The Sacredness of Public Office
Astonishment and Illusion in the US Presidential Election Campaign
PROLOGUE: What Astonishes Most About the US Election?
What is the most astonishing thing about the US presidential election campaign? Is it the fact that one of the frontrunners is a proven criminal, having a long background with her husband in the Arkansas mob (some of us have known all this for more than 20 years!), up to her eyeballs in corruption and nefarious activities (and you can easily check all this out for yourself, if you dare to do so)? Is it the fact that so many women are pushing to have her installed as president just so that, for the first time, there will be a vagina in the White House (a so-called “victory for women”)? Is it the huge number of well-meaning but naïve people supporting an old-fashioned socialist apparatchik who claims to be a peacenik but whose voting record shows him to be mainly a conformist hawk [see http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/16/blood-traces-bernies-iraq-war-hypocrisy/ ] (as well as having one of the angriest mouths I have ever seen)? Is it the vitriolic and crude propaganda on all sides being passed so glibly around social media (even by supposedly tolerant and liberal people)? Is it the fact that this election campaign is more of a blatantly bizarre circus than ever before? No, it is none of those things — astonishing though they actually are in themselves. However, by far the most astonishing thing about the US presidential election campaign is that SO MANY otherwise intelligent and discerning people have been fooled into believing that presidents have any real power to change anything at all! It is THAT which astonishes me above all else.
The Monk’s Habit [poem]
My monk’s habit dropped down from
my dessicated, wizened old potential
corpse with some indecent haste.
No wonder! For no longer can I bear
to be a captive in this virgin territory,
lean and starving, hesitantly chaste,
wingless (in a tantric sense), my fecund
fluids being wasted as they languish
uselessly in glandular “disgrace”.
Ageizum?
I’VE OFTEN WONDERED WHY so many people ask me how old I am, almost as soon as they meet me! It’s as if they’re just waiting for the moment when they can slip the question in without it looking like it’s unnatural or intrusive. The reason why I’m asking this is because knowing someone’s physical age transmits nothing of REAL importance to another person. I can honestly say that in my whole life I’ve never asked anyone what is their age. The reason for that is not to avoid being “rude” but because I’m COMPLETELY UNINTERESTED in how many years a certain human physical mass has been on this planet. 🙂 To me that is irrelevant information when I want to “read” someone. In fact, to know someone’s age removes a mystery which I find rather attractive. For me, NOT knowing someone’s age is infinitely more interesting than knowing it 😉 But let me expand on this a little…
Words are Hugely Powerful
WORDS ARE HUGELY POWERFUL (one could also say “magical” or even “alchemical”) and can have a mighty, life-changing effect on people. But behind that effect is something else which is even beyond the words themselves: a kind of “music” if you will. Words which do not in some way induce that effect through some unheard “music” (I speak mystically) are merely functional or communicational (which is fine on their own level and in their own ways). But if artists wish to find their way into hearts with writings and open up those hearts, then they must undergo some kind of transformation themselves before (or even while) they write. In fact, the amount to which people will be affected by a writer’s words corresponds more or less equivalently to the degree to which the writer was affected when s/he originally created the chains of words.
Demolition Man [poem]
Strip me!” said she.
“Oh I will,” said he.
“Rip them off me!” said she.
“Oh, the thrill!” said he.
But it wasn’t to be as she thought.
Then he gave her a look
which she couldn’t understand.
She was waiting for his hands
to start to rob her of her clothes.
And then he dropped the bomb:
“I’m Demolition Man
It’s not what you suppose.”
“But you told me that you love me.”
came the puzzled voice
“And indeed I do,” said he.
“So why,” said she, “will you not start
now with our time of debauchery?”
My Endless Time-Machine [sonnet]
By beauty do not let yourself be fooled.
I mean the outward sort (not from within),
upon which many foolish men have drooled;
for glamour’s not the way love should begin.
Even demons make themselves seem charming
and will impersonate a shiny coat
to their advantage (so, then, disarming).
For over human weaknesses they gloat.
Thus now whenever beauty comes my way
in human form, I smile and check my heart.
My X-ray vision then comes into play
to pierce through skin into a deeper part.
When beauty comes from somewhere that’s unseen,
then love flows in my endless time-machine.
© Alan Morrison, 2016
Stroboscopic Alchemy [poem]
If words were flags and metaphors were flashing lights
then all you’d see would be a mass of semaphore and
stroboscopes from little me (now situated on the edge
of what is euphemistically known as Crusoe’s Galaxy).
So far am i from anchors in the sea or other elements
of what would usually be regarded as stability, I float
with wings which came from Icarus [but suit me more].
Those things which are regarded by the iceful hoardly
maidens of today as being of worth, I have none at all.
For gallantry and wordplay are not valued in the main
and all i have is journeys to the moon and salty tears
& sweetsome meadow mattresses for lazy afternoons
in summer rain of tantric love — electric fingers search
in lovejuiced walls which wrap themselves around my
probes as if within a glove (for this is where they true
belong) and all the world (if seen as an agglomeration
or accumulation of its cells & atoms energies unknown)
is one vast throbbing wave which dreamed itself into
some form our puny drownful brains can understand;
and these are just a handful of the things which i can
give to you, if you will walk with me a little way (please
tell your mother that i’ll not be bleeding you astray).
For silver and fool’s gold i do not own, if taken in the
normal mundane sense of 3-D lucre’s ragged paper trail.
But in my heart there lives an alchemy machine which
processes the fountains of my soul into etheric heaps
of wealth which only can be seen then held by hands
of those who’ve bid themselves goodbye — i’ll know
their mindset when I’ve looked them wholly in the eye
& kissed their inner thighs with more than just my lips.
So let me know if off the edge of Crusoe’s Galaxy you
wish to leap. There’s nothing left to lose. And what’s
the worst which could ensue? The partial death of U.
That’s all! For those who seek to save their lives will
lose them anyway. But those who LOVE to sacrifice
themselves upon the altar of abandoned ego’s hope
will never go astray. So have you seen now what my
flags are signalling & stroboscopic lights are flashing
through this frozen aeon’s slender branchlike tendrils?
There’s nothing here to own or grasp within your hands.
But better to have breathed in nectar’s sweet invisibility
than believe that earthly ersatz property will set you free.
.
.
© Alan Morrison, 2016
The Waves of a Woman [sonnet]
A woman’s like a wave you have to ride.
She ebbs and flows — receives you on her swell;
expects you to discern her crimson tide —
to know her stormly undulations well.
Choose your Crazy [sonnet]
Two kinds of crazy live here in the main:
“A” doesn’t fit (square peg in a round hole);
Whereas “B” thinks s/he’s normal, straight and sane.
B “belongs”; A has fire in the soul.
At home on the earth in its 3-D form,
all the Bs think it’s cute to be anchored
in flesh — enmeshed in a straitjacket norm,
with their spirits enslaved, quelled and conquered.
There are no Mismoments
Nathan receives his Mission from Livinia
IS RAIN MUSIC? Not necessarily. But the sound it makes on everything is more than a symphony. Nathan was listening to the first movement. It started with a largo and soon became an allegro moderato. It was emblematically washing away the dirt (and bruises) which still clung to him from his close encounter with the Police Specials like clumps of cobweb and burrs. So cathartic was the experience that he wandered about in the wetness for what seemed like hours.
The Naked Troubadour 