The benefits of meditating on impermanence in time of plague (which has confronted me with the finally-understood-to-be-inescapable fact that in order to fearlessly live, I have to learn how to be ok with my death, something I really have to work on)

Even if you are extremely beautiful, you cannot seduce death. If you are very powerful, you cannot hope to influence death. Even being incredibly wealthy cannot buy a few minutes more life. At present we cannot bear the small discomfort caused by a prickly thorn or the heat of the sun. What about the anguish we have to face at the time of death? We will be taken from our family and friends like a hair removed from butter--not a fragment of butter remains attached to the hair.

Death is as certain for us as for someone stabbed through his their heart by a knife, yet the moment of death is uncertain. Our life is as evanescent as dew on the tip of a blade of grass, and nothing can stop death--no more than anyone can stop the lengthening shadows cast by the setting sun.

Once a devotee offered a length of cloth to Drubthop Chöyung, a prominent disciple of Gampopa, and requested him for teachings, but was put off. He painstakingly insisted again and again, and Drubthop Chöyung finally took the man's hands in his and said, "I will die, you will die," three times. And then added, "That's all that my guru taught me, and that's all that I practice. Just meditate on that. I promise there is nothing greater than that."

Khyentse Rinpoche

 via Matthieu Ricard

[lifted from john bloomberg-rissman's zeitgeist spam.  a deep bow to john for writing the title in bold & for allowing me to post his piece here.  i find this mini-essay deeply moving & very beautiful.  gracias mi hermano.] 

there was an eerie calm inside Safeway.  i thought the store would be crowded by preppers for armageddon.  instead i was met with a handful of people each person going out of their way to keep their distance.  e.g. i turned into the frozen foods.  i surprised the woman who was deep into choosing a frozen pizza.  she jumped when she saw me.  so i made a wide berth around her.  it had only been a few days since my last shopping trip.  then the shelves were bare or close to no stock & the aisles were stuffed with shoppers.  now the shelves were fairly well stocked but if you wanted eggs or paper towels or, yep you guessed it, toilet paper you were shit out of luck.  i read that the grocery supply lines were the most robust in our economy.  to wit, as i parked my car a Safeway supply truck was backing in to the loading bay.  so why all the panic buying?  unless everyone is in on some secret that i am not privy to.  one that says we are close to running out of things.  be that is it may, there was plenty of beer, coffee, bread & even bananas available for my cart.  & yet the PA repeated instructions to keep at least 2 meters or 6 feet apart & other safety measures rather than the pop music it usually broadcast.  & the check out stands were marked with tape to signal people where to stand in line to keep that desired 2 meters distance.  at the point of sale plastic barricades were installed to protect the clerk from coughs & sneezes.  not only are health care workers heroic in their jobs so are grocery store clerks.  they report to work keeping us supplied in the necessities of living as the virus rages in & among us.  it might be economic necessity that keeps these wonderful people reporting to their jobs at much needed grocery stores but their work is heroic & brave just the same.  can the world change in an instant?  you better fucking believe it.  but change into what.  hamlet would need to ask that question.   

ride into no where



some months ago i posted a video 'acid rain' by electronica artist lorn that is one of the most melancholy things i've seen in a very long while.  lorn released this month another video 'timesink' that is an emblem for our present unreality in the pandemic.  the video has a Stranger Things vibe but there is something else happening as well.  you'll see it too.

stay safe, stay healthy, my brothers, sisters & non-binaries.

on social distancing

it could be out of habit that we tour

our city by car

as we measure each distance between ourselve

in meters &/or feet

& yet that quick drop by the grocery store

proves others have the same idea

stock up on staples like milk & bread

fresh fruit

but even at Home Depot 

there were a great many people

poking at the garden section 

buying nails & lumber

each crowding the cash registers 

& trying to keep their distance

god help someone who sneezes or coughs

perhaps the knives would come out

& we take our frustration anger & confusion

of something that feels completely unreal
the humor cracked & the boil lanced

like we were dropped into a sci fi movie

as all of us scour the shelves for just one role

of toilet paper

anna read a suggestion that i think is a good idea as we live in & thru these strange days.  record it.  keep a journal.  take pictures.  make videos.  write poems.  compose music.  create in the chaos of fear & confusion.  for these are ways to keep our sanity.  this feels like a once-in-lifetime crisis.  when i asked friends how does the pandemic feel to them i get the answer: monumental; even larger than 9/11.  it is way too early to tell what changes might be wrought to bear upon us as a result of this virus.  but change is happening.  one thing is that we have discovered that the world can change in a moment.  i saw an article in which the writer was wistfully nostalgic of the relative stability of last month.

anna & took a walk in the late morning & later in the early evening.  the morning's walk on a beautiful spring day there seemed to be nothing out of sorts.  families were out walking too.  lots of people walking their dogs.  people were gardening & children were playing outside.  a cast of normality.  this pandemic made people rediscover the simple things like being out in the fresh spring air & strolling at their leisure.  even my sister-in-law texted me an article about how my beloved drive-ins are doing well because they were open & in the open air where families could watch a movie in the relative isolation of their vehicles.

