A Cosmic Odyssey

Part One

Why do galaxies merge with their neighbors? Remaining in constant

       motion?

What holds back the rocket, from leaving earth’s atmosphere?

Why are comets bound for the sun, made of rock and ice, and when near

       to it, dodge it by an inch, or a pinch, resuming their ancient orbits?

What does the sun have that appears to pull earth’s solar system, all its

       planets towards its clinching grip! Yet allowing them to maintain their

       orbits?

We are talking about physics, the laws of motion, gravity, force, of course!

Why is Titan cold as hell, having lakes of gas, frozen mountains and rivers

       more oil than, earth’s Atlantic Ocean?

Man is born into this cosmological mystery—

The   ‘Bad Star’ is it not the ancient comet?  

They say there is a massive black hole in the middle of the Milky Way!

In the cosmic odyssey, there are more questions than answers…

It has been proven the DNA from trees, and butterflies and sparrows, are

       similar to man’s,

I guess this tells me, if in deed we have these similarities, God fixed it so

       earth, man, plants and animals, all blend into one, in one habitual

habitat; thus, we may be different by just a molecule or two, perhaps a

       mutation, who’s to say…

It’s all the same plan, God made man from a branch of a great family tree,

       melted us all into a bowl, designed to exist among one another!

How much simpler does it get?

As in the origin of species, or natural selection, God has not taken anything

       at random, but allowed to have the DNA, adjust accordingly.

That is to say: of the 100-billion atoms in a being, or bear or wolf, all

       genetically placed according to God’s lettered alphabet,

to be in balance with earth and its solar system, and its galaxy, and his

       universe—we all belong to a gathering, a whole.

The question has come up, how did the wolf, turn into a sheep dog?

“Is this not natural selection?” says the scientist.

My question is: why does the village turn into the city.

Why the city into a nation.

It may be called natural selection, but I call it common sense, you blend

Out of necessity, to whatever it takes to survive…

The cannon turned into the rocket, was that natural selection?

But back to the wolf-dog:

Simply, we under estimated the wolf, he was more intelligent than man first

       figured, now we are feeding him, bedding him, and caressing him,

And what does the dog do? The wolf-dog that now is the dog-dog!

He pretends to growl, when the neighbor comes by: in essence, he knows

       he can yelp his way through life, and laugh at his masters, if indeed he

       wishes, because he’s found the easier life.

The other issue here is, he’s discovered, man is a better hunter: let him

       do the work!

So now we are down to sky and ocean, and the moon that is full of scars,

       and the scientist saying: man is made of: ‘Star dust’

That is quite the quote, and perhaps more true than not, we are all part of

       everything in God’s creation, to some degree, I would guess.

Resistance, or opposition, or call it obstruction, pushes the moon away

       from earth, or else we’d collide; but it doesn’t stop the asteroid, that

       was once a comet, from hitting the earth!

Man’s system is much the same, one system pushing and pulling, and

       resisting the other, as the other does the same: one nervous systems

       says to its polar opposite, not yet!

Where is man in all this, this cosmic odyssey? I think he is in the interval…

Written: 9-25-2014 (No: 4559

Recapitulations A Place to Start From (Afloat in the world)

As I look back, thinking about my life my travels and poetry, I’ve been

       afloat in the boat, of  world travels per se, as long a time as I can

       remember, some fifty-years, or more!

Out in the cold, out of the cold!

More than once, stomach empty!

Dreaming! Following my dreams.

Talking to people who were not really listening, hence, wasting my time

       listening to their complaining, doubts, negativism…

On things they could change, but were not going to—

People duped, turning a blind-eye to this and that, because the truth didn’t

       fit into their reasons of failure to have followed their dreams.

But it all started one day, as everything has got to have a start, a first step, I

       said: “I don’t like being tied down, or anchored!”

The more I thought about it I said, “Minnesota is just a place to start from,

       not necessarily end.” 

I said to myself:

I want to see it all, the Andes, the Amazon, Cape Horn, Asia, Europe, War,

       Africa, the Artic, China, India; and the list goes on and on…!

