....................

RIGHT THROUGH ME....

 

I do not practice duplicity

Nor does Deceit come naturally

Yet in my life of Calamity

I find they see right through me

 

Walls erected in futility

Fail to be what they're meant to be

Cloaked, invisible mystery

And so they see right through me

 

 Is it due to my duality?

Which splits a rift right through me?

It matters not the causality

They always see right through me

  

Striving for more spirituality

Which seems the wisest course to me

A course unseen to the COARSE, clearly

(So of course they see right through me)

 

Why try to be all that I can be

Or deny my own personality?

They see only what they choose to see

They tend to see right through me

 

To spurn the embrace of a society

Defined by mental slavery

No peers perceive my Divinity

And so they see right through me

 

On the advent of my fatality

Let this be my legacy

My riches glowed inside of me

But they could only see right through me

.. ..

© 2009 All Rights Reserved

THE FOUNTAIN

I seek to leap from the mountain
For I've drank from The Fountain

Like Heracles, my Labors are done
Let that great weight be gone

For I've drank from The Fountain
Duty? Heavy as a mountain

© 2009 Jahaka Mindstorm

It caught me by surprise - early today
The courage of those rodents
High in that pine tree, where a hawk
Crept along the branch toward the youngsters
(Bird breakfast) - or call it 'squirrel buffet'

The tree erupted in activity
One squirrel (Momma I believe)
Rose, a vengeful wraith
Attacking the raptor's underside
At the same time, another rodent
Dived on the hawk's back from a higher branch

Poppa took a short ride as the hawk rose,
Precarious bailout sends Poppa crashing
Where Momma was already
Placating the nervous youngsters

So today, I watched the hunter
attacked by his prey
A hawk will have to find his breakfast
some other way...

The first and only time I ever shaved a another man, my hands were steady, but my heart was trembling. This was "Pops" - the man I knew as father. The Magic Shave stuff he used stank to high heaven, but I barely noticed the pungent odor. I just wanted to do a good job. See, Pops no longer considered his own hands trustworthy. Reactions to the chemotherapy, I guess. The doctors had only given Pops six months to live and the merciless clock wouldn't slow down worth a damn...

It was my first train ride; that return trip to Rochester in November 1993 and the damned cold was just as pesky as I remembered. I rode the train because Pops told me to leave my car in Florida. "What do you know about driving vans, son?" he asked over the phone. It's just another vehicle, Pops. I can do it. "Good, 'cause I just bought me a van and I want you to help me drive  down to Florida. I want to see my mama and some other folks."

He didn't need to say it straight out, but I new what was going on. October minus six months is April. Pops wanted to say goodbye to the people he loved while he still was hale, comparatively speaking. He didn't want to be remembered weak and bald and helpless and cancer sick. This was his Farewell Tour.

Of course he had to buy new tires and stuff before we left Rochester - that was just Pops. I remember being in that Goodyear shop and the salesman asked my Papa if he wanted the 2-year warranty or the 5-year. I waited for the slightest sign of depression or despair because I was ready to slay that ignorant human being right in his own tire shop (ignorant, people in the purest sense - HE DIDN'T KNOW) But Pops just pursed his lips like he does when he's in thought and asked, "Well, what's the difference between the two?"

The salesman launched into his spiel about the cost and the value of the two different plans - neither of which were very relevant to a man who already knew his approximate appointed time. When he finished, my Papa said: "Well hell, I'd be a fool not to take the 5-year deal. It's much better bang for the buck." I loved that man so much at that moment. His courage, his refusal to buckle to the inevitable - his determination to take what life offered without complaint and without compromise.

When we set out on that road, Pops took the wheel and didn't relinquish it until we were damn near in Dixie. Mama kept pestering me to "make" Pops stop driving, because she thought he was over-taxing himself. Oh sure, like: "Make the sun rise earlier, Willie" - or "Make the government treat people better, Willie." Pops was a force of Nature and you don't MAKE Nature do a damned thing; you just thank God you have Nature on your side and you stay the hell out of Nature's way.

Eventually, it grew too dark for Pops to see, or maybe he did acknowledge his tiredness and he turned the wheel over to me. I pushed the speed limit to try to reach Florida before Pops demanded the wheel back. But you don't rush a Farewell Tour - you make every stop and show love to every person along the way, even those you have never met - ESPECIALLY those you have never met. So Pops pulled the reins on me in South Carolina...

"Son, how close are we to where your in-laws live?" It's off Highway 26, Pops - going toward Columbia. We're maybe a couple hours away. "Well, I think we oughtta stop and pay 'em a visit." I nodded my head in agreement - what else was there to do>? "Force of Nature" - remember?

So there we were on a Saturday morning, right on the heels of sunrise, pulling one of the biggest surprise visits you can pull on people. I can't imagine how my mother-in-law and father-in-law felt, being rousted out of bed, but they were all smiles and seemed genuinely pleased to meet my family for the first time. Grandma Stroman insisted on making breakfast and the Southern manners of my parents could not insult the Southern hospitality of my parent in-laws, so a 2-hour impromptu delay turned into a 6-hour pleasant respite.

This kind of thing characterized the Farewell Tour. It characterized my Pops.

There would be no home more cooked meals once we got to Jacksonville. If I fired up the grill early enough, the Old Man would suffer me to barbecue, but other than that he insisted on taking the family out to dinner every evening and Pops developed a fondness for the fare served at Shoney's. During the Farewell Tour we dined there so often (and Pops tipped them so generously) that they learned all our names and treated us like royalty when they saw that big old van pulling up into the parking lot, followed my old red Lumina.

(I swear, I think I once saw the shift manager actually make a family relocate to another table in the middle of their meal so the manager could shove together a set of tables at the spot my Pops like to sit; toward the back where they had the big plants growing by the window and you could see everything in the restaurant. Nut maybe that was just my imagination. They wouldn't do treat other customers like that just for extra tip money, would they?)

Perhaps my fondest memory was Men's Night - just me and Pops out on the town - of course at his suggestion. Where do you want to go, Pops? "Well, if I was one of your 'home boys,' what would we be doing?" Aw, Pops, you wouldn't be interested in the kind of we get into. "Stop trying to tell me what I'd be interested in and take me out to have a good time - the way you like a good time!"

So that's how we wound up at Hooters, eating hot wings, shooting pool; and Pops was pumping the juke box full of quarters to play that reggae music I like so much. We broke even on the pool table, which was new for me because normally Pops would hand me my butt. Then these other guys wanted to play partners. Silly rabbits! For the rest of the night my Pops and I ruled the table - he even taught us boys some new terms for our trash talk. I felt like a prince in service to his king, and that was all right.

The Farewell Tour only lasted about three weeks. I don't think it's possible to stretch a PERFECTLY good time much longer, anyway. Pops eventually returned home and one of his old cronies we picked up in Lake City rode with him to help drive the van back to Rochester.

Then on April 10th, 1994 Momma called me to tell me Pops had passed on. Six months - almost to the day - just like the doctors said. You okay, Momma? I'll book a flight to Rochester right away...

But there was no need. Pops remains would be shipped to Florida and he'd be interred only 45 minutes south of where I was living. There he was, even in the After Life, making things easier for his son. Indeed, I had no way of knowing how tough living would be after Pops was gone. See, back then, whenever I would call home, Mom was the one with whom I had most conversation, but Pops words somehow seemed to weigh more. Five minutes of a conversation with Pops was like five hours talking to Mom, pound for pound.

Don't get me wrong, I love my (now departed mother) probably more than I've ever loved anyone (except maybe my OWN children). Pops just had a way of stretching the quality of everything - somehow putting more into Life than apparently was already there.