but in the early evening the streets were empty.  bars & restaurants & shops were shuttered with signs on their doors & windows excusing their closing on the coronavirus.

it was eerie like we were walking in the first 20 minutes of an apocalyptic movie.  very few cars on the roads.  the liquor stores were open as were the gas stations.  what was normally a bustling bistro was dark & void.

such a strange sight for such a popular eatery that on a warm spring weekend night it was a ghost town.

but i think the stranger portion of these strange days is that feeling of unreality.  what was once a very normal activity such as going out to eat &/or drink turned into places of potential vectors.  we hit the pause button on past normality.  & if you get sick well there is a sign for that too.

anna & i are curious what sort of art shall be made from these soiled cloths.  how shall we tell these stories.  what poems to be made.  what music shall the virus light.  for we are pattern making story-telling creatures.  the virus just is & cares not who it infects as long as it is a stable body for a host.  but we shall do what we've always done make art in our way to make sense of the senseless.  we live in a world of cold calculation & random chance.  how we survive is by our making.  how we live is by the strength of our song our stories. 
   

2 questions

1.  will we get thru this?
     yes

2.  will it be like hell?
     yes

spring & all

& the weather was beautiful, sunny & mild, with a refreshing breeze.  i had the day off work so i mowed the lawn & swept up the leaves & pollen & other organic pieces of spring scattered on the porch, driveway, sidewalk, & grass.  the work was wonderful.  just the kind of physical thing i needed to do to get my mind off the present show of shit.

later i went shopping at trader joe's being pleasantly surprised to find everything i needed on the shelves, like bread & bananas.  the store was busy but i didn't feel that 'end of the world' vibe.  i also listened to a science podcast with a disaster preparedness expert who said to be serious about the pandemic but don't panic & put it in perspective.

which was a long way from feeling like yesterday at work & later at my local safeway.  it feels to me that we are moving to a war footing.  this shit is unprecedented in my life, & i'm sure yours too.  & yesterday panic was vibrating the very molecules of the air.

well, later today i settled in to read the news.  first, the local government issued a decree placing sacramento county on lockdown starting at midnight.  later, the governor ordered the entire state to begin self-quarantine.  anna is watching a counter ticking off the number of infections in real time where you can read the arithmetic of exponential growth as it happens.

what to say about all this?  i'm as concerned, confused & flummoxed as you.  i am not at the stage of panic.  this is not the end of the world, nor is it like the year 1348.  but today my friend john b-r reminded me that we would encourage each other with the words, 'let's party like it's 1347' as we were assembling our anthology, the end of the world project.

how the hell could we even hazard that the roaring '20s would be caused by a fever?  it does feel as if this were the night before new year's eve 1348.

it is dark right now.  it will probably get darker in the following weeks &/or months.  we got a ways to go 'to get back to normal'.  tho i am not sure the normal i knew as a younger person is no longer the norm of our present time.  i keep reading articles about how this pandemic will permanently reorient & change our society.  will it?  we shall soon find out. 

'describe yourself in 7 words'

dumb poet in love with the world

0 to weird in 1.5 days

to use a phrase i heard on PBS News Hour this was a week like no other.  i mentioned the strangeness i - we - are experiencing in our young century.  last night i wrote about the bare shelves at the grocery stores.  but tonight was a different thing altogether.  i went back to the store to pick up a few items.  i am astonished by what i witnessed.  everything from fresh produce - i love bananas & there were none to be had! - to canned & frozen foods, cleaning products, even pet food, was either gone or quickly vanishing.  & paper products, pooft!, absolutely empty aisle  there was a weird vibe too hanging in the air.  an end-of-days kinda of vibe.  

it ain't the end-of-days but this is the first pandemic i've - we've - experienced.  like i wrote last night humanity has suffered from & thru war, famine & disease before, but this one is the first for all of us.  & the health experts tell us that we are just at the beginning.  the arithmetic of exponents is at work.  a doubling every few days. the rate of infections may slow come the warmer months but this particular strain of coronavirus is gonna be with us for a long while.

what to make of it all?  as i said, listen to the scientists.  & don't fucking panic.  what this pandemic proves is that we are an interconnected species & cultures.  we cannot wall ourselves out of this.  we are one species living on a single planet breathing the same air, eating the same foods, & wanting the same things.  like love, acceptance, understanding, compassion.  i am as flummoxed as all the rest of us.  this pandemic also proves that we should not take anything for granted because the rate of change happens in microseconds.  a month ago this seemed like a problem outside the u.s.  now, we are facing 1000s of infections & many deaths.

this shit is weird.  i am not afraid.  but my level of alarm is elevated.  i have not seen this kind of thing in my lifetime.  don't fucking panic.  i am not an expert of any kind but a poet, & a human being, who is in this world till my bitter, or sweet, end.  LISTEN TO THE SCIENTISTS.  & remember that we are all one species, homo sapiens, living on a small rock in the vast cosmos.  together.

