It was shocking in the Sixties when the painter Anselm Kiefer photographed himself in various European locales performing the Nazi salute. “Too soon,” people said – even if it’s satire. Those wounds were still raw. (Even Mel Brooks was a couple years away from “springtime for Hitler.”) Kiefer was born in Germany at the…
A View from the Quarter, March 12th, 1965 we are in a terrible hurry to die as large Negroes break the pavement our fingers tremble on dark coffee cups as this city all the cities lie spread-legged dipped into with beak, I awaken to pull a shade open I awaken to black men and white…
The Other mirrors the Self –the Other is our witness. The Other completes the Self –the Other gives us the key to the perception of the oneness-of-being. When we speak of being & consciousness, we point to the Self; when we speak of bliss we implicate the Other. The acquisition of language falls under…
Sunday morning, and it is Father’s Day. I feel puzzlement each year when Father’s Day arrives. What a mother does is something that is easy to feel. Is that Illusion? I am no female. And if I were, would I be up to giving birth? Is everything simply one more delusion, another fantastic and…
According to legend, Helen of Troy was ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’… I have no idea whether Homer’s Iliad reflects actual events, or whether it is a tribute to the mind of a brilliant story-teller. The tale of a prolonged conflict between the Greeks and a city state is profoundly human, psychologically…
Today, Friday is overcast. Clouds and wildfire smoke from Canada’s forests. Nature seems real enough to me. There are wildflowers as well as “weeds” growing, living, drawing nourishment in a section of my backyard. Weeds and wildflowers are a distinction of language, my trace of a line between vegetation that I desire, and that…
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Gospel of Matthew 22:37-39 There exists a creature which is perfectly harmless; when it passes…
IN SLEEP WE DREAM of only two forms of government – anarchy & monarchy. Primordial root consciousness understands no politics & never plays fair. A democratic dream? A socialists dream? Impossible. Only kings & wild people populate my night. Monads & nomads. But in a dream we are never ruled except by love or…
But granting that someone did sayin all seriousness thatthe poets lie too much: he was right – we do lie too much. We also know too little,and are bad learners: so we are obliged to lie. And which of us poets has not adulterated his wine?Many a poisonous messhas evolved in our cellars:many an…
I like to lie here where the children play, beside the ruined wall, among thistles and red poppies. I am still a scholar to the children, and also to the thistles and red poppies. They are innocent, even in their wickedness. But to the sheep I am no longer a scholar: so it is…
