Paradise Bought

Anonymous asked: You have an amazing skill at writing. <3

Thank you. Thank you for listening.

BOOK REVIEW: The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

THE DHARMA BUMS

Dharma Bums. Published about ten years after the time On The Road was being written and lived out. Dharma Bums is less about day to day adventures and, overall, less adventurous than On The Road. Here, Kerouac (Ray Smith) is doing his best as a western man in the 1950’s to understand and live out the eastern principles and teachings of Buddhism. Having gone through this process myself I was personally interested in the experience of his journey. Particularly because on page 5 he prefaces the book by letting the reader know that:

“I was very devout [to buddhism] in those days and was practicing my religious devotions almost to perfection. Since then I’ve become a little hypocritical about my lip-service and a little tired and cynical. Because now I am grown so old and neutral…but then I really believed in the reality of charity and kindness and humility and zeal and neutral tranquility and wisdom and ecstasy, and I believed that I was an old-time bhikku in modern clothes wandering the world…in order to turn the wheel of the True Meaning, or Dharma, and gain merit for myself as a future Buddha (Awakener) and as a future Hero in Paradise.”

For a few years I meditated two to three times a day. Read the beginners books on Buddhism. Took some classes with my friend Dan. Spent two weeks in a silent meditation course in western Massachusetts (not far from Lowell, where Kerouac was born!). I silently blessed strangers in the street and I did my best not to kill or harm any sentient living beings not matter how small or gross looking they were on the floor of my apartment. I stopped drinking for 6 months and I benefitted from all of it. So, from the get-go I was wondering if my youthful idealism was destined for the same fate as Kerouac’s eventual jaded persecutive on Buddhism.

Anyways, Kerouac is the ever-entertaining and delightful hobo. He hops trains, hides from the cops, sleeps under trees and hitchhikes around the west. He gets drunk, goes to mexico, drinks wine, goes to San Francisco, drinks wine, sleeps on the beach, drinks more wine and ends up in Berkeley for a little while hanging out with, in his eyes, a true example of the teachings of the east: Japhy Ryder. He and Japhy become fast friends drinking tea, reading chinese poetry and holding modified versions of tantric sex parties in their small shacks around Berkeley.

I like Kerouac because he is a hyper realist at the same time that he is being hopelessly romantic. He talks about the super-buddha idealized version of himself that seeks to eliminate lust and sex from his life. But when Japhy introduces a night of group sex (based on the ancient Yabyum ceremony…) with a young girl named Princess, Kerouac abides. Later Kerouac describes being at a house party north of San Francisco where some the women decided to get naked and dance around the living to the music on the stereo near where he is sitting, talking Buddhism to another ‘bhikku’ named Bud.

“‘Yeh…we were the old monks who weren’t interested in sex any more but sean and Japhy and Whitey were the young monks and were still full of the fire of evil and still had a lot to learn.’ Every now and then Bud and I looked at all that flesh and licked our lips in secret.”

I guess you could say the progression of Dharma Bums is similar to Kerouac’s own somewhat disillusioned experience with Buddhism. He practiced his religion ‘almost perfectly’ throughout the first half of the book- helping strangers, studying, meditating, being kind, etc. (albeit getting shitfaced at every opportunity). This direction comes to a climax in North Carolina at his mothers house where he believes, after months of solitary meditation in the woods behind her house, that he has reached a level of enlightenment. He makes something of a fool of himself when he tries to teach and enlighten his family with his discoveries. He comes across simple, childish and mostly strange.

This marks a change in the book. He leaves North Carolina and meets with Japhy again in a cabin north of San Franciso where they spend the spring months together. But Japhy is different. He’s cut his hair and his goatee. Before Kerouac is even able to tell Japhy about his experiences in the woods Japhy preempts him saying “Ah, it’s just a lot of words…I don’t wanta hear all your word descriptions of words words words you made up all winter, man I wanta be enlightened by actions.”

Later when Japhy and he take a trip to the beach with Japhy’s friend, a girl named Psyche, Kerouac tries again to explain his understanding of Buddhism to her as well:

“‘Psyche.’ I said, ‘this world is the movie of what every-thing is, it is one movie, made of the same stuff throughout, belonging to nobody, which is what everything is.’”
‘Ah boloney.’” Psyche replied.

