Random Thoughts from an Empty Room

A mix tape plays in the background.
Every verse a new insight into a
heart hidden from my view...
saying, "I only want to be with you."
Who can deny the existence of a soul,
when every melody and note brings
me closer to comprehending yours.
The old beats that once filled my
ears in an era past, where these
verses were vacuous expanses for a
foreign entity which was slowly
consuming me now take on a new shape.
"I am yours", I am not the slave to
a forgone past, where a false love
animated every kiss and awkward
angle of actuality, no...
Now those words have been rehabilitated.
"I am yours", I am a kindred spirit
fighting against the strong winds
of uncertainty and frailty.
I am servant to a higher purpose now,
and my relationships no longer serve
as means but rather as beautiful ends in themselves.
This organic manifestation of the cosmic
merger of the mind and body universes,
humbles the senses and finds me here.
A stranger in a new land, where language
is dead, murdered by the sword of Eros
who stands above its corpse in reflective
silence...but I can peer into his eyes,
and the expanse of all that is and all
that will be stands before me, a singular
creative affirmation of life.
Oh how love playfully colors the sensual world,
everything takes a new form.
I can now smell the essence of femininity
protruding from that room,
A sweet taste exploding in my mouth,
a poignant penetration of new ideals
leaving my mouth thirsty for repose.
I can now taste the bright dance of colors,
as I imagine every intimate experience.
Her fair skin slightly caressed,
The angles of her body meticulously calculated,
Her lips being intuited by all my powers,
her eyes sweetly gazing into an unintelligible
and entirely Romantic abyss,
Her cells quietly breathing in concord
with the beat of her heart,
Beat a drum, I'm done.
I rummage through her old books,
the pencil marks and half-legible
words create a small cabin which
peers over serene lakes which abound
with the prophetic muses of creative
genius.

Her past now becomes mine, I consume it
into my being, I will not allow the physical
world to prevent my subjectivity from engulfing
all that is precious and most delicate.
I search these decaying remnants of a past
life not my own, and for the first time
I actually begin to understand myself.
I begin to realize that I is not i,
that i am not the I that filled countless
papers with erratic commentaries and
essays on love; an I that was wholly
unknown and lacking truth.
i sit on a rocking-chair on the porch
of her old cabin, smoking a pipe and
watching the breeze blow in from Northern
Pines off the nearby coast, where fanciful
birds with colorful plumage win over their
brides; i sit there and wonder.
Wondering, there i sit...and slowly inch
towards the edge of the rock closest to
her lakes, and there i take in all reflections.
A black diary sits lonely in the corner,
adorned only by a name, and a location.
It's pages are empty and bare, no
personal thoughts related, no giggly ramblings
of youth found, the lines of the pages
shiver as the conditioned air flows through
them.

But i look closer and deeper, i meditate on
the utter significance of this symbol,
amid all the unused logs and knick-knacks,
this diary is not only hers, it is mine.
But it is not only mine it belongs to all humanity.
Everything flows into me like a mystical experience,
but this miserable simile defiles my truth.
i close my eyes and realize that the entirety of my
past no longer constrains me with chains of guilt or regret.
Her story is not her own, and i come to the realization that
mine never has been my own.
All interactions and movements within the body-universe
cannot afford to be degraded to isolated incidents and
shameful accidents; autonomy deserves to be artful.
As i adulterate her angelic waters with the
prejudice of my subjectivity i begin to chant
an inaudible melody; i try in vain to lull
her waters to sleep, so that those reflections no
longer frighten me.
But what am i afraid of...what is fear?
A demagogue would answer, 'the only thing to fear: fear itself',
A fool would answer, 'I know not of fear, it does not exist',
i answer, 'there is a fear that gracefully connects us all,
every human, every action in an inextricable union of fear...
but hold my hand please, hug my body please, kiss my lips please,
for in your presence i only fear its going away.'
Thus my gaze falls upon these reflections,
these musical notes of a life lived,
of words spoken, and words consumed by consciousness,
of big words, small words, adjectives, nouns, verbs,
prepositions, all grounds of grammar covered.
It is not the life i lived which concerns me,
but the life i have yet to have lived.
The life that has yet to fill the empty pages
of that open diary.
The waters of her creative genius begin to calm,
the birds and their brides now fly above me,
the old cabin creaks and cracks,
every odd sound a constant reminder that
the edifice is a sad semblance of a far more
profound reality.
The reality of union; a creative assertion of
a living breathing life.
Oh if only these walls could listen, here me
now: “i shall make my home in you because
the furniture is comfortable, the inside is warm,
the roof has perfect slants, the shelves are filled
with books for reading, the kitchen is filled with
food for eating, and every air that this old cabin
breathes out is filled with small epiphanies
and particles of enlightenment that trickle down
my spine and into my toes.”
i sit back down on the rocking-chair,
the winds have calmed and the sun has
gone back down to its slumber grounds,
all around me the cool summer breezes
fulfill their destinies as they tantalize my senses.
i sit down, smoke my pipe and have some tea.

