FINALLY!
After weeks of
wanting to be there, but having too much on my plate to do anything about it, the Jahaka Mindstorm
web site is updated! The process was an ordeal, too, thanks in part to new technology (grrr!).
As a former web master, I don't mind doing the maintenance duties on my own site. After all the time spent as an
Artist, working on the
SeptaVerse project, the
Tech in me was eager to do
his thing. Unfortunately, so was the powerful AI of the
Sitebuilder interface that I utilize to manage my site.
It's like being a building contractor, with a robert 'helper' who follows you around, trying to tie up the loose ends of your various tasks. So lets say you leave a bucket of nails, lying near a sheet of drywall you plan to nail up
later. The robot sees the bucket of nails and he hammers them neatly into the nearby studs. But the goof leaves the drywall sheet lying there -- he hammers the nails into...
nothing!
Now you have to go back, pull out all the nails, install the damned drywall, and hope like hell the idiot robot took a coffee break instead of screwing up something else.
But as I worked (through the night, AGAIN!) I gradually got to know my litle AI helper a little better (so I left fewer tasks awaiting later completion!) and finally the job was finished. I'm (smug) pretty pleased with myself.
I remember when I first started doing web design and my personal guru, Joe Pennant, would caution me: "
Alright, Speedy - the Devil is in the details." Well, I'm detail-oriented
enough that it didn't take long to develop my own methodology, one that lets me handle chunks of HTML code in a systematic fashion that I'm comfortable with.
Well, Joe, I don't know if you're still doing web design or if that camera of yours has taken you off on a whole different path. But I do know this:
The Devil isn't in the details anymore. He's right in the fucking AI interface!Nonetheless, life is very good.
A shout out to all the
special medical professionals working so tenaciously to make health care better for children, especial
at risk children.
I got nothing but love for you, baby!
Synesthesia II
So Hosea asks me: "I wonder if my father took that word 'synesthesia out of the dictionary."
What makes you think it's in the dictionary? "Well, where else woud he get it from?"
He probably just made it up. People make up words all the time. Hosea shook his head. "No, I don't think my father would do that."
Man, if that word (synesthesia)
is in the dictionary, I'll eat my hat.On that note, of course we had to look it up. Webster's collegiate:
synesthesia: n. 1) A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. 2) A sensation felt in one part of the body as a result of stimulus applied to another, as in referred pain. 3) The description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another.
Well I'll be damned, and I really liked that hat. Somebody pass the salt...
Ready or not...
... Here he comes!
'He' is Brandon II, my grandson. His dad dropped by tonight (right while I was trying to squeeze out the last stanza of the last poem for SeptaVerse) and he left a few photos. Since folks have been asking to see pics of the little tiger, the visit was fortuitous. BJ is now 4 months old, but in these shots he was ten weeks.
In the shot on the left, he sits in my son's lap. Brandon I is starting point guard for the Finger Lakes Community College basketball team, which had an awesome year in 2K5/2K6. I'd like to think BJ (Brandon II) is already imagining himself slipping a no-look pass to the open man on a fast break. He's got that 'look' in his eye... I dunno - whaddya think?
Last, but not least, at the bottom is a shot of my little tiger with his Mom Dominique and my son, the original BJ.
When I gave Brandon copies of the five SeptaVerse books already completed he said, "Dad, it's incredible how far you've taken this Spoken Word Thing." I thought about that. Three years ago, he and I were watching an episode of Russell Simmons Def Poetry and he told me he thought I could do something like that...
Guess he was right. And I'm gonna do a whole lot more of it. Yeah, ready or not, here I come, too.
Synesthesia
Don't you mean Synergy? I asked, but no -- Hosea was certain that his 79-year-old father's newest CD was called "Synesthesia."
Well, synergy makes more sense, I insisted,
because that's like the intangible up-jump effect of people combining different energies toward a unified objective. Synergy is when something even greater than the expectation arises from those combined energies.
"Well then, 'synesthesia' must be what comes out of Synergy," Hosea said.
Maybe, (I don't like to be outdone)
But it sounds ike synthetic anasthesia, and who the hell would want to listen to something that would bore 'em. Big marketing faux pas.But after listing to Hosea Taylor (Sr)'s third musical CD, I find it anything
but boring. The son says his father was a big friend of the late Tenor Saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, and this is Dad's way of giving a good-bye tribute. Indeed, Mr. Taylor puts some serious wind into "
Sugar" - an old Turrentine composition. Then again, every single cut on that jazzy CD rocks, and I'm not saying it just because Hosea Jr. is a longtime friend of miine.
