That you can’t hold onto anything else.

God is a surprise
Because you never see God coming –
Just don’t piss in your panties
When it happens.

CLAP HANDS

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I want to clap hands
And with each clap initiate a separate universe.

I want to rain down beauty
So everyone can get “heart” wet.

I want to migrate with the birds
So I’ll be able to find my way back home.

I want to light a small fire in the hearth of my heart
And substitute a “pearl” for my everyday mind.

In Roman times, pearls were even rarer than diamonds
Because ancient mining industries moved mountains to produce them –
But it’s only when holding your breath while diving
That you’ll be able to discover the iridescent beauty hidden in those deep water shells.

The sun provides infinite life over almost infinite time –
But, someday, it will go out –
Truly, it’s only the green life that matters –
Everything else dross.

I’m dying to say one new word –
One that can never be forgotten –
God, why don’t you slide it across that green baize table
So that, when I turn it over, I can look surprised!

GONE TO THE GODS

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Death comes sneaking up like a cat
But I escape it by leaping into the air, twirling three times –
I play better than any death-cat.

Some days, I hope Death forgets to come –
But then I remember that Death never forgets –
Death always licks its plate clean.

Since I’ve recently been granted a new grandson in the world –
Will Death now consent to “punch my ticket” –
Scheduling me for a fast ride into oblivion.

As I approach closer to Death
I’m open to accepting its help in loosening my ties to the world –
Shedding old habits like flowers flung back into fields
Or bright coins – thrown out for strangers to be surprised by.

The last things to go will be my beloved books –
Every room in my house wears them with emotional warmth
But, one day, those shelves will all be emptied
And no one will know I ever lived here.

I hope I’m long gone before Death arrives
Who’ll be quite surprised at missing me –
Death thought I would be a tasty snack
But its teeth hit only air –
Because I’ve gone ahead to the gods –
And my own pregnant invisibility.

DISTANT TRAINS

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Distant trains whistle low and away
While crows in the treetops are insisting upon their far greater importance.

Jesus says: “You’ve forgotten everything essential about me
Asserting I have the power to ‘save’ you –
When, actually, I don’t.”

Distant trains whistle low and away
Taking people to camps
The same people whose grandchildren have also created camps.

Crows in the treetops are insisting upon their importance
Like politicians who create unreality shows
Designed to lead fools by their noses
Down broad entertainment ramps to political slaughter.

It’s a show mindlessly conducted for a mindless audience
Performed with flourishes of rage and spit –
A show waged against conscious reality
So that God can never be seen.

These lives without beauty are tragic –
But they don’t seem to care
Since, to them, truth is just a commodity for rent
And love’s a word useful for marketing cars.

Yes, love is a word no one dares say anymore
Because it could be taken as a commitment –
And, if so, how could we get away –
Escape unreality –
Escape everything the charlatans have wanted us to accept?

WELCOME TO THE KINGDOM!

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When you’re a baby, you’re the entire universe –
And there’s nothing else that matters but you.

You’re given a beautiful mother
Who takes care of all your needs –
So you never forget her face.

Then, slowly, surely, everything starts coming into focus
Until the day you’re finally able to see yourself –
Along with all your limitations.

The surprising pain associated with becoming aware of those limitations
Leads to constructing a fantasy “self”
That you can almost believe in –
A splendid “ego” useful for dressing up your more primitive, negligible self –
Someone capable of surviving and succeeding in this world.

Eventually, you become a “real” puppet – like Pinocchio –
Who can “pass” –
Manipulating the world from behind a curtain –
While it’s only in bad dreams you realize the rest of the world
Is the same as you –

Puppets!

You exist through an unreal “person” or “persona” –
Unaware of having an alternative, even if asked.

Entire religions are built around the existence of a few chosen people
Courageous enough or insane enough to become their “true selves.”

But established religions never explain it that way –
Instead, they say such people are “gods” or “super-beings” –
And that if you’re willing to turn yourself over to them, they’ll protect you –
Most especially, after you die –
And then you’ll be able to “live forever” – whatever that means.

Gurus and other hotshot spiritual hustlers
Ask who “you” are –
Knowing you’ll have no answer –
And that you’d have to “die” to obtain one – and there’s no chance of that ever happening!

Actually, it’s quite simple –
There are no religions or spiritual “masters” available to help you –
There’s only you.

