Cheers to nothing

I take an empty cup of kindness. Expectantly.
ought I receive for my aesthetic sacrifice?
The poem bereft of words

A dry, soulless,
immaculate uncertainty,

gossamer tulip wings limping, prancing,
(no! no!)
(Not verbs, we want nouns! Decorative, ornamental nouns! And don't say that ugly "adjective!")

on the shore she waits, 
ear to the Earth
A sensitivity to butterfly effects,
and beauty returns to her in a bottle from the sea,
but it was only a grocery list.

First they look where the earth is overturned
They look for artifacts in excavations and burials.

They look on the surface of the land and sea
The multitude of tiny many-colored lives.

The clouds ask each other, and clouds move obtusely
Changing their questions constantly.

The clouds turn and ask the unconquered stars
And, secretly, the stars listen.

The shadows of my words grow longer under the setting sun, misspoken,
I stare into the mists of the northern laurel trees.
I wait for warriors to come.
Come, I call in my mind and heart,
Come.

Warriors with blue tattoos scream their battle cry,
and, look there—fighting limbs, heads down, running naked out of the mists.
Like a baby being born, they offer their bodies and their lives.

Emerging from the mists, their bellows make
the fog of war a tangible unknown.

“We will break you,” says the doctor to the baby
as he takes him away, giving the mother a sucker
and a dark waiting room.

They cut his foreskin, tattoo his body with the symbols of a warrior
who screams without shame, none knowing their meaning or power.

Running barefoot, long spears and wide shields,
great magic hums and sparks around him,
because the enemy has war machines.
The enemy doesn’t care for magic—
magic is given to reward virtue,
and virtue preserves the land and sky.
“The only sex that war machines know is rape,”
speaks the druid who knows magic is madness.

But the best part came when the Clockwork Empire
could not make it to the edge of the world: those babes,

brave, running with the chaos of the wind,
offering their bodies and their lives

to their mothers first, and then the northern winters,
and then to the biting and cutting armies
of undead Latin words,

their poetry woven into blue skin-tattoos,
stronger than armor and siege machines.

The Strength of Men was victorious then,
and it will be again.

Oh come,
let them come

naked into the mine fields,
their innocent minds never suspecting the bombs;
they will have only wide
shields and long spears. Warriors that die
find themselves running in green fields
with the sun caught high on their brow,
and if they live the mists will return them
to their brethren.
Against all odds they will win again.

And if they all die, we will all die with them
after a long rape.
There will be nothing left for the machines to ravage.

We will follow those warriors to their fields and a new sun,
whether we like it or not.

Those naked men will leave fertile fields
for us to till in peace.
Swiftly they disappear,
only to emerge from another mist against another enemy.

Their Will cannot be broken.

I fell up


the end of the world is now a commodity
"don't look up" he said until I was a broken record
I was caught in a calculation of romance down to the dash on his chin.
The sky hides in plain sight as we count our footsteps
by watching our fitbit. I looked up, I saw the eclipse and

my paper cut opened a portal to the abyss
I fell into my cubicle, the flimsy walls a spiraling maze, 
my mind leaped over the hedges

Giants in the clouds... should I be worried about them?
As I fell up, I wondered.
"What are we going to do about those clouds?"
Asks the newswoman, saying with a million dollars worth of pearls

"Don't worry," she said, "there is a 99% chance of sunshine in a few days"

The parallel postulate was found to be optional when non-Euclidean geometries came under earnest exploration. This was a paradigm-shift, and a breakthrough in mathematics, yet historically people often found it to be a failing in mathematics to the point where, too late in the game, great mathematicians such as Lagrange were still trying to prove the postulate. The reason we wanted Euclidean geometry to be true is it reduces space to a quantifiable reality, so that at the moment of breakthrough, the favorite non-Euclidean geometries could be translated into Euclidean geometry using a metric. Now, we can have very strange kinds of vague metrics for gauging distance. The basic difference in these early non-Euclidean geometries was that there could be more than one parallel line going through the same point, with respect to another line. In other words, the parallel postulate was false for these other geometries.

