Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Universal Thrum Jan 2015
I’ll trace the lines of a love poem
With the tip of my generous tongue
I’ll bend you over a sonnet
pounding your heart with verse
Until you come
Closer to the slippery edge
Of the highest haiku peak

Pulsing cranes shoot from
Sky following deep swallows
Cascading heat wing

The beat of the sextet
Engorges the plump plum with tantalizing taste
As the surging wind tickles swirling grass meadows
A pirates plunder
unbridled womanly chaste
Riding my large prose with feminine pleasure
Until both writhing bodies are drenched in chicken broth rain
I will slather you in brilliant color
As you vacantly stare ecstatic
Groaning through the augustan age
Tongue firmly planted in Cheek
Universal Thrum Jan 2015
Modern day heretic
With death filled eyes
Hand stroking long black beard
Sipping ambrosia tea of aniline
Smoking rolling snorting his pleasure
Speaking on Lenin, Watts, and the price of heaven
He offers nothing, slips of LSD
His mind a traveler, the smell of burnt almonds is everything
Ask him if he has ever advocated for the overthrow of God
He will coyly smile, and politely nod
Yogic Tantric, naked downward dog
In the morning, he salutes the sun
Christian, Buddhist, he accepts not one
Yet he will quote Jesus and the Dalai Lam
Born again, always dead, rock n’ roller
Passing through the karmic gates of fire
Going out where politicians fear to tread
Drinking whiskey with the devil, eating mushroom heads
He wears his hair long, despite what the moneyed men say
Not for glory, not for fame, not for one care who remembers his name

He only bows to the wind, that truth eternal
The bronze gong shatters
He knows he is mortal
Universal Thrum Dec 2014
If you are looking
To escape the rain
Jump into the ocean
Universal Thrum Dec 2014
Revolver

A sound so good I wanna say it again
Revolver

A taste so sweet for you to understand
Revolver

No flowers less fragrant for the passerby
Revolver

No work of art is tainted by the gazing eye
Revolver

We are dogs circling tails for tricks
A new house
made of found bricks

The original wind blown storm
Circles earth forever
once born
Universal Thrum Nov 2014
Let these words embodied in tone slither inside you
like the illuminous snake in the garden,
He who would choose wisdom over blissful ignorance, come forth
Primordially flicking tongues like a fleshy breeze touching the ******* of your heart,
Making your soulgasm explode,
shaking and shattering,
The walls of this mass illusion
That you and I are separate conscious,
two brilliant waves cresting in the same dazzling ocean
Or that words mean anything at all
Follow my sign posts,
they lead to a wooden paddle boat on the muddy shore of a river
Climb inside as we slide with our backs against the dew wet morning grass
Floating in space, staring at the vaulted ceiling of stars
Beyond, behind, infinite light of time, we go as pilgrims
Once across the murky water, shimmering waves, we leave the boat
We put down the girl, whoever and whatever we still carry
We put it down, under the bohdi tree, all the arrows are slung a thousand times;
blotting out the sun,
and darkness covers us in mortal fear
But we speak in music now, we speak in flowers, and symphonies
And dilated eyes see lotus petals unfolding at the center of the arrowhead,
blossoming into divine corruption and ecstacy
so terrible that you must turn away from eternity
for now we have no answer to that magnificent shining face
that turns our hair white
We have no answer for that glowing burning face
that casts us scattered into the deafening void,
that beautiful face so terrible
we turn from truth,
we dance with death, her hair radiant,
we only are permitted to see
the stupendous *** of God on holiday
when we enter the church,
bells ringing, tolling the death of Absolute Primal Man and Woman,
unconditioned individuality, original freedom
Yet we still turn,
some taking the lead in mortal tango,
swinging to keep the beat as best we can,
and when we step on a toe, we throw our heads back and laugh wildly
And passionately  tongue kiss the mouth of our defeat
with lust and longing, pressed close against our heaving chests
because nothing really matters,
that is what I say,
because if nothing really matters,
then everything’s okay
Universal Thrum Nov 2014
We stand on the bluffs above the breakers, watching the sea foam swirl like the madness of our broken world. We linger. The dense feeling of fate pervading us. The unbreakable diamond line tethering us to the crystalline moment, frozen in a picture, put in a box, never to be seen again. The wind blew and a pinprick shift in movement, insignificant as an eyelash, brought down an empire made of ash.  We walked those charred triumphant streets, riddled with rotting bouquets of flowers from yesterday’s parade. It was time to take comfort in strangers. She turned to me, “I want love like the ocean, it always comes back”. I think of her floating on the Adriatic contemplating our blossoming love, croatian street art, and holding her body close as a baby in the floridian waves. Now a million shards of glass laid lost on the savage sea floor, mirrors reflecting a thousand truths, hidden from her eyes by the churning tide.

