Don't Cancel Nini

How long do we mourn a loss

When the mourning is for ourselves

When others say, Enough Already!

When those set free may be released

into whatever is After or Beyond





How long can I keep up the forward march

Eyes ahead and Head on top, floating above the water

It's a long swim to move away

from some painful maelstrom

When there are rip tides in every emotional trigger

Sometimes paddling out hard and fast

Sometimes giving into to the current

Floating with the Tao




Walking on that egg, the surface tension

Barely making an impression in space

Buoyed by care and sympathetic tones

And friends who understand needing to be left alone



Someday we must learn to mourn

Then we will know the meaning of comfort

Then we will know the depth of care

How many different paths there are

to that inner Wailing Wall

Where it is safe to dwell with sorrow

Where I am not ashamed of tears

Where my weakness is a testament

to something Precious Lost




Then came the thaw, I said

Until then I was frozen solid with strength

Galvanized like steel, I boasted

Tough as nails.




Then came the thaw

And there were never enough arms to hold me

Never enough love or blanket

to keep the monsters or the nightmares away.




I didn't want to be alone with the ghosts.

I didn't want to close my eyes and look

inward to the point of terror and sorrow

Moving forward and carefully through my own

imagined wasteland of Heart

where the smoking embers camouflaged even to myself

the source of my inexhaustible fire




To plot my oscillations this past year

I am proud of my constancy

Proud that I didn't break all the way down forever

Thankful that God and Love and Friends and Family

Never let me fall too far




This New Years Eve I spent alone

Me and the desert moon, Papa's ashes

and the relics of the dead

I felt comfort, I felt loneliness,

I felt the love energy from warm thoughts




Didn't this year make you feel full?

In your heart, I mean?

For every degree of closeness to love and loss

For every multifaceted jewel winking across Indra's Web

For all the activity surrounding your personal nodal point

For the silence and the flux

For blessings in all things

And for all things in their right time




The longest midnight in the Garden must

yield sometime to a new dawn

Joy comes in the Morning

But I mustn't be waylaid by the loose threads

Or discouraged if the vision of the future isn't crystal clear




So what's new, what's next?

I'm not some bloody Oracle for myself or anyone else

But I can recognize simple patterns in behavior too

And prognosticate according to available data

[ How exhausting and distracting

Must break with this practice]




Here in my mother's home

there is Zen in the chores

Doing laundry, sweeping floors

and washing my bowl.




The winter brings intense hibernation.

Sleeping many hours through the winter like a bear.

Collecting my surviving cells and rearranging my organism.

Here in the desert where my mother and sisters live,

my father's ashes lie in a cheerful shrine with christmas lights on timer,

[ Good Night, Pa! as the lights click off ]

my cell phone doesn't work,

my sisters and I drove out to a dark desert spot to see the Leonids streak across the sky,

we had a semi-successful garage sale of our collective past

and my mother sold my father's hardware for ridiculous prices to simply be rid of them,

where tumbleweeds, dust and Joshua Trees form an endless landscape.




I revert to childlike obsessions, loner activities, for lack of playfriends

The new obsessions which distract me from my true goals mostly revolve around comics,

anime and graphic novels.



Of course, the Neil Gaiman "Sandman" meme was transmitted to me,
and soon after I discovered Kabuki by David Mack.



Adultswim on the Cartoon Network is what I've been glued to:
Family Guy, Inuyasha, Futurama - oh and then there's REIGN by Peter Chung, creator of Aeon Flux!



I've been consuming Sci-Fi Novels:



Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon, Diamond Age, Snow Crash, In the Beginning. . .There was the Command Line, The Big U

William Gibson: Mona Lisa Overdrive, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties

a cynical day in l.a.

i have always found los angeles a lonely place.

but i follow my inner compass

i know one step, one choice

leads to others

two steps towards the gods

and waiting for them to step towards me

i have no plans or goals

but to simply have conversations with people

which may lead to actions

watching words and ideas

take shape

as they are uttered

and animated by belief

that each new step is new reality



the port is open.

as am i.

as is the whole world.



i am simply a stone

in the center of a pond

the water flows around

currents, ripples, oscillating waves



there is no more hurt

all past hurts have been levelled this year.

i start fresh at ground zero



surveying the aftermath

counting the survivors

calculating loss



there is no intrinsic worth in keeping anyone

only perceived needs between people

it is no longer a matter of sheer utility

emotional barter

objects of sentimental value



we are conduits

who help one another

like adapters

help each other connect with others

help replenish the collective memory

purport the mundane memes

which keep us anchored here

keep us locked out of our consciousness

distract us from pure sentience

but vital for survival in symbiosis

intimacy, companionship

we spot one another like rock climbers

as we all make our ascents

up Maslow's pyramid.



Connectivity is all

Node or handhold carved into stone

shoulders to cry on, or to stand on

when we are too small to reach.




10.12.03 - cdj