Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Existence in All its Naked Wonder

Within the house of innocence

there are no mirrors,

no telltale inkling of the truth.

 

The spin of the disc jockey,

urging the hapless to buy with abandon,

the clearasil politician with

flatulence in his pants

constructing a doomsday device

within his agile brain

who tells quite another story

stitched together with

lies and misinformation,

all the nimble admen and procurers of

bottled pleasure and innocuous daydreams

designed to suppress rage and contain despair,

armies of fabricators of digital delights

carving a prodigious mountain of bits

into the essential pabulum of the age,

all occupied with the formidable task of

erecting a wondrous tower of imagery and

delusion that bears no resemblance to existence.

 

Within the breast of every human

beats a heart designed to live,

to move about the planet,

to breath whether the air be fetid or pure,

to gather energy in bits of flesh and fruit and

root and leaf and stem,

to penetrate the core of desire and

conjoin egg with itinerant seed to

sustain the species.

 

Within the boney skull lies the

a fabulous organ crafted from

millions of years of practice and experience

honed from diligence and potent error,

assembled from happenstance and the

incessant greed for life.

 

Within the core of this fabulous

piece of organic magic

resides a gifted sculptor

armed with wondrous circuitry

that distils from the chaos

of the flowing universe

a sense of order and purpose,

the formidable idea of god

who makes all things possible and

helps contain the ever-present shadow of

inescapable mortality,

the need for language and the

idea of civilization that flows from it.

 

At the helm of this neuronal wonder

rides the captain

constantly compelling his minions to

act upon matter and

extract from incessant desire

and petulant curiosity

a purpose for existence.

 

Civilizations have come and gone,

have endured the jaugenot from

lofty beginnings,

through anguish and confusion,

from fire to ash

finally ending in ruin.

 

Beneath the rich panoply

of all the raucous theories

regarding divine purpose,

underneath the perpetual shell game

of contrived enjoyment and

the lofty edifice of indifference and

delusion,

at the very core of

sublime pleasure,

and inevitable suffering

lies a simple truth,

existence.

 

Idle self-proclaimed truth tellers

fill the airways with vast yet

shadowy edifices of pure nonsense.

 

Beneath the arch of the

endless cosmos filled with

rapturous starshine,

humans convene at the marble factory

where conformity is fashioned and

idleness constrained

 

At the marble factory

within great expanses of real estate

under a magnificent domed sky

a bland facsimile of the sun

is projected to fill the space with a

cold and unforgiving light.

 

At the marble factory

there is no place to hide,

there is no place to gather and recollect,

there is only an endless array of machines

that hum incessantly and beep and flash,

that manufacture things

we are compelled to need and

urged to acquire.

 

At the marble factory,

data is collected, digested, regurgitated

and reshaped to ultimately create

the most magnificent machine of all.

 

It is called by many names,

it is referred to in hushed tones

and regarded with great pride by the

master builders,

it was built to be indestructible,

it was contrived to sustain itself,

it was forged from illusory materials

to contain and perpetuate and

world of shadows and delusion.

 

Life has been likened to a

perpetual game where

truth is obscured by wily magic,

life has become a peep show

where the participants can only watch

but never touch or feel the essence of

passion or desire.

 

There is an endless queue at the pawn shop where

the present moment is exchanged for

innocuous glitter and happiness delivered

in an empty bottle bound for the recycler.

 

Yet, when this fabulous warehouse

of concoctions falls apart from

lack of substance,

the vast terrain of existence remains

strewn with chaos and desire,

passion and suffering,

pleasure and longing,

where the essence of matter and time

cavort with naked truth

that does not abide illusion.

 

 

 

 

No comments: