221. THE CURTAIN COMES DOWN

221. THE CURTAIN COMES DOWN

I sensed I didn't care, and I

knew that made things tough.

I was sitting, way down in some

southern Jersey outpost in the

pure middle-fringe of the

Pine Barrens, on a sandy

roadway -   nothing paved,

farmland around me, a few

pigs squealing as I threw

them their slop, it was a

late October, long afternoon,

the sky was fading to a dull

sort of orange, the roadway

paths and the endless scrub

pines had taken on a strange

orange glow themselves. I

didn't actually 'know' it was

the Pine Barrens, if it was.

That was a name people

 gave the area  -  not much

yet development, an odd

water-table, sand and little

hillocks, animals and ground

creatures, a filter-like sandy

soil, through which everything

liquid ran  -  self-cleansing,

as it were. Back home, before

all this, my father used to use

what was called 'Diatomaceous

Earth', or something like that,

in the pool filter system  -

same thing. Some ancient,

granular soil, from the real

true heart of the land, through

which the water ran to be

cleansed. Talk about Paradox.

Running through dirt in order

to be cleaned. Like Salvation

-

At each turn of events, there

was criticism, always: 'Done

incorrectly, skipped step five,

forgot about his, did too much

of that.' I got tired of hearing it.

What did I know anyway  -  if

all the others knew the rights

and the corrects, let them do

it all. I wanted my refuge.

There came a point that I

realized there was no way

in hell I wanted to become an

active agitator or representative

for the existing structure of

whatever 'religion' was going

down. Candles and candelabra.

Fire and scent. Incense and

peppermint, curse of Mankind.

(No, no, that was later).

-

Little boy lost, come blow

your horn, the sheep's in the

meadow, the cow's in the corn.

-

There seemed just always

too much going on : men

in bad suits, pomaded hair

and narrow ties. It always

seemed that politicians

ended up looking like

real-estate sharks, real-estate

sharks wanted to be like

barbers,  and barbers wanted

to be Managers of some

Woolworth's somewhere.

They are all interchangeable,

and stupid too boot. It's all

the same now, just slightly

changed, a new and better

'frequency', as it were. I had

two, interchangeable, cheap

dark-fabric suits, and I hated

each of them. On days when

I had to wear them (often

enough, and in a place

like that I always questioned

why), I gulped. Hated each

moment. The rest of the time

I had some really lame, cheap

and tacky, 'school' clothes.

Overused and over-worn.

What the hell does a 13-year

old kid, in his second year

in some private-school dump,

know about laundry, or care?

I know I didn't. The bloom

had long ago, and quickly,

left this rose.

-

There was an outpost, a place I

found once, deep in the barrens.

It was a cranberry camp, for all

the seasonal pickers. Abandoned,

off-season, I guess, no one around.

During cranberry season, the area

is busy  -  Ocean Spray and the

others, they have plants and

warehouses around here and 

there. This location, onto 

which I stumbled, took some

getting to  -  scrub woods, lots

of weedy stuff, an old path. 

Eventually, by walking, 

(obviously, there must have 

been another, better-traveled,

road in, maybe from a front

or side I'd not seen), I passed,

with surprise, a collection of

bee-keepers' things  -  those

hive-cabinets they keep or

whatever they are. About 

thirty of them, in a semi-circle 

range of each other. And then

some barracks-like buildings.

What was cool was that, 

communally, each building,

perhaps having no running

water, faced and shared a 

sandy, outside court wherein 

was a collection of shower 

stalls, sinks, three or four

outhouses, and a lean-to

type shelter of bench seats

along a wall. Making it even

more astounding, the line of

sinks ran in a row, and arrayed

along it, every 10 feet or so,

were metal, chrome soap dishes,

shoulder-high, and in each one

was still a bar of soap. All this

was mysterious and strange to

me. It (only vaguely) reminded 

me of Boy Scout camp : Camp 

Cowaw (little pine), in which 

we too had had a sort of

'communal' shower and wash

area, though nothing like this 

one. And that was 1959 anyway.

This one was, first, much larger

and far more industrious in its

set-up; serious, camp-like. I

immediately wondered about it.

Was it current? Only men? 

Only these seasonal men 

workers (I'd seen cranberry

bog workers, in the past, of

both sexes)? It all seemed like

a labor-camp, almost as if

some slavery set-up took place

there. Work by groups. All

quite confusing. But, in any

case, I loved it and thought it

to be the neatest-looking place

I'd seen. We had just recently,

in the seminary, done a Nazi

prison-camp play, entitled

'Stalag 17', and it reminded

me, immediately, mentally, 

of that entire milieu and 

scenario, which we'd only 

tried imitating or suggesting 

on the stage by props and

imaginings  - chairs, a few

tables, a fake, painted

camp-view out. In the theater

and on stage, that stuff is all

done by the visual suggestion

of props and painted scrims.

