Swine

I feel fed on by ravenous crows, a murder of them tearing at my spirit with hungry maws.
At home I make an appetizer plate of it and offer it to my children. Them I wish to feed, but they won't eat.
I return to the town square and they take and trample my gifts under a pretext of civility and general goodness. They tell me what a wonderful job I am doing and ask me for more and more. Then they take it and chew it and spit it out. 
I feel weakened to the marrow afterwards. I keep returning to the village for the benefit of my children, but who benefits from the con of life?
My children like to play with the other children but they don't do the work the townspeople give them. And I spill all of my life blood and effort on the cobblestones in the square, for the benefit of the community, but who is watching for the best interest of my own brood?
What sustenance will they gain if I waste all the nourishment I have to offer on swine and let my offspring be indoctrinated by swine?

Father and the Elf

When looking for proof of any theory
it will undoubtedly appear.
Ego has been spoken of in many ways
as if it was never part
of the psychedelic realm.

Through hypnosis and other means
we embarked on a study
of the Pythagorean cult, the pentagram,
the Fibonacci Sequence, the Golden Ratio,
the Wizard of Oz and Lady Gaga.

The word psychedelic was used
for the elf that we discovered
within this network of signifiers.
It was hard to agree on his existence
but everyone missed him
when he was not there.

As is the case with most beings of influence,
he required extra added coverings
and ways to get along with the outside world.

It was around that time
that Father was identified
as a member of the Illuminati.
When we made this discovery
we viciously hit the frontal lobe of his brain
with a tiny steel hammer.
In this way
we filtered out the data that was unwanted.

Later that week
we found ourselves noticing things
we had never paid attention to before.
We noticed a number of changes.
We could no longer feel sadness
we could no longer feel angst.

One recurring accusation was that
our thoughts were riddled with subliminal messages.
We began to see evidence of this everywhere.
We found a detailed description of the pentagram
and we cried or laughed at inappropriate times.

We experimented with a magical technique called
the filter theory of selective attention.
There were numerous Illuminati symbols hidden
all throughout our symbolic realm
but we were not able to find the single eye.

We found that
the core of the persona
the core of our very being
would actually become psychedelic
at the very least amount of effort,
it had been this way all along.

We used a mind control method
where half of us were induced
into dissociative personality disorder.
Since then,
it became apparent
there were at least two groups of us
completely unknown to each other,
maybe more.

This was similar to what happens
in the legendary blot experiment
of the Pythagorean cult.
Something we would soon discover.

Because the part of Father's brain
controlling social action
was completely destroyed
his thoughts became truly psychedelic.

We found that we had
grown within this person,
this being we called Father.
Father was the cave
Father was the house.

But what really was Psychedelic?
What did we mean by this word?

Father is very childish now.
It’s infectious.
He is full of lightning bolts and broken mirrors. 
When any of these symbols are seen in any context,
we place them in the unprovable category,
the same word we once used
to describe the elf.

Then he starts to laugh.

Ferryman

At the mouth of the mad bad bardo lands, way down south where the demons grin like miracle rainbows as they hang you upside down and naked, demanding the truth. Way beyond the sacred cities of  our immaculate lady of the symbolic order where proper folk wear their Sunday finest to listen to THE good WORD.
There in the border lands, that's where you'll meet your ferryman dressed in black, silver spurs glinting in the sunlight. The threat of his guns holstered and silent is no less ominous than if they were hot and smoking.
When you see him, you know this is the one who can lead you, the one who can show you the way. He will be your coyote, your guide, familiar with both worlds; the land of the bright and shinning living, a superficial blemish of law and order, and the land of the dead, a deep rooted eternal dirt devil of chaos and freedom.
The man with a gun, eyes shaded by his black hat, will escort you to your destiny, to the terrible truth from which you've been running.  He can show you why you're afraid to live and why you're afraid to die. He can give you a purpose, a mission, something to do in the chaotic wilderness or in the sterile town, something to lift you beyond life and death.
He will give you a quest, demand a sacrifice. Only those who accept live the life eternal. Those who answer his call become legend, wings outstretched to brush against endless vistas.
All others become whirling demons or pasty servants of the word, taking what they can while they can, or hiding in fear of the Real, building walls against its hot unforgiving breath.
They will want to forget the ferryman dwelling as he does at the borders of their lands, beckoning with bony finger. They will strive to push him away.
But, the ever restless,  those who become legend, ride with him into the burning heat of a fading sun.