Synesthesia, the feeling that permeates everybody when synergy has been reached. I like that, and a lot more than my own cynical surmise.
Has synergy been reached on a personal level? I don't know. I've made a few readjustments, done a little soul-searching, had a few ephiphanies and maybe even reached a few conclusions on how I plan to guide my role in this damn-near-under-control adventure called Life.
Maybe I was even successful communicating my own position to people of importance. Nobody can have everything, but maybe we can each get what we need, and without wasting precious emotional energy wondering if we're using each other. Maybe we'll just find a way to combine that wonderful synergy without questioning whether or not we deserve the Synesthesia that comes with it.Yeah, baby.
Synesthesia. Work with me.
Ready, Aim... Rest...
Today (yesterday afternoon) was too gorgeous not to take the kids outside. We grabbed a football from the rec closet and hit the back field. As usual, they tried to bait me into playing the game with them. For the first time in months, I took the bait.It's so easy to get lost in memories of youth, when muscles seem to remember what they used to do... and those muscles try so hard. Okay, they were only kids, but I did toss a pair of touchdown passes and ran for another (long one!) on a QB keeper. Caught one pass and thought it would be a run to glory, as I zipped back crossfield on what felt like winged Reeboks...Okay, so I was touched for a 2-yard loss behind the line of scrimmage by one of the fattest kids in the unit. I had a blast! But when Mr. Anderson from Horton showed up with his boys, I had to hotdog it a little. Young whippersnapper had the audacity to encourage (or at least tolerate) a rumor that I was his Daddy! I covered his ass like a diaper rash and he caught nary a pass - Hell yeah, I had a blast! More importantly, the kids had great fun and burned off tons of energy.But I had barely made it up the stairs getting home when my knees reminded me that I haven't been working out worth a damn and I'm carrying 15 pounds more than I started the winter with. So I took an hour-long bath when I got in, with a pint of Epsom salt and lots of bubbles. Did some mid- to deep breathing and contemplated the SeptaVerse...
This first stage of my project is only one poem away, All Knowing Mind. (Never understood how some poets can have works "Untitled" - I have more than 3 dozen titles that are still awaiting words to animate them!) It's the third in a series discussing the 3 aspects of deity (Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence) and the other two are Indomitable Will and Ever Present Love, which are both completed; and with which I am enraptured.Good buddy Chaka agreed to work my shift tomorrow, so the plan was to hit the blocks hard and churn like last night. Then THEOS would be finished (and the first seventh of the ultimately 49-book mega-project, as well) and I could rest my neurons for a minute before moving on to other things. But I think my activities have caught up to me... I'm only running on three hours sleep in the last two days and shit is about to grind to a ... HALT.After that long bath and this long post, I think I'll do some more breathing (fully deep, this time) chant a mantra or two (Om mani padme hum) and let my subconscious work out whatever wrinkles might throw a hitch in my giddyup.Pax. Shalom. Hotep. Salaam. Peace.
The Power of Seven
Can't believe I'm awake... Feel like shit...
But Damn, do I feel GOOD! I finished
MOROS, Book VI of my
SeptaVerse project! And not only that, what helped me finish was the
SEVEN-POEM day I had yesterday. That ties my all-time record for writing prose in one day, but these poems are much... tighter! They are much more relevant. Hell, they all fit within the
very strict of confines of the
SeptaVerse principles.
Of course, that means I worked until 5 a.m. this morning, and that's why I feel like shit. I need more sleep, but I have to go pick up my business cards from the printer,
maybe drop off the
MOROS material (But I think I'm gonna sit on it until
THEOS is ready), go by the magazine offices to help do re-writes (which I've hated since I was an editorial assistant at the
Democrat & Chronicle many moons ago) and last, but not least, I have to work my shift at the "real" job tonight.
Anyway, I thought my incredible effort merited a medal. So I gave myself one (above). Like it?
Yeah, me too!
I Will be There
Niyakun Godeah Milele!
"I will be there for you," is the loose translation of this Swahili dialect. I will be there for you...
"Just venting, I guess," and her words conveyed to me every ion of stress that pressured her barometer. Basically, she didn't seem to feel very secure at 'that moment'...
"Tell me that everything will be ok... Tell me (if you can) that you’ll be there and your arms will still be open if even if it’s from a distance (or as you’ve said in a poem – another dimension) because I’m really stuck right now. So selfishly, I just want to know that you’re there..."
My hesitation was as long as all cyberspace. Compartmentalization was already breaking down and the insistent knocking of reality threatened fantasy's previously secure borders. I could not say I would be there if I didn't believe it... if I didn't mean it... but I couldn't say I would not be there, either -- no, not to her I couldn't... So I sealed my own fate with my reply...