ABCD...BLUES AND BELIEFS

Part I

The art of articulation, the bloom of beatitude, the churning of characters…

Presents itself and is incorporated in my subjectivity.

The destructive demagoguery, the empty energies, the fragile feelings…

Flee from me. My disease is nothing more than alienating anonymity.

The glorious gods, the Homeric heroines, the isolated iconoclasts…

Line the expanse of my consciousness; a reckoning in perpetual motion.

Prose for a Loved One

Julieta Raga Wood- her name clings to my mind like some haunting phantom whose silhouette hides in every person, whose smile hides behind every good intention, and whose love hides among the willows of truth and beauty.
Love is an everlasting torrent of affection, and the blue waters that fill my soul reflect the perfect nature of being. It is my grandmother who seems to act as that eternal ferryman of my conscious, constantly reminding me to search a little further with a little more light and with a little less fear.
At times when the dark shadows of the world stand as mammoths in my mind beckoning me into a state that I fear, it is the thought of my grandmother which allows me to muster that last ounce of courage that seems vital to my progress as an individual.
My grandmother was a noble woman. I centered my life around unraveling her grace. Her nature was a mystery to me; never have I seen such joy in simplicity. Many nights I would talk to her, the whispers echoing a keen sense of understanding that I have yet to replicate. I remember her speaking to me in Spanish, retaining an accent that was a constant reminder of who she was, like some invisible hand caressing me and telling me her secrets.
Sometimes, she would use her language as a weapon. Her words still permeate my being, a constant reminder of the resonance of the human spirit. I find it ironic that in her haste and vehement conviction she would chastise me in incomprehensible words; communicating to me solely with the spirit of purpose.
However, her death has left me distraught, and the demons of disbelief have become as much as part of my being as the angels of hope. My biggest regret in life was not truly saying goodbye to my grandmother, not telling her how much I loved her and cared for her. Not allowing her to realize that so much of who I am is dependent on her care, the care only a grandmother can give.
I remember her death vividly, a testament to the ironic reality that those memories that lie active in your mind are the ones you wish to lock in the dark corridors of your conscious.
I wish that I had been able to talk to her before she had her aneurism. I wish that I could have filled her mind with my words before it was adulterated by the scent of death. I wish that instead of filling my time with idleness, I could have spoken to her. That she could have taken me be back to Spain with her elegant stories. That I could have gained more perspective into a person from whom I could still learn so much. The saddest and most regretful truth is that so many times when my grandmother would try to engage me in conversation, I would say I was too busy or I just wouldn’t listen. What frail character I exhibited! If I could take it all back I would spend every second that I could with her; I would caress her with my words and sooth her with my spirit. I would allow her to occupy every nook and cranny that my mind would allow. Now, when I am mature enough to realize it, she is gone; her death leaving a hole in the barren soil of my soul.
I remember clinging to my scriptures when death was looming over her, randomly reading passages about death, life, and the elusive celestial glory which was heralding my grandmother in, one pulse at a time. I did not cry; I couldn’t cry because crying would mean that I had lost, that the looming mammoth in my mind, my fear, had stomped over the white-clothed figure of hope that was guarding the bastions of my conscious. I remember closing my eyes, seeing her face smiling at me with an unnatural sense of dignity. As if death itself could not conquer her. I wasn’t alone. I remember my mother’s face, drowning with the tears of innocent remorse. I remember my father’s face, twisted and conformed into the epitome of solidarity.
Soon the heart monitor stopped beeping, and my head turned and I saw my mother burying her face into my grandmother’s chest, my dad rushing to console her, and the scriptures I held so dearly to my bosom falling to the floor and meeting their abrupt end; the faith I had in them meeting the same fateful end.
Julieta Raga Wood- she still ferries the turbulent streams of my conscious. Along every bend, against every sharp wave, she is still there. Her life and her subsequent death have shaped me, and the interior of my soul remains an altar for the grace that my grandmother has left me in charge. The grace beckons me to live a life that resembled my grandmother’s: one full of hope and a testament of the triumph of the human spirit.

