Ken Nordine Sendup

Air Lift Underground
Sending Up Ken Nordine
Read more: Ken Nordine Sendup

Let’s Bring the Healing

Well, this castle is quickly losing luster
The courtyard’s cluttered
With braggadocio and bluster
Broken windows shuttered
Sliding into the gutter
Whatever happened to the welcome mat?
Oh, they sold that to the plutocrats

It’s a labyrinth of one-way doors
Where billionaire servants carefully ignore
Your protests as they steal all that is yours
And sell the furniture for a trifle more
This is a house that has forgotten the poor
We’re not even sure what we built it for

The paint is peeling
On the sagging ceiling
Too much truth revealing
We’re tired of kneeling
It’s potluck planet
And we plan on feasting

So let’s bring the healing
Let’s bring the healing

Better invest in remodeling
Let’s start by appealing
To that human feeling
We’ll need more than a cosmetic change
The whole foundation must be rearranged
We’re so spun out on our polarities
We’ve misplaced half our humanity
Compassion is pure necessity
When we understand
That I plus you makes we

So let’s bring the healing
Let’s bring the healing
Let’s bring the healing

We’re sick with worry
Sick with debt
Sick with doubt
Sick with regret
Sick with hatred
Sick inside out
Sick about what it’s all about
Sick of division
Sick to the core
Sick of the mantra of more more more

We’re sick of celebrity
Sick of the news
Sick of manifest destiny
Heads I win, tails you lose
We’re sick of the superficial
Sick of the profound
Sick of the artificial
Turf smothering the ground

Sick of lies raining from above
Sick of push
And sick of shove
Sick with twisted ideas of love
Sick of always keeping score
And so very sick
Sick to death
Of the vile stench of war
There’s so much we’re all sick of
So let’s bring the healing

Let’s bring the healing
Let’s bring the healing
Let’s bring the healing

Bloomin’ Craft

Starseeds from wild yonder frontier
Efflorescent effigies made from mirrors
Under the deep blue atmosphere
Exploding at the bottom of an ocean of air

Overtures and undertones
Animating flesh and bone
Chipping away at the great unknown
As both the sculptor
Both the sculptor and the stone
Both the sculptor and the stone

They carried carbon contraband
Written in twin helix strands
And it spread throughout the land
Lit like a red-hot firebrand

The Oracle code from the motherlode
Where the sky kisses the Earth
And rain returns for another rebirth
Sun-soaked fractal math
Wandering and pondering
Evolution’s garden path
A rose arose
A rose arose
A rose arose
A Cosmos exposed
As the coiled Caduceus laughs
Practicing the Bloomin’ Craft
Practicing the Bloomin’ Craft
Practicing the Bloomin’ Craft

Rhea gave Her essence to the Aeons
But bygones wouldn’t stay bygones
Fed a rock to the Ages swallowing Icons
And made old Time cough up the Pantheon

She showed them the invisible
She told them the inaudible
She described the ineffable
Defied the inevitable
And bid them build the impossible

She wished us illumination
But left us biding among the blind
She whispered secrets of initiation
By the sign of serpents intertwined

The Oracle code from the motherlode
Where the sky kisses the Earth
And rain returns for another rebirth
Sun-soaked fractal math
Wandering and pondering
Evolution’s garden path
A rose arose
A rose arose
A rose arose
A Cosmos exposed
As the coiled Caduceus laughs
Practicing the Bloomin’ Craft
Practicing the Bloomin’ Craft
Practicing the Bloomin’ Craft

Pulling Strings

We met in booking at the local clink
Making the best of the situation
I’d had a little bit too much to think
Sparking a three-state investigation

She was in for numerous sins
And countless deviations
She flashed me an unlawful grin
The kind that needs no explanation

Oh, that good old outlaw romance
Sweatin’ heavy and takin’ our chance
Oh, you know, it’s a dangerous dance
By the seat of our pants
Sometimes it comes apart at the seams
Whenever you start pulling strings
It might just keep unraveling