Everything is going to be just fine... I'll still be here and my arms will still be open, even if it's from a distance or from another dimension.
Yeah, Niyakun godeah milele... come hell or high water, I guess... I can't imagine it any other way.
Chronicles of Jahaka
I first started keeping journals when I was 16. It was a project in my high school creative writing class. Other options were to record dreams or to write poetry. At the time, I felt that poetry was too 'sissified' and writing dreams was too much work; right when one wanted to slide
back into slumber, not the reverse. So I settled on journaling.
To keep my nosy mother in the dark about my nefarious activities (she had no inhibitions against snooping through my stuff), I used a quadruple code system in my journal language. I had two sets of coded alpha-characters that I alternated between, reversing the character sets on certain days and alternating between English and German as well. (I was a third-year German Student and at the time it was the only other language I felt comfortable writing in.) I didn't know it at the time, but I had come up with something resembling 128-bit encryption, which testifies to how highly I thought of Mom's intellect and how much I dreaded her consequences for my 'bad' behaviors.
I don't know where those early books are now (I filled three large steno pads before dropping out of school as a junior, an expectant father) and I didn't resume keeping a journal until the year 2000, when I found five lovely volumes at an obscure bookstore in Manhattan, with the picture of a lion on the cover (top right). I bought all five books and every Leo who has seen them since has coveted them. Unfortunately, I was never able to get any more than those initial five, even though I wrote the publisher (an unanswered letter) about them. Now I'm nearing the end of space in
Book IV, and it seems that to continue beyond that point of my last virgin volume would mean to write in plainer tomes ...
Or I can blog, of course. Indeed, since this idea came to me through the email of a friend, I have blogged almost daily and, perhaps, in more depth that my poor hardbound journal would never know. The catharsis is most remedial.
Book IV has seen some juju, as far as the emotional twists in the life of Jahaka is concerned. I broke its cherry a little over a year ago, after I split from a poetess with whom I cohabitated for about 18 months. Book IV's more recent entries concern my vocational challenges (the poetry chronicles) and, moreso, my attempts to cope with a new
relationship, one that evolved from improbability into intensity, hit me with density, and exploded into bitter reality.
Yeah, I guess it kinda fucked me up, or at the least blindsided me. I had just shaken myself awake into "active" mode just before I met her. I wasn't a dog, but I did my share of sniffing at ass, scratching at fleas, digging through trash and pissing on trees. Then she "blossomed" in my mind.
This lady to whom I was attracted displayed a beauty that moved from merely physical to intensely non-physical the more I got to know her. Her very existence
sang to my Being in a manner I had never experienced before. I was helpless not to respond to that song. I endeavored mightily to be cool and unaffected, but it was futile from the beginning. I fell in love so hard and so deep I didn't know where reality ended and fantasy began.
My writing reflected this also, but it was deep and powerful prose that seemed to borrow from realms both mundane and surreal. I felt inspired by everything she said and did and my writing increased and increased. In the six months before I became involved with her, I wrote perhaps 20 poems. In the six months since I first kissed her lips, I have written over 100 poems. Only one in ten were about her directly, but the power of her presence was co-author to all.
The only problem was that this woman, so clearly perfect to my ideal, was married to somebody else. And even that didn't seem like a really HUGE problem, because he was a pariah of questionable moral fibre and he clearly did not deserve this woman; this woman to whom he rode in like a knight and then... (
Jahaka! Control yourself!)
Anyway, my vision of Camelot featured me as Lance-a-lot, riding away with sacred Guinevere and Arthur could fall on his goddamned sword for all I'd care! My reality was far different from the vision, because of course the chaste Guinevere would choose to remain by the side of her leige, to Lance-a-lot's dismay. Wow. I guess that updates Jahaka's chronicles all the way to... today.
Healing begins with serenity, courage and wisdom.
Lord, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.Seems like wherever the Chronicles of Jahaka lead, there still is the quest to find myself. I strive, once again, to start from that
three-part center, shield against all that would fragment me.
Peace.
One for my Homey...
That's my sister on the left, Barbara Bonita Christian. Today is her birthday and she would have been 53 years old. When I was a little boy, she was my protector. When I grew into my teens, she was my 'homey.' Sometime after high school, but before I left for the Navy, I was her protector, her "big brother" as she introduced me to her friends.
My sister passed away on September 15th, 1999 from what was diagnosed as a heart attack. She had been given a 'routine' allergy shot earlier that day. Less than 5 hours later she was being rushed to Emergency; 45 minutes after that she was pronounced dead.
