Imagine...

A group of people lined up against a wall.  Given a choice:  Test by fire or Test by water. 

By fire you will be burned at the stake.  By water you will be drowned.  If you die, you are innocent.  If you live, you are guilty and will be killed by another method.

You must choose.  If you do not, you will be tested by the manner chosen by the majority of the group.  Since you know this, you have no right or ability to contest the validity of the choice.  That there is no choice "C" of "D".  You cannot even choose hanging or firing squad.  Oh, you could yell those words out, but no one will listen.  And those who think fire is better will fight long and hard to avoid water.  As will those who would rather drown. No, you must choose fire or water.  No choice is still a choice. 

 But imagine this choice!  Even those who opt out and decide they will not participate in such a farce suffer the same consequences as those who try to pick the way they want to die.  No matter how you look at it, the result is the same. 

Only an insane person would participate.  But if you opt out - choose the sane option - you are deemed sane enough to have made the choice to abide by the decision.  If you opt in, you are undoubtedly insane, but no one will stop you. 

Happy Election Day!

I was walking....

I was walking...

down a dirt path one day. It was a simple, dirt path with some grass on either side, and small shrubs a little taller yielding to saplings, and pole timber and trees just a short distance away. I had walked this path many times in search of squirrels, turkey, deer and sometimes just solitude.

On this particular day, I happened to brush into a cobweb stretched across the path. I felt it on my nose and pressed against it – I stopped.

The web pulled, ever so slightly, on the twigs and grass to which it was attached, and the small saplings lightly moved, sending small birds flushing into the air. These small birds excited some nearby squirrels, which began chattering. All the noise attracted and excited crows cawing loudly and a deer jumped further off. All while I stood still, my nose pressed against the web. Still unbroken, but igniting such a stir in the quiet woods where only a moment ago were the quiet sounds of my footsteps and slightly louder sounds of my breathing.

I thought how marvelous it was that such a small thread, such a tiny connection could ignite such a cacophony of sound and caliope of action.

Quietly, carefully, I set down, with the strand of web still attached to my nose while I pondered. I sat still and quiet, thinking. And fell asleep...

As I slept, I dreamed. I dreamed that the web ignited all those consequences, but that those consequences were even more amazing that what I had seen. One of the small birds that flushed had been sick. Weak. The energy it expended in that flush had been its last. And all of its progeny lost to the future. A squirrel had been caught by a fox that locked on the squirrels insistent “bark”. The crows ate because of the misfortune of them both and lived to become more crows.

Even more, I saw the trees themselves bend and bow, drawing like a bowstring on the earth itself. Pulling in on themselves until roads were undermined and supply lines were interrupted. Local arguments over a road mirrored and became regional arguments over resources. Water, wood, fuels. Became national interests with governments, armies, corporations. Lives of people being affected by the rise and fall of powerful entities with no more care for a human life than the bottom line of profit. Children were lost to the loss of life and born to the “winners” of these wars. I saw how this one single web, this one connection, would cause the whole universe to change.

I wondered aloud in my dream if I dared to go forward and break the web. If I were to decide who would live and who would die. Who was I to cause such monumental consequences?

And I woke up.

Still sitting, with the web still attached to my nose.

And as I sat there, a spider slowly crawled across the web, rolled it up and silently slid down a long blade of grass at the side of the path, disappearing forever in the brush.

I stood up and went back the way I came.

On Transcendentalism...

I feel your presence in awakening...

I smell your scent in the morning air.

The sounds of the sunrise are your voice,

And the Breeze is your spirit awakening.

The rising of the Sun is your smile

The warming of the Earth is your Love.

Joy is the noontime energy

Unbridled and strong.

The late afternoon heat

Burns in my soul like your spirit.

The fulfillment of dinner

Replenishes me like your thoughts.

And at night, when all is quiet

I can relax only if I do in your mind.

And my dreams are yours.

Where two worlds intertwine.

In every sunrise, sunset, blade of grass, tree and rock

I see you.

In each brook, breeze, bird, cricket and frog

I hear you.

In each flower, rain, spade of earth

I smell you.

And in every smile, handshake and embrace

I feel you.

I cannot escape you or leave you.

Even if I wanted, even for a moment....

Because life itself reminds me of what I share and feel.

Because your very essence is embodied in my world.

My attention does not waiver,

My desire does not fail.

My curiosity is never sated.

And my wonder never ceases.

You are not my world,

The world I inhabit IS ... You.

Notes From The Underground #11

Sometimes days come so fast
     Tomorrow took palce yesterday
     and Today never comes.

Sometimes Minutes go so slow
     Yesterday won't come until tomorrow
     And it still isn't today.

Seems we spend out lives living
     in the future and the past...
     Instead of the present.