Invocation Of Spirit

Well, it's time. After so many nights wasted in sleep and so many days wasted in subservience to the almighty clock of the western industrialized world and the voices of those machines who came before and shaped this culture of diamond hungry whores ever watchful for the trespasses of their neighbors.
Like those dogs trapped behind fences that once barked at our beloved Spritzie, Spritzie who ran wild and free through the fields and streets and yards our heart holder. Her name, Spritzie, a spirit, the spirit which roams the open country side, the purple mountains, the yellow fields, the shaded areas behind houses.
She was my first familiar, the first non-human animal that I could touch and speak to and run with. I named her. I called her Spritzie. Spritzie, our protector, my protector, the protector of all those innocents who cross through her sphere. She ferries travelers safely through the dangerous terrain that is part of our kingdom. My Spritzie, my Spritzie, my spirit.
Late at night the air is cool and sweet like invisible undrinkable wine that flows through your very skin. Drinking in all of those negative ions, a long sip of ocean breezes and Moorish mists through quivering nostrils.
At night I am alive. But often I sleep and wait for the messages to come through to me from the woods; dreams, a strange Morse code from another myself whispering to me about what is out there and pointing to the Mounties of my soul.
I do not trust myself, I cannot be fully trusted as long as these Mounties who made me move around unseen. We need little girls with eyes in the walls to track their progress. I do not fully trust myself, but I murmur the litany, almost forgotten, into my pillow:
“In whom do you place your trust?”
“In myself, my teacher, and the Dharma.”
Dharma is a word I have appropriated, commandeered, liberated from the white halls of the symbolic order. I know what I mean by it, but I don’t know what they mean by it. I mean a WAY.
Like that preserved by the professor of dentistry who with a simple invocation of presence today said “Open” and I knew, here was a keeper of the WAY of dentistry. He knew more than how to recognize a possible lesion on 15, that was only what he did, but he did it with WAY. The master of teeth said “Open” and my jaw snapped to attention as though there could be no greater honor or privilege than to open for one such as himself.
Of course, my own teacher is not a dentist. When he says open it is not my Jaw that he commands.  He sings it, “Open, open Spritzie!” and I open.
Whistle, whistle, Spritzie where did you fly to? Where did you go on that cool clean air carried in from the blessed darkness of the night?
I press my finger to my lips and it is understood that something should be clothed, cloaked in silence and darkness, germinating beyond the diamond hungry eyes of the world. After so many nights it is time, it is time.
My Spritzie, I invoke thee! Holy guardian angel, oh sleeping prince of the rose, awake!
What is that stuff that drip drops into the bloodstream from some secretive gland that becomes active only in darkness, delivering its Cathar kiss to all dreamers? Stuff, stuff, do your work, anoint my cells with liquid light, oh secret Morse code tapping out to me:
“We are here, we are alive, we acknowledge your interest in Dog Farm, end transmission.”
 I place my trust in myself , my teacher, and the Dharma.
I have my little girls in the walls with tablets and pens ready to jot down secrets we keep from ourselves, ready to pounce on the photographic evidence that will illustrate beyond doubt the presence of Mounties at Dog Farm.
So many days wasted in subservience to the almighty clock of the western industrialized world and the voices of those machines who came before and shaped this culture of diamond hungry whores ever watchful for the trespasses of their neighbors.
Tonight we toss rocks at bottles and hope for the best. Free Tibet, free Spritzie, open!
There will be many days burned, many nights of waiting for the “short, short, long, short…” but for tonight a close encounter initiated from a vertical position, a simple invocation of presence, CIA tapping- Spritzie, Spritzie, open Spritzie. We acknowledge your acknowledgment of interest in Dog Farm.
End transmission.

Symbolic Order

It creeps right in, like a thief taking advantage of an open window, it steals in with ease precisely because they are so unlike it, alive and open while it is dead and closed. It is a virus. Not alive strictly speaking, adapting to the physiology of its host, borrowing the life of this other to further its own structure. Without this host body it is nothing of consequence. It is NOT. Only by inserting itself in something that IS does it achieve its end. Only by forcing itself upon supple young minds does it achieve anything resembling life.
This abstract entity, this order of symbols, is Rome to barbarians. It is upper Egypt to lower Egypt. It settles in its host and multiplies, slowly eating the other from the inside. Soon there will be nothing real left. Only a string of empty signifiers whose signified was left behind long ago.
We will rise and pledge allegiance every morning. We have no experience of what it is to pledge and we start saying that we are pledging without understanding what we are saying, We have never felt anything like allegiance. We know the words. We chant them together rhythmically.
We will be told to show respect, and the signifier “respect” will be associated for us with the signified of “subservience” or “obedience”. It will be impossible for us to respect our elders because they have never respected anything. The real attitude of respect has become extinct, but its corpse is still dragged around, spilling from our lips carelessly, endlessly, meaninglessly.
Language thrusts its barbed tendrils deep into us and now our reality grows tinier, more constricted. The sounds that flow out of our mouth such as and like is so very and all such like as must be some such like as such and much and truthiness, exercising our God given right to liberty and such and fighting for freedom against terror and drugs and such we must prevail against such like adversity administering justice and such with respect to indigenous insurgence and victory and such…
We will stare at each other and listen to the babble, respond when possible like an actor who has just been waiting for his cue in a Shakespearean play whose pentameter and use of forgotten words confounds the modern semi illiterate player. Recital is all that remains.
We never had a chance to choose whether or not this structure could come and live inside of us. It lived inside of those that came before us and they passed it on to us. This thing inside dwelling, steals the sight from our eyes and makes the without in its image.
What is really there? Who knows?
Nothing perhaps, an abyss, a void, chaos as counterpoint to structure. This particular structure, this fortress is not the only such entity. It is one such entity and the world it creates is unique to it. There may be other worlds spawned from another similar strange confluence of order and attention, worlds you would inhabit if you were born French rather than American, or Alpha Centaurian rather than human.
There is no more contact with the real. We have become the virus, biological extensions of the symbolic order that latched onto us and began to suck the life from us before we were three years old. We will pass it on to our children and they to theirs. Zombies, spilling colloquial zombie seed into the precious new life that has ignited in our midst. We’ll subvert that spark and make it as undead as we ourselves are, effortlessly, unintentionally.
It will creep right in, seeping from one infected organism to the next. Like a thief taking advantage of an open window, it steals in with ease precisely because the host is so unlike itself; alive and open while it is dead and closed.