Thus, Minnesota was a good place to start from, period!

I asked my second-self, “What is beyond the beyond,” that is to say, the

       hill in front of me, the ocean in back of the hill, the landmass at the

       edge of the ocean.

I cannot express the vastness of my outfall desire in adventure, travel, and

       the waves of my hands that swept to reach them places.

To circle the world.

My mind, thrilled at the prospect!

My spirit, save, if I lived long enough, to do it, I’d do it!

I always knew the world would be to a certain degree a nightmarish

       horror, in transversely —

That it was a place most people wanted to avoid, lest they go in groups as

       tourists, here and there, for safety reasons; I preferred  travel any-

       which-way, sole most of my days… And why not?

The world tugged at people, I knew this too, but it was not reason enough

       to stop me, it was man-made, let the bewildered and fearful, stay home!

You got to live life and not be afraid to! (but you better know how to fight!)

Had I stayed in Minnesota, I would have died idle and helpless long before

       I’d would have been able to write this, poetic prose… 

Drunken on my ass!

At an early age my mind was made-up, my neighborhood was no place for

       me, the way out was simple, I would leave and lean my head to fate,

       face fate…  Like a fish on a hook, if need be, and I’ve been on that            

       hook, believe me!

For just one person, the world was large enough I figured.

On a second thought: what would come, would come.

If there was something for me to find, somewhere I’d find it!

If others have traveled the world, why not me?

I was not going to be left behind!  Nor beg, one must not do that, lest he

       become unworthy of the world; and God’s angels to watch over  you.

Hence, I was wandering from one corner of the planet, to another, like my

       old grandpa, would pace back and forth from the porch to the kitchen.

I had found my resolve, at sixteen, and now at sixty-seven, it is no less

       Diminished—

Traveling was simply, no more than a matinee at Harold’s for me, to

      present a simile.

I could pack up and leave in a moment’s time!

Yes, at times life was exacting: traveling the globe is not easy occupation 

You must quench your thirst, by and by, and take chances;

Go to where the few have gone: if not, if unquenched spaciousness

       envelops one’s life, squeezes, this is torment! For a man like me.

But if I had not gone to San Francisco, at twenty, I would not have gone to

       Germany at twenty-two, nor been in the Vietnam War, at twenty-three.

I would therefore, not have went on to college at twenty-seven, for seven

       years, and would not have written forty-seven books in thirty-four years, and acquired a number of degrees, to boot, a: Doctors of Honoris

       Causa…

Or become Poet Laureate of Peru! (that would not have been possible)

Nor would I have ventured into real-estate, and acquired a small fortune. And I could go on and on, but begging your pardon, it all started the day, I

      said, “Minnesota is a good starting place.”

It all started when my thoughts, my unuttered thoughts, sank down and

       dissolved to give place in other thoughts, and I moved on: liken to my poetry—slimly penciled in my darker sleep, penciled picturesquely into my

       cerebellum, only to be written out at a later date.  

And not wasting my time to all those people who were, talking,

       complaining, and not listening, nor changing, not wanting to listen to

       the things I was saying, had to say, not hearing  not encouraging the things I was trying to explain, as if they could not receive!

Yet still they talked on and on (perhaps still at the bar!)

Nonetheless, I confess I kept on writing, traveling, knowing if the fulfilment

       of life does not come to you, you go it it—

Yes, I told myself, I’ll die a poet, read or unread, and if I’m the only one

       that knows it, I still know it, for no matter what, that will have to be enough, that will have to do, for I have to scratch the itch that itches at my

       soul!

And I learned not to mind what people think, it’s them that looks that

       finds. Plus, the majority of the time, whatever they’re thinking, isn’t what I think they’re really thinking at all.

Note: No: 5461/9-28-2014

Beaten but not beaten!

(…or, ‘The Losers’ Pride!’) 1964

I had fought him in the empty lot, off Cayuga Street. He had

       called—demandingly called—us on, one and all, anyone of us that is,

       saying: “I’ll fight any one of you right here and now!”

He was the new kid on the block.