During this time Japhy makes preparations for his impending trip to Japan. Kerouac prepares to go north where he will spend the summer living alone as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the high Sierras.

However, Kerouacs teachings on Buddhism are not for naught. He may lose faith in the practices of the books, teachings and organizations but there is a silver lining, or universal truth, in all of his ‘words words words.’ He discovers it without saying it in the beauty and logic of nature that he experiences throughout the novel but particularly during his months on Desolation peak. He rejoices in the turning of the seasons and the changes of the weather. He watches the clouds and the lakes and the stars and the mountains. He drinks pure cold water from melted snow. He stands on his head. He sings. And he rarely gives these experiences names from the buddhist vocabulary. And in a way, this is where he reaches true enlightenment. The way Siddartha had hoped to reach it. Not by studying the teachings of the Buddha’s experience on the path to enlightenment. But by having those experiences for himself.

An example that foreshadows this concept took place during his time in North Carolina. Kerouac spent a night out drinking and driving the country roads with one of the locals who normally teased him and made jokes about his strange ways of living.

“We went out driving around the country roads and I actually told him how I was sitting out in those woods meditating and he really rather understood and said he would like to try that if he had time, or if he could get up enough nerve, and had a little rueful envy in his voice. Everybody knows everything.”

Yup. Everybody knows everything.

THE BIRDCAGE

It’s too cold tonight
Out in the street
And all the yellow taxis are asleep
So you stand high on
Her kitchen chair
And dive head first into nothing
But the air
Then wake up sleeping
On the stairs
And notice, really,
She’s not there
So into an open wound
You stare
Hoping something
Will appear
Until you hear the missiles blast
Like a cannon in the past
And say my god I’m out of time
And spill your ancient glass of wine
But at the door you see a line
To cross
So you pretend you’re blind
And then she sees you
Without eyes
Like seeing you
For the very first time
And carves that image
In her mind
A place from which there’s no escape
Now you’re the bird
Inside her cage

REDEMPTION

noun
1.
an act of redeeming or the state of being redeemed.
2.
deliverance; rescue.
3.
Theology . deliverance from sin; salvation.
4.
atonement for guilt.
5.
repurchase, as of something sold.

LIAR

What
Do you
want me
to do
now?

Just
Forget?

All
The promises
I made
To you?

And
Become
A liar?

DR. RENEE MASON D. JANUARY 22, 2012 AUNT, MOTHER, WIFE

Like a ship that sailed
And a ship that sank
Down with it go the memories
Of birthday cards
Holiday cards
Checks for $25 
Continued to arrive
On every occasion
Until her death
I never cashed them
I threw one away last week

Down with it go the memoirs
Of a sordid family history
That remained silent
But were always there
Like castle guards
Like how I got my name
David
After her son
David
An infant
Drowned in a swimming pool
Ex husband drunk
Poolside
Asleep

Down with her go the stories
Of World War II
What happened in that concentration camp
We’ll never know
How she escaped with my father
Where they met the nuns
Who disguised them with bibles
And rosaries
How they found the shore
The boat
To Ellis Island
To America
Did she remember the Nazi soldiers?
Was there an act of heroism?
Was there a choice
Or was it her kindness
Of the oldest sibling
To protect my father
To keep him
And her sister
Safe
Or hidden
As parents boarded a train
To Auschwitz

What images she took with her
I can only imagine now
Did she paint them?
Or speak them?
Or write them?
Were they locked and buried
Someplace obvious
So that someone would discover them?
Or not

What can she tell me about my father?
He kept her so far away
I don’t know anyone
Other than her
Who knew him
When he was young
What could she have told me
To help me understand
My father
Myself
Why did I,
Like my father,
Keep her so far away?

She sent love consistently
In the ways she knew
She owned three CDs
All mine
Listened to them every day
Told me
And I wrote her a letter
Double sided
With the last CD I sent
This is the closest to her I get
Questions
Why didn’t I ask?
Why did I think it would last?