You kind of have to 'get' the

point across, almost scientifically,

with the most minimal of space

and effects How big, really, is 

a stage, and one 70 feet away 

as well? It's all trompe l'oeil

(trick the eye) kind of stuff. A

gimmick, yes, but an important

and vital one for telling the

purported storyline and getting 

 an adventure-in-time across. All

suggested. All made. By contrast,

this was solid-real? I wasn't that

sure. And then my mind, as it 

usually does, and did then too,

began extrapolating outward with

the ideas : how like life is all this?

Props and visual suggestions put 

to work to accelerate our own

somehow self-accrediting 'version' 

of acceptance and belief in what

we are viewing. It has its own

time-scheme, an opening, an 

Act I, a changeover, a 

denouement, a tragic, or a comic,

 lesson, an Act II, or III, and, 

curiously, an ending  -  always 

that. The vast curtain comes down.

Just like water, getting

cleaned by running

through dirt? I

wondered.

220. IT COULDN'T BE GOOD

220. IT COULDN'T BE GOOD

Sitting back in the seminary,
with it surrounding, engulfing,
me, like a cloister, like a womb,

everything began to hit me

at once. All that old gibberish,

making little sense, just began

to annoy. To begin with, right

off the bat, there was the question

of how I should handle the fact

that 'God' got it wrong. Or

that's how I saw it. God's

threat was wrong, and the

serpent's was right: 'From

every tree you may eat but

from the tree which is in the

midst of Paradise do not eat,

for on that day you will surely

die.' But, the serpent, knowing

all  this, told Eve instead to eat

of it: 'On the day when you

eat from the tree...the eyes

of your mind will be opened.

And Eve obeyed...' And their

eyes were opened, and they

were ashamed. They did NOT

die that day. Now, the church

and all that establishment

stuff tried to cover this up,

and I got only the usual

boilerplate answers, but no

one could really reply, or tell

me, outside of their communal

'Doctrines' what it really meant,

what it said. "Well, it means 

that from that point on Mankind 

died and suffered and life was 

finite, and with great toil and 

anguish....." All that crud. 

Yeah, well, I guess. It also

meant the establishment

'church' by about the year 

300 had already become 

a statist bureaucracy of

linear means, with rank and

levels and duties and laws 

(when there was no other. 

Rome was breaking down,

nation-states had not yet

developed, and the great

void was filled by hoo-doo

priests and religious

entrepreneurs wanting

a piece of whatever action

they could make). Gold, (not
God) fills any void. I always

figured that if the 'Bible' 

was supposed to be God's 

'word' and taken as thereby, 

one could not simply go 

picking and choosing about 

what was allegorical and 

what was literal, and what 

this meant or what that 

meant. If, on page 80 in
Exodus, it says God spoke
 and burned in, 'Thou Shalt
Not Covet...etc.' and you go
on believing in all that, when
on page 19, Genesis, when it says
bad angels came down from 
'Heaven' and saw that earth-girls 
were beautiful and wanted and had
sex with them, so as to raise a
raise of giants, 'men of renown,'
you ought to be believing
that too. You can't have it both
ways and then call it Holy Writ,
and writ by God no less.
In time, I just got 

tired of it. I think part of 

the problem was the people

who were pushing all this

stuff. All the seminary

authorities were first-line

weirdos and geeks. No two

ways about it. In cassocks

and beads. There was

repression, anger, strange

symbolism, and a prodding

push for 'looking the other

way' going on at all times.

These were mostly

mid-western guys, all

Minnesota and Wisconsin

Germans, who had lived

their entire lives in this

harsh and tightly-woven

bundle of both attitude and

story-line. How  else to

present it? Lackadaisical

farm tales and romps in

the hay? This was all then

presented in a complete and

different format from what

I, and others, had ever been

used to  -  east-coast grit 

and tumble, the shadings 

of meaning and effect, 

that kind of urban groping

for cosmic meaning. They

hadn't a clue, and I soon

tired of their gibberish. 

In turn, I started snapping 

back. I was a young kid, 

here, in their employ, as 

it were, and by choice  

-  and I knew that.

But so what.