Thick-boned, taller than I, ten-pounds over my weight, sandy hair,   Anglo-Saxton, type.

He called thickly, to one and all, we the gang had just finished a game of

       softball, perhaps eight or nine of us, circled him.

There he stood in the middle, defiant, “Well!” he shouted.

Jack said, “Is he drunk?” (was the rhetorical question)  and we all laughed, we knew he wasn’t; Jack was

       his age, I was sixteen: lean, and strong as an ox.

“No,” I said “he’s mine.”

“Okay,” Jack replied, “take him!”

By not allowing him full swing at me, I rushed him, threw him to the

       ground, fell on top of him, and pounded on his face until it was near

       pulp.

I had succeeded, I had won the fight, in a matter of minutes, with wallop

       after wallop,  as the gang went crazy.

I knew from the start I had to evaporate his steam quickly, and I had, by not

       allowing him to get into a boxing stance;

Back then I was much more the wrestler, with a strong right blow, when

       connected.

His head must had been buzzing like a swarm of bees.

Jack had to pull me off him, I wouldn’t let up, lest I make his face

       hamburger.

He was so groggy when he left for home, he could hardly stand, but he just

       kept a-going.

I lived next to the empty lot, on the upper part of an embankment, sort of;

And I was bushed also, so I went on home, for lunch.

Two days later, it was Sunday, I heard a knock on the backdoor, opened it,

       it was the new kid, I nearly didn’t recognize him.

His face was a face so swollen, and bruised, so awfully discolored, nearly

       every feature had been beaten out of all semblance of familiarity,

 ‘Did I do that? I thought.’

One eye was half closed, the other of a blood filled narrow rim around the

       whole eye. And one ear had its skin raw! And his lip, puffed and split.

Then I remembered Jack had to pull me off him.

I noticed as he stood on the wooden stairway, near the arch of the door, 

       one side of his jaw was twice its normal size, compared to the other.

“I’d like a rematch,” he told me, “I’m pretty sure I can beat you, I’m good

       at boxing, you just didn’t give me a chance to start.”

As if I would a second time, allow that:

Anyhow, I responded by saying, “I really don’t care for rematch, but it’s up

       to you.”

His speech had been impaired, and I was sicken by his sight, and we both

       sat on the stairway thinking in a long silence, his pride was hurt, and I think his family poured vinegar on it, and egged him on to future

       decimation, should I have had to go a second round with him—of

       course this was my speculation, he was no slough.

My practical judgment bade me otherwise to a rematch, and I said, “Perhaps you’re right, given time to get into your posture, you would have

       beaten me, so let’s leave it at a draw.”

“Well,” he said, in deep thought, looking down towards his house, knowing  

       he had told his parents, whatever he had told them, and my best guess

       was that he was going for a second countdown,

“okay,” he continued, “but you know, we can never be friends, but neither

       do we have to be enemies.”

We shook hands. And that was that.

But as I look back on this, it comes to mind: for most men there is an

       admirable pride in fighting and winning, different from a woman’s way of thinking I suppose; but, win or lose you have to show that the beating

       had not kept you in bed, that’s the part of the loser’s pride, beaten but not beaten.

No: 4560/Written: 9-26-2014

In Malleable Poetic Prose

Old Lady and the Demijohn

There once was an old lady, who drank like a fish

Loved to drink her whiskey from a two-gallon demijohn—

Whenever she could… From Organ to Frisco, she traveled

By cover wagon, with her two grandkids: whereupon, one

Day as they went to seek for work, they hid the demijohn

Sixty feet high up in a tree, from the ground, in fear she’d

Drawn herself with the alcohol, before they’d return.

Hence, upon their return that night, she was found dead

Drunk to the world on the kitchen floor… She had shot

The demijohn to smithereens, with her long-barreled

Kentucky rifle; emptied its remains into a tub, placed

Under the tree. And so she lapped it up, like soaked duck!

No: 4564/Written 9-29-2014

Spirit of the Times

Be careful, my people told me—

If you play for the game, the big game, don’t become too thin

And in the process miss a thousand little chances under your nose…

There’s a spirit of the times, I’ve learned in most things, in life!