It was love at first mug shot
So I hurried back with her bail
And when they wouldn’t let her out
I took down the walls of that damned jail

We ran off to join the circus
That scene was really fly-by-night
Swinging the high trapeze netless
With backpacks of dynamite

Oh, that good old outlaw romance
Sweatin’ heavy and takin’ our chance
Oh, you know, it’s a dangerous dance
By the seat of our pants
Sometimes it comes apart at the seams
Whenever you start pulling strings
It might just keep unraveling

One day the big top blew sky high
And we were already making tracks
Skating on thin ice of alibis
With the heat always at our backs

Never met a rule that wouldn’t bend
We’re completely self-authorized
I haven’t a clue how all of this ends
But I plan on being surprised

Oh, that good old outlaw romance
Sweatin’ heavy and takin’ our chance
Oh, you know, it’s a dangerous dance
By the seat of our pants
Sometimes it comes apart at the seams
Whenever you start pulling strings
It might just keep unraveling

Saturn’s Return

She was ravishing in rags
She banished gloom from the drag
Serving fantasies by the bag
Any eye would be
Taken in by the shine
Oh it’s no use cryin’
Over spilt wine
And no use whining
About wilted vines
Especially when the vineyard
Was never mine

She interrupted nothing
Nothing at all
I was deeply contemplating
The nearest wall
Intent on procrastinating
A perfectly good day away
But I lost sight of my priorities
And put the pause button on delay

Maybe it was her eyes
Or maybe her ink
Maybe it was her fire
Or just my drink
Whatever it was that made me think
Thoughts that came
With a nudge and a wink
A voice in my head that seductively said
I can always do nothing tomorrow instead

Words had such a way with her
Acrobatic enough to insert
Terms like “hyperbolic tesselation”
In the course of casual conversation
Dangling participles in anticipation
Of furtive yet fruitless flirtations
Daring you to confess incomprehension
Of notions which defy explanation

She had a way of waxing eloquent
On any subject she’d care to invent
She was of roundly angular bent
And I was rarely sure exactly what she meant
She always assumed that you understood
I always assumed I eventually would

Maybe it was her eyes
Or maybe her ink
Maybe it was her fire
Or just my drink
Whatever it was that made me think
Thoughts that came
With a nudge and a wink
A voice in my head that seductively said
I can always do nothing tomorrow instead

Classy and class-conscious all at once
She dropped out of finishing school
And jumped into the blue gene pool
Elitism isn’t for everyone, she said
The books kept slipping off my head
And anyway they’d rather be read

What a bundle of conflicted contradictions
A wonderful mess of conflated convictions
In a ribbon-red dress defying description
Surfing the wave of Saturn’s Return
She had three triple lifetimes to burn
And so when she said shall we then go
And I said where and she said you know
She said you know
She said you know

Maybe it was her eyes
Or maybe her ink
Maybe it was her fire
Or just my drink
Whatever it was that made me think
Thoughts that came
With a nudge and a wink
A voice in my head that seductively said
I can always do nothing tomorrow instead

Thumplethinskin

Here comes the king of the trolls
On a red-carpet of indemnified souls
Make way for the procession of deplorables!
They hang on his gilded coat-tails
They hang on every blustery word
This curious cross between Mussolini
P.T. Barnum and Harry Houdini

On goblins! On dragons!
Sound the alarm! Arm the klaxon!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Fe fie Foo-foo
Freaking all the field mice
And bopping ‘em on the head
The Klan and 4-chan and the FBI, oh my!
They bet on the long shot
And Russia covered the spread

Enthroned in a castle of cards
With struts of silver spoons
The blowhard paper tycoon
Upgraded to full-scale typhoon
Well, they cultivated the piper
But he supplied his own pie, sir
And now he’ll call the tunes

The firmament shakes
Under the jackboot earthquake
The upset heard ‘round the world
Coup! Coup! Coup!
For ballots are cheaper than bullets
And puppets move faster than rockets

On 9-11 twin towers fell
In the apple of America’s I
On 11-9 another gaudy tower rose
To spill golden showers from the sky
Now we confront unbound Titans
Looming over compromised horizons
Now the map is swimming with red
As rough beasts slough off to Washington
Lining up at the trough to be fed

I’ll Putin twenty
If you’ll ante up the farm
For this is the land of plenty
And the bankers will come to no harm
Just make sure the bears keep their arms
The Second Amendment trumps the First
As clock and calendar are radically reversed
America’s a casino now
And all the chips are in
We’re stuck holding deuces
Who do you think will win?

