Error code: PXZ003-2-b:
"WAIT"

Blinking blindly,
unaware of absurd metaphysics,
the device flashes its advice.

For years now, probably; no one's sure.
The rest of the machinery's in pieces;
save this one brilliant gem of advice,

slowly sipping energy through
a dingy solar panel:

just enough to keep going

A red light blips
on the untended prophet,
yellow caution tape draping
impotently in shreds --

although there is an allure
to what fabrics conceal.

He sees none of this.
At first.

He arrives in a huff,
swearing and panting.
Pacing nervously, he lights
a spliff and throws his head back.

"I know I haven't been around much,"
he speaks in a vaguely upward direction,
"but some people say you're listening,
and that you take requests."

He laughs, flicks some ash,
and lets a sigh creep out.

"Just. Just. **** it, I don't know.
Give me a sign, anything. I'll listen."

He inhales and snuffs the roach
on his sole.
The serenity of stillness marches
in as a pallbearer with an empty casket.

A red light catches his
peripherals.

He walks to the device,
removes the dress,
and uncovers divinity.

How could he deny the voice of fate?
He waits.

Should I remember what I could forget?
Of days palled by fetid gossamer crowns?
Of this skeletal hand clutching a cigarette?
Of living in mockery amongst circus clowns?

When fabric tears in criss-crossed patterns
and crystal castles recede -- disguised --
I hang, with heavy heart, these lanterns
to guide beyond such self-demise.

Somehow I find that my life runs in place;
like everything I've done is vacant space:

She knocked on my door, the other day.
She invited me out to the woods, to play.

She was wired on something, dilated eyes;
she couldn't get over how we all will die.

There were tears in the tree-trunk as rain came down;
we were huddled together on the outskirts of town.

She gave me a hug, and glanced far away;
it must have hurt to know I wouldn't stay.

A few days passed, in the silence of life;
there's nothing to say while you're waiting to die.

Then Thanksgiving dinner with strangers (or friends?),
though this time they stumbled over caps and stems.

Are you seeking to be free
of the burden of sorrow?
Not just your sorrow,
but the sorrow of the world?

Or do you seek to languidly
laugh in eternal pleasure,
forsaking the polar regions,
because that which is bad is bad?

Do you seek originality?
Something that is beyond
the corrupting influence
of rust and moth and time?

Are you like the rest of the human
beings wandering on this world?
For what are you lusting, seeking,
hungering? In wanting experiences --

whether they are ******, intellectual,
of first and last things, within, without --
there can be no fulfillment, no completion.
Always in the background: "What next?"

Sit still, my friend, observe the horrors,
the joys, the pleasures, the pains, the wants,
the needs, and the absence of all these.
There is nothing that can be left out.

The world isn't pretty; it's messy.
Few straight lines exist in nature;
and yet you live in a box, you eat in a box,
you work in a box, you learn in a box,

and one day you will lie dead in a box.

Fear will take shelter
under the rafters of faith.

Allow the building to collapse;
no harm can come from

the liberation of becoming unmoored.
All beliefs must come to an end.

It is okay not to know, so long as
the mind remains open without

hoping for a solution
or fearing a rejection.

That is freedom.

Mischievous How,
always looking for another
to tell you what to do.

But you've forgotten to listen;
forgotten relation to yourself.

Can you sit, silently still,
with your suffering?

Patiently, compassionately,
neither taking it nor leaving it?

Just observe it; it is there!

There's some sanity
in these circumstances
that slide through my view:

"Is it possible to live like you?"
He asked without knowing what
he meant, "because I want to know."

She laughed, still hugging a stranger,
"Inside you're very busy, calculating.
Only alone-ness can give true happiness.

Create some silence within,
for silence is love; and where
there is emptiness, love can flow."

"But how can I love so much?"
He spat his snide remark.
"No love can be inexhaustible."

"For me there is no other-ness;
every one is an extension
of my Self." She smiled.

"All the love I give is returned;
every drop taken is returned to the source.
It is inexhaustible because nothing is wasted."