Anarchy
evokes
chicken body
bumper cars.
Constant movement
that is not only
undirected, but also:
fast,
violent,
random,
chaotic,
and doomed to be
short-lived.
Anarchy
seems like space
in which
many participants
would soon be
on their backs --
legs churning
in spastic bursts,
ineffectually.
Like toppled robots
or
cockroaches that
waded through
gassy trenches.
Limbs moving,
as if confident
that they can
right the ship
and
recover the upright.
But everyone watching
knows they can't --
that the laws of physics
won't support it,
that it's just wasted
motion.
They might as well be
in night terrors,
for being able to move
ineffectually seems
only moderately less
terrifying than not
being able to move at all --
when faced with a situation
from which one wants badly
to get away.
But, maybe,
I've got it all wrong.
Maybe that's not
Anarchy
at all.
What's a Self?
...a soul?
...a set of neuronal activity?
...an illusion?
...a ghost in a machine?
...the body, the brain, &
the whole enchilada?
Memories can be false,
and some always are.
Thoughts can be illusory,
and some always are.
Feelings can be flighty & fickle,
and some always are.
If one loses a little toe,
is one a diminished self,
or still whole?
What about if one loses
a pinky toe-sized mass of brain?
So many possibilities:
...death,
...changed personality,
...emotionlessness,
...speech pathologies,
...blindness,
...memory loss,
...coma,
...no discernable change,
and so on.
What's a Self?
...a dog?
...an embryo?
...an AI?
...an extraterrestrial?
What is a self?
Am I a self?
in the chiaroscuro world
of the night market,
fruity colors blare in
orange,
green,
&
yellow
between angular
shadows
the sun is down;
the city is alive,
and soon the
night market
will be lively
coffee flecks swirl
in a steaming cup
cyclonic do-si-dos,
swinging and folding,
merging into clusters
between the cyclones
there are highspeed byways
cutting across the surface
a jitter of the table
seems to stop the dance,
but then it resumes
entropy falls to
eventually follow its imperative --
entropy rising:
using order
to turn all that energy
into a lukewarm
cup of joe
this same fluid clockwork
played out in
primordial soup
to begin the dance of life
A ship
crosses the ocean,
in the darkness:
darkness, black & endless
no moon,
no stars,
just clouds -- thick & low
clouds that can't be seen
The ship has lights,
but those lights know
an event horizon
Lights sometime
glint against the waves,
those roiling & undulating
waves,
and the lights bounce off
the ship's hull
But no one can see them,
because if anyone could see them,
the seers would be seen--
unless theirs is a ghost ship,
piloted by literal ghosts,
or some other agent of observation
Maybe there is fog --
not enveloping the ship,
(such mist would be felt
on the skin of those on deck)
but, rather, a fog between
where the ship is,
and where is should be
For it is surely off course,
listlessly drifting,
all hope arrayed against edges:
edges of ice
&
edges of the world
Not that the world is flat,
but, perhaps, it's not fully sculpted:
maybe nothing lies outside
the range of the seen:
outside the bounds of experience
It sounds crazy,
but all kinds of crazy
form in a mind
submerged in darkness
Everything is dull
before the world changes.
People live their rituals,
complying with habits.
But the world will change,
change from one day to the next,
and not the subtle, unceasing change --
perpetual and ubiquitous --
that has always been.
No. This will be an eight megaton
shift into the new,
and nothing will ever be
as it's always been.
Never again.
It will happen without warning
or precursor --
without a hint that the world
is about to be revealed,
to be discovered
to be something
wholly different
than anyone ever imagined.
Welcome to the new now
[prematurely speaking.]
walking through a darkened temple,
a jagged hole perfectly aligns;
the kinked white-light washing inward
becomes a shimmering flame,
topping a stone pillar,
becoming a faux candle
in my shimmering mind
Mountains are best viewed at a distance,
despite humanity's "closer is better" bias.
Up close, one is invariably in a cloud,
looking at an undifferentiated mass
of gray-white:
ice -- granite -- snow -- fog.
One may climb a mountain
to see other mountains in the distance,
but standing eye-to-rock with a mountain
offers little spectacle & grandeur.
Massive things can be too close to see.
I wonder whether I'm also
better viewed from a distance.
Not everything is.
Consider the opposite mistake:
People say things such as,
"My Great White Whale is out there."
But Great White Whales are
always found looking inward --
not out in the distance.
A pause hangs in the air
like poison gas.
It threatens to devour
more moments:
good moments,
sacred moments,
moments that could've been something.
It envelops all,
encasing minds in psychic concrete,
entombing thoughts so hushly
that not even the thinker can hear them.
Through the ear-ringing hours,
nothing is said
&
nothing is heard --
not a word or a scream
or unsolicited fashion advice --
nothing but the high tone
that slits through silence.
Your river is a tributary.
My river is a tributary,
merging
&
flowing to a sea.
I feel your molecules,
floating past my own,
intermingling
&
in some way tingling:
a jangled excitation.
And,
[at the sea]
we will be, together
&
[at the sea]
we will be together.
I no longer worry
that I'm a river with no name --
an anonymous tributary --
because every sea
has many names.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 