So it’s time to build a wall
Around our three-thousand mile mall
Better not let those brown folks in to work
At labors the brown-shirts would rather shirk
Well, you know Nobody won the 2016 election
But the plutocrats made their selection
Missiles and seig heils
Rise to salute his improbable erection
A psychopathic half-wit driven to emit
A shit-storm of unfiltered excrement
But we hold it obvious and self-evident
That Douchenozzle J. Thumplethinskin
Has no business even being free
Let alone our last President

All braggadocio and bling
As real as professional wrestling
Authentic as a QVC zirconium ring
This bumbling parody of villainy
Blowing the trumpet of tyranny
Bearing all the legitimacy
Of a three-trillion dollar bill
America, meet your poison pill
Thump! Thump! Thump!

Unasked

How many electrons dance on the head of a pin?
At what time did time begin?
Who knows what silence has to say?
How does nothingness pass the day?
Wherefore does a dream weigh
After daylight and doubt has chased it away?
Which random tangent shall we entertain?
Can we find the mind if it’s not in the brain?
These are the pressing questions
Unasked in their very expression

Here have we overflown lands
Overgrown by phony panaceas
Scaling loops of circular stairs
And plunging neckline nadirs of despair
Distilling volatile emotions
Into smokey lyrical potions

Here we’ve visited vistas
Of unintelligible synesthesia
Here Mnemosyne wrestles perpetually
With her evil twin Amnesia
Not nearly as noble as dynamite
And darker than stars devouring their own light
Bellowing out fire-demons of spite
Scorching the source of all we ignite

Who can spot the difference
Between observation and inference
Is it me? Is it you? Is it peer review?
What is the population of true?
All we need is the number and name
Of the witness with no skin in the game
What does it mean for something not to exist
How is that different from something you missed?
These are the pressing questions
Unasked in their very expression

Where’s the line between forgery and art?
What does authenticity matter
If the mark can’t tell them apart?
What are idols made in the image of?
Is time truly a Titan
Which swallows swaddling children
All the while protesting love?
Thundering conflicting commands
From lofty mountaintops above
As the faithful cut off their own hands
Fearful to trust their own plans
These are the pressing questions
Unasked in their very expression

Which tyrant rules uncharted territory?
Decreeing the chains of gravity?
Is there some uncountable entity
Synthesizing reality in a laboratory?
And if that’s who created the Universe
Is the creator of the creator someone even worse?
It’s bootstraps all the way down
A bottomless chasm you can’t get around
Maybe look to the future instead of the past
If it’s always found in the place you look last

We’ve heard all these proud
And definite words
And the endless arguments
They’ve happily spurred
Straw men and Santa Clause
Dueling in theaters of the absurd
Ideas getting carried away with themselves
Born to applause and greatness
But buried and bound to bookshelves
It’s all very quick
And terribly clever
But where shall we find the mystic physician
Who knows how to fix the human condition?

Consider the cost of consideration
The drag of deliberation
An arms race of experiments
To build the better conflagration
Inventing acrobatic instruments
To obscure examination
Is this culture past the date of expiration?
Spoiled with murky curdled traditions
Devoid of any credible claim
To serving any reasonable aim
Or can our lab coat heroes
Find some strain of redemption
Immune to the pangs of paradigm conception
Is there any sense assigning blame
When cure and poison are exactly the same?