A right time, and a wrong time.

A time to be satisfied, lest you end up a pauper…

There is no secret, just be aware of the times!

Times change, and you got to change with them, if you want to be

Part of them…

If you’re one of the small potatoes, and remain so, and times are right, it

       may change, and become the times for the big potatoes—

To win, you must learn to be satisfied.

Funny, but we can all see it after it happens, when it is too late.

Me, I was a small potato in a big potato patch, my heath told me, I could

       should I wish, take the chance and become one of the big potatoes!

Well, you must think quicker than a wink, and remain cool as an icicle, and

       I was no longer wild as an Indian, as I was in my youth

Most of the fire and vinegar had left me, I was heading into old age when I

       played that game, plus I had an illness that never heals complete…!

And that settled me down, and I got into the game at the right time, and out

       at the right time, and yes, I know how lucky I was!

Had I stayed in the game, I would have been a rich corpse.

But it goes something like this: had I become rich in my youth, I’d never

       would have traveled, and I would have had nothing to write about

       today, except money, drinking and women!

Plus, I’d never would have had time to meet my wife, Rosa, and would not

       have had two homes, one by the ocean and one in the Andes, and

       retired at fifty-two;

I didn’t get it all, but I beat the odds, and took a little of the whole thing, to

       quench my spirit of everything;

In other words, what I got in youth, was cheap, which has kept me from the 

       poorhouse in old age.

No: 4563/Written 9-29-2014

Terms of Existence (Grave Prophetic Utterances)

The reason I want to take this time, to reason it out in my head, to give my

       onion opinion on the ‘Terms of Existence’ today, is not because I am

       bored with life, not exactly, but there is a new enthusiasm, morbid

       passion, zest to be reckoned with,  in today’s world.

The Islamic terrorists: those women, children, the old and young men, the

       unserious, brainwashed, those who endeavor to carve out the lion’s

       share of the world  for Satan’s quest, so he can plunge it into oblivion!

This and this alone is the reason for this prose poem, for their awareness!

I know Satan has long been dissatisfied with Christian Nations, also with

The Jews; you could pick I suppose any group, he’ll use them to get to God

       somehow, and he has at this moment chosen the Islamic personae!

Yes, to get to God he will even disguise himself in the persona of Gabriel

       the Archangel, or Allah, or for that matter, bend the Koran, to his will with little ferocious devotional secrets, never written down, planted in

       brains inside the heads of those, so easily led, the willing!

Those who are enchanted or oppressed, seldom if ever devoted to God!

But rather to him!

God don’t need friends, nor does he need anyone saying: we kill in the

       name of God! (that’s called blasphemy)

This is why it is perilously important for me to write ‘Terms of Existence’  

Nothing in them—will stop Satan, matter-of-fact, Old Nick, has simply just

       puffed himself up, inside of these discolored souls, reflecting through

       their large gray eyes, waiting for: a blood-splash revenge;

Alas, such men do Satan’s handiwork for him, willingly or unwillingly;

Perhaps thinking it is God’s will, but be not fooled, it is Satan’s!

You see Satan uses man to get to God.

Why else do you think he does, what he does, what he has those Islamic

       fanatics do…

You see, nothing matters to him, not even decapitations, and who else

       would ever think of such unthinkable and abysmally things? He says:

“Find stupid men and stupid women, in the west, east; white, black, brown,

       who approach in any slight degree to our way of thinking, our credo,

“To exterminate the world of the locust, —man!”

Satan does not discriminate, and neither does the rising tides of ISIS, or

     the Khorasan, the old PLO, the new Hamas, or Qaeda operatives, and

     alike.

Vouchsafed with a snarl and of ominous expectancy, the gun and the

       sword, killing ordinary people like  cows, pigs and chickens:

Thus, to endure this, these are the terms of existence!

None of these Islamic soldiers are worth their salt, in that they have given

       up their souls for money, or pride, or Satan’s big lie; and so willing to

       give up their lives, what can be made of all this?

What is it all for?

Surely not for the Glory of God!  God does not need to prance around

       heaven yelling “Look what I got, headhunters!”

