Author Archives

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Alice Coltrane

Alice Coltrane had John Coltrane inside of her. The ontogeny of her music followed his phylogeny – the creatures he had been, along the way. Beast bodies he had chosen to blow through to make the hollow sound on the saxophone. The organs he had had.

She took his love his body his soul and she carried them on inside her, for him. For his sake. But he had lived and breathed of our sakes. She became, and chose to remain, a vessel for his creatures. His ark.

Embryo with horn to embryo with hoof to embryo with tail and wing. She was a black winged horse, and a black fox bat.

She took his seed inside her ad grew it. She took his seed inside her and, when it was bigger, freer, doper, flyer she launched it out. The seed of plutonium yields a uranium child inside this woman’s head, and it made her wail. Listen. She leapt off the pianoscape and landed on a reedy Hindu organscape. He had howled for her to wail. And if his were cries of sadness in the world, hers became another kind of sadness in another world. And otherworldly crying of disconsolation. On a reed organ.

 

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Rilke translation: I once took your face in my hands

Einmal nahm ich – Rilke

Einmal nahm ich zwischen meine Hände
dein Gesicht. Der Mond fiel darauf ein.
Unbegreiflichster der Gegenstände
unter überfließendem Gewein.

Wie ein williges, das still besteht,
beinah war es wie ein Ding zu halten.
Und doch war kein Wesen in der kalten
Nacht, das mir unendlicher entgeht.

O da strömen wir zur diesen Stellen,
drängen in die kleine Oberfläche
alle Wellen unseres Herzens,
Lust und Schwäche,
und wem halten wir sie schließlich hin?

Ach dem Fremden, der uns mißverstanden,
ach dem andern, den wir niemals fanden,
denen Knechten, die uns banden,
Frühlingwinden, die damit entschwanden,
und der Stille, der Verliererin.

(Paris, 1913)

once, I took between my hands
your face. the moon lit, in my mind.
the most ungraspable of all objects
in the realm of overflowing weeping.

like some sentient thing, that is standing still,
right there, a thing you could hold.
and yet, there was no being, in the cold night,
that more unceasingly escaped me.

yes, we stream to these places,
penetrate the tiny surfaces
with all the waves of our hearts,
desire and weakness,
and in the end to whom do we extend these offerings?

arghh. to the strangers,
ughh. to the others, those we never found,
to the knaves, that bound us,
to spring winds, that took them and disappeared,
and to the silence, the feminine silence who loses things.

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Shibumi: “equality for equals”

Shibumi, p. 137

It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions.  The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pelasure – in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.

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how “sorry” became the whole thing

I feel like the current sense is that saying the word “sorry” is the complete and finished reckoning for an injustice committed. I mean, you run over someone’s cat, and you look up and say “I’m sorry.”  Then they smile and you feel okay and they feel okay.  And if they victim just doesn’t get it, you say “Hey!  I said I’m sorry already!”

Now my friend Dave, who used to get beat p and thrown into jail for being homeless, says,”sorry is just the entry point to reconciliation.”  you see, there has to be reconciliation, in my mind.  not recompense.  definitely not reciprocity (you know the old joke about and eye for an eye.  well, it’s NOT a joke!)

no.  you start with I’m sorry, as in indication that you seek reconciliation.  it’s a signal to your victim that you are ready to engage, that you are not only remorseful fro your abuse of their innocence, but that you really want to insure that if there is damage to the relationship, they will let you try to mend it.

I mean, I look at this culture and I think of Monty Python:

“Charles Manson, you are accused by the State of California for the orchestration of 9 heinous brutal murders.  Do have anything to say for yourself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay. No sentencing necessary.”

You can imagine a long line (“queue” for you Britons reading this) with like one-eyed psycho killers and monsers all with bowed heads marhicn past a sleeping baif, muttering “sorry”. FORGIVEN “sorry”. FORGIVEN “‘m sorry.”

you know, kids use “sorry” a lot, but they NEVER accept it.  how many adults have you heard talked about how they were wronged as a child – their mother gave the rcoking horse to their brother, not them – and now they suffer insomnia and Romania from lack of reconciliation.

I have to refer to the AA Book again: one of the Steps is reconciliation with every single person you have ever wronged.  It’s absurd!  And the book admits as much, but then says you have to do it any way.  It says that some wrongs can not be righted, but you must at least approach the person.  And it doesn’t even have to do with alcohol.  You are responsible for fixing all of your fuck ups!

I Florida, on the freeway there are signs everywhere that say “You MUST get your disabled vehicle off the freeway!” Like, I can see people in Massachusetts with tear-stained faces, looking out at the passing cars, narrowly avoiding 90 car pile ups because their Volvo 250 DL is blocking the exit lane, and whining “But my big car is broken!  Give me a break!  Jeez!”

You stabbed me. Can you put some pressure on the wound, until it stops bleeding?