What came before eternity?
What’s the formula for originality?
When did these broken notions of sin
Get twisted and mixed in
With evoking inner divinity?
How do we swallow our own tales
Taken to compass the cosmic scale?
As we’re bending them and sending them
Into maddened luminous hyperspheres
Blinded by the navel’s glorious glare
These are the pressing questions
Unasked in their very expression

Usual suspects rounded up and released
All the props of philosophers and priests
Yet the whodunit remains unsolved
And now the lab has utterly dissolved
Who cares who did it
We want to know why
Even if we only find plausible lies
All the mind’s cages buckled and bent
No one knows where the control group went
Medals all melted down again
Has the entire universe fallen in
Collapsing all which might have been?
These are the pressing questions
Unasked in their very expression

Truth Is A Goat

Truth is a goat
Herded though the desert
By gruff, bearded keepers
Bearing hooked and wooden sticks

Truth is a goat!

Truth is a goat
Stubborn and unyielding
Scaling the mountain
In search of itself

Truth is a goat!

Truth grazes on fiery gazes
Fixed on a stony creed
Written on truth’s tanned skin
Where it says knowledge
Is wrapped up in sin

Truth is a goat!

Truth ruts with gusto
Butting heads
With other truths
So eager to breed
And spread their seed
In temples and confessional booths

Truth is a goat!

Lonely holiness bellows
A hollow trumpet sound
Through the severed horns of Truth
Sacrificed in the name of the name
Bleating guilt
And bleating shame
Blurting Truths
Broken and tame
Oh beware if anyone dares
Say these goats are all the same

Truth is a goat!

Truth is a goat
And no one seems to raise goats anymore
It’s all sacred cows
And lambs to the slaughter
Dancing atop steepletop bells
Just as well
For Truth’s coming around the mountain
On a steep vertical crag
Where no biped dares to tread
Wild and unkempt terrain
Truth that won’t stay in a single head
Or remain in pickled brains

Truth is a goat!

Truth is a goat
And the ego is a dog
Barking and corralling
Wandering wayward Truths
Faithfully serving the Shepherd
Who butchers the meat of the matter
And sells the Truth to the highest bidder

Truth is a goat!

Truth is a goat
As old as the hills
Living on quotes
Getting by on cheap thrills
Hooves split asunder
And never quite still
Unafraid of thunder
Hungry, unfulfilled
Kind of makes you wonder
If the old goat really knows
And if we ever will
If we ever will
If we ever will

Is Truth A Goat?

Road I Ride

The road I ride
Isn’t marked on any map
It’s a little off to the side
From where pandas lay their traps
Out where outlaws hide
The tunnels are where I reside
A little dirt I take in stride
No room for undue pride
On the road I ride

Read more: Road I Ride

Chimera

’Twas the battle of White Mountain
Bohemian dreams in flames
And among the abandoned banners
Lay the opposites that were the same
Arsenals of vitriol
Launched in fits of ire
Save your face or save your soul
But either way it ends in fire

Chimera in a china shop
Bless this mess
It never stops
Ten thousand steps
To reach the top
But only one slip
For the bottom to drop

The clash of the sky Armadas
Under a musing moon
Eloquent wax melting
Janus candles lit too soon
Pyrite pyramids tower
As rockets burst above
Shooting stars don’t go that far
When the wish runs out of love

Chimera in a china shop
Bless this mess
It never stops
Ten thousand steps
To reach the top
But only one slip
For the bottom to drop

There were jars of bottled lightening
Scorched Earth all around
Shards of shattered rainbows
Snowflakes rising from the ground
Assassinated characters
Faces full of sand
Low-down spilled across the hill
Casting shadows on the land

Chimera in a china shop
Bless this mess
It never stops
Ten thousand steps
To reach the top
But only one slip
For the bottom to drop

Fabric Meets the Flesh

Winter blew through and froze my bones
The angels throwing hailstones
We’ve crossed Juno, just so you know
And she’s notching icicles in her crossbow

The best laid plans of men and mice
Left us highways paved with ice
Snowballs rolling big and bold
I hope that jack-shack’s gonna hold

A flawless design
In the cloister of the mind
But will the pattern unwind
When put to the test
When the fabric meets the flesh
And veils fall in soft caress
When art devours artifice
And we stand naked nonetheless