Like the Farewell Tour. Ultimately, it was for the most grim of reasons, but, just because that was how Pops did things, just because it was the kind of character he showed - IT WAS THE BEST TIME OF MY LIFE.

I miss you, Freddie Lee Crawford. Thanks for all the things you did over the years. I look forward to being with you again, at the end of my own Farewell Tour.

Wow. Second Re-post in two days... but after I saw a piece by the same title on a friend's blog, I wanted to make sure there had been no... creative compromise. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe I'll start posting some of the newer stuff I've been sitting on for almost two years...

Oh yeah, the little Princess I wrote this for? Well, truth is that she STILL makes me want to... but I would never admit it and if she sees this MySpace post I'll "Eddie Murphy" her ass - 'Naw Baby - it wasn't me.'

....

u make me want 2 u make me want 2 write i need 2 create new worlds because this 1 doesn't seem good enough 2 hold u i need 2 cook up a lyrical course 2 fill the empty spot that forms whenever i am away from u i need 2 write a story 2 give birth from my mind 2 a saga where happily ever after is whatever u define u make me want 2 sing whenever u r near me my notes seem 2 run the entire scale from the do re me through the so la ti i need 2 sing love songs, doo wop, hip hop and r&b i wanna sing words that set u free send u around the world and bring u right back 2 me u make me want 2 sing in a whole new magical key singing is not what i normally do but something about u makes me want 2 u make me want 2 dance 2 tango, 2 samba, 2 ch-cha-cha leap, dip, strut and prance u make me want 2 dance the steps of summer, fall and spring 2 twirl u in a graceful waltz wearing crowns, a king and queen i'm clearly in a spellbound trance even my feet lockstep in romance u make me want 2 move u make me want 2 groove u make me want 2 dance u make me want 2 run and skip and grin and shout stage a raid on the zoo and let the lions out u make me want 2 help old ladies cross the street hug total strangers and kiss even ugly babies on the cheek u make me want 2 preach u make me want 2 teach u make me want 2 build a spaceship because somewhere out there is our own personal star and i know we 2 can reach it u make me want 2 look up whoever wronged me in the past just so i can forgive i once wanted 2 crush every challenger but u make me want 2 live and let live i feel inspired 2 do things i never even tried 2 do and i now know i can do anything in fact u make me want 2 © Jahaka Mindstorm

However the following, from Late December, seems to merit a second go...

I won't say much here, but those who resonate to these Seven Great Principles are far along the path:
Mind. Correspondence. Vibration. Polarity. Rhythm. Cause and Effect. Gender.
"He who grasps the Principle of Vibration has seized the Scepter of Power." - The Kybalion.
"God is THE ALL and all is ALIVE; Life is Mental and Mind is SPIRIT.
Therefore the Spirit of God is LIVING MIND, totally different from life
and mind as we mortals perceive it." - Jahaka Mindstorm

The road is far longer than I remember but these are the only feet I have left and my wings stopped working before I was born, so I keep on walking...

The landscape is much drier than I remember and this incessant dust tears my eyes, clogs my nostrils and burns my throat but they stuck me with lungs this trip so I keep breathing...

But what I notice most is that which walks beside me, which used to be a SHE but has become something different, as the curse of sexuality overpowered the Principle of Gender and we all forgot how to remember...

Funny how they called it the Tree of Knowledge, but those were lies and they called It a serpent, but Serpents are wise...

I do, however, remember being a Lion before I became a Dragon, but that was long before the WoMan became the Woe Man and - Whoa! Man!

Have I said too much? Well, if you don't like it, you can always f#ck yourself - you know where the batteries are, bitch!

And I keep walking, because these are the only feet I have left and my wings stopped working before I was born, but Damn! This road sure is longer than I remember....

He was born the same day and year as my late sister Barbara... He was only 5'4" physically, but his spirit was 100 feet tall... He taught me a lot about the game, the streets when I was too young and naive to know anything...