Dedication

At the heart of dedication lies
The innocent hope of love
Fulfilled;
The antithesis of unrequited
Care and the deformed truths
That conform the soul till it is
No more; a shadow dancing
In a room of nothingness.
By nature I must dedicate my
Past to myself, by nurture I
Must dedicate my past to my
Parents in whose care I grew
To understand the world with
All its wonder and potential,
Only to realize that the grandeur
Of such a society suffocates beneath
A pile of
cynicism and
hypocrisies,
And by common sense I dedicate
The past to the individuals who
Fill the void that is my malnourished soul.
Every enriching encounter,
Every tantalizing thought,
Every sardonic sorrow,
Every undeserved joy,
Are as much part of me as the people
Who created these children of decadence.
This is my past,
This is my deepest sorrow and my
Greatest joy; an understand that
salvation is
F
l
e
e
t
i
n
g.

My Heritage

The heritage of my parents
Drips,
Drops,
Into my conscious, a self-
Perpetuated consolidation of
Past triumphs and transgressions.
Whether it be my Amerindian blood,
Or my Spanish perspective, one thing
Is certain:
Revolution…………….
Makes the
Round!!! World
Go
A strong sense of nationalism enlightens
The past, a land taken, a destiny manifested
In the spoils of war-torn lands acquired
Underneath a banner of dissent and freedom.
The abhorrent travesty of any revolution is its
Justification; a gilded dream filled with filth
And values endowed with false purity.
Cortez never was Quetzalcoatl, but Sam Houston
Was neither a saint of peace nor a fountainhead of
Diplomacy.
Santa Anna’s strength is his legacy and his poison,
Oh fate portrays a defender of a nation as a careless
And compassionateless murderer.
The Alamo was as much about the stand of a few hundred
Fools with guns and war-hungry eyes as it was about countrymen
Protecting their land, their future, and the future prosperity
Of a nation.
Deformed proseprity now peers upon this nation who had its
Glory stripped from its bosom before it had time to nourish
Itself from the teet of fortune and integrity.
The sad truth is that History is written by the victorious,
And lands baptized in a hell-fire of blood are sanctified
As the property of a youthfully passionate and naïve
Nation.

One

Nation’s

Fall

is

Another's RISE!
My heritage is about the preservation of the glory of a people who no longer cling to nationalism due to disastrous Diaspora, of a people who must create their own cultural values through the auspices of community and family, of a people heralded as the false murderers of American idealism. These are my people, and this is their heritage: cultural preservation at all costs, lest the glory of a mighty culture be stripped from the bosom of a malnourished society as well.

Awake My Love (A Relic of the past)

The stars themselves flicker out of mind as she walks in the room, illuminating my eyes and mind with those tantalizing feelings that true love makes manifest. Her beautiful brown eyes enslaving my concentration, but liberating me from the ground that is beneath me, and soon there is nothing below me at all except for the sweet air that lifts a child’s kite from its chains; a mixture of all-consuming anticipation and innocence. She speaks to me, but her words I cannot understand, as though God himself were speaking to me with a booming voice too powerful for my own feeble ears. I cannot understand her, because who can truly understand beauty in the flesh? My heart leaps from my chest, and the wonderful bounty of gaiety is mine forever more, so long as I keep this halo-less angel from leaving me. I have found my religion! Mormonism, Catholicism, Buddhism, they all merely manifestations and corruptions of the one truth in this world: the all-powerful nature of love. Love for God, love for Christ, love for thy neighbor, they are nothing to me but roadblocks to my other more cherished deity: my one true love. You are a goddess and every time I kiss you, and enter into your domain where worries are killed with the brute force of your gentle lips, I know what it feels like to be a god myself. This is the dogma of love, two beings who love each other are merely humans clinging to each other to navigate this world, but two beings in love are gods amongst men who have realized the one truth and who try to make the world one where gods roam. My belief in god, in humanity, in myself rest upon my belief in love, and without you that dream is nothing. I cannot exist as a god without your incredible light, I will only be a fool who once had godhood and let it rot, a damnable saint of self-destruction. But, I still have you, and you do not realize that my love for you goes beyond my present worries, beyond my fears, beyond everything else I know, because you give life a reason worth living for, worth learning for, worth dying for. The roses in the garden are nearly at half-bloom my love, open your eyes and see the wonderful shades of yellow, blue, and red that are abound. Smell the tantalizing joys of spring in its awakening, and awaken yourself. Hear the melody rushing through the landscape, feel the breeze caressing your hair and whispering to you the secrets of humanity. In true love we are gods, and only gods can understand God, and do not lose this gift before you regret it. I may be young, but even a child understands the importance of love, and I promise you that no one on this earth will ever love you as much as I have come to, and there is still so much room for progress and self-realization. I give you my heart, and I am sorry if I offend you at moments when the temporal circumstances of life are too-overwhelming, but nothing will ever convince me that you and I are not made for each other and know that I can no less break up with you as a devout Christian can break up with his god. You make my soul complete and fill me with the butterflies of true love, who fly beyond the gusty winds of trial and tribulation. My love, awake and know that you are my way, my truth and my light: I find salvation in our love, and our love is Salvation.
Amen. Awake.