You dear gentle soul
Your life was hard
But your heart was soft
I hope you find the logic
In your next state
That did not offer itself to you here
This world was so strange to you
I promise there is architecture
Of beauty
And purpose
By design
And it will welcome you
Into it’s infinity
Where all things have a place
Rest there

treehugginghippieartist asked: "Skin" literally brought tears to my eyes. Your words are powerful and real. You are an artist of literature.

Thank you. You are an unguarded soul. Don’t lose touch. Never be afraid to cry.

SKIN

I earned everything I have

Through friendship
Talent, hard work
Preparation, cunning
Guts or
By paying money for it

But this
I earned through birth
Which is not earning it at all

A HAND IN THE FIRE

After the explosion
Rocks settle on the earth’s floor
Dark and cold
Like the shells of fireworks

That land burnt
In the dark side of the world
Where children find them in the sand
And play war
Throwing them at cars

Still no one congratulates a casino
No one wants to shake the house’s hand
And no one pats a dealer on back
The odds are in their favor
And there’s no glory or pride in that

Fireworks burn bright in brown eyes
Be careful when each of them reaches a hand
Into the fire

titlenotfound-deactivated201202 asked: Your poetry is amazing.

I mean, thank you. It’s the only way I know how to write and speak. I’m glad that other people can understand it too.

GENERATION Y

Last night I dreamed that a comet hit the earth

We all knew it was coming
And we gathered
In my old elementary school
The way it was before the renovation
To watch how futile our weapons were
Against the comet

So I went outside
To the trees that are no longer there
I sat with my arms and legs
Around the trunk of one of them
And when the comet hit
The world swung
And I rode it like a bull

A JIMI HENDRIX HANGOVER

It really seemed meaningful
The way that Jimi died
An overdose
No, he drank too much
Either way it made sense
To a kid
Like me

He was obviously in some place
That no one knew about
Or could understand
Especially me
I could only imagine

Fruit
On the tree of knowledge
Of good and evil
Every hit
Brought him closer
To something
Or something

What other way could a psychedelic shaman die?
Leukemia?
No.

But here now at my desk
On the second day
Of the worst hangover
Of my life
My heart is pounding
My chest hurts
And I seriously worry
That i’m going into cardiac arrest

But no one gets heart attacks at my age
Except Jim Morrison
My fingers shake on the fretboard
I can’t sing, hold a thought
Or see five minutes in front of me

It doesn’t seem important
And it doesn’t seem meaningful
And it doesn’t seem like a vision quest
More of a vision blur

I wonder how Jimi actually felt
In his last moments

Pissed.

A GARDEN

Things end
They just do
With no notice or build up
Or warning

Like my tomcatting ways
Who nows which will be my last
Romp through the neighbors
Flower patch
When I find a garden of my own
To tend and plant

NO REVERSAL

I don’t know how to love you
I will compare you
To the person I am not
And you
Like me
Will fail
I will cast spells with no reversal
I will hide thorns in your shoe
I will shine a light that will be blinding
and I will disappear
I will set fires
I will be hard to find in the smoke
I will buy haunted houses
And you will find me awake at night with the ghosts

GOLD GOD

I will work in the mines
And give all of the gold I discover
To men who are rich and own land
I will receive no payment
Only the right to farm a plot of land at midnight
On a steep mountain cliff

When I make the land fertile
Another man will tell me it belongs to him
He will grow oranges that I do not eat
Although my stomach moans with hunger at night
And the stomachs of my wife and children moan
The mouths of my children are dry with the dust of gold
Which has no nutritional value

I will sacrifice my village
By pouring liquid gold into the mouth of the man
Who seeks it
I will paint my face with the blood of my neighbor
And in the light of the full moon I will sharpen
My spear on a skull
I will hurl it at the helicopters
My bare skin will be pierced by the invisible arrows
of machine guns

They will put mud on the red feathers of my headdress
And they will poison my family
They will burn the trees, cattle and all of our corpses
The land will be sold to a citrus company
That will grow orange trees on my rib cage
And brand the backs of mixed race children
Who resemble both the oppressor and the oppressed
And no one will resemble god