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some aspects of everyone’s personality are just not that unique

has anyone ever told you “you can’t know my life?”  well, that could be true, and it could be false. it’s ambiguous, actually, because of the word “know” in English.

some people are quite complex, and quite mysterious.  these are the ones that are pretty sure they are unknowable.  and , in fact, I agree – those mysterious people can have their mysteries.  it would take a combination of delving into their histories, plus havign had your own experience, similar to theirs.

which brings me to the point: no one can ever feel what you feel.  ok, there are probably a few gifted empathetic people out there.  but in general, empathy, at its best is, like method acting: you imagine a similar situation from your past, really dig down, and then, when you are deep in it, open your eyes and look at the other person.

another confusing word is “understand.”  I say, “I understand”, and you yell “you can’t possibly understand.”  here’s where it gets sensitive: it turns out that much of what goes down in the human story is exactly the same for every human. every been divorced?  ever had cancer? nowadays, there are a lot of “yes”‘s to these and other questions.

the good news is: you’re not alone!  your biggest problem, actually, is that you think you’re alone. you think no one understands you.  but, your not, and they do.  the older you get, the more it strikes you how all these situations are not just similar – they are exactly the same.  once again, I am NOT saying that you can feel the other person’s pain – there is the conundrum: understanding is not feeling. and so, while we are all together, we are also all alone.

so why struggle to be unknowable?  really. you are still fathomless in terms of the wonder of your being, even if you do have brown hair, green eyes, and thin hair. and the goal then is not to see, to understand – it is to feel, feel together.  not apart.

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Do Unto Others

so bored, aren’t we, with that old saw: “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”  what makes this so tiring is that – it’s too easy, because all the power is in the doers hands.  in other words, it’s just an admonition, like, “don’t smoke” or “sit up straight.”  we all know that it’s right and true – but who wants to lead a life of truth and righteousness in this generation?  I mean, what do I get from treating people right?  satisfaction i the knowledge that I will go to heaven?
I’m being cynical.  I’ve decided to say “cynical” from now on – I used to try to avoid that, although many people accused me of it.  I’m good with cynicism right now.  people are full of shit, have no integrity, fail at any kind of sincerity.  good reason for cynicism.
but the problem with the Jesus quote is that it needs turning around, so that it is understandable by the current generations.  it needs to read, “others will do unto you just like you did unto them.” and then add a generational tag like, “right?”

the subtle difference is probably best illustrated by a parable: this girl abandoned this guy and he got angry at her. (it is a short parable).  now, this may not make sense to you.  you have to have experienced the surprise that a lot of people show now when, after they do their deeds and spout their shit, the other person actually reacts negatively. maybe the old “you can dish it out but you can’t take it” is a better paraphrase.

the end result is that when you break many peoples’ trust, no one trusts you.  seems too obvious, I know, but I hear people say all the time, “jeez. I wonder why he doesn’t call me?”  or, “I wonder why my kids don’t want to communicate with me?”  nothing to wonder.  no mystery.  you are reaping what you have sown.

what Jesus was saying is, “it’s not them, stupid.  it’s you. you engender the emotions around you.” it’s not that people suck.  it’s that you suck. but our culture is so engrained with the American modus of “as long as you don’t get caught…it never happened.” what’s funny is, as the culture has become more and more abdicative, believing that they are getting away with murder, simultaneously, the same society has gotten very perceptive. so, the end result is, we are are all naked, and everybody knows it but we, ourselves.

you have to have integrity, and you have to have tested yourself.  it’s not subtle: if you come into a Ju-Jitsu match and you’ve never tried Ju-Jitsu, you will be hurt.  Likewise, if you abdicate in every relationship, you will be generally distrusted, and that feeling is a clammy one. Think before doing things.  Think it through. Only if you have never done that thing successfully before, or have some proof that you have the wherewithal to carry yourself through. Because if you continue to leave bloody messes, people will notice.

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betrayal

dialogo

“and who betrayed thee, Lord?”

“’twas the one I loved most.”

“how so can love betray?”

“the perfect betrayal can come only of the perfect love. for so is the destruction beyond mere human level. it is a psychic disturbance beyond.”

“ergo it is committed with a kiss. the tenderest acts portends the most horrible.”

“so it is.”

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szerelem, szerelem

szerelem szerelem

<PLAY>

szerelem szerelem
átkozott gyötrelem
mért nem virágoztál
minden fa tetejen

minden fa tetején
diófa levelén
hogy szakisztott volna
minden leány s legény

mer én is szakisztottam
s el is szalasztottam
én is szakisztottam
s el is szalasztottam

ejde még szakisztanék
ha jóra találnék
ha jóra ha szépre
régi szeretőmre

s a régi szeretőmér
mit nem cselekednék
tengerből a vizet
kanállal lemerném

s a tenger fenekéről
apró gyöngyöt szednék
s a régi szeretőmnek
gyöngykoszorút kötnék

———————-
love, love

love, love
bloody agony
why do you not blossom
on the top
of every tree?

On the top of every tree,
on the leaf of a walnut tree,
so every maiden and young man
would pluck it?

Because I, too, dared pluck it,
and I, too, let it slip away
I too plucked it
and I let it slip away.

O, I would pluck one again
if I found a good one,
if I found a good one, a beautiful one,
my old lover.

And for my old lover
what wouldn’t I do?
I would skim all the water
from the sea with a spoon.

from the bottom of the sea
I would gather tiny pearls
and for my old lover
I would braid a garland of pearls.