jump to navigation

Karmic Fall February 8, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
Tags: , , ,
add a comment

Horoscopes, palm readings, tarot cards and other kinds of magic seem fanciful to me. In fact, I always imagine some cigar-smoking, starving writer putting together the horoscopes of the week for a mediocre paycheck while millions of people may read his words and change their entire course of existence based on a few sentences. I do not believe in the occult or magic, but small, disconnected events in my life have led me to question the existence of a magical moment.

Thursday evening, I teach Comparative Religions, a course covering many world religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Standing in front of the class, I speak of the Hindu meaning of the term, Karma, which translates “to do.” The class looks halfway interested in my definition of karma; I cannot tell honestly if I am representing Hinduism seriously to them when I do not believe in the concept of reincarnation or that past deeds from former lives having a direct effect on this current life. Nevertheless, I place the conversation in the context of American culture the best I possibly can.

“You see,” I begin. “Karma means that every action has an automatic moral consequence. Imagine if you murdered somebody in one lifetime. Now imagine you are born again as the one who is murdered. Do you think you have learned your lesson and improved once you are born a third time?”

My mind feels jumbled tonight, and the philosophical conversation may be too much even for me at eight-thirty in the evening. Silence pervades the room. I feel like a rambling professor who, as a friend once told me, is at least not doing harm to the student’s thoughts.

A female student asks, “Professor, a Chinese boy once said I was beautiful. And he said I must have been good in another lifetime to be this pretty.”

I chuckle but do not answer the conversation. She has trapped me. Do I say, “Yes, exactly. You are beautiful because of the good deeds in your former life.” Sexual harassment lawsuit for a professor! Or, do I say, “The boy is trying to seduce you!” Neither answer arrives from my mouth, although the thoughts remain there. I hold back and just smile.

Class ends after a discussion of some of the concepts. Their assignment for next week is to practice karma. To do. To care for somebody without asking for something in return. To help somebody to the car if the ice is too slippery. To open the door for a stranger. To see, ultimately, how good deeds do not lead to beauty in the next life but how good deeds may change the way we view the world now.

During the weekend, these thoughts remain with me. I want to do good for my family and friends, too. I do not want to live in moments of anger, and thinking only of myself may place me in this cycle of resistance to the positive elements of karma. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once states, “I just want to do God’s will.” Perhaps serving others is my way to do God’s will.

Therefore, I spend the entire weekend with my parents. I take my son Ethan to see his brother Parker in Tulsa. Usually, I scream at Ethan because he does not follow my directions, but this weekend, I simply relax and let Ethan be Ethan. My parents even seem more relaxed as we spend time talking about the snow over the past month, our jobs, the children, and the past. The highlight of the trip may be when Ethan jumps on Big Daddy’s back and makes him ride around the room like a horse. Usually, I scream, but this week I remember my own lesson about “automatic moral consequences.” Screaming will only heighten the conflict. Screaming will create chaos, and chaos leads to internal suffering.  I allow my father to run around the house like a horse as Ethan pounds (ouch!) his back to go faster, faster, faster.

Sunday arrives. In the van, we drive to Sonic for a morning breakfast before dropping off Parker at his home before Ethan and I will return to Oklahoma City. After the Sonic food and drinks arrive, my son Parker feels overwhelmed.

He blurts out, “Something is going to fall!” His face seems terrified and tight. We have so many drinks in the front of the van. So many Sonic bags filled with French toast sticks, tator tots, corn dogs, and egg burritos.

I touch his arm gently and say, “It’s okay. What happens if the drinks spill? It’s just liquid. It does not have to change our happy moment. Everything is just an object.”

Parker is used to my philosophical moments and sometimes will argue for fun, but today, I calm him. He eats his French toast sticks in peace, relaxes on the drive to his home, and upon arriving at his driveway, carries his food and entire bags without spilling one object. He masters his own fear. I watch him enter the garage and click the garage door button. I already miss him, but he has the tools for a great life!

Ten minutes later, I stand at a gas pump filling up the blue van. Ethan sits in the back seat making funny faces at me through the dark windows. As the gas pumps to the tank, I return funny faces, too. I stick out my tongue and open my eyes as wide as possible. Ethan punches the glass, and playfully, I fall back a few feet as if he knocks me down for the punch. Continuing my faces, I make Ethan laugh, and he continues punching the glass to see my reactions.