When the meta is consumed by meat
Theories are great, but when do we eat?
You can lead minds to the kitchen sink
But I don’t believe you can make them think

So back to the old drawing board
And see if this one strikes a chord
For the blueprint’s only paper-thin
When the human element enters in

A flawless design
In the cloister of the mind
But will the pattern unwind
When put to the test
When the fabric meets the flesh
And veils fall in soft caress
When art devours artifice
And we stand naked nonetheless

If you’d plan to span the globe
Clad in royal threadbare robes
Well, every strength comes along
With weakness born of being strong

When ideas hit hard reality
Dragged by tractor-beams of gravity
And the parachute snags and tears
Remember we’re always halfway there

A flawless design
In the cloister of the mind
But will the pattern unwind
When put to the test
When the fabric meets the flesh
And the veils fall in soft caress
When art devours artifice
And we stand naked nonetheless

Crossing the Rubicon

We’ve uncovered the plot of a book
And we’re surfing turning pages
Everywhere little Oedipa looks
We’re trapped in Tristero’s traces

Are we hoist in some twisted hoax
Or a warped hallucination?
Shadows wrapped in mystical cloaks
Fleeing with your imagination

Truth’s a many-headed hydra
Every answer has a twin
There isn’t any box big enough
To squeeze the Universe in
Maybe the pattern’s real
Or else completely fake
Maybe you’re only dreaming
That you’re actually awake
Maybe it’s transparent
Or utterly opaque
All there is is a point of you
A drop in an infinite lake

Skating third rails of radiation
Through concrete tunnels of perception
Fissuring degrees of gradiation
Splitting the spectrum of sensation

Just a half-step of separation
Dividing diamond-faced dimensions
Tinsel filaments of reflection
Lost in transit and translation

Sorting scattered glimmers
Of tableaus twisted and bent
Stirring a mixture of pictures
Chronicling impossible events

Truth’s a many-headed hydra
Every answer has a twin
There isn’t any box big enough
To squeeze the Universe in
Maybe the pattern’s real
Or else completely fake
Maybe you’re only dreaming
That you’re actually awake
Maybe it’s transparent
Or utterly opaque
All there is is a point of you
A drop in an infinite lake

Well, hell, we’ve crossed the Rubicon
And the die is irrevocably cast
Whatever laser-razed lost lexicons
Illuminate the hidden past

Are we in a digital analogy
A virtual reality imitation?
Marked by quirky peculiarities
Emerging from rainbows of gravitation?

Lyrical spherical symmetries
Encompassing the whole of the Earth
Wrapped around parallel polarities
Of entropy and rebirth

Truth’s a many-headed hydra
Every answer has a twin
There isn’t any box big enough
To squeeze the Universe in
Maybe the pattern’s real
Or else completely fake
Maybe you’re only dreaming
That you’re actually awake
Maybe it’s transparent
Or utterly opaque
All there is is a point of you
A drop in an infinite lake

Hotel Paradox

Right at the corner of Vortex Street
And Enigma Avenue
Squatters blew up the Utopia Suite
So we’re booked in room Catch-22
Now is tomorrow with a backspin twist
And you’d better believe nothing unreal exists

Oh, I swear we’re halfway there
Down roundabout halls and endless stairs
Got to think around the box
To navigate this place
No vacancy in the Hotel Paradox
But we never run out of space
And we’re halfway there
Always halfway
Halfway there

The front desk has already checked out
The pool full of atmosphere
The marquee is powered by doubt
For if you knew, you wouldn’t be here
If you have to ask, the answer is know
‘Cause we ran out of answers ages ago

Oh, I swear we’re halfway there
Down roundabout halls and endless stairs
Got to think around the box
To navigate this place
No vacancy in the Hotel Paradox
But we never run out of space
And we’re halfway there
Always halfway
Halfway there

The time has come, the walrus said
To vacuum the upstairs ceiling
Time to lie in an unmade bed
And watch the paint a-peelin’
Well, nobody asked if you wanted to be
So free will’s an illusion if you ask me