I remember the big red afro he had during the hippy years. The wide grin and ready sense of humor... He always had a joke - usually a good one and he told them well. His laughter boomed across the Universe... In some ways, this older brother figure replaced my late Pops in my heart when Pops passed...

I knew Ronnie was suffering a terminal illness and couldn't bring myself to go see him. Damn me for my pride - our little spat 3 years ago was no reason to end a lifelong friendship... Now, the only way I can tell him I love him is if he is listening from the other side.

People, cherish those you have today. Because tomorrow is a thief that robs us so frigging quick we don't even know we've been victimized...

Father God, Keep my brother Ronnie and reunite us when it is time...

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery - none but ourselves can free our minds..." - Bob Marley.

We went to get a divorce, but the judge would only grant separation. He said six years of marriage - and a child from that union - was too much time invested to throw away, yet not enough to say we had given it our best. If we remained separated for a year, an uncontested divorce would be granted. That was 15 years ago...

The year passed, but neither of us filed for that uncontested divorce. I didn't wonder why - I just moved on, anyway. A new lover had me firmly convinced my destiny was elsewhere, but that relationship was even less stable than my marriage. I had the feeling my wife wanted reconciliation (and maybe I did too), but I had so much guilt from my own past promiscuous activities that I refused to believe she wouldn't punish me somewhere down the line. Economics in North Florida grew harsh for me and I migrated to Manhattan at the height of the cyber revolution. My pockets grew fat and my ego even fatter. I felt that in my "freedom" was REDEMPTION.

The Broadway actress with whom I fled was a high school sweetheart and we thought we were soul mates. Indeed, most of the time that seemed to be the case. However, mis-communications and misinformation led to separation. I moved to Brooklyn and jumped into a passionate relationship with my assistant manager. Nine months later she gave birth to my fourth son - Jonathan. Then we found that she had greater passion for her technical vocation than our relationship and I apparently had greater passion for "freedom" than for ANY woman... So I returned "home" to Rochester.

Eighteen months later my world was rocked when my mother passed away. The antics of the emotionally disturbed poetess with whom I had found myself co-habitating became repulsive to me, with her strident voice and earth shaking insecurity. I decided that the only enduring relationship for me was with myself. I moved into a small apartment and my oldest son moved in with me. His child-like dependence would ultimately be an emotional slave collar that chafed, but I knew not how to escape. For a year, I was the perfect playboy, slipping through the females of Rochester like a shark slicing through the briny waters of the Pacific. I was a legend in the minds of my peers - the loneliest player on the planet. The one woman who touched my heart during that time, a golden haired healer, was married and loved her crazy husband too much to leave him for an even crazier poet... For my own part, I was still legally bound to my wife. She was my fail safe - I could not dive into another ill-advised union as long as she held papers on me, but I was quiet about that. My true marital status was a closely guarded secret, even though I no longer considered myself so bound.

Then I met the Princess. Tall and beautiful she captured my imagination and my heart. I wanted nothing so much as to be the Shining Knight who would rescue her from the dungeon that had become the walls of her life; walls she seemed unable to perceive. Less than a year after our meeting, she was pregnant with my fifth son - Joshua. By now I had learned to practice fidelity, but the Princess didn't believe it. I spent too much time on stage, too much energy spitting erotic verse for the Princess to believe that she still held my focus. "Poetry is your mistress," she complained. "I can't compete with that." I laughed. She couldn't be SERIOUS, could she? (She could and she was.)

The Princess ostracized me, but left me with the fragile hope that redemption was a real possibility. It was a lie, but I could never grow to hate her, not even for a hated lie. I spent nearly a year and a half in limbo, hoping to regain that which I refused to believe was ever lost. It was one of the most miserable times I've ever endured.

In the end, it was economics - again - that determined when it was time to leave Rochester... Where I would go, I had no idea... But I knew what I wanted - REDMEPTION.