Before the gas pump clicks to tell me the tank has filled, I make one more funny face for Ethan. His fist hits the glass. I fall back as usual, but this time, I trip over my feet and fall directly to the ground. My lower back smashes to the pavement first, as my arms somehow balance myself and keep my head from pounding against the concrete. A few seconds pass. I am in shock and trying to return to reality. The gas pump clicks. I gather my thoughts but feel the overwhelming pain shocking me toward reality again.

Suddenly, many thoughts flash before me as I still lie on the ground. Karma talk on Thursday night. My disbelief in supernatural powers through the use of tarot cards. My son’s fearful glance from the window. The lawsuit I briefly think of processing against the gas station, although I will not win. (Maybe it is always human nature to blame others for our own pain and suffering.)

I cannot lie down in pain forever, I decide. My son Parker’s fear arrives like a vision. Does he not say in the van earlier that he is afraid something is going to fall? Do I not tell him that happiness can still exist even if a drink falls? Do I not calm him as he leaves the vehicle and returns to the house? Have I not learned the true lesson of my own voice? And, maybe I, too, need to fall down on the hard concrete to make a lesson stick, especially since I am extremely stubborn.

Quickly, I stand and lean toward the window where Ethan sits in fear on the other side.

“I’m okay,” I say to him through the window. I hold my hands in the air like a winning boxer and convince my son Ethan that he does not have to be afraid either. He does not smile, but he calms down as I return to the car in reckless pain.

The drive home is quiet. Ethan plays games on his Nintendo DS. I listen to music but mostly watch the road. I still do not believe in tarot cards, I decide, but a door opens to me on the quiet highway as we pass through small towns and see branchless trees and pastures. Perhaps there is a power I do not understand. Perhaps Parker received what some might call a premonition. He had this intense feeling that something was going to fall. Little did he know that I would be the one who fell. Are there connections to these two parallel events? I do not know if they are simple coincidences, but without my focus this week on karma, on doing good for others, on hearing Parker’s fear in the car, and on reacting positively toward everything I learned, I would not be in this car right now contemplating how the simplicity of disconnected events may have a higher dimension.

I am now partly a believer in magic. For without it, I would still be lying on the concrete cursing myself. I am also a believer in karma. For without it, I never would have risen from the concrete to smile at my son and stop anger before it had arisen within me.

I look at my palm briefly in the car. So many lines I do not understand. I then turn to my scraped arm from the accident. Though a little sore, I smile at the pain and await patiently for the next lesson coincidence or God has in store for me.

–Moon

Foul February 2, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
add a comment

Foul

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by teachers, language unbearably naked,

dragging their mechanical prose through a 3-point system in hard, wooden chairs while composing in purple ink to confront the boredom,

self-righteous, closet necrophiliacs squirming to expose the morbidity of silence but declining cathartic honesty for abortion, freedom, and gun control,

who wrote about gun control, freedom, and abortion after you forbade them to capture the aestheticism of their first sexual encounter in Chicago at an abandoned car wash,

who stumbled over Shakespearean diction, irony, and the hierarchy of the Norton Anthology while contemplating rap music, the Chicago Cubs, and street jargon,

who possessed god, faith, and deliverance somewhere in their ink before you rearranged three commas, extinguishing the burning transcendental sensation that must have consumed you,

who took notes reluctantly over thesis statements, topic sentences, paragraphs, and other rhetorical, bourgeoise bullshit while dreaming of cigarette smoke scorching a hole in another gerund phrase and misplaced modifier,

who outlined their essays with roman numerals and could not remember if the letters a, b, and c should be capitalized,

who inserted a gyrating, personal introduction only to destroy coherency with the suggestions from you to keep narration and opinion away from a documented, informative paper,

who deleted all adverbs, prepositions, and larded phrases turning their backs on culture, dialect, and colloquialisms,

who ditched conversational tones for the acquisition of scholarly thought, dressing language in a breasted suit, the same white shirt while longing for dirt-grimed jeans, flannel holes, and army boots.

