Sometimes the World Wears You Down

Wander through the screen door picking up speed
As no one notices the overlay of words and play
Dive into the ocean blue
Dolphins wonder, “Who are you?”
But they don’t mind the flesh
Or the endless cliche

San Francisco sheds its skin
Around me time and time again
To where I don’t know anyone anymore

Kristi’s walking in the door
Her purse falling to the floor
And she can’t notice anyone anymore

Kristi always been here
Says she never wants to leave
The fog keeps the sun from
Burning her out
With Jungian philosophy
Communing with flowers and bees
The state of mankind makes her
Want to strip her flesh.
Sitting on a pier her feet
Dangling over the edge she says,
“I want to be just like Jesus
and stand where I am.”
Kristi walks back out the door
screaming, “Joshua,
quit marching around inside my head!”
She throws her hands
Far into the air
She has troubles looking at me
When she’s like this

She said, “Sometimes the world wears you down.”

But I know I should have
Never bought the gun.
It was meant for me.
She was my rock, but
Jerhico came crumbling down.

Bodhisattva in a Trenchcoat

Awoogas from the foghorns let me know the city is still alive at 3am. I am a Buddhist Bogart walking through the mist, down deserted city streets, and across invisible sidewalks. A half smoked cigarette dangles from my downturned lips, the smoke intermingling with the sighs of enlightenment and the misty low-riding angels. "Play it again, Sam" pounds harder into my mind as I play the events over and over. Fog horn, cat crashed trash cans, and thump thump of cars going over gridwork make up a nicely groovable inner city jazz trio. Nirvana's out of reach, but that's of my own choosing. I am a bodhisattva in a trenchcoat.

The farther I walk, the more I remember as the concrete brings me closer to my goal. The fog is so thick I can't see my legs move and it feels like I'm floating. Spectral images of houses with their wide open door-mouths and glaring window-eyes shape themselves before me. The ghosts of homeless men wander around, circling like spiritual vultures. Are they ghosts or are they real? Invisibility is the enlightenment they all seek. The homeless are already untouchables spiritually, but their invisibility makes them untouchables socially. I am a bodhisattva on the streets.

And then I enter a patch of alley where no light dares to enter. Mara waited for me with his three daughters and three sons. I had no need for a weapon, for I could back away, and leave them to what they will. I will not be a king of Videha! Although I started my enlightenment in reflection, I shall burn my own inner strength brightly. I shall vacuum the darkness within, so there will be no darkness without. Balance and dharma shall be kept, but the people shall be in favor. Exiting out the alley, I continue my etherial walk down the transcendental street. I am a bodhisattva in the dark.

My fight with the dark over, my brightness reflects back into me. The street lamps and my footfalls are the prayer beads on which I meditate. As the sounds richen in tone, so do my thoughts richen with content. Spiral, twist, alternate, I can almost feel the individual particles of mist surround me to make up the whole. Enlightenment is close. Headlights of passing cars break my concentration, as I move from moment to moment, the lights moving past the moment and into future musings. There is no need for contemplation of parallel universes. Reaching the first Dhyana is difficult enough. I am a bodhisattva in the mind.

The time is 3:30am and I have nowhere in particular to go. My feet are strong and my head held high. The numbers tick by, the past to be replaced forever with the present, and nothing to say about the future. The future is what we make of it ourselves. Tick tock tick tock like the flower meticulously leaning towards the sun with nature the final deciding factor. The flower doesn't care what time it is, nor does it have appointments. But humanity must know what the schedule is before it can transcend beyond it. I am a bodhisattva with a watch.

Ghosts should be laid to rest. Enlightenment should be born to all children. I want to go beyond Sariputra. The gates of tushita heaven are past. Bring them all to me, and I will teach them. Rakshasas will burn from my words. Bringing my coat tighter about me and lighting another cigarette, I smile a crooked smile and vow to the mist that we shall meet again. I am a bodhisattva with a vision.

The Great Suburban Contradiction

Don’t ask me what I need, because I’ll tell you exactly what I don’t need. I’ll tell you exactly what I don’t need just to spite you. I’ll spite you because what you have to offer, if I tell you what I need, I don’t want. I want to contradict you. I want to be whole with the antithesis of your soul. I want to drown your soul in what you don’t want just to spite you. I want, I need, I hope; you care nothing for these. You care for nothing but upholding your facade of caring. You only want to uphold your facade of caring because you care nothing about what I want; and you know this. I don’t want your five bedroom, four-wheel drive, three children, two story, one dog house. I don’t want your barbecue of gossip-mongering knee pinched evil eyed Jacqueline Kennedy pillbox hat zombified wives. I don’t want your gossiped fact creating historical anthropology clouding my openness; clouding my time of El Paso hunted freedom. I don’t want your wool pulling war making me a casualty of ostracized catapulted death. Not that it matters any to you. You evil greedy American death stalked hibachi Saab labrador, you mean nothing to me. I find my exaltation in knowing that you know nothing about my exaltation. My exaltation is being free of your self-created, self-manipulated facade of all things monetary, shallow, gossiped. Money becomes the vehicle of transacted stature, not the vehicle of self-comfort. You drive your money and stature into the ground, along with anyone else caught in your headlights. Your shallowness becomes your deep end of the pool because you don’t know Jack about interactive sociological swimming. You’d drown if anyone of difference rocks your water. Gossip becomes truth to you because you can’t bear to know the real truth about yourself and your lot. God help you if you ever learn the truth. God help you if you ever find out what you need. So, don’t ask me what I need because you’ll find out what you need.