Zao Buddhist Retrieval 101

What am I?
He who suddenly places objects
in midair
for some martial arts practise.

Who am I?
He who lies on a sparse bed,
allows Geronimo
and Quinn the Eskimo
to pass through
and talk in tongues.

Who am I?
He who obeys the chinese masters
Wu Tung and Wu Chang
follows the mantra of scarcity, power
the sanguine grace of Madame Butterfly.

Who am I?
When in the next instant
I am Jack the Rippers gloved hand,
Doyle's IRA clenched fist
Mayan Inchachyuanana's teaching mind.

Who am I?
That walks the street aged,
yet dresses and acts like a 19 year old rapper,
that stops and bows to strangers knowingly.

Who am I?
That now delves into the supernatural
not as a writer, nor reader
but as a participating entity
passing ghosts on from their resting place
to who knows where.

Who am I?
That used to be me
is now more,
and less
the outer shell says Thane
the inner says "channeller".

Who I am,
is down to you,
not me
and whoever gives the gifts
to allow my new existence to flourish.

Ka uta omganuana te anughana te purie.

Obituary Oblongata

Slab of rusty cement
etched in hieroglyphics
of ancient modernisations.

Dog pee stains a corner
near the deceased's parting day;
'neath the picture of a frail man-

"He died as he lived
a sock full of pennies
and a head full of ideas"

One looks closely,
sees an egg shaped head,
which came first?

The critical effect of Dither on Oddfellows

They're a strange creature,
"Oddfellows" a sort of round mint sweet,
or often refered to as strange men.

One day, in a lonely hospital stay,
I sat and played a game,
mind chess,
with this old wise fellow
who sat and talked to me,

I played the game,
and he listened,
watched,
analysed,
as first one shape,
then another, took effect.

Eventually a Circle of Seven
stood proud on the table,
and every time a piece moved
and replaced another piece,
the Circle of Seven pervaded.

Drawn to this circle like a magnet,
was the Line of Three,
tangental telepathy drew them together
and no matter the moves made,
the tangental
and the circle
numbered ten,
whence the moves began again.

Then for no reason,
the three became two,
and no matter how many times I tried to regurgitate
the line remained two,
and then I saw it,


Life is the Circle of Seven
tied to the Tangent of Three
and by a mere fact of swallowing,
a human had introduced the Dither,
the imbalance of astronomic proportions,
the scattering of the paraphysical,


accidents happen they say,
it's not a perfect world,
The Lives of Nine
rule the Dither sublime.

I sit and look at my partner, silenced
as if audacity of movement
and my part in this play was destined,
a saddened look, but one of understanding,
the dawn of new comprehension;

will he tell?

I now see life as an Oddfellow,
a sort of bittersweet memory,
see people walking with injuries,
see imperfection in everything,
and know, just know

a game perhaps?
maybe the knowledge to understand the universe
and perhaps even God
(yes, he does err it seems).

Moving on

Scrawled upon a parched pavement,
an arrow to a new adventure,
Socrates rings mathematically
in a brain turning new horizons.

Step out, a highway that wends westward,
the mesquite of deserts past,
replaced with pulsing pegonias in bloom,
a tiger walked this way, says the dust.

"Simon says" was a game children loved,
now dogs scrap for bones aplenty,
the Third Reich marched past once
now eye sockets from brittle skulls glare.

Oak trees stripped of life stand sentinel
to a life moving onward, a new hiatus,
the scant disregard for futures passed
a heritage to those that walk alone.

By nightfall, the last crows scatter mortality,
ghosts of the seven stages crawl the hardtop,
you are not alone, nor have you ever been,
yet after months of meeting noone, you wonder.

Stephen King's The Stand rattles ever present
in a skull that understands The Gunslinger,
ripe strawberries in a dry canyon scarily gleam,
the taste enough to secure hope, yearning.

You feel like the Tick Tock Man, a pendulum,
coast to forelorn coast, and degeneration,
you look for a God that's since moved on,
yet you know, you are now God, and parishioner.

'Til that day you too move on, departee
a ghost on the footprints of your own passing,
the lonely wind that was your whistle,
the lonely rains, your tears.

Baking Insolence

Take a cup of salty flour,
a teaspoon of youthful vinegar,
stir in an adolescent bowl,
add hormonal herbs,
bake to breaking point.

Take a knife of indifference,
cut through the crumbs
of leftover teenage thoughts,
ripen a sour lemon
and squeeze liberally
on the gift of innocence.

Walk from a recipe of change,
hold your iced interpretations high,
welcome adulthood with spatula arms,
the stench of not knowing,
brewing boldly on the path
of newness, and fresh ideas.

Taking life for granted,
miss the kitchen for what it was,
a place where the goal was success,
too often the mixture is ruined,
yet armed with the ingredients,
a cake of knowledge stands tall.

Dogs, Cats and Dead Spirits in Waiting.

I

This room is dark grey,
lost in tendrils of gloom
the life colours of despair,
a matted carpet of green
shines where the hopeful walk.

Disintegration is the mood of collapse,
dogs chew bones of dying men
and women suck in their spirits,
Nirvana play on the stereo,
a place above carpeted rooms.

Indignant wastrels cut sofas apart
seated on the scraps of conscience,
bloody foam floats into whirling arias,
the voice of nymphettes rooting loudly,
the TV in the corner blinks blue screen.

A cat claws thin air, attempting to kill the sound.

II

Faceless morons stare dumbfounded
into cracked mirrors peering back,
deceit in the dark grey eyes blinking,
take razors to the blank cheeks
and comes away with short stubble of nothing.

There is another song that sings,
wails really, the song of the damned,
the green carpet turns black with congealed blood,
from dogs shot for their discretions;
animal welfare doesn't extend to humans.

III

Men in white coats march endlessly through,
picking up pieces of broken minds
and bodies once whole, now fretting
in the resource of misdirection,
Grey Suits with notebooks shudder.

The youth of our culture drown in the drugs of our making,
and we read the newspapers and tut tut,
who is responsible, who gave them hopelessness?

A man framed in an oil painting
on a grey/blue wall,
peers out with a furrowed brow,
winks in knowing belief,
is moved with other items of decay
to a place, another nirvana,
and watches it all again.

And smiles.