mixed metaphors on marijuana, inspiration, and debauchery; analogies back-firing into complicated ambiguities; complex sentences jumbled with comma splices, danglers, and run-ons–their prose too shallow to capture the river in floods of terse, quick fragments,

who screamed at the thought of original thought only to be rejected–the revelatory insight not supported well with examples,

who spent more time analyzing incorrect sentences than writing them, decomposing another’s language to discover content,

who felt betrayed by exploring meaning through free-writing, scribbling the chaotic mind on whiteness, and finding language emerging from the unconscious,

who refused to read their words aloud, basking in the limelight, the moonlight, but instead summarized their written voice, as if conversation could capture more than the serendipity of an unexplained rhythm,

who write and speak the same spending more time reading The Iliad, Simon and Schuster, or Strunk and White’s Elements of Style than fixating beautiful madness on paper,

who skimmed the first essay, “Angels, Demons, and Butterflies,” searching for a thesis before deciding if the first word had any meaning,

who hated the poetry of Spenser, Pope, and Shelley never reading Ginsberg, Sexton, or Dickey,

who perceived themselves as readers, wayward writers who wanted to master the subtleties of the English language,

who drew blank at an open-ended question until you served them the easy answer to the meaning of life,

who never analyzed Roger and Me, Harold and Maude, or The Jerk–contemplation might confront their repressed anxieties–but noticed the details of Romeo and Juliet after you had given them a synopsis of the tragedy,

who hated writing, sharing their unformulated thoughts, splashing imaginary meaning on paper while waiting for class to begin,

who despised you for towering above them, leaning over the royalty podium,

who listened to the same lesson plan you had given six years ago to their sisters,

who wondered how they would be forced to write in freshman composition,

who hoped for you again next year after discovering your grading style, your quirks to recieve an A,

until they enrolled in English 111, section 27 who faced a teacher more interested in life experience:

a foot pounding the soccer ball into the reach of the goalie’s fingertips and losing the game,

a grape soda can recalling an unreflected fear of staying home alone,

the terror of pooping in the middle of lunch without you granting them the right to use the restroom,

overcoming a fear of singing on stage,

finding five pages of art by pondering the meaning of elevator

the chaos of firetrucks and blazing buildings,

a life without a father around…..

who stared at the ceiling for many years before discovering their intrinsic ability, the passion of communal acceptance…

Streams of Consciousness February 2, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
add a comment

the ironing board paws the carpet where
is the can of Faultless lemon starch shirts
need ironed the one you wore yesterday
if you’ll decide to leave you’ll wear again
another day of your life or the one
life you live you can’t tell the difference
anyhow your son does’t know culture
america who paints blank slated mind
with repressed images contaminate
a temple of the holy ghost filters
drano poured into the stomach to scrape
away the dross and coat a new statue
of liberty the color of money
your wife would say is only in your head
thinks to join the circus become a clown
turns on music to pump a well that runs
deep fills quick when resorvoir dams inside
thoughts sink a boat you fish from when you need
truth of lie you dive through muggy water
spills oil on your newest levis jeans
grandpa died yesterday needs a few bucks
to buy some stain remover your soul moves
places you don’t go don’t know how you dreamed
of god last night the mother of jesus
sweats or pants did he really breathe on top
of joseph is the elixir of pain
suffering to preserve lungs the ozone
flawless falls into india’s fire
transcends ashes into the warmest flesh
the burning bush grows inside you await
to swim through god’s bowels until skin blisters
under the tree of knowledge ecstatic
naked sip a martini changes water
to wine where the blind man clicks his heels begs
for a coin to toss in the machine game
over drano combats clogged arteries
your grandpa swallowed

The Garden (Version 2) February 2, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
add a comment

The Garden

I watch you move
from fallen pine cones
to needles you disregard
to the rim holding
the ancient sun,
where your grandmother
drooped to touch
the reflection of light
on tilled soil.

There in dirt,
wresting zanahorias,
she dreamed
of a withering heat
mocking the vision
of sprouting buds
and hailstones chopping
at her abandoned hut.

There in dirt,
the sun warping
Indian skin,
she grew anonymous
with nutrients.