Does God need help? Or Satan? (Figure it out, it should be simple!)

Did their soul die ages ago?

Perhaps not, my best guess, Satan has been nourishing, and nurturing

       them awhile, if not caretaking: feeding them like a herd of goats:       

       better yet, worms who love to eat dirt;

You know after a while one begin to like it:

If indeed one is force-fed a daily and nightly diet of lies, or anything, you

       can dehumanize  the breath

of God inside of most  men, and inside yourself, and kill them at will, like

       chickens.

What will they wake up to once dead? Surely not paradise!

Where everything is hunky-dory and nice!

I would gather such men would end up in a world suited for them, their

       kind

… like to like, like in Tartarus, the lower level of hell;

Should they walk into paradise, what would they do, say? Have to say?  

What would they do: shoot everyone, cut off their soul heads?

I’m serious, who would want them around?

A drunk wants a drunk around, not a sober mate; no different than a

       demon wanting similar company…

And God doesn’t provide, or allow whores in heaven.

Matter of fact, how earnestly could they walk up to God and say:

“I cut a few heads off for you today, and lost my life in doing so!

“Where is my just reward?”

God forbid, had I done such a thing, if I was allowed to sneak into Paradise, I’d hide behind a rock, or a tree, anything that would cover me,   

And not for a day or week, but forevermore; so you might as well just say, “Get me out of here, I don’t belong here…”

And I think God would most likely agree, by saying:

“Right, you’re in the wrong place,” zip! You’re on your way to Hades!

You see, like to like, same to same, kind to kind: you get what you deserve,

       it’s just a matter of time:

And if you don’t get justice here on earth, God has plan ‘B’  

.... No Kidding, plan ‘B’ being lost in some dark eternity, and perhaps fiery,

       eternity !

Does one really think God needs their help? I know I keep bringing this up,

       but it baffles me from my occipital lobe to my big toe!

This is Satan’s trick, he has his horde of invisible soldiers, a hundred

       million of them:  whispering into those Islamic ears that will, willingly  

       listen:

“Tell your followers to come and fight the good war, for God is calling…!”

How sick is sick? The trick is this: Satan needs followers, and friends.

On the other hand,

How hideous that sounds, to assume, God needs grasshoppers, beetles

       and crickets, to fight man’s clashes; which are not even His!

And every soldier thinks God is for their cause: how wrong is wrong?

Although I would think, Satan would be more than willing to fight on their

       behalf, battles for eternal damned soul!...

So you see, it could be, quite the other way around.

If this was true, if this way of thinking was really accurate, that God needs

       man to fight his battles, our battles, then we have a weak God, not one

       who has created all—

In particular, the universe, the earth, and so on, and on, endlessly on:

And thus, we do not have an all-powerful God, who is omnipotent!

And whoever thinks like this, has made Satan more powerful, perhaps even

       God’s equal, and in doing so, sold their soul.

Man is but the size of a grasshopper to God, with a grasshopper brain, but

       he loves that grasshopper all the same; and life is the gift he has given

       to man to claim!

And not to take at will, away from another by anybody, lest he suffer.

So here I am, trying to be unmistakable impeccable, about the cruelest

       gash, man has yet seen, in the 21^st Century, without offending!

But that cannot be done, sorry if this is not to your liking, as I pointed out

       in the beginning, you need ‘open eyes, and minds!’

Yes, the old Master trickster, has duped this Islamic breed, into deep war

Fooled one to the other, in doing everything—thus, he found the touchy

       Islamic Arab, and they are doing it for him.

And don’t for God’s sake, invent that Islam needs to fight the whole rats’

       nest,  to cleanse the world of evil, but being  more evil, and you know

       it!

When in Tartarus, you will say: “I died for that!” And you will groan.

And you will be one of the man to enter the rotting resurrection, to be

       fuelled with sulfur and fire.

And in the meantime, you will crawl on the floor and haul yourself:

       contaminated, wrung and bled, from one crevice in the earth’s stomach,  to another: by the dead-dead! 

Satan’s collaborators.