Euclid himself was so exceedingly careful in intellect that he kept the parallel postulate out of his exposition of geometry, out of his innovative axiomatic form, until he felt it was absolutely necessary. This means that the beginning of Euclid’s first textbook is true in all geometries, and is called “Neutral Geometry.” These precious first theorems are universally true, but this was just not enough for Euclid or his line of mathematicians. They wanted more to be true, so, perhaps under the weight of his contemporaries and ancestors, Euclid abandoned his misgivings about the postulate and asserted Euclidean Geometry as universally true.

How did he make this assertion? You could say his assertion was existential. He asserted that there is only one line through a given point with respect to another line in the same plane. He made this choice out of what we now know to be many options. I may be talking about free will, but not quite. I am sure Euclid believed his books to be about something true, and only his work failed, not reality. He was somehow persuaded or convinced that the parallel postulate was the right choice, and not without examples to the contrary. Geometry on a sphere is not Euclidean: you can have a triangle with three right angles using the line at the equator and two lines going through the north pole. We didn’t know the world was round back then you say? Some scholars back then did, since its circumference was being estimated by scholars as early as 2,000 years ago in Alexandria. Aristotle’s model for the Earth is inconsequentially different from a sphere, though the model appeared flat. Aristotle instructed Alexander the Great to conquer to the edge of the world and, by continuing, he’d end up back in his home eventually. Now, scientists seem to agree that gravity bends space out of shape, and is not Euclidean. The debates of brilliant minds back then, as well as now, were varied, of course, and the over-simplifications from our compulsory education about flat-Earth vs round-Earth, Euclidean vs Non-Euclidean are stark, foolish and in service of the illusion of progress.

The thing to notice is that the alternatives between Neutral Geometry and Euclidean Geometry was a kind of pluralism of parallel lines through the given point, and with respect to another line. This gave rise to a pluralism of quantifying or qualifying distance. Similar to asserting that the only alternative to Being is Not-Being, and the vagaries of cloud-gazing was out of the question. Now we have whole specialized languages to describe the gap between Being and Not-Being: such as psychological hallucination. Leaving out the modern hallucinations of distance, and the looming history of the field of number theory (eventually abandoned by the Greeks, and later connected to geometry in Descartes), how do we choose between these options? Enter Rhetoric, left stage.

Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric was that it was an Art of persuasion, not a Science, even though the above shows how deeply dependent Euclid was on Rhetoric.

So, when I say that Rhetoric is the stuff that connects our planet with the “universe” (another overly-ambitious grab-word from Science), I mean it scientifically, in the Art of choosing how to define distance, because the most important practice of Science, that gives it its importance, is this territory-grabbing from Rhetoric. And Rhetoric is merely the guard of its master: Poetry. In this essay, I have shown how Rhetoric orients people in understanding the gaps between disciplines. Rhetoric is a way of understanding things: the Sciences, Philosophy, and even translation and other parts of Poetic discourse.

It doesn't have to be a lot
You could even lose something to a poem

Simple gestures of light and lifting rain
Shallow, knowing beauty hides nearby

Birds gathered on the nearby powerline
Just for some all-mighty small talk
To the crescendo of a setting sun.

The sun who knows us, little does he know:
How surfers feel his knowing just as well,
No words but the formal language of waves
They crash, they die the beautiful death.
Immortality hides in the water.
Profound words slip out, spilling, returning

water, like writing on a palm leaf
Left by the lifting rain.

We could have just surfed all day.

The waves and the rides they give,

Could it have been enough?

Adapted from the Dhamma for children

Once upon a time there was a monk who wanted to know where Space was

So he meditated and meditated and meditated, until his mind reached the angels.

He asked the angles, “Oh Angels, where is Space?”

The angels replied “We don’t know, but if you meditate longer, you will reach even higher angels, they might know.”

So the monk meditated and meditated and meditated, and his beard grew longer and longer and grey as he sat still, until he saw the higher angels.

The monk asked the higher angels “Oh high Angels, where is space?”

And the High Angels replied, “We don’t know, but if you meditate longer you will reach the Highest Angels, maybe they will know”

So the monk meditated and meditated, and his beard grew down to his feet and grew white as he mediated, until he saw the Highest Angels.

The monk asked the Highest Angels, “Oh Highest Angels, where is Space?”