There in the affirmed earth,
she became your dreamer,
burrowed beneath a lamp
of submission,
while in morning
you read
your father’s books:
Aquinas, Agustino,
el catecismo.

Her words like weeds
tapered beneath
a stalk of corn
came and went
with the chapped wind.

Her eyes exposed you
as a pigeon drifting
through air
then concealed you
as seed in the palm
of her fist.

She stood at a distance
throwing grain
on turned over soil
and turned it over again.

She was pitching you
a lost antiquity,
fostering a green jungle
to sweep fire
over country,
and preserving a prayer
to bury the demons
that hurled
against Atlantic winds,
to drain out
the unsettled forces
of Spanish fleets
that defied the dead.

My dark-eyed lover
drifting through the mist
of inherited regret,
your virgin bones
are drying out now,
blood pumped
away from roots
of swollen ankles.

Among plowed fields
she demanded
you shake out
the twitches
of original sin,
learn how sin
rewards you strength,
how humbling yourself
before the Lord
will drive you
into the sanctuary
of passion,
where the priest
who loosens
his collar bends you
lower to feel remorse,
lower to earth
to feel the burning
in your feet,
where he withdraws
the blood that clotted
you from turning
your back
on a garden of salt.

Your feet are beginning
to loosen,
to relax here
among pine cones
beyond the dark, dark ocean.
Waves like slave ships
roll through you,
toss you like sweat
adding fuel
to your eyes.

Into the North,
you flew,
expending seeds
of citrus
in Bogota, Havana,
Miami,
dropping them
as a path
that would bind you
back to the maze
of the Andes
and lead you
toward a garden
with strange vegetation:

pine trees shading
the heat of the sun;
pine cones hiding
the focus of earth.

Here,
you sweat,
linger for the moon
to appear
between sap and needle.
Alone here
with me
in a garden of pine cones,
you lie down
as a sacrifice.
As earth turns
around you,
you are crucified
by these hands
that mold your eyes
with clay.

You exalt me
as your lover,
turn before me
as a child bending
to worship my hands
as the crucifix,
while we watch
needles surround us,
poke holes in our pores,
and feed us,
a jungle blazing
over the earth.

Death Call February 2, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
add a comment

death-call

cold wind

shuns

the thick wall

paint

while the roar

of ancient

sirens bleed

like the saint

on fire

with sin-scarred

restraint;

her white eyes

wired

from the tear

of her vein

twitch at the

telephone singing

to the heat of the

rain.

Demi-God February 2, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
add a comment

Demi-god

We were the young ones

who scraped our jaws against

wet fingernails and sucked light

from the dry-mooned river.

That music still beats in our skulls -

the unclothed rhythm

of air-filled lungs

breeds an unknown origin

where the facts twist like emotion

and scorch our tongues,

as we shape old tools

formed by wide-eyed fools.

We are the remnant

of pale, stoned gold,

carving images of ourselves

onto the dusty floor.

We step over

forest bones,

taking delight in the coming of the

sun’s silent moans

behind thick clouds

where new beginnings

yield to the howl

of hungry wolves

starving from instinct pains

during morning fog rains.

And we eat well

this morning,

and they can not abate us

as we smile without reason,

confront the weathered season,

chant the rosary song,

and move along

like a twitch

which fires through our palms to alert us.

Every Tuesday February 2, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
Tags:
add a comment

Every Tuesday

Every Tuesday,

I paid the bus to take me

to the cafe,

and you, waiting for me,

yawned, blinked, and sipped your tea,

your hands fiddling with the sugar bowl.

After I entered the doorway

and watched your grin,

your green eyes caught me

as we sat and talked,

drank and laughed,

but we did not walk outside together.

Every Thursday,

I dreamed of your warm smiles

And high cheeks that blushed at me,

long blonde hair that dangled in your tea,

breeze eyes like a tattoo

stitched to the skin

that shocked me,

as i stumbled through the doorway

and watched you sink into your chair

and say, “I missed you!”

Friday. No warmth or moon.

Just one bottle in this room

Eating alone this dried-out food,

and where are you now

as I shiver down this frozen dinner.

Release my freeze;

I need life again.

Monday, before I sleep,

I wonder how we will meet.

When I approach the cafe

and near the door

slip on iced pavement,

will I ignore or reflect

on the window scene -

you sipping tea, me outside shaking?

