Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Feb 2021
SPIRIT
It seems my reality is connected to 'Abdu'l-Baha and Baha'u'llah inasmuch as I recite their words.  Also, the Bab.  Perhaps too Muhammad inasmuch as I obey Hadith and read the Qur'an.  Is my lack of reality really God? What does it mean to be God's servant but not His son? That seriousness born of the Seal of the Prophets? Or, that seriousness born of irresponsibility and wickedness? What can come from mere presence? "This cyclic scheme is to Him but a stare." Thoughts of Hindu statues of the gods and goddesses. Yes, the spiritual reality doesn't work for me at command. It doesn't entertain me either. It usually requires some input to show me anything.

MIND
That lack of any changing form going through my mind. Thoughts of a previous text and its sender. Conversations via text. The heart feels betrayed by a friend for not showing up. Memories of my friend's neighborhood. Anything of substance except the interactions I have on my phone and the memories which our words and persons reveal? Do I have any unconscious left? Anything hiding? Fears of reincarnation. Anxiety about work due to not staying in the "now". Unfulfilled plans of society. Is there anyone coming to my Group of Silence devotional? Odds unlikely. Alone on Zoom.

The conviction of medication and meditation, which changed my D's and F's into A's and B's in college. My lack of use of the knowledge I gained. Still hopeful of discovering some new form of mathematics, even if on my deathbed - I'm guessing around 80 if I keep smoking.

"There is no pain you are receding" and "*******" whisper in my mind. "Comfortably numb" - it seems like the highest spiritual state, but a state of incapacity for the investigating mind. "Is there anybody in there?" A German seven that looks like kanji.

BODY
Maybe a serious eye? Those eyes with nothing to do. Can a mirror not truly tell me about myself? For what information can come from a blank stare? A ****** in the nose. A worry-filled stare. One ear a little pulled out due to wearing COVID masks. I haven't trimmed my beard for five days. I haven't gotten a new face. My eyes are the same color. My hair, not darker nor lighter. The bags under my eyes betrays youths. My distinguished, yet still rounded cheeks. My beard hides my ****-chin. My less distinguished jaw, ovalish but with a point. Those searching eyes. A neck with so much stress built up that I unconsciously twist and crack it. Memory of the first time it spasmed. Vitamin care. Laundry drying. It must be this blank stare that is highest of high, that can be low, low.  I rub my scalp to ease muscle tension. I think about aligning my chakras, but a blank stare seems more worthwhile.

I consider smoking a touch of nutmeg, but I'm concerned how anxious it will make me, and how I lack ability in communication afterwards. I make coffee, a caffeine high will do. The cream gives me comfort. The workers getting off work add to my austerity. All those songs stored in neurons of my brain, waiting to be plugged-in. Somehow old rock songs from the 70's give me a place.

Now that beautiful lady appears to me saying "come, come" or rather "***, ***". I was so empty of everything, and she now fills my brain with connections to desire. I give in to the pressure and put a small dob of nutmeg on the end of my cigarette. Not enough for a full high, but just a little joy. Now there is experience and experiencer, not just a blank stare.

I can see my *** stare. I am as a baby in my mother's arms, I am so irresponsible. My body is a temple, with rooms, that I'm somehow detached from as if I'm in a dream witnessing it. Now I swim in this temple but I am not its fullness. I am not its command. I am no longer the tree but the twig. I am this plant called nutmeg. This is my vibration - pharmaceutical.

My buzz cut portrays a Buddhist monk's sitting. My coworker cut off all her hair once. Is she monkish as well? My body, as a sitter, full of reflection, why is this such an archetype? Does it know all, no, it only knows one, me. Is that all I am required of? To know simply me. Is there anything of depth in me?

Repose in my eye. I think of the faithful not under the influence. Have I missed a spark of truth which I would've found? My browline reminds me of a Klingon. So aggressive. I rock back and forth and around and around. I'm mixing this tonic drink in my skull. Is my body too full and big for my neck and head? how much does it matter? When will I do my next ab workout?

Memories of doing nutmeg, the cool let down off the high. The feeling it will never really subside.  Moving around in my seat like a Sufi dancer. Looking like I'm a ghost in the machine. The wetness of the white in my eye portrays tears of passion for Chloe. The residue of oil on my brow and cheek portrays sweating out the nutmeg.

My chrome dome and short beard remind me of a wizard, rather of my high school physics teacher. Science seems like wizardry at times. Contorting my face with my hands shows all sorts of masks: Asian clown and Cabbage Patch doll. Pressing on my forehead makes me look Romulan. Contorting my nose to a pig's or what I see as an English nobleman.

My head swings around like a medieval flail. Like I'm in a roller coaster. Like an Indian in devotion. Like a magician performing an act. Like a wolf ripping apart its prey. Like the monks who hit their heads with boards in "Camelot": "Oh ee eh Oh dominae, Oh ee eh Oh requi eh". Coming to the conclusion that the body doesn't change so quickly that it can by observed. But when I consciously change it, similitudes appear from memory.

CONCLUSION
Is all observation a metaphor or simile? Or, judgment and reason made out of a group of observations? Math is made from first geometry: a basic point, and then a line. Math is a physical reality, or abstractions from basic physical reality. Therefore, speaking merely in basic simile is also an abstraction from physical reality.

All there is is the physical.  Mind is due to my frontal lobe. Spirit is reduced to feeling, even if transcending regular feeling - mere EMF pattern of the body.
Written by
Chad Young  38/M/US
(38/M/US)   
118
   Imran Islam and multi sumus
Please log in to view and add comments on poems