I thought we were strangers
As much as we were strangers to
Everyone around

I thought you were just
A story untold,
A future ideal

My little self dreamt of you
Pretended you were a hero

She saw you under the bed
In the backyard
In the furled faces
Of a million African daisies

I knew you were of this
universe, well-known
But wasn't convinced
We'd ever meet in the flesh

But we've met many times
You and I

In the corner of my shoe closet
Running down that street, bruised.
We met in a cafe on Rue de Seine
On the 4-hour bus rides at 3am

We sat together, utterly content,
On the floor of old libraries
Inhaling stories and scents
Of cedarwood and vanillan

I saw you dancing
When I was dancing
Awkward nerds
You took my hand, pulling

Your kind, fractalled face
Kissed mine a thousand times
Your voice saved my life

In awe at the depth of your knowing,
I'm grateful we're still alive.

X

===============
As far as one may say, I might know more
or less than the standard, normalized person.

I may have had more words spoken near me
than many who never had the tools I have,
especially the personal time, I have taken
to listen
to books
for the blind, while

driving mile after mile on roads built
by mankind across the continent I live on.

I can consider Tolstoy a failed ensample
of a curiousity construct, inclined to accept
real congruity, eh, is that the word, coherency,

sticking together to become elemental parts,

almost elevating the essence that being is,
to the knowing that the knower is knowing…

not for, nor why, but so, being so many possible

parts of so many plausible entireties, each actual
processing mind prepositioning self in other words.

Being cyborgian, not demented, but there's
an edge, spirits can cross painlessly…

================

Sup
supposed
superior position
supposed to be top.

Utmost, uppermost
ultimate umbrage

shade
shadow low to the ground,

local turkey buzzard grace
given true liberty flight
over me, free
to see,
feel, accept as real.
===============

On Earth, as it is in Heaven,
in spirit, of course, not really
yet, with a little wish it so,

realizable perfect Wisdom
from Heaven, realizable
for some who make

beliefs, relieving weighed reality,
breath and river, trees and freeway

--------
When.
Now, suppose, position time
at this stream instantiating data posed
to mark those points with no pastence.

Not long ago, make believers made
boys believe we've been made
to fly through the sky, and
ever after then,
we believed.

===============

From the future,
at the speed of thought,
literally let us agree, thunk
words carry any sense you make.

Your at
present position,
in Heavenly scale, JWST
on currency considered
influx imaginable indeed
side-real context input ports
make believe or realize, mindwise,
within Physics, the science of reality,
clear noway, beyond boy's true beliefs

we believed,
basically the truth revealed,
at
about the bottom edge
of puberty, say
seventh grade,
in the U.S.A., that summer,
for many a Boomer, unforgettable,
1961, yo', Boomer, get out of the slot,
jump the track, lose the confusing loosening

hot wire
from the capacitor, country kids know,

a shock somebody must feel
to believe,
to know
it's funny, we laugh
at the Yankee city kid, loser

loosened childmind lid,
the anger and the shame,
and the pain, the unbelievable shock it takes
to crank a war surplus jeep, the shock makes

the whole life event, a better, shamed

by rubes,
yes, rubes,
what's a rube.
You. You're a rube/ ra' ah ben Jacob's eldest,

not so bad a name, AI tells me
a man named
Reuben Waithaka:

A 72-year-old Kenyan man
walked out the back door, in Alabama,
around the middle of May, in 2025,

and nothin' won't undo that, wandering
away forgetting everything, that temptation

sad, story, such as any accidently hearing it, say, man

this life can instantly change,
so sudden any person can
disappear, instantly be gone,
so sudden… few go so mysteriously, instant
in prayer, sudden
at a thought,

a faith, held supposedly true,
instant persistant what if.

Same science Elijah uses. Save a seat.


===============

My mind seeks wisdom — not memory.
I don’t need to remember who I am.
Socrates walks beside me,
questioning every mask I wear.

Odin?
He grants strength and wisdom —
if he’s in the mood.
And Lucifer…
he’s my rebel with a cause,
a symbol of freedom unchained.

I kneel for no one.
Not even myself.
And to know thyself?
You must dare to be seen through the eyes of others
— without flinching.

The One Who Lit His Own Flame

They told me to be silent.
But like Socrates, I questioned.
Like Lucifer, I fell —
but to ignite the light
in my own abyss.

I don’t believe in blind faith.
I believe in questions
that make gods tremble.

I never sought salvation.
I sought truth.
And in that search I found fire.
Not the kind that burns,
but the kind that awakens.

They called him the devil,
because he carried a light
they couldn’t understand.

They called me a heretic,
because I refused
to kneel before darkness
dressed as holiness.

But listen:
I am no prophet.
I am no god.
I’m just a soul
that refused to forget
there is a spark in all of us.

So stone me, curse me,
crucify my name —
I’d rather be free in the fire
than dead in their silence.

“listen to your elders”
they say
“they have wisdom”
they say

“some do”
I say

“age gives experiences”
they say
“experiences give growth”
they say
“growth gives wisdom”
they say

“some do not grow”
I say

what's the most important thing you've learned In life

I spoke with two people at the party Saturday.
A young police officer, short-haired, fit,
chiseled face who had two young children.
He felt constrained by the law, without discretion
to question mopes (perps) aggressively
or to let go those who were obviously no threat.
Even at a family function he seemed straight-backed, correct,
devoted to his role as our protector (and his children’s)
yet I thought perhaps too deeply in debt, indentured
to the rules and laws of legislators and destined
to be disappointed (or worse). I thought his courage
and devotion (to whom or what?) would surely
be poorly repaid and that this lesson
was necessary to ready him with wisdom
for death or further living. I worried like a brother
about the unpredictable dangers, even terrors,
he must daily face, and the pleasure he takes in facing them.
How will he return to the fragility of family,
of the soul alone, after wielding the force
of the state, the blind, combined will of us all?

Next a business exec, retired from a well known
global investment firm. At first we talked about
the lush beauty of the northeast compared to the arid west
(although he loves every inch of the west, too).
Then somehow we got beyond light conversation
when he complained about the perceived decline in values
for instance how the Ten Commandments can’t be publicly
displayed. He said we can all agree on God
but I said I have a mechanistic view of the universe
(although the unknowable always sits just out of reach
of the known). I told him my dad’s theory of reincarnation,
a good man and a corporate seeker of God also, whose shoes
I could never fill unless I swore belief in a supreme being.
No hard feelings. Then he told me the story
of his dying friend, an atheist, not even a deist
like the founding fathers, who opened his eyes for the last time
to correct the exec’s misperception that now he’d meet his maker.
Having exceeded the bounds of acceptable conversation
I went looking for my children. Nothing more to question.