-

There was one big piece 

missing anyway  -  the 

key to the feminine. It 

seemed to be that the 

real world included 

feminine elements; great,

big, joyous and ever-sensitive 

gobs of it. This stupid way 

of living allowed for none

of that. Why? The Bible 

studies I did (and, oh, how

I scoured the stacks), also 

told me of two Gods, not 

one. The real, aloof, majestic 

cosmic God, who works 

from within and speaks

internally, in our ways, to 

each of us. Has nothing to 

do with this world. Which 

world's creation it opposed

anyway. That God contained,

in reserve as it were, both the 

masculine and the feminine 

in one (they're just stupid 

human terms anyway, part of

duplicitous Duality and nature)

and could, thereby, self-create 

at divine will. The lesser God, 

the Demi-urge, the scampy, 

erroneous, overly-active

one, made our world. In 

the same manner. Trial 

and error. Saw that it

was good. Or did not. 

Things fell by the wayside. 

Concepts arose  -  evil, bad,

good, perverse. negative.

It's all in the Bible, but 

suppressed. Pieces left in, 

suggested  -  two different 

creations stories. God as

a fallen angel, fallen to 

this world, Genesis 6, a 

massive parlay of really

weird information. All 

of Divinity contained 

both sexes. We were made

 'in that image' as it says.

Genesis 3:22, "Behold, 

Adam has become like

one of us, knowing evil 

and good. Let us cast 

him out of paradise, lest 

he take from the tree of 

life..." Made in the image.

'Male and female he made 

them.' People wanted to 

think that meant 'made 

Man and made Woman.'

What'if, in God's image, 

and just as it says, 'Male 

and Female He made them.' 

Like the gods themselves, 

containing both sexes? 

Talmudic rabbis have

put it thusly : "Then God 

said, "Let us make man 

(adam) in our image, after 

our likeness...in the image 

of God He created him; 

male and female he created

him." Only later then, "It is 

not good for man to be 

alone." The split then to 

womanhood, as follows:

"when the Holy one...first 

created mankind, he created 

him with two faces, two 

sets of genitals, four arms 

and legs, back to back. Then

he split Adam in two, and made 

two backs, one on each side."

(Rabbi Samuel bar Nachman). 

Yeah, then so much for all 

that. I wanted no more 

of it at all.

-

To me all this Life stuff 

had to be, and was, more 

than conjecture. To be 

truthful, I lived my live,

even then, by revelation 

and by revealed truth 

alone. All the rest

was like a thousand 

little ants scurrying 

around some silly 

anthole   -  that they 

had made. All those little 

ant-talks and words about

how it got there and what 

it was. Without any ant 

realizing a thing  - that 

their own power had 

creatively sensitized the

idea of 'anthole' into being

and that it went on forever,

had a zillion entrances and

exits, and could be altered

and changed at will. It all

had to be done wisely and

creatively, otherwise you

were sure to be into slavery.

An 'Anthood' of your very

own. You'd even get to 

wear a cassock and beads

too. I knew all that already.

-

I also already sensed that

all things were wrong, all

things in error. That the

only truth was that some

Devilish evil bastard was

always at work trying to

drag you down, back into 

the pit, and seeking to use 

you for worldly purposes.

I was deep into trouble,

at age 13 already. It

couldn't be good. I sort
of sensed that, and hadn't
yet even crossed by own, big,
sexual divide. That was yet
all ahead of me. What I
did realize was that you couldn't
'reduce' the irreducible. There
came a time when each idea
couldn't be broken down
any smaller. You get to a point,
for instance: If there were two 
Gods, a entire seam of Gods, a 
God panel, any and all of that
mythological stuff that pre-dated
the entire Jew-God schema that 
we got stuck with, the Gods were
active beings, on and above Earth,
messing and toying with it, not 
just wrecking it and cursing it (like
Israel's God was shown to do, over
and over  -  fiery and irascible for
no sensible reason, as if He or It
has just sat on some great celestial
tack), they ruled a much happier
Earth. They made decisions and 
had their influences and squabbles 
in and within Mankind. To the 
creative joy of all, and the 
detriment of none. That
was a major difference. Then
you break that down, one less
God here, one less there, and 
you get dwindling down to,
well, maybe, One God. 
The 'Gospel of Truth', one
of the documents from Nag 
Hammadi, did unfortunately
get into my hands. About 1964.
That also split my brain wide 
open. I was one of those true
Agape guys, just sitting stunned.
Valentinus held this information
from Thadeus, a disciple of Paul's,
(you see, they never tell you this 
stuff, it's all been rejected and 
thrown out of the normal church
and Bible routine, buried, as it
were, for a third-day resurrection
that never came. This secret
reveals that the one whom most
Christians naively worship as
Creator, God, and Father, is,
in reality, only the image of a
true God. What is 'mistakenly'
ascribed to God actually applies
only to the 'creator,' the demiurge,
who reigns as King and Lord,
who acts as a military commander,
who gives the law and judges those 
who 'violate' it. In short, He is
the demeaning, and short, God 
of Israel. His authority and 
demands (Blake's 'Nobodaddy,' 
which, yes, all this led me into 
as well  -  remember, William 
Blake sought to be creating a 
'New Jerusalem' through his 
own work), are foolishness, and
anti-human. (Why would a God
who 'made us' then be anti-human?
They must be rejected, a well as
all his false claims to power (as
represented in religion, church, and
hierarchy), ['I am God, and there
is no other'] that derive from his
own ignorance.  The source of
divine power must be recognized,
the true source of it  -  'the depth'
of all being. "Whoever has come to
know that source simultaneously
comes to know himself  and
discovers his spiritual origin: he  
has come to know his true
Father and Mother.
-
Whew! Was I stuck, and 
in a pretty horrible place. Thus 
began the long, long, and slow, 
back-think for me in re-entering 
the world, (my Redemption Story)
my terms, and only with a great
and careful deliberation. It did,
thankfully, come to me : "I am
perception and knowledge,
uttering a Voice by means of 
Thought. I am the real Voice. I 
cry out in everyone, and they 
know that a seed
dwells within."

