A Verse In Time:

A Trickster’s Alchemical Approach to Memory,

In Three Waves.

Wave I: The Allies’ Nursery Rhyme

The Allies

came to visit

and take me

on a trip.

No need for boat

or bus

or plane

or even rocket ship.

The galaxy, as they explained,

resides inside your mind

The portals to the universe

are windows you call eyes.

Instead of always looking out

you should try to look within.

The ending you have always feared

is exactly where you begin.

Yes, all the spans of time and space

exist in man behind his face

and yet he cannot understand

that nothing is a race.

No wait, please be careful with that mirror

when we are here and you draw nearer.

Don’t let the face of everyone replace your face with fear.

You are Horus, Mary, Jesus Christ, Cervantes, and Shakespeare,

and all the men from beast to mice, from oceans down to tears.

And so they pried behind my face

and pushed me on through outer space

and soon enough I understood

there never was a race.

It all exists right here, right now—

the past, the future, the grass, the cow,

the vast, the nature, the cash, the house,

the king and the savior

the beast and the mouse

are all your creation,

your relation,

your spouse,

your Path,

your Bible,

your ‘Gita,

your Tao.

It is all

of your moment,

It is all

of your now.

For you are the mystery

of that which you seek.

You invented the minutes, the hours, the weeks,

the deserts, the rivers, the valleys, and peaks,

your digits, extremities, elbows, and knees.

You created the cure, you invent the disease.

The labyrinth is you

You defeat it with ease.

To master the Minotaur, follow the string

Discover the dinosaur, discover the king,

discover this grandiose song that you sing,

and uncover the truth of the message you bring

when you ring

the bells

or

Stroke piano keys

and make the doctor sweat.

The pranksters shifting shapes again,

it’s time to make a bet.

With silly laws of threes and fives, this riddle I repeat, replies

that by the time the rhyme is over, the trickster will arrive.

Gliding up in cycles by, the prankster grins and winks his eye.

He fabricates a fluffy fix with fuzzy snow white lies

to bring the doctor to a six then down to four inside

and bring the tempest to a wave

on which

the four

can ride.

Do we glide?

Do we slide?

Do we fly really high?

Do we bobble and sink

with the rise of the tide?

I remember the brink

the cellular stride, the following leap,

the primitive mind

I remember the dirt, the water, the fire,

the wind and the ether,

the passion, desire.

I remember that art

can never

expire.

Do we depart?

Do we retire?

The answer is yes,

The answer is no,

The answer’s the same wherever you go.

It’s never too fast,

it’s never too slow

and you're never the last to not really know.

For the sun always shines,

the moon always glows,

the old always die,

the young always grow,

The seeds that you plant

are the trees that you sow,

from the bees and the ants

to the bulls and

black holes.

It is all

in your stance.

It is all

in your

soul,

When you follow your dance

the bliss

takes control.

Take your place

in the play

and master

your role.

The Om

is your home

it’s inside

of your dome,

Whatever

you wonder,

Wherever you

roam.

And so it flows behind my face

the universe of time and space

Now I understand that time

is invented as the race

Yes, you are Borges, and Buddha, and Krishna,

and Lorca, and Vishnu, Dickinson, Lennon,

Eliot, Gandhi, Marley, McKenna,

Campbell, Picasso, Alpha, Omega.

You are your enemy,

your stranger,

your neighbor.

You are the peasant,

the king,

and the savior,

the mandala man,

the cosmic vibrator.

You are the taste

You are the flavor

and you are

the wave

the unwavering

Creator

Even us

as they explained

merely extend from you

A mirror to the macrocosm

for you to gaze into.

So when you get lost

within your lies

and cannot find

your rhyme,

Gather inside with your

Allies

and master

the maze

of

time.

Wave II: Contemplating The Allies’ Advice

Thunderbolts of cackling giggles

shutter through your vitals, shaking shoulders

and squirting tears from squinting eyes.

Exciting when dimensions hidden creep into your line of vision,

morphing mapping iridescence with a fleeting fuzzy phosphorescent

undulating elfin presence following your every contemplation.

Concentrating on a caterpillar crawling up the wall

how curious, this furry beast has fingers not to fall.

He folds into his fuzzy form, a sleeping bag to keep him warm,

a little home as still as lead. He hibernates and contemplates,

waits and waits and transmutates into a gilded butterfly

that flutters through my head.

Violet translucent landscapes bleed through grass and trees,

focus on a precise place of time and space and witness the birth of the human race.

Projections made in fuzzy fourth dimensions quickly fade

if your gaze should wander. Positioned to ponder,

you plunge into prepubescent wonder as a shooting star

splits the sky wide open

revealing heaven and

everything under the sun is in tune and the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

And once again, the music comments chronologically

on your moments, as if all these notes and lyrics were cataloged

to sync with the scenes of your epic voyage.

Destroying contemplation again, the sea sucks the wind through the trees

and blows a blue marine breeze through your hair.

Do you dare take the time to recognize the punctuality of the gale?

Should your frail and fragile mind be dangled from a line

to flap and fluff and figure out the nature of the rhyme of our mother?

You are your brother, your keeper, and your lover.

All the lines align and oscillate in cadenced flow,

the more you see with your mind the more your mind will know.

A virgin brain may strain and throw a fit

if faced with the tricky truth of the third eye

Surprise! Who knew that Jesus Christ could sprout from cow shit?

Can you believe it? Wow, Bob, wow.

Where did we get: holy shit and holy cow?

Heaven is the here and now

and every time you try to leave

you lose what you have found.

* All words in italics come from

various songs, films, works of

literature, etc. and are not the words

of the author.

Wave III: Ripples in Los Aliados Wake

An apple carries a story deeper than the tree,

More nourishing than the luscious skin,

More central than the seed.

for the apple gave original sin

and knowledge from within

and fell upon the head, announcing gravity.

Have you ever heard the tale of Johnny Melon seed?

(The apple is global, so I wonder why,

what could be patriotic of pie?

Is it not just a strudel,

a pastry disguised?)

. . .

The colors we create

distort. manipulate.

The fools who follow fear

are doomed to find their fate

between their ears

where the colors seem

to blend and stream

and almost disappear.

To wonder why we’re here

all colors must appear

and merge into the blinding light

that obliterates our fear.

. . .

All your dreams, your fantasies, your symbols, and beliefs,

all a compass pointing you to endless mystery.

The treasure that you seek

resides inside the Self,

A jewel within the rock,

A book upon the shelf.

Oh, well . . .

I bought the ticket, I’m taking the ride.

I’m spiraling miles through the bowels of time.

I’m spinning and laughing and losing my mind

and finding it always returns

just in time.

It’s right where it left me,

so I’ll leave it behind

and return when I’m ready to

relish the ride

with a bite from

the apple

of my holy third eye.