Notes From The Underground #10

     The Music sworls and whorls as the smoke filled room smells of sweet perfume.  The spinning colors of various shapes now define the landscape;  and two life forms meet in tentative embrace.  Strange and yet strangely familiar, they begin the process of rediscovery again.
     I am tired she says.

     A pause.

     ME too, he answers.
     They walk to the low brown shape.  A bed.  Lying down they touch and their thougths drift apart.
     It's good to see you again, she says as she studies the cheap painting on the wall.  Her thoughts drift to images of roadside velvet paintings and middle-aged white haired salesmen with full-size poodles.
     Yes it is, he answers, while his mind intently studies why he even agreed to meet her here.  Wouldn't his apartment have been nicer?  Of course, he knows his apartment is a mess:  a bachelor's pad which he never cleans.  "It's been a long time," her murmers to himself.  I should clean soon
     "Yes," she says, "but it's been worth it."
     His thoughts are interrupted as he realizes she was talking to him.  He searches for something meaningful to say, but realizes he hardly even knows her anymore.

     They had met seven years ago.  He was a factory worked turning out small plastic pieces for some machine that he didn't even know what it did.  She was a journalist.  Fresh our of college and trying to make her mark.  They ran into each other on 44th street...literally.  He knocked her down and her breifcase opened and all her papers flew in the wind.  He had apologized profusely but she was a witch, she was sure he had meant it!  After chasing thirty billion papers own the street, she finally burst out laughing and began to tell him how nothing that day was going right.  Her boss had given her a research assignment about the miniskirt and its importance in history.  She had spent the whole morning trying to come up with something but couldn't care less about the topic.  The library had three bomb scares and every time she left she had to start again.  Her dog had fleas and...could he ever forgive her for being such a bitch?  Would he have time for a cup of coffee?

     Her vibrance intrigued him at that time and he went with her.  Partly our of curiousity, and partly because he felt compelled.  They talked about thier past and they exchanged phone numbers.  They both thought nothing would come of it. 

Notes From The Underground #9

Straight lines widning, turning, curving
     waves into doors like solid walls
of cheesecloth, quicksand, rocks,
     like steel eyes soft with dull grey fire
of love as hate burns coldly for
     green meadows of blacktop,
     forests of streetlights,
     quiet buffalo of roaring metal,
     moonlight obscured by ar lights,
     Old men who never sleep but just

Live their deaths every day of every
night of every hour as the
     clock ticks...slowly and yet ever so fast;

     In straight line.

8/27/1989  BCB

"All who enter here must leave
     Reality outside..."

8/27/1989 BCB

Notes From The Underground #8

What's so different about humans and insects?  Probably nothing except our size.  If you wanted to wipe out all insect life on earth it would be almost impossible, because one couldn't find each and every single insect (or pairs of insects).  The crevasses and air holes are too many.

But humans are larger, and live together in clusters.  They are much easier to eradicate.  And they are the only species with the means to eradicate themselves. 

Someone can pluck me from the earth, but they can't take even a whole blade of grass.  Trees grow from single seeds in the middle of cities but it takes millions of years to evolve a single man....

To work through winter is the greatest gift....

10/10/1989  BCB

Notes From The Underground #7

He steps out of the hall into the kitchen and sits at the seat facing the wall

She pours his coffee and he picks up the morning paper.  A moment of silence, broken only by the rustle of the paper, passes. 

"Are you coming home tonight?"  She asks.

Another moment.  A rustle. 

"Yes."  he answers as he picks up his cup and sifts his coffee.  SHifting his weight and folding the paper he slips out of his slippers.  He stands, walks across the floor, picks up his breifcase, and leaves.

She throws away the paper, pushes in the chair, runs water in the coffee cup and walks into the hall.

8/29/1989  BCB

Notes From The Underground #6

He was short and very thin.  His skin was dark bronze and worn from what looked like years of hard travel over dusty roads.  His long, brown hair was ties back in a pony tail and his beard hid most of the features of his face.  A thin, aquiline nose jutted prominently above a moustache and tied together massive eyebrows with light flecks of grey.  Cold blue eyes set deep in the sockets sparkled with life belied tiredness as the figure bent to pick a penny from the street.

With a peace sign and small satchel hanging from his neck almost to the ground, he stuck one dirty fingernail under the penny and tilted it ever so slightly.  He closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly.  Then with a shake of his head and a swift, smooth movement he let the penny fall flat to the pavement and straightened up.  As he shuffled away barefoot he turned his gaze resolutely toward the writer and, with a gaze that showed both recognition and unfamiliarity, smiled.


8/29/1989  BCB

Smell....

What do I say, no what do I think, 
When a slight breeze blows and I catch a waft
Of your scent. 

The sweet muskiness, the warm heaviness
Of your skin, hair, even your life essence 
Itself. 

They say smell is the strongest sense 
I can't tell, as all the senses fire together
With emotion. 

When you are nearby.