I'm not sure at which point I started really talking to my wife again. Sometime around Christmas, I think. She was a familiar voice, a friendly soul, someone who could understand me more than the transient females with whom I had attempted to replace her. I knew I still loved her (I still love every woman I ever loved) but I was surprised to discover the depths to which she returned that love. My personal situation was growing dire. Unemployed for eight months, I was literally starving and I faced imminent eviction. Somehow, the judicial system had wormed its way into my life. I have never been a criminal, but I was spent a couple nights in jail for "criminal" possession of a weapon courtesy of a fuzz-faced punk rookie cop from suburbia. I came closer to taking a life than I have in twenty years when he accosted me, walking to the convenience store across the street to show my Congolese friend a ceremonial dagger given to me by my son on Father's Day. Despite the fact that the ornate artifact was no longer than a steak knife and blunter than a butter knife, I was charged with carrying a "cane sword." Suddenly, I realized I had developed a rather powerful dislike for the City of Rochester, spiritually charred and burdened as it is; with a ubiquitous apathy that appears to affect all its residents. However, few of those residents seem to care to investigate that apathy, what it is or how to change it. It was definitely time to leave.

I thought of going to live with my daughters in the Midwest. However, in a conversation with my estranged wife, during my darkest hours, she asked me: "So when are you coming home?" I thought it was sweet, but I really didn't think she was serious. Nevertheless, I decided to play along

"When do you want me to come home?" I asked.

"How about last year," was her reply. Oh wow. She WAS serious. So I started planning...


Spring approached. A time of rebirth - what could be more auspicious than to return home during the most magical time our planet could offer? Though I resided barely a quarter mile from the airport, I never considered flying. I haven't been on any aircraft since 9/11 - not from "fear" but because I do not trust my temper to endure the intrusive policies airlines have put in place since America became a Homeland "security" police state. I planned to travel by train, which would also maximize the amount of personal property I could carry on my return to Jacksonville.

The decision to return (to my TRUE) home was really a no-brainer. In Rochester I was essentially homeless. In Jacksonville I would return to a comfortable 3-bedroom house replete with two cars in the driveway, modest vaulted ceilings and a flora-friendly skylight shining down on the mantle of a beautiful modern and functional fireplace. In Rochester I had no woman to care for or to care for me, but in Jacksonville resided my WIFE - a woman who had apparently forgiven a series of oath-breaking transgressions and who still held passion in her heart. In Rochester was a bitter "princess" holding a son who had my face, but not my name. A son I wasn't even able to see except briefly on the occasional Sunday at church. In Jacksonville was a 12-year-old son who badly needed the support of a paternal presence and a 17-year old daughter whose tears at my departure still burn my memory. In Rochester, my literary friends had mostly melted away and projects that we planned - projects that seemed failure proof during the planning - were swept into oblivion as if by the mighty hand of Providence Itself. Jacksonville was were I had initially developed as a tech and as a writer, where I once had my own personal editorial column in a weekly newspaper with a circulation of nearly a quarter million people.

Yes, clearly it was time to move on. There was no need to delay and I wanted to be back home by the first day of spring. I wanted REDEMPTION...


I didn't waste a lot of time on good-byes. The wonderful people at my place of (part-time) employment would have thrown a party for me and I felt the imminence of my departure would be a distraction during my last week of work. So I kind of slipped away like a thief in the night, leaving the beleaguered city of Rochester a full hour before daylight, one day after the Ides of March. ("Et tu, Brutus?")

Thirty hours in the train system, including a 3-hour wait at Penn Station and two hours sitting on a track somewhere in North Carolina (while a freight train ahead of us awaited repairs) and I found myself back in Jacksonville, where my long black leather coat demonstrated itself useless in the Florida heat.