To this day I am extremely skeptical about making hospital visits for any reason. I lost an uncle under uncomfortably similar circumstances in 1984. I remain close to my nieces and nephews and we usually gather together on Barb's birthday and on 9/15 every year, but today, I have to work.
Still, before I leave, I have to turn one up for My Homey. I miss you, Little-Big Sis.
Doing it Right!
Music seems to be as important an element to Open Mic night as the poetry itself, and the canned variety is poor subsitute for live musicians. We've been blessed to have very loyal and talented musicians on the
SWORD team and this has made our Open Mic ventures hugely successful.
David Haygood is the creator of the paintings to the left (
Doin It) and at the bottom (
Yes Lord) of this post. But he was also the bass blayer laying down the funk for poets last night at Julius Cafe and last week at Bill & Bob's.
Hosea Taylor is best know for his accomplishment with Martial Arts and his community activism, but he was the Sax player last night pushing the sweet strains out of that polished alto. Justice Peace is a stand-up comedian, but lately he's been doing some pretty deep, though-provoking poetry at every open mic venue he can get to.
Synergy.
Something is afoot; something big, something world-changing. It supercedes our perceived personal needs
and that's easy to say, but hard to live. Sometimes "Doing it Right" takes sacrifice.
I look around and see couples everywhere, and with the onset of spring, I know I'll see even more. A big part of me yearns to participate in that annual ritual of ardent passion, but I suspect it will be denied again this year. Higher Powers have a mission for me and the distractions of flesh are not to be allowed.
Nonetheless, I am privileged to be part of this Movement, this Wave of Consciousness that is inevitably desitined to change the Fate of Mankind. If my libido is all I have to give up for my part in the liberation of MindKind, then I embrace my Spartan lot with the hardened determination of any warrior.
Let the meloncholy baritone of a soulful dirge join the triumphant imperatives of the seraphim.
"Yes Lord!"
Dark Creativity
The Open Mic went really well tonight; we had more people and there was a lot of energy. Most of the performance came from myself, my son (Willis) and Justice Peace. Robert Ricks labeled it
The Jahaka Show, because of a 3-piece finale I ripped out with a
hell of a lot more energy than I thought I'd have tonight
... But, I think it was a lot more than just the "Jahaka Show"...
Willis had been working on another in a series of pictures he's doing for upcoming book projects. We did a bit of a collaboration, with me enhancing certain elements and adding others with Photoshop capabilities. I think our final result is pretty cool. Pencil, pen, paper, crayon and computer.
Imagine if we had
real resources to work with, what could we produce?
Despite a (Badly needed and long overdue) stellar open mic, the picture nevertheless suits my current mood.
Have You Ever?
Ever felt like you were you were at the top of your game, but you still couldn't win? Ever walk away from a slot machine with the last quarter, only to see a little old lady slip right behind you and ring up the jackpot? None of that begins to describe...
Ever had the most precious, delicate porcelain cup right in your hand and then broke it with a sudden sneeze? Ever made a promise you swore you'd never break, but then
you broke and the promise crumbled around you? Ever live in a world so confusing it felt like high speed fans were whirling all around you? Ever felt like pointing one finger in any direction would mean instant amputation?
Have you looked at the most glorious sunset that there ever was and heard that sunset whisper that
it would never rise or set for you again? If it did, would you want for another world? Or would you want to stay where you had nothing to look forward to but a promise of cold?
Ever feel an emptiness that came so suddenly you believed it needed immediate filling or you would perish? It has been said that a bear shot in the chest will stuff the wound with leaves and other debris and try to keep it moving. Ever Been a bear who was shot in the chest? Ever feel like stuffing any old thing in a wound would have to do, to keep you moving?
Ever suffer without complaint for an extended period and then have the suffering increase ten-fold? Ever hear a promise that one draught of a drink will end that suffering? Ever take an action to heal a wound that you thought might be mortal, and then look down from Purgatory to realize that your death came from your own attempt at healing?
Have you ever?
Anybody got a time machine? I only want a 're-set' on my last 24 hours, that's all. After that, I promise I'd never use the device again. The caveat is, I'm no longer undefeated at keeping promises this season. But I'd like to go back to that moment when I was a prince who felt he was a pauper.
Have you ever been a pauper who felt like shit? Have you ever?
POETRY - Reflection of Perfection
Reflection of PerfectionLook into the mirror
What do you see?
A form, bearing
The markings of Humanity
Now close your eyelids
And look the other way
Beyond tissue and cells
And parasites at play
Past even the sub electrons
Orbiting suns of protons and neutrons
And teleporting through space/time
But look even deeper, look Beyond…
Now STOP! Let time freeze
Can you believe
That inside your being
Swirl entire galaxies???