219. NEEDLEPOINT

219. NEEDLEPOINT?

Nothing but trouble, nothing

but trouble. Seems as if my

entire life was like that. I

guess I did it myself. First

real 'book' I ever read  -

believe you me, this is

true  -  was 'Autobiography

of a Yogi.' And it wasn't

about Yogi Berra, in case

that's what you thought.

It was 1959. Yogi Berra,

or as I called him, the

'Neanderthal Man,' was

a catcher for the Yankees,

who at this time was also

doing idiot-ads for Yoo-Hoo,

some chocolate-soda drink.

'Autobiography' on the

other hand, was a real book,

by Paramhansara Yoganandra,

and had been published in

1946. It split my head open,

right in half. I'm not sure

what you'd called him,

Indian mystic, Hindu

Wise-man, there's

surely a word for it. In

English, I mean. The people

of whom he was part, they

didn't care about words and

names like we do. That's

purely a western thing. To

this day I still get a belly

laugh out of all these rock

stars and fake poetry-philosophy

types who tell about their

supposed 'youth' in, like,

Minnesota, listening deep

at night on their little radios

to the far-off sounds of

Nashville, country-music,

blues, or race-music. That's

what black-folks' music

used to be called, in the

'industry'. Oh, wow, man.

Robert Johnson on the RCA;

twirling knobs from 1933.

Big deal. I was getting in,

loudly and clearly, Hindu

radio from 1600 years ago.

-

It's funny, when you're

growing up, the things they

hold out to you as exemplars:

a man-child, like Yogi Berra

was supposed to do it. Yeah,

sure, that'd work. Thanks,

world. What a measly crock

they offer  -  and it's still like

that today, poor kids, except

now the scrawny adults have

light-sabers, maybe race cars

or soccer balls, or rap-names

they expand while grabbing

their balls. You can bet some

local politico no-brainer will

be down the bottom of some

underpass somewhere saying

how great and enlightening

all this is. Whew! Glad none

of them was ever my father.

-

My little, local library, Avenel,

NJ, gave me everything I wanted.

I had my own personal librarian,

in fact. Mrs. Muccilli. She was

probably  -  forget about the

stupid, neighboring, school,

or Mr. Ziccardi or any of those

tweakbrains  -  for me the most

formative person I'd met. All

the books in that tiny library,

(and there weren't that many

'books' in there anyway), she

held out to me, with a smile.

and she never once 'stopped'

me from reading something,

no idiotic schoolmarm or

dumb-ass councilman

interdiction thinking they

'knew' better for me, and

holding out instead their own

versions of lies and puke for

kids to live by. She just always

said, 'Here! I understand.' I

went through every volume

of new and breaking prose

and poetry they'd get  -

Ashbery, Plath, Bishop,

Rexroth, O'Hara, Berryman,

Wright, Kerouac, Jarrell,

Ferlinghetti  -  the list went

on. I lived for that stuff, and

that little 2x4 library building

brought it all home for me.

I imagine she's long dead,

but I'd praise here every

day, if I needed to. Phillip

and Dennis,wherever you

guys are, your Mom was

the best, but tell her I

didn't quite make it.