Oh, I swear we’re halfway there
Down roundabout halls and endless stairs
Got to think around the box
To navigate this place
No vacancy in the Hotel Paradox
But we never run out of space
And we’re halfway there
Always halfway
Halfway there

Corporate Logos

You know the flow by where it won’t go
Those outlines define the shapes of the signs
Drawn in the span between high tide and low
Visible only when moonlight shines
Always digging and ditching
That double-edged duality
Emulating every enemy
As we go about the business
Of re-branding reality

Spiraling staircase
Spells out the word
That all eyes know
And no ears have heard
Four letters in the flesh
Swirling in a soup
Strangely stirred
Walking the talk
Stumbling and slurred

Banks of currency backed by trust
Storing the solid light of the sun
Accounts inherited by birthright of dust
With a ballooning balance known by none
Variable interest which self-adjusts
And long lines of numbers which add up to one

Spiraling staircase
Spells out the word
That all eyes know
And no ears have heard
Four letters in the flesh
Swirling in a soup
Strangely stirred
Walking the talk
Stumbling and slurred

So we’re making matters in our own hands
For all we are are blueprints in sand
With the endless supply of endless demand
Swimming through the subspace substrate
Creation in search of something to create
Anagrams and amalgamated visions
Fused by the art of inverted fission

Spiraling staircase
Spells out the word
That all eyes know
And no ears have heard
Four letters in the flesh
Swirling in a soup
Strangely stirred
Walking the talk
Stumbling and slurred

Corporate Logos

Alembic

The face of the tabula rasa
Emptiness awaiting the wind
Like a mad priestess of Pythia
Inhaling infinities within

Exhaling soap-bubble streams
Running on the last synapse
Juggling fragile dreams
Until all save one collapse

I made my way to this domain
Dancing in the serpent’s lair
Dissolving the shallow and vain
Washing myself right out of my hair

When the right hand knows
What the left hand feels
When opposites match
Epiphanies flash
And sparks catch
Illuminating the wick
Just you mind the magic
Watch the other hand
That’s where you’ll find the trick

At the crossroads the curtain rippled
Centuries swept away
And then our numbers tripled
When the djinn came out to play

Eternity etched in hourglass sands
Symbols distilled through the ages
Keep whatever you catch in your hands
And transmute it upon these pages

Did you anticipate this instant’s arrival
Grasping at tattered coat-tails?
Can you taste the rag-tag sense of style
Can you hear the breeze rustling these sails?

When the right hand knows
What the left hand feels
When opposites match
Epiphanies flash
And sparks catch
Illuminating the wick
Just you mind the magic
Watch the other hand
That’s where you’ll find the trick

Alchemy is all about purity
Dialing down the ego noise
Rising higher with every degree
That the fire-walk destroys

Sitting in the crucible
We’re cranking up the gas
Down to bare essentials
Extracting music from the mass

We’ve caught a drop of magic
Raining from phantom clouds
Distilled in the alembic
Until it sings the spell out loud

When the right hand knows
What the left hand feels
When opposites match
Epiphanies flash
And sparks catch
Illuminating the wick
Just you mind the magic
Watch the other hand
That’s where you’ll find the trick

Rhapsody In Retrograde

There’s quite the crisis on Haywire Hill
By now we all ought to know the drill
It’s enough to make old Murphy ill
Any glitch which can show up probably will

We’re caught in the eye of a psychic cyclone
Yes, a hell of a mess, and you’re not alone
Better hunker down until the ripples have blown
For retrograde wrinkles all that is known

The state of fate’s a little bit perverse
As if we’re under some curious curse
Maybe it’s Mercury orbiting reverse
Or maybe it’s the rest of the Universe
Hold on to your hat, hope it has wings
And watch out for outrageous arrows and slings

Messages arrive dented and bent
It’s that reality check that no one sent
No, that’s not at all what I meant
You’ve got the letter but not the intent