Feel a new sense of pride
When you hail your Reflection
Not just a member of Mankind
But a Being of Unique Perfection
Bi-Location
Any physics student worth his salt knows about the limits of observation, as regards subatomic particles. It's impossible to know the exact location of a particle and know its precise direction of movement at the same time. The more accurately one property is known, the less possible is it to accurately know the other. To do so would require one to be both object and observer. It would require "bi-location."I first encountered the term when I was a student of remote viewing, also known as "far-seeing." (Which essentiallly implies that one may project one's awareness to a different "time/place" by accessing resources outside the parameters of Newtonian physics.) I subsequently (and, unfortunately, rather erroneously) attempted to describe the phenomena to others as a sense of "being in two places at the same time."Bilocation, for me, is experienced in endeavors to juggle artistic talent with technical skills, like managing my web site and also continuing to compose verse. Which fragments into its own subcategories because, as a writer; my objective might be to compose a poem, editorial essay, friendly profile or even a component to a novel.When I first started writing "poetry" I never considered myself a poet. "Spoken word artist," I would correct my friend Hosea when he would introduce me. Later, I amended that title to "rhyming philosopher," but I was loathe to accept the "poet" mantle. At the time, to me, poetry was an exercise in expressing or sharing emotion while spoken word was transmission of thoughts and ideas , and therefore far more to my liking.However, there are times when I write nothing but poetry - the real stuff. And that's when my heart is in it. I write poetry when I'm falling in love and when I'm crashing clumsily out of it. I have at least a dozen poems to the lady who (if she chooses) lays current claim to my heart and loyalties, but she has seen fewer than half of that work, while others I have been so bold as to publish. (And it would be her humble nature to look, and believe I refer to her in the worst of those poems, but she would be wrong!)Okay, so to make a long story short, when I'm feeling that heart stuff I can't really write about anything else and it's worse the more confused I am about either what I feel or why I feel it. I lose my ability to Bilocate, a trait too closely linked to Mind to function well when one is in an intense emotional state. I guess that's why I'm writing this now, because I have to somehow regurgitate the heaviness before I can return to depth.The difference is that 'heavy' is like that Tim O'Leary LSD shit and that 'deep' is like that John Coltrane smoke-filled cabaret shit. Right now, my Yin has me more heavy than deep and I can hardly stand myself. I don't like heavy. Naw, not at all...And if this stuff makes sense to you, chances are you're as screwed up as I'm am. So let's drink to it - bottoms up!
I recommend something strong.
RELATIONSHIPS
"But how is a nail related to the state of the kingdom?" she asked me."Well," I replied, "for lack of a nail, the shoe was lost and for lack of the shoe, the horse was lost. For lack of the horse, the rider was lost, and for lack of the rider, the message was lost. For lack of the message, the battle was lost and for loss of the battle, ultimately the war was lost. For failing to achieve the war's objective's, unfortunately, the kingdom was lost. And all for the lack of a nail."She looked confused. "So what are we to do?"I spoke slowly and carefully. "Well, as I hold this hammer in one hand and this horse's leg grows incredibly heavy in the other, would you mind passing me a fucking nail?!"(The painting, somewhere in SF, was captured by the camera of my good friend Joe Pennant, Joe's camera catches a great deal and his work can be seen on flicker.com...)
Busting da grind
Aight, so I should be trying to drop some serious zzz's right now, but instead I'm bullshytting online - what the flock is up with that? My Muse done left me, so ain't no Poetry kicking 'round here, no copy for my latest freelance mag assignment and no inspiration to write in the journal, so what the hell is going on???!!!
I shouldn't knock it, because I've been on some treacherously inspirational shytte over the last few weeks, to the point that I'm suspecting matter converts directly to thought, as my appetite has increased five-fold and the majority of my waste and fluid discharge is in the form of pen and ink. There are literally rhymes on my used Charmin, happily floating off to some ichtyological slam.
Indeed, this blog DOES have a myriad of uses. The drivel above, on re-read, has surely bored me to the point where sleep is a definite possibility.
I think I will post it, that the world might access its somnabulistic properties, and as self homage to my verbal gymnastics in slipping in and out between crunked convo and pedantic prose.
Long live the king, baby.
Proliferation
Movement in time, another place to rhyme, to shine, to claim as mine... Student of Mesmer, hypnotizing; Reasons instead of rationalizing... Close your eyes lest the Light drive you blind, the Fire of ManMind Divine.
Wassup?