Words don't matter anymore. I scream in frustrated contempt, “Why are you acting crazy! Why are you disturbed? Where is redemption here?” It is gone for now, a dog running wild in the woods. I wake up and try to explain the unconsciousness, but it’s like singing to a self possessed crowd in a run down karaoke bar. Grasping at cigarette smoke.

My last act of friendship could be to obliterate you and expose you for the liar you are. Instead I will let silence settle over any righteousness I feel, any angle of truth I claim to possess, letting the birds sing their songs for us, and the thrum of the world will hold me in its arms.  I will release the great burden there alone. “There are things I can tell you, and there are things I cannot say, I hold nothing against you, I forgive you.”

“You are a child, I do everything for everyone, I give everything, and everyone just takes from me!”  She viciously hisses in another’s voice, a harpy sent for blood, *****, and sacrifice, lashing about with claws meant to tear out the heart of man.

“I may have a child’s heart, filled with infinite forgiveness. I may be a flawed man, but I won’t turn from that truth, in it is wabi sabi beauty. I’m not seeking to rationalize or justify my actions, the past doesn’t interest me that much anymore. The feeling you give me now is a toxic one, like a ****** hitting rock bottom, I want the poison out of my veins.”

More screaming. Rampage, wrath, hell fury and doom. An **** of anger directed at my peaceful countenance, an all out assault fueled by brimstone, baiting the Buddah under the bohdi. My murderer is my muse. The citadel is overrun again by the Amazonian hordes set for the massacre, spear point to throat, mutilating the glinting marbled halls, painted red. So **** me now, my quiet pride and solemn truth are unassailable. You lob bombs at an iron sky. One built after years of hellish wildfire to bring down Zion. Yet the walls drip with life, you can taste it in the air. The overcoming of emotion, like fresh white clouds drifting above bloated bodies floating dead on the burning acrid water. And maybe only a dry heart pulp remains in the humid sun, but I don’t think so, there is juice here in this soul, the nectar is still sweet, tempered by age. I bite my tongue and laugh at the helplessness of love gone wrong, a faux pas matched only by a priest farting at a funeral. I wink at death, clapping and singing songs with a final gasp, we die like Hector dragged in the dust.

Days later, she writes a mixed apology. Staking a claim on humanity. Can she see into her own eyes? Does she know the past as I do, can she own her duplicity, her renunciation of all that she claims to hold dear? We were one once. Symbiotic, duads, all I did, she did, all I was, she was. Blame still taints my heart.

I want to strip off my clothes and howl in the rain, as the forest sends thunderous chamber hall applause to my release. I want to howl for the toil. I want to howl for the ecstasy. I want to howl for all the unrecognized love, all the unfulfilled expectations, the selfishness, I want to howl for the sacrifice, and the collapse of return, I want to howl.

Somewhere, does my scream still echo? A voice on the radio answers.

“Those things you keep, you better throw them away. You want to turn your back, bury your old ways. Once you were tethered, and now you are free. Once you were tethered, well now you are free. That was the river, this is the sea!”

I walk around a drafty room, hugging myself like a crying orphan seeing all the doors closed on the last day of autumn. If I can make it through the biting winter; holed up somewhere in an abandoned hollow, hands in ratty brown clothe gloves, patched pants and ***** scarves, spring will be beautiful, and I will lay in fields of burgeoning new blossoms. A thousand times Odysseus.
Universal Thrum Nov 2014
I am going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to listen to them recklessly.

Burning Man is an invitation to a collective art experience, similar to that of the Jew’s mass revelation at Sinai, to be converted into little children and enter the gates of heaven together.