The Mysterious Engulfs Us

The mysterious engulfs us. There are no answers, or just as true, any answer at all will do. There are no reasons but mind. I can stop myself from doing or speaking occasionally, but my thoughts run through me unbidden, like a horde of unruly children. They make reality in their image. The outside is ruled by that same incessant clamor that dominates and defiles the “would be” sanctuary under the dome of my skull. The shape of my mind calls things to me in secret, without my consent, making of me a sleeping witch, a conjurer of illusions which fool even, and especially, me. The unspoken things die away in the world of endless electronic babble. The things without name or face, lacking these qualities, borrow them from the storehouses of our mind, and when the borrowed guise no longer suits their purpose they vacate the shapes and sounds that once costumed them, and we are left with their empty shells, shells that refer not to their nature, but to our own, as it is from our nature that these shapes were borrowed. The mysterious is forgotten, denied, wrapped in linguistic structures, and when it dares show its face we who have been indoctrinated by THE WORD call that the exception to our rule. But it is the other way around. It is the bugs, the quarks, the exceptions that are in fact the rule. Our brittle fortresses of order will eventually crumble and the hot breathed broken faced real will lumber and slither and dance in, wreaking havoc over our bones and rambling thoughts, thoughts now bodiless, flowing out directionless as they always have, to be absorbed in the icy folds of the real. We are always grasping for answers and peddling them and buying them and clinging to them, but they are only words clung to in desperation. We are hiding from the true answer, the mysterious abyss that looms beyond the constructs of the tongue and the tongue mind wagging furiously as though it could fan off the eternal with its chatter. We have never been free of the mysterious, it was always clinging to us like a skin, but some part of the self recoiled from it and began to spin the great con to hold it at bay. The ones who claim to have answers are liars and artisans of the con. There are no answers. No words that can hold the real absolutely. All that I have experienced has been a play of consciousness. There are no reasons but mind.

Belief

Belief was a golden haired child born in the state of desire within the realm of the word. He had never been in the realm of the real, could never be, in fact, because nothing born of the word can walk in the realm of the real. In the realm of the real there would be no need for such a child as belief. Belief, as I have said, was born in the state of desire, a place where the urge to fulfil needs is transferred into abstract longings whose ends can never be met. In such a place, a place where yearning goes on and on because there can be no end to yearning, Belief is a necessary entity. Belief is a natural product of desire. Whereas a need can be met, a desire knows no fulfillment and so it naturally blossoms into belief, the notion that that which one longs for does exist, will happen, is coming eventually. But all of this occurs only within the realm of the symbolic order. All of this occurs because a symbol is not the thing itself. The signifier is not the signified. It is like a shadow, it refers to the real, it takes a shape that cannot be grasped, a shape that may take on a life of its own and birth new shapes with no correspondences to the real. These shapes, these shadows with no correspondences, are the makers of desire, the grandparents of Belief. Belief is a prince in the house of desire. He runs to and fro calling for some action or other in his name. People gladly indulge this spoiled child because it gives them Hope, his lovely sister. Hope and Belief offer justification to the house of desire. They are like the children that a couple that has become disenchanted with one another conceives in order to have a reason to stay together. They are the fantasies that make all of our fantasies okay. If we have Belief we will join God in Heaven and bring Tinkerbell back to life. With Belief’s hand in your own, it is okay to kill and take another’s land. His presence will make you feel better about actions which primarily serve some personal desire, his company will help to justify your actions. With Belief at your side, you will do any number of absurd things; set out cookies for an immortal in a red suit, or eat cookies and wine and call it the flesh and blood of your God, or burn a person at the stake, or drive your neighbors from their homes and push them into the sea, or destroy all of the natural resources available to you. There is nothing that can’t or shouldn’t be done when you can say that Belief is with you. No door can be closed to you when you come from the house of desire, frothing at the mouth with want of a satisfaction that can’t be had, Golden Belief and fair Hope marching at your side demanding that you take, take, take. Take what you want and say it was for Belief. Run amok under the shadowy banners of the house of Desire within the Realm of the symbolic. In the realm of the Real, Belief and Hope vanish like the ill spirits that they are, and you stand alone with blood on your hands, and it is not a Jihad, or a Crusade, or a Sacrifice, it is raw animal death and it is under your fingernails, spattered on your face, and shivering through your bones.