"Fourth of July Poem"

Enough done gone boom already.

7 4 84

One thing i am learning [from my night job], that the night is
just like the day; it is just as bright, and i can imagine having
my other senses acute enough to move about in it freely--
but also, i think that the day, is just as obscure, just as
hidden and unobserved (through our inattention) even
though flooded with light and light's reflections... I don't
know how to begin to describe this or paint it, but i want
to someday. Because it is like a great allegory of awareness
...all around us for everything; and that must be the only reason
to be a realist...and why so many (gropingly) choose to try it.

'533. 'I often think that the night is more alive and more
richly colored than the day.' --letters of Van Gogh

Going to the woods to gain silence is like getting ice from the
North Pole. By the time you arrive it's almost all gone.

A real doctor would tell me, All you need is to run wild in the
woods awhile. "But i have run wild all my life!" Yes--except
you ran in a maze. That doesn't count... Every rat in
the maze thinks it's running wild. But put them in an open field,
and they keep on making maze patterns. Do you want to be a
Big White Coat? Then learn how to make up new mazes. But
don't talk about wilderness or the woods.

Sometimes i fall silent. If i were suddenly asked, What are you
thinking? i would say: "I'm not thinking. I am contemplating
something inside me as if it were outside of me."

Christmas on Earth. After a national political convention,
the prostitutes there take a month off. --This is a fable we
want to believe about all "vice". When we indulge, it's not
to feel joy, but to play Santa Claus.

We are inordinately impressed by those who can train their
face (actors, yogis, impassive peasants, cats). What does this
say about our concept of the mind? Personality is a face-metaphor,
extended to include the whole body & body movement (especially
talk-style). Mind as: the underlying bone structure of a face. (Brain-
washing = reconstructive surgery.) --What kind of mind-concept
would we have if we didn't have mobile faces? Would we
consider monkeys like magical protean Houdinis on that account?
(Jesus who walked through walls.) Would we never try to teach
anybody? (Shape their expressions: straighten up, kid!) ...Would our
hands be useless??

My [T]heosophical [Society] incense is unbearably sweet with a
lingering after-aroma of carrion. Just like theosophy in
fact. Which makes me wish every philosophy, every religion,
every mind-set system would produce its own brand of joss
sticks. We could judge them at once, without having to run
them through our brains; painlessly...
   Scientology, for instance: Comet cleanser.
   Materialism (consumerism): leaded gasoline
(with additives).
   Methodism (unreformed): the back of the
closet where you keep all winter coats (in the South that is).
   Artism: turpentine, of course, --in all its
mystical ramifications.
   Taoism: ripe peaches (not as found in a
supermarket!).
   Buddha's buddhism: peaches on the ground
starting to go bad.
   Zen buddhism: supermarket peaches, with a
whiff of ethylene (or formaldehyde or whatever it is).
--You play this game. But only with the systems which have lured you.
Nietzsche: "My genius is in my nostrils." --Ozone? (as detected by
acidhead-third nostril)

How can i blame anyone for what they believe? Our definitions are
as much forced upon us as the deformations of age, illness, and
employment: they are the surfaces where our bodies touch the
hook we all writhe upon.

Yesterday Pollution Red, today only Orange. After driving home
i feel a slight sore throat, & when i first get into the car there's
a funny sensation around my eyelids like the stinging that means
i've gone too long without bathing (but i haven't). It's only the
sky falling, friends. We were warned.