To discover your “true self” you’ll need to give up everything
You are, have, and want to be –
And be willing to be your naked self – and then look at that!
Then drop that, and keep dropping all the that’s which subsequently appear –
Until there’s nothing left
Nothing, at all –

When you discover the magic of being “born again,” as Jesus recommended –
Even then, you’ll need to be very careful not to let this new state of being
Develop into a more advanced kind of Ego.

This is why humbleness comes first –
True humility –
Someone used to being overlooked.

Then, when you finally start breathing freely again –
When you can “see” actual reality,
Including, most importantly, the reality of “yourself.”

That’s when God will suddenly appear and say:
“Good job, little one,”
“Welcome to the Kingdom!”

“BOOM!”

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Humans’ initial “true self” was an animal self –
That we didn’t have to think about because we were it.

Later on, in the Garden of Eden, shortly after choosing a fruit to eat,
Eve, upon becoming Homo sapiens, suddenly saw herself
And, as a result of this “seeing,” split in two –
Eve saw Eve!

God yelled that this was forbidden since she might lose her “self” –
That is, her animal self might be gone forever.

The consequences of Eve’s consciously looking at herself in this way
Was that she plunged irrevocably into a conscious world of work and suffering –
Where she was compelled to “see it all.”

Her immediate remedy to this suffering was to try to “re-make” her self.

Eve, looking at Eve, and shocked by the “nakedness” of what she saw –
Decided to design a “clothed” Eve –
Fashioned for survival in this harshly conscious world –
An ego “self” capable of taking cues from others –
Able to transform herself in a mental flash – or flashes –
Virtually, a “strobe” human being.

But, ultimately, this failed because Eve’s ego was a self-made “mask”
With no real life of its own.

To become a “true self” as a human being,
One has to give up the post-animal “ego self”
And become “no thing” – just like God –
While remaining human – certainly not by trying to become God.

A “no thing” human is able to act in the same way God would act if God were human –
Committed to embodying the highest spiritual standards –
Performing a “spiritual dance”
Related to the reverse-particle explosion of joy –
“Boom!”
Experienced at the very beginning.

HOW EVE BECAME GOD AND SAVED THE WORLD

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At first, Eve was a happy animal –
But one day she ate a piece of fruit
And, spontaneously, split in two.

Instantaneously as a result of this split,
She found herself outside the garden
Looking back at her happy self still inside.

She experienced herself “naked” – out in a tough world –
The fault of her newly-found “consciousness” –
A “mixed power” she had acquired through “seeing herself.”

Of course, the story doesn’t end there –
There’s both good and bad in the gift of consciousness –
For example, she was able to trick all the still unconscious beings
And take anything she wanted –
But it didn’t take long for them to join her in this newly conscious world.

After thousands of years of humans tricking one another
And getting pretty much nowhere –
One day, one of Eve’s descendants decided to “become herself” – i.e., her “true self”
And stop working so hard at trying to trick the rest of the world.

This descendant became her true self by mimicking “God” in human form,
And, as a result, became willing to lead human beings out of their ego-delimited world –
But, just before she could accomplish this,
Adam intervened by saying: “Get back, woman!”
“The world is not finished with tricky male egos yet” –
“We still have a long way to go” –
Adam enforced this command with a warehouse full of iron patriarchal laws,
Male-preferenced customs, and an infinity of direct and indirect physical threats.

This worked!
So well, that Eve was compelled to step back from her new God-gifted freedom,
And, as a consequence, the world fell into Male-Ego Hell –
Which eventually got so bad that even Adam began to get scared
And thought he might want to invite Eve back into a more active role –
But Eve said “No” –
“Not me.” “Not now” – “unless and until you admit you’ve been a jerk” –
“And a violent jerk, at that!” –
Adam refused to admit this, and so the entire world died.

The end.

An alternative ending is Adam did admit he’d been a jerk –
And allowed Eve to re-gain her freedom –
Free, she looked around, and thought, again, it might be time for her to embody God –
But only the kind of God a woman could believe in:

A God closer to Nature –
A loving and family-friendly God –
A truthful God.

This God was entirely a female creation –
So that when Eve determined that her God was “good”
She was able to immediately step into her waiting role.

Eve became God, as a human being, much like Jesus had done in the past –
And, as a consequence, took her turn at saving the world!

The result was that men eventually became happier (even if reluctantly),
And the earth and all its other inhabitants – animal, vegetable, or mineral –
Were saved
Because Adam was willing to step aside
And allow Eve to become the kind of “God,” in human form, she best understood.

Now, all the beings on earth live happily, including all the Eves and Adams –

This is the second, and fortunately happy, ending.