You will swing into the jaws of the trip, quiet and fooled, and there is no

       mutiny in the underworld:   but there is an echelon of rank: and you are the private!

We are not addressing theologies, or religions, per se, although it may be

       in the backyard somewhere, I am talking about those thick-boned,

       malformed, broken-knuckled soldiers of Satan—

Who have caused a ripple effect, in human behavior, with: less and less

       sincerity, compassion, and mercy within the global theater of

       humanity…

Who happens to be—in this poem anyhow—Islamic by self-byline!

Anyhow!

Satan sits pacing to and fro, above the clouds, above their heads,

       like a wildcat,

With his imps: while men do his deadly, monstrous fearful repulsiveness,

       never lifting a finger…

I have learned with a smile, Satan can easily ambush, and easily leave   

       those whom are behind doing his dirty work,

Leave them behind, without a clap of an eye; leave them behind those

       deadly lines, letting them believe, inside their heads, it is for God, as if

       they’re doing God’s work, His bidding!  (they wish!)

How arrogant that is.

Satan doesn’t have the time, he used to have, and that is why he is

       knocking on the Islamic doors, like crazy, one after the other!

Time is short.

In a simile: it is the bull and the calf: and the bull has told the calf, there is

       nothing shameless here, terror is very beautiful.

“How about the dignity of man?”  The world is yelling because of the dirty

       wars…?

Like Lucifer, so stands the Islamic new breed: hands fiddled and clinched,

Morose men: who have traded Christ’s love for door of fury!

Thus, they give the death-notice, with their frozen hearts.

They have found Lucifer’s great rat-trap, and like a lump of meat, he has

       swallowed them, one by one…

I am not comparing, devil to devil, and country to country, I haven’t the

       space nor time, in this prose poem to do so,

I am just with the new breed—

The 21^st Century’s Islamic pathologic, neurosis, psychotic terrorists!

They all come out of the same mold, just their mental status is a tinge       

       complicated!

Who are they kidding!

And here they are thinking they are being blessed for their faithfulness,

       their ruthlessness!

To me that sounds more like they have Satan’s address!

You know, and if you don’t know, I’ll tell you:

Satan laughs silently, with just his eyes: cold-bloody eyes, without sound; He Laughs a mirthless laughter… as

He sees his insects doing his bidding, and says:

 “See God, I will have the last laugh!”

And yes, Satan has made his etching in stone to these Islamic warriors, it

       reads:

“Let there be war around the world, that is the price, the terms

       of existence for the times; let them see the sweeping of hell, on earth!

“That is why I need them. 

“Even make them querulous among themselves, all the better.

“Make them turn on their own kind: make them wear sad and lifeless faces,

       to have no vim in them.

“Make each step an effort of death, drag them, raise them, and pull them    

       out of coffins if need be, they are no more than my spiders at work for

       me!

“Have them fill up the pushcarts with heads, like I had Mohammad

       do back in those awful battles, I now call: ‘Mecca’s cry, in the year “of sorrows’, when he took 10,000-soldiers strong and conquered and “butchered them like hogs, tore open their bellies like beasts, their heads

       severed, rolled off down the streets: my philosophy today is the same

       ‘kill, and kill,’ as if in a death march.”

This is how he thinks, I know, he has sent a few of his henchmen,

       knocking at my doors, windows, bedroom… for the past umpteen

       years!

You see, it only makes sense: God did not make man to fight man, that

       would make him, eviler than Satan; and God is not the author of evil.

But it is only the way Satan can get revenge for his own sins; thus he

       torments, the willing!

I say the willing, or perhaps I could say the eager beaver, or the ready and

       prepared, for the most part it is the disposable.

His orders:

“Find the spiritless, the shambling shells of men, those windless

       men; the: lunatics and idiots, the drunks, and degenerate, take them “from all nations, create a nightmare spawn, create a human caricatures of

       men; have them believe in our cause, so I can tell God,

‘Hail and farewell, to man’ …”

Thus, in his doings, he makes Nero, look like a pussycat!

No: 4559 (9-22 thru 24-2014)