*"There Was a Dunce Went Forth"

There was a dunce went forth every day;
And the first form he look’d upon, that form he became;
And that form became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.
In his youth the family became a part of him;
The only love, and the first hug, and the support, and the mother at home whispering an echo of hope;
And the father in his tie and suit far from his past slavery, and school work, and the wonder;
And the inferiority of lower-class intellects who scuffled at the sight of truth and the small and simple joys that kept him suspended in a sphere of optimism- all became a part of the dunce.
And the mother became a part of the dunce, shielding him from social strife;
And the heart-felt hugs, and the small kisses, and the un-warranted pats upon on the back;
And the toys, the roman gods and small spider-men who roamed the sand box;
And the fantasy worlds which consumed his yearning, and Saturday morning cartoons, and birthday balloons, and the wonder of the moons;
And the father’s talent, the father’s religion, his careful nature, his hunger for knowledge and truth;
And the father’s unending and divine love became part of the dunce.
And the formulaic writing, the times table, the rich literature of mother goose, the niceties of teachers and others who would form his doubt,
And students who would entertain his fancy and take him away from his true purpose,
And the swing set with its decaying links,
And the tests with their repetition and un-worth coupled with a tendency to eradicate the dunce’s imagination all became a part of this dunce.
And middle school’s glorification of the athletic over the academic, its subtle contradictions,
And the mundane functions of social life became a part of him;
And fanciful fragrances, gutter-worthy gossip, small talk, and corruption, lying, and cheating; And a general loss of self all became part of this dunce.
The life lived for the “un-self” alone, a distant idol gracing the minds of the weak wonders of the world,
And a morality never realized, merely perpetuated by those who seek to destroy the faculty of wonder,
And those who fear the individual’s ability to discern the truth, a truth which was not passed on by the self-proclaimed “prophets” of the ages- formed this dunce’s morality.
And this morality followed him his whole life in the “high” years of school, which were marked by low expectations and a general disgust for those who shunned Homer and Aquinas alike.
The un-enlightening “high” years of didacticism, and the disregard for the poetic,
And the reckless suppressant of true individualism;
And the infinite cynicisms of the world, a whole ocean of misunderstanding and wrong doing, became a part of the dunce.
And the seduction of slaves, the empty whispers of hope,
And the worthless words uttered by the sanctimonious snakes and unjust “Judases” with infinitesimal jurisprudence and endless ignorance,
And the rash rationalizations, the giant generalizations, the slave-morality,
And the cowardly chivalry, the resonance of regret rooted within the wrath of past transgressions,
And the discrimination, sexism, prejudice;
The decadence of a society filled to the brim with slothful individuals and gluttons, who feed on the useless rabble that permeates the air with mediocrity and temporary worth,
And society’s pleasant pornography, its timid turbulence, its conservative liberalism, its partisan politics, its baffling bickering,
And the elite’s pessimistic parsimony, the desirable drugs, the wholesome whores,
And the rigid resolve of the unjust, the withering pew, the fresh mildew, the duncical state of the race,
And the hope of a NEW PACE;
A new pace, forged form the depth of the eternal forms, an un-extinguishable silent flame, the nothingness that fathers doubt, devils, and dust, became a part of the dunce.
And he willed to become one with the doubt, the devils, and the dust.
Hell is not other people, hell is the “un-self” the “lower-self”, the self deprived of innate rationalism and comprehension.
The dunce hoped to wrap himself in a cocoon of existence and realization, casting out every ounce of civilization and to rise a new man: **Zarathustra.
The dunce hopes to become this and…
That Zarathustra will go forth one day,
Living on a mountain top and upon the human peak of anonymity,
And the sun will become a part of him, and a glorified sense of self.
And as for the discrimination, the sexism, the prejudice, the decadence of society;
He hopes these never will become part of him again, who will go forth every day, who will then go and will always go forth every day.
* From Walt Whitman’s “There Was a Child Went Forth”
** From Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”