as douglas adams said in his hitchhikers guide to the galaxy trilogy:

DON'T PANIC!

sage advice.  now i'm gonna get back to my deep dive into the shallow pool of youtube videos.

peace mi brothers, sisters & non-binaries.  

each succeeding year in our young century gets stranger & stranger.  i am nearly at a loss for words & words are my business & my life.  humanity has suffered famine, war & disease.  yet, this pandemic, our reaction & actions to it, is unprecedented in my 50+ years on this blue marble.  a couple of weeks ago i was reading some dude on the internet advising those who would listen to start to stock up on necessities like food & paper products.  i thought yeah sure.  two weeks later the store shelves are bare.  it is panic buying but panic buying forces its own logic, & those who would resist it might succumb to panic buying because the shit that we need may not be there when we run out at home.  it might've been an overreaction but i did buy about a month's worth of paper products, & earlier this week, before social media started posting pictures of long lines, filled carts & empty shelves sans food, i purchased a couple weeks extra victuals.  the guy who posted his warnings a couple weeks ago stated that if he is wrong you got some extra stuff you will use anyway.  i agree. i hope the stores don't run out of beer & coffee.  horrors!  now, the news changes by the hour.  schools announced they would close for three days next week to do some deep cleaning.  today, the school district issued an announcement that schools will be closed until the end of the month.  again, in my 50+ years on this clamshell i've not seen this kind of reaction to a virus.  ever.  until now.  as a society we are on pause.  the song, 'life in wartime' by the talking heads is on constant loop.  we are shuttering our doors.  even disneyland is closing for a couple of weeks.  we are such a capitalist society that when multi-billion $$$ corporations willingly close up shop & lose millions $$ in revenue is a wake up that we are in some serious shit.  listen to the scientists.  we still have some good ones working for us.  in the meantime, in between time, read some poetry.  listen to music.  watch a really bad movie.  remember why we work to live & love.  paul eluard, who survived ww2 & saw his own serious shit, might not have imagined the level of surrealist society we have today.

stay safe, brothers & sisters & non-binaries.  we are all we have. 

psychedelia from the mid 1980s via the paisley underground
[rip david roback (1958 - 2020)]

the past is never dead.  it's not even past. 
--william faulkner

quote unquote

as with so much of what people leave behind, it's difficult to say what was meant.  we can only surmise that they loved, that they were afraid.

barry lopez ['intro' to field notes; 1994]

5 anti-rules for poets/poetry

observe
interrogate
imagine
have fun
report

--via & in homage omar perez

'in the end the love you take is = to the love you make'

& everything - if you want it to - becomes a poem

my notebook

i carry a moleksin notebook with me almost everywhere i go.  it's usually in my backpack & i take my backpack with me, as i just said, everywhere.  my backpack also holds my lunch, the books i am currently reading, some poems, some notes, & my air pods too.  i used to be in the habit of writing a little everyday.  recently i've written little.  i let myself go fallow.  i also have an iPhone & have become a habitual - some might say addicted - user of my phone.  what a remarkable device.  i can read/listen/watch & even make a phone call with it!  my phone has also become my notebook.  i keep notes on it, & i am writing a series of poems on my phone too.  so it surprised me when i pulled out my moleskin from my backpack & placed it on my desk at work.  i figure even if i don't write anything in my notebook just having it in front of me is a fruitful act.  it is.  because i opened my notebook & wrote down an inchoate title for a possible poem.  then i started scribbling various thoughts & lines.  i let myself go.  gave myself the freedom to write whatever without feeling the internal pressure of making a new poem.  it felt wonderful like good exercise.  the muscles & the mind humming in harmony & speed.  i date my entries too.  so it shocked the hell out of me to find that i have not written in my moleksin since march of last year, 2019.  i think the big gap comes from two sources.  first i am taking notes & writing poems using my phone, & the second is this blog.  i often compose directly on this blog.  okay, fine, fer sure, but man! again, a whole year passed since i last cracked open my moleskin.  it felt like only a couple of months had passed.  i was shocked.  time might seem to crawl in my mind, but it doesn't.  time is racing at light speed.  not for the first time too.  i remember watching a david lynch movie, lost highway [1997], thinking it was still pretty new.  when i did see the flick it was many years after its initial release.  so what does this all mean?  i dunno.  i'm just, in the phrase of the japanese poet nanao sakaki, a happy idiot.  but for time not waiting for no one.  & that might be the most shocking thing of all.  i live in the present yet the day is forever turning into tomorrow.  bear in mind, i am happy i've kept a few notes.  

memo to the revolutionaries

fight for your right to speak to write to read to publish to assemble to petition to disagreement to confusion to love to kiss to party

quote unquote

i am with the revolutionaries until they attain power
--artur lundkvist