I’d love to chat, but I’d better run
You know, this ragtag bag, it weighs a ton
Not everyone likes the prize they won
Please don’t shoot, I’ve only just begun

For the wages are tendered in verse
That tricky Mercury has the wit to disperse
And if events seem to be turning adverse
Without the lessons it’d be even worse

So I brought my thoughts to the mail slot
Still panting from the planetary juggernaut
Triple-stamped in care of all who sought
And lost, and found again the plot

The state of fate’s a little bit perverse
As if we’re under some curious curse
Maybe it’s Mercury orbiting reverse
Or maybe it’s the rest of the Universe
Hold on to your hat, hope it has wings
And watch out for outrageous arrows and slings

Rhapsody in Retrograde
Cavalcade of escapades
Rhapsody in Retrograde
Promenade of plans mislaid
Rhapsody in Retrograde
Serenades for renegades

The state of fate’s a little bit perverse
As if we’re under some curious curse
Maybe it’s Mercury orbiting reverse
Or maybe it’s the rest of the Universe
Hold on to your hat, hope it has wings
And watch out for outrageous arrows and slings

Blues for Kali

You can call Her the Dark Mother
You could call Her the Mountain’s Daughter
You can call Her Whatever
Yes, she’ll sever your poor head
And then deliver up another
You know, matters may not get better
But they’ll be different all the same
For that chatter won’t really matter
And the matter won’t really mind
When you go off to leave all the Maya behind

For each day is a tango with death
Dancing true blue tempos
Among shadows and echoes
As simple as holding a breath
And then letting it go
Jai Ma Kali Nemo

She’s the midwife of mystery
Domain as far as any third eye can see
Bearing and tearing fragile realities
We’ve crossed the rubicon, it’s ride or die
There’s no unseeing it now, how the self is a lie
You can drink from the river but it will never be dry
This mortal plane’s a crazy game
We’re just playing at being you and me
It takes grace to face a Kali makeover
Hold still, you’ll get over whoever you were

For each day is a tango with death
Dancing true blue tempos
Among shadows and echoes
Simple as holding a breath
And then letting it go
Jai Ma Kali Namo

Recycling worn forms and spent energy
The snake is awake, it’s all Kundalini
Emanations from the Universe’s Yoni
Trillions of transitory stories
Changing faces places and names
Kali Durga Uma Parvati
Manifold incarnations of Devi and Shakti
Immersion and dispersion in a thundering sea
That which clings will surely be torn
But there’s nothing to mourn, we’re all Being reborn

Cause each day is a tango with death
Dancing true blue tempos
Among shadows and echoes
Simple as holding a breath
And then letting it go
Jai Ma Kali Namo

Great Vehicle

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Non Sequitur

Yo-yo
Pogo stick
Wax and wick
Icy slick
Logistic tricks
Animated meat
Meet concrete street
Follow that clown
With the big red frown
Whichever verb
Does the noun
You know
Whichever verb
Does the noun

Knick-knacks
Triple stacked
Look, I’ve got eyes
On the back of my back
Kicking at air
Is anything there?
Build a moat
Around the I
Draw the bridge
Then wonder why
The fortress fails
To edify
The fortress fails
To edify

Yin yang
Finger bang
Sir you rang?
Hierarchical harangues
Jump? How high?
Now scrape the sky
Birth the Sun and scorch your thighs
You’re lucky to even qualify
Trickle down oil spills
Duck your head it’s just a drill
Don’t know who will
Pay the bills
When we only
Work for play

Jack be shady, Jack be slick
Well, Jack ran off with the music stick
Is half a loaf any better
Than a half-assed cranial kick?
Well, we’ve got wax
And we’ve got wicks
But the candle won’t call it magic
No the candle won’t call it magic
If the flicker’s in on the trick
No the candle won’t call it magic
If the flicker’s in on the trick
In on the trick

You say more poison is the cure?
No, that’s just pure non sequitur
Now do tell what fresh circle of hell?
And are you sure you’re sure?
Well, I think the chance is one in ten
Better confiscate their pens
Now is morphing into then
Groovin’ on that grimoire grammar
Slam the gavel!
Jack the hammer!
Correlate unrelated dates
Don’t stop
To hesitate
Just hold your wait
Hold your weight
And activate