The first place my wife took me was to breakfast. Perhaps she was alarmed at seeing me 40 pounds lighter than when I left her more than a decade before. "You will look better carrying your proper weight," was her only remark. Truth be told, I started shedding pounds right after I left Florida... in 1997. Yes, my forty-something year old knees ached less carrying the lighter payload, but my "hara" (as the Japanese refer to that central reservoir of Spirit) was certainly diminished.

Still, not everything was gold and light about my return. My father-in-law passed away the same day I left Rochester. We would be leaving for South Carolina to attend his funeral rights barely two days after my arrival in Florida. "You KNOW my family is going to tease you a little after you being away for so long," cautioned my wife.

Yet her concern was apparently groundless. My in-laws embraced me with open arms and I felt the same love and fellowship that I felt from the time I was first presented to them. Though this gathering of people from as far north as Maryland and as far south as Miami was for a somber purpose, we partied like rock stars for four days. At the funeral, I sat in a position of honor on the front row, providing what comfort I could to my wife on my right and her last living aunt on my left. For the first time in a long time, I felt I was someplace I belonged. I felt somewhat... REDEEMED.


However, nothing is really ever so simple, is it? There remains a great deal of reparation for my marriage, in re-establishing dominion over my own Household and even on the physical structure of the house itself. Indeed, over the next few months I will be repairing roof, doors, windows; tiling floors, performing plumbing repairs; and my wife even wants me to build her a porch deck. ("I just want to be able to sit outside in the shade and enjoy the yard.") I have to get a new set of tools, as my own toolbox was left in Rochester, but Providence has stepped in to assist even there. My father-in-law was a handyman of unparalleled skill and left practically every tool one could imagine in his old pickup truck and neatly stored within the six sheds he built years ago on the South Carolina property. My brother-in-law insists I should help myself to whatever I want. Indeed, I'm already planning a return trip to South Carolina to retrieve such treasures as power saws and drills, painting and drywall supplies, ladders and a wide variety of other useful items. I look forward to the trip and also to meeting the challenges that lie ahead.

I still need to resolve the Joshua situation. Though I am now a thousand miles away from a son who doesn't even bear my father's name, I cannot allow him to be distanced from the Anderson clan. My wife asked me: "What about Jonathan and Joshua? Will you be able to see your sons at all?" No idea how long it will take for the acrimony of a self-styled princess to diminish to a workable level, but I am fully prepared to wait her out. (I told my wife that Jonathan should be no problem, but for Joshua it will take some time.)

Yesterday I placed a call to the editor of Folio Weekly - the magazine where I held down not one, but two columns during the mid-90s. They haven't gotten back to me yet, but I know they will. I might be on hiatus from poetry for awhile, but the inner journalist is awakened and prepared to resume wearing an urban activist mantle that resulted in so many redneck death threats against me and mine years ago... I actually look forward to it.

I still bear a certain level of sadness (but NOT regret!) for the "might-have-beens" yet I am comfortable that each decision I made over the last 15 years was made from my heart and with the purest intentions. Mature enough not to blame others for things that did not go my way and guilt-free as I move forward. And it is that freedom from self-recrimination that convinces me Almighty God will grant what I desire most and what I believe I have suffered enough to earn -

REDEMPTION.

"Don't let them mold ya mind - they want to control ya mind..." - Stephen Marley

It really pisses me off when I do a service under contract and the contract is not honored by the other party, especially if there's money involved. Yet there seems to be more and more of this happening lately - at least in MY life...

I wrote two articles for a publisher in May, for which I am still awaiting payment. I've been doing contractor work for a small company for a month now and have barely been paid for a week. "Wait until we get paid for these jobs" I'm told. "We'll have big checks then."

Right now, even more than a big check, I wish I didn't live in such a punk ass society. I would rather practice a little pugilistic dentistry and remove offensive teeth with no tools more refined than my knuckles.

Yeah, I'm born in the wrong time, but there are people in this time who are f#cking with the wrong writer.

Pray for my patience.