-

I got to New York City while

some of these guys were yet

alive.  That was a good thing.

It brought vitality, even just

to having their names around.

So much time has passed now.

Names I see now, just drivel.

Billy Collins makes me ill.

-

I sort of, I admit, self-exiled

myself by age 11/12, by running

off to the seminary. I know I've

been through a lot of this on here

before, but that part is true. I

couldn't have run away any

faster if my head was on flyer

and there was a pair of vice-grips

on my 'manhood.' It was all too

much; the indifference, the

falsehood and the lying. I saw

it everywhere. A least, there,

hiding out, cloistered, learning

to be a 'human' (that was all new

to me), I could put together the

rudiments of a Life I'd choose

to live. Something better than

the usual skull-dudgery offered.

I had enforced and essential

'religious' duties there, but I

didn't care. I found that I could

listen to anybody, take it all in,

and understand just like them;

in fact, I was able to 'be' them

just so as to see through their

eyes and mind. I think one of

my unearthly extra gifts given

to me when I was put here was

the ability or capacity to present

myself as alike to whomever it

was before me. Take their view.

Understand their role. That was

a good thing. It allowed for a

compatriotism that always

drew itself up quickly and

seamlessly. No one looked

'past' what I presented to

them as 'me.' Easy rowing,

on a quite calm sea.

-

In the seminary, in the dark

of long corridors, or in chapel,

(our 'version ' of church, which

was really no more than like a

cabin-style church room in a

wooden barrack-type building

that belonged out somewhere

in the middle of the woods),

not one bit of it made any

sense, nor did it really bear any

relation to the internal truths and

arts of being as presented to me

by Yoganandra. I had passed

that great divide some time

before, and the literal sense

of 'real life'  -  all of it, even

the quack-platitudes of the

supposed leaders, culture-mavens,

entertainment masturbators,

and wise-men of the era, meant

nothing to me, or were a complete

clown-joke. As I used to like

to put it (I learned early to be

what's called, I guess, snarky,

or nasty, or sarcastic), people

fell into one of three camps.

Masturbators. Calculators.

Or Incubators. It was a way

of dividing up the known world

into self-indulgent obsessives,

wizened sneaks and tricksters,

or people who'd soon enough,

later, work their way up into

quite large problems, for

everyone else. The world

had no clue what was about

to come down. They all talked

one game and, for sure,

played hard at another.

-

Previous to the seminary,

and after the train-accident

coma period, I still had to

figure out a life. An earth-life,

let's say. Not that easy. The

small stance of a small boy.

All I did was watch things,

carefully, and everywhere.

I watched things along as

strange words and messages

echoed around in my mind.

Influencing things, and

changing them. Not for any

detriment, but for just for

the working-sense of a

better mesh with the 'reality'

I had to learn and work with.

It was harsh, and it was funny

too. Humor can be a good 

thing. You've got your 

extremes, that's all, and 

you've got to know to 

watch both of them  -  

on the one hand the 

Lenny Bruce, on the other, 

the Jackie Mason. Both too 

much of what they were, 

and in opposite directions.

-

I was sitting on the train 

yesterday, alone, in the first 

car. The conductor, about 4 

seats away, was also just 

waiting. It was 5:15, in the

AM, dark out. I was ready

for anything, as always. on

my way in. Thinking about

things, writing the beginnings 

of some of this down. Two

weird things happened. First,

the conductor, he'd taken out

some round thing, small, about

the size of a pie plate. He had

it in his bag. And he went to

on it, referring occasionally to

some guide or pattern book

he had on the seat. A diagram,

I guessed, of what he was doing.

It was totally bizarre to me. 

He was doing needlepoint, 

or whatever that's called  -  

a longish  needle, pulling 

some colored thread through

the plate thing he was holding.

I guessed he was making 

some sort of design, maybe 

a train-image or something. 

It was just very weird to see. 

I'd been riding these trains

for years, and conductors have

always, no matter what else,

in uniform and at their tasks,

first off, older than me, it 

seemed (though no one

 'working' is now), been

authority figures of a sought,

men at the business at hand.

Never needlepoint. And then

over the train signal radio 

thing he had on his belt, at 

a turned-up volume, came

the message : 'Reverse Our

Instructions, Of Previous.'

Whatever that meant, it put 

him into immediate action.

Away went the needlepoint, 

the threads and needles and 

the book, as he fiddled with

the volume knob, and, up 

and it it, left the seat area 

and went to the car-control

panel. It all kind of felt

dream-like to me. In the

dark too, as it was. Life 

sure has its odd moments.