I will hide away from you,

And you will see a glimpse of me…

Ode to Whitman February 2, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
add a comment

Ode to Whitman

While you celebrate yourself,

Bow down, and gulp the stream,

I shake from dream to prayer,

Asking God why you did not choke,

Because I know I might have coughed

Although I swore I would have smiled.

I guess you can swallow

Better than I can dream.

When I walk along the beach,

And the night winds push the waves

Beyond the sands,

I run from salt and the deep purple specks

That brush against the rocks.

I fly to the seawall

To smell the fish with dried limbs,

With unpunctured wounds.

Do I dare lick the worm

That gnaws at the germ beneath my feet?

Do I dare blindly sink

My teeth into the mud

And feel around for some strange

Liquid fleeing to my lungs?

Would I dare to celebrate

The pathetic numbness

Of my twitching tongue?

–Moon

The Garden (Version 1) February 2, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
Tags:
add a comment

The Garden

Columbian roll of the tongue,

A syrupy sweat grounding

The fire in your dark, complicated eyes -

I watch you move from fallen pine cones

To spiky needles which you disregard

As unyoked fruit, to the rim holding

The ancient sun which your grandmother

Bent low to touch the reflection of light

Upon warm, moist soil.

There in the dirt defining her wooden idols,

She dreamed of a withering heat

Mocking the vision of sprouting buds

And hailstones chopping

At her old, abandoned hut.

There in the dirt the sun warping

Her Indian skin, she became anonymous

With the nutrients. There in the affirmed earth,

She became your lover, your misplaced prophet

Which you wanted to study further

Beneath the cruel, dim lamps of submission

Reading Aquinas, Augustine, Theresa, and others.

Her words like tapered weeds

Beneath a stalk of corn came and went

With the chapped wind. Her eyes

Would reveal you as a drifting pigeon

Then conceal you in the palm of her shaking, ambiguous fist.

She stood at a distance spreading seeds

On turned over soil

And turned it over again.

She was speaking to you about a lost antiquity,

About the green jungle sweeping fire over the country.

She was spreading out a prayer to cast down

The demons that hurled against Atlantic winds,

To drain out the unsettled forces of Spanish fleets

Fevering over rich, insensitive mountains

Which had raised the dead.

My dark-eyed lover among these pine cone thorns

Drifting through the mysticism of an old woman’s regrets,

Your thin virgin bones are drying out now,

Blood being pumped away from the roots

Of swollen ankles. She demanded in blind ritual

Among the open fields that you shake out

The nervous twitches of original sin, the fearsome

Call of Satan, a new breath like a baby learning

How sin rewards you strength,

How humbling thyself before the Lord

Will drive you into the sanctuary of passion

Where the lost priest loosening

His white collar bends you

Lower to feel the remorse, lower

To the earth, so you could feel the burning

In your feet as he beats out the blood

That clotted you, hindered you

From walking away from her salt-ruined garden.

Your feet are beginning to loosen,

To relax here among pine cones

Beyond the dark, dark ocean,

The waves like slave ships tumbling over you

Tossing you like the bursting sweat

That is defining you. Into the North,

You fled, planting seeds into the rainy soils

Of Bogota, Havana, Miami.

You flew North spitting out seeds

Of citrus oranges, dropping them as a path

That could bind you back to the maze of the Andes

And lead you toward a new garden with strange vegetation,

Pine trees shading you from the heat of the sun,

Pine cones hiding you from the focus of earth.

Here, you sweat, lingering for the moon

To be seen between the sap and the needle.

Alone here, with me, in a garden of pine cones,

You lie down for the sacrifice.

As the earth turns around you,

You are crucified by these hands

That have followed your eyes

From childhood visions to present dreams.

You exalt me as your new lover, turn

Before me as a child bending low

To worship my hands as the crucifix,

While I watch the needles surround you,

Poke hole in your pores, and feed you

Like a jungle blazing over the entire earth.

–Moon

Deer Tracks January 5, 2010

Posted by cataractmoon in Uncategorized.
add a comment

Tent near Illinois River / I awake to a powder snow and artifacts: / deer tracks in a morning sunglow –moon