Tick-tock
Kick the clock
Round the block
That joke’s debunked
The cost is sunk
And the potion’s drunk
On the fast-track
To a cul-de-sac
In the back
Of a jacked-up Cadillac
Be sure your big break
Don’t break you right back
Be sure your big break
Don’t break you right back

Word salad lightly tossed
Assonance the special sauce
Pre-sale clichès at half the cost
Scrabbled Yahtzee Boggle
Rocket moon boondoggles
Don infra-violet goggles
Helmet meet baton
There’s your crown, peon
Win the hamster marathon
For it’s half-past time
Half-past time
Half-past time to Immanentize
An Eschaton
Imminent ties
The Eschaton
Imminent ties
The Eschaton

Question Marks

The sky was raining question marks
Djinn spinning in bodies of dust
Air rippling with cobalt sparks
Dancing in fantasies of treasure and trust

Coming to in a bed of thorns
Beneath a scalding hot pink dome
The wailing wind imitating horns
Mirages curdling up with foam

Clouds and crowds appeared like smoke
Where nothing at all should be
And all at once like a Cosmic Joke
Dawned a shimmering glimmer of destiny

Well, it’s time and it’s time
And it’s time to write the future
It had to happen later or sooner
For the second hand is the Great Undoer
So know your spell well
When the bellwether chimes
Cause like they say
Like they say
History rhymes

The ambrosia and the nectar flowed
And then the star struck nine
Falling from the comet she rode
Hanging from a dangling vine

A silent voice was thundering
In a cadence soft and divine
Said we heard you out here wondering
If you can read between the signs

Can you read between the signs?

Well, the Mobius Band got out of hand
Stripping the fabric from the folds
When the hourglass ran out of sand
And told a tale which never ever grows old

Well, it’s time and it’s time
And it’s time to write the future
It had to happen later or sooner
For the second hand is the great undoer
So know your spell well
When the bellwether chimes
Cause like they say
Like they say
History rhymes

Goatman Pan with a pipe and a plan
Playin’ that good ole Bacchanalian Jam
Looping Shepherd’s tones through miles of caves
As droves of dryads come in waves

Sarasvati strumming slide sitar
Pondering swansongs down from the stars
Drawing each breath toward that which inspires
Rolling through ragas which never expire

Shiva rocking skins with all six limbs
Beating up on singularity’s rim
Drumming out the dead in single file
Chugging Soma like it’s going out of style
Like it’s going out of style

Well, it’s time and it’s time
And it’s time to write the future
It had to happen later or sooner
For the second hand is the great undoer
So know your spell well
When the bellwether chimes
Cause like they say
Like they say
History rhymes

Riverrun

I come bearing an hourglass
Where the sand flows both ways
Not very clear on matters of mass
Tho’ quite precise where energy plays
Remember the future about like the past
Clouded by all that I’m missing today
All I can say is both move very fast
In the slowest of all possible ways

From swerve of shore
To bend of bay
Ending up where it once begun
A way a lone a last a loved
Along the riverrun

I find my way by ballpoint compass
As the world’s mapped on a sphere
Needle tuned to the heart of bliss
Nested in a maze of ten billion gears
Right now it’s pointing directly at this
Voyage of thought on waves to your ears
As a sailor who knows it’s easy to miss
Islands of hope in storms of fear

From swerve of shore
To bend of bay
Ending up where it once begun
A way a lone a last a loved
Along the riverrun

Half of humanity’s planted on Earth
So the rest could sculpt the sky
Someone must keep the sense of mirth
In a mound of molasses ten miles high
In the intermission between death and birth
We get to be ghosts with the freedom to fly
Relearn what a good limitation is worth
The way you dig on a well gone suddenly dry

From swerve of shore
To bend of bay
Ending up where it once begun
A way a lone a last a loved
Along the riverrun