In Black Rock City, There is no money, no commercialization, only a gift economy of free cooperation, supported by the radical ethos of self-reliance, self-actualization, and radical inclusion.  

One friend, who happened to live the life of a hobo artist, commented that she felt that burners were paying to experience life as a hobo. I understand the experience as a way to live openly without attachment and give freely without attachment, and as the saying goes, the playa provides.

In Black Rock City, There is no us and them, because as one citizen so aptly put it to me as I thanked him for the gift of some unknown chemical, “We’re all ravers here man.” And We we’re and are all raving mad, dancing to the song of the desert, everything everything everything, yet no one died there, no children were harmed.

Socio-Economic status indicators are less apparent at Black Rock City, dress is both shabby and marvelous, as many are in the hippy Mad Max apocalyptic desert tribal grindhouse gear of their choosing, or naked as the day they were born, covered in dust.  

The happiest man I witnessed, sat naked in full lotus, serenely smiling to himself, dreadlocks draped over his shoulders rocking back and forth at a woman’s wedding where she married her self.  He knew the open secret.

This strikes at the heart of the matter, there in the desert, there is an awareness, that every citizen is in an act of participatory art happening in the now, you may wear your body without shame, without scorn or derision, or even a second glance, you may simply be in all your human glory, in whatever mode of conscious, whatever identity or avatar you choose.

Comfort of touch arises in this open, relaxed atmosphere of non-repression, Hugs are standard greeting, and last a deliciously long time compared to our society. Cathartic emotional release arises, encouraged by freedom from social conditioning, laws, and traditional mores. There is a fervent, accepted development of comradeship, the beautiful, sane affection of man for man, latent in all the young fellows, north south east and west.

Rumi’s quote on Zoroastrian’s wheel reads, “Come, come, whoever you are, Wanderer, idolator, worshipper of fire, even though you have broken your vows, a thousand times, Come, and come yet again. Ours is not a caravan of despair.”

In this living environment of artful community empowerment new social standards arise, more equivalent to private desire, as there is increased ****** illumination, new social codes made manifest that rid us of fear of our own nakedness, rejection of our own body.

This stands in stark contrast to the present condition of life for American Person, which is one of deathly public solitude and mass commercialization.
We’ve built a technological Tower of Babel around ourselves, and are literally reaching into heaven to escape the planet. The stupendous machinery surrounding us conditions our thoughts, feelings, and reinforces our mental slavery to the material universe we’ve invested in, the separation and tension this creates can be felt walking down the street avoiding stranger’s eyes.

I say all this tremendous and dominant play of solely materialist bearings upon current life in the US, with the results already seen, accumulating, and reaching far into the future, that they must either be confronted and met by at least an equally subtle force infusion for purposes of spiritualization, for the pure conscience, for genuine esthetics, and for absolute and primal manliness and womanliness – or else our modern civilization, with all its improvements is in vain, and we are on the road to a destiny, to that of the fabled ******.


How can we Americans make our minds change theme? For unless the theme changes-encrustation of the planet with machinery, inorganic metal smog, violent outrage and mass ****** will take place. We witness these horrors already.

Abruptly then, I will make a first proposal: on one level symbolic, but to be taken as literally as possible, it may shock some and delight others – that everybody who hears my voice, directly or indirectly, try the chemical LSD at least once; every man woman and child American in good health over the age of 14, find a kindly teacher or guru guide and assay their consciousness with LSD – that if necessary, we have a mass emotional nervous breakdown in these States once and for all.  

Then I prophecy, we will all have seen some ray of glory or vastness beyond our conditioned social selves, beyond our government, beyond America even, that will unite us into a peaceable community.  I hope this will be understood not as the solution, but a typical and spiritually revolutionary catalyst, where many varieties of spiritual revolution are necessary to transcend specifically the political Hobbesian cold war we are all involved in.

I would invite you to step away from your rational mind
Seek inner space awareness
May the long time sun shine upon you
And all love surround you, and the pure light within you, shine your way on
I gave this speech as part of a Pecha Kucha presentation at the Columbus Musuem of Art on 11/13/14
Next page