Monday, July 6, 2009

You Can't Fool Me, The Runaway

What I continue to wonder, how much of my spiritual landscape is still like this?

You Can't Fool Me!

The angry demon
Contained within this gemstone
Struggles to get out,
To get me, I'm sure.

Then you say this is truly
Great red compassion
Aimed at hindrances
I have placed before myself.

Oh really, I snort.

You sadly wander
Away, seeking to convince
Some other poor sap .

January 24, 2009 8:57 PM

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As I have posted before, I am no stranger to a science fiction style. I started reading sf as a child. While I have moved on in my reading tastes, (currently reading Paul Theroux's The Elephanta Suite and Peter Mathiessen's Shadow Country with several non-fiction works in the wings as well as more novels), I can go back to sf at the drop of a moonlet.

Here's one

The Runaway

Hanging out here, Oort cloud bound
In a slow boat.
I'm near Triton, long beyond
The mess I left behind on Mars.

Couldn't afford the quick boat.

I regret leaving you
Without even one word before
But there it is, why you
Are better off this way,

Better off without this small heart,
Better off without these bad lies,
Better off without me period.
I am broken, damaged goods.

But oh my God you should see
What I see now.

January 24, 2009 10:15 PM

19 comments:

  1. That poetry is a personal experience for the reader is one reason I love the form. On re-reading "You Can't Fool Me!", I see a different meaning in the "gemstone" than I did on first read. That a gemstone can hold both an angry demon and great red compassion is also an ambiguity with which I relate. You may not be convinced, but unfortunately, I think most is a matter of perspective.

    As for sf, I love it, except for the most techno stuff, which I don't understand and find difficult to read. Oort bound -- I wanna go!

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  2. "Better off without this small heart,
    Better off without these bad lies,
    Better off without me period.
    I am broken, damaged goods.

    But oh my God you should see
    What I see now."

    Oh yes! This Christopher.....is telling a true story .... Why must we constantly feel the need to be less??? Who said that was okay? Who said we need a space ship to feel alien?

    Well, someone should come look in my internal mirror some days....they might just be amazed!

    S'cuse my rave, but that hit home obviously, particularly coming on top of the first...

    :)

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  3. the bells of ruby port

    a ruby gem
    that carves the coast
    a port
    recluse
    yet fair

    bells ring
    resonant
    deep
    and
    low
    through fog
    and salt mist air

    mariners lost
    her sound they know
    with trepidation steer

    toward
    twist of fate
    twisted twice
    twisted compass rose

    scented sweet
    she draws them in
    a kiss to Satan's lips

    to
    twist their fate
    twist it twice
    twist them
    on
    her
    shoals

    GD

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  4. Hmmmmm... contained within the ‘gemstone’ is both good and evil... ‘the angry demon’ and the ‘great red compassion’. A symbolic and telling poem.

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  5. Karen, the Oort Cloud is seriously empty space. Very small snowballs with major distance between them. As poetry, the implication is for some kind of navigation, detection and drive that moves about very quickly and accurately and detects with tremendous sensitivity. Also there is the question, what in heaven's name would we be mining?

    As for the gemstone :)

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  6. Michelle, I think you are beautiful.

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  7. Damn, Ghost, You are quite often my most intriguing friend... :)

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  8. Cath, haven't heard from you in a while. I am deeply Taoist in sentiment. Yin and Yang. Nothing manifest is pure, always contains it's counterpoint. (not opposite, opposition, but opposite, complement)

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  9. Sf is one genre that I have loved as a kid, but have had a hard time returning to (but through the words of poets like you I can return). You have reminded me of something that I had forgotten... Thanks

    SG

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  10. Ooo, Ghost Dancers little piece is an interesting extrapolation... ;D

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  11. I'm not so sharp. I can be fooled.

    If anyone claims to be more than damaged goods they're lying. There's always plenty to see from wherever you are if you just take the time to pause and look. Love this one and it's sf! Who knew!

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  12. Strawberry, yes, I left SF behind by the end of the 60s when I was in my twenties except for a very few remaining works and authors, and then basically completely by the eighties. But my sensibilities and yearnings remain. That's why I can write the occasional poem with an SF motif.

    And yes, Ms Strawberry, Ghost Dansing is an intriguing character in many ways. If you go all the way back to the beginning of this blog you will see Ghost as my most consistent companion, and I dare say good friend.

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  13. Erin, I would offer a suggestion, about the damaged goods. First, yes, I agree because that is the basic nature of the civilizing process of parents raising kids. It has to be of its nature so crude that it is guaranteed to damage a child at some point, up to and including the birth moment itself.

    However, there are many spiritual disciplines which all claim that a transformation is in some way possible such that even in one lifetime some of us can reach a state that either largely or completely compensates for the damage that we each do suffer. Some of us then may by grace or by discipline come to reconciliation or healing.

    I would hesitate to insist that this is impossible even in a single lifetime because I have seen too many impossible things happen in my witness. This is one of the deep gifts of AA in my life, to see impossible things quite often.

    I am not sure what you mean by "who knew". I graduated into science fiction from comic books somewhere around 6 or 7 and was so deep in it I was a book thief to support my habit by high school.

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  14. Oh yes, to be fair, I loved some of the Star Wars stuff. 2001 was a favorite LSD experience. As a complete fool for Frank Herbert's Dune (but not much for the sequels), I actually really liked one of the movies. Xfiles, wow. Close Encounters had me trying to climb into the movie and go too. Some of the Stargate stuff. So movies survive if the producers are willing to spend lots of special effect money.

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  15. But then, I am an odd duck. My uncle was a professional wrestler. I inherited a love of the "sport". The sport part is actually a kind of brutal gymnastics and the body building that supports it. The rest is pure carnival. If you want to be a mark then you can climb into the fantasies they offer, and if you don't care to do that there is still a world of subtlety underneath the fakery. If you wonder how much is fake then go ahead and get in the ring. There is nothing fake about falling five or six feet (actually further by force) to the mat or a foot hard in the face or many of the other maneuvers.

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  16. I often wonder why those who claim to know me best, actually cant ever see past the past y'know. Even though I am dancing as fast as I can, right here in front of them.....it's a bit weird at times. What is it that I have to do?
    Most days it matters not.

    Still......

    Guess that's where I came from with that.

    xx

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  17. Michelle, I am type cast at work that way. I think a little in AA too. I don't have family like that now. They all died. People learn a thing badly if at all. Then it is really hard to get past the habits of mind that they have. They will resist even to the point of violence sometimes. That means, I guess, that new information often is really scary to many people.

    It was really freaky sometimes to hear or read (because my Mom wrote this down and gave sermons about me) my mother's memory of stuff. From high school on, we diverged more and more concerning what actually happened. Finally, I had to say one or the other of us wasn't there.

    If I sense I am causing fear I back away quick if I can.

    Since I am brand new to any part of your life, I am a clean slate to you. You can fill me with all sorts of new detail. :)

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  18. I can't help wondering if you were wrong, about the demon, that is. If you were me, you'd be wrong most likely, and you'd realise it eventually.

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  19. Rachel, I possibly write with tongue in cheek. Maybe. Sometimes. Perhaps.

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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