And the Highest Angels replied, “We don’t know, but if you meditate even longer you will reach Brahma, the Highest of the Highest, creator of all the worlds. He will know.”

So, again, the monk meditated and meditated, and his hair began to fall out and his skin sagged from his bones and grew spots as he sat meditating, until he reached Brahma.

The monk asked Brahma, “Oh Brahma, Highest of the Highest, Creator of all the worlds, where is space?”

And Brahma replied “I am Brahma! Highest of the Highest, Creator of all the worlds!”

And for some this would be enough, but this monk persisted.

The monk said “Yes, and… where is space?”

Brahma realized the monk would not go away, so he took him to the side away from his Choir of Angels and said,

“Look, don’t tell anyone, but I don’t know where Space is. You are asking a dangerous question. If you must know, go ask the Buddha, but go at your own risk, for you go beyond my domain.” Said the Brahma, Highest of the High, Creator of all the Worlds.

And so, the monk, stood up from his meditation and walked, careful not to fall as he was very old now. He walked very slowly and it was very hard, but luckily for him, The Buddha was living then, and was residing in a town nearby.

He reached the Living Buddha, sat to one side respectfully, and asked his question.

“Oh Buddha, The Well-Gone, where is Space?”

And the Buddha gave his answer simply

“It is good you came to me, for no-one can answer this question except one who has finished the Noble Eightfold Path. And it is because Space can only be found in the mind of the Saint, one you has followed the Way, gone to the end of the world with his mind. For he has found Space, and it is in his mind.”

Then the Buddha, saying nothing at all, imparted this knowledge to the monk, who attained Enlightenment at that very moment. The monk lived happily from then on, knowing the supreme bliss, until his death and beyond.

The Stonecutter’s pickaxe hit the stone. He felt the strike in his hands and feet. His mind was in his hands and feet. Every day the Stonecutter worked hard, splitting stone from the foot of the mountain. Workers come to carry away the raw slabs of stone the Stonecutter cut, to be worked some more into so many things. Every day the Stonecutter would get money and merit from his work, which he brought home to share with his wife and children every evening.

As he got older, he felt the striking of the stone in his arms and legs, in his torso and shoulders. When his work was felt in his head, he was an old Stonecutter. His life was hard, but he worked well, many people benefited from the stone he took from the mountain. As he died, he felt his work and merit, his feeling and awareness of striking of the stone, rise towards heaven.

A wild spirit saw the Stonecutter’s mind rising and spoke: “you are bound for heaven, and what sort of heaven would you like?” The Stonecutter was a simple man, he had seen merchants pass by the road near his house. The merchant had a carriage, soft cushions to sit on, good food and servants, even a guard to protect him. The life of the merchant looked like heaven, so the stonecutter said: “I would ask to enter heaven as a wealthy merchant a carriage and cushions, good food and servants.” So the wild spirit put magic on the Stonecutter’s mind, making him dream of being a wealthy merchant.

The dream of the Stonecutter was indeed pleasant. He ate the good food as servants did work so he was at ease, enjoying the soft cushions and shade of his carriage and house. He looked past the silk curtain of his carriage and saw rough people working hard to till fields and carry heavy loads of goods to the capital city. He looked at his guard and began to feel afraid. When the carriage arrived at the capital for trade, he saw a princess’s carriage. She had all the things the Stonecutter had, but all things were finer, whats more, she had many guards, and their superior armor and weapons shone in the sun. Then his head turned a little and he saw the strong stone towers of the castle the princess must be using as her house. The Stonecutter had a pang of regret for asking to be a rich merchant as his heavenly reward for a long virtuous life of hard work,

and just then the wild spirit appeared. The Stonecutter said, “I think I made a mistake, do you think you could make me a King instead?”

The wild spirit said “I would not like you to be unhappy in heaven, let it be so!”

Suddenly the Stonecutter found himself sitting on a golden throne in a strong stone castle. The servants were everywhere anticipating his desires and the army of guards made him enjoy the much finer food without fear of the rough people outside. This went on splendidly until during court many people, even rough ones came kneeling before him to complain of a drought brought on by long hot and dry days with no rain. The Stonecutter was king and began feeling uncomfortable for all the responsibility he had, as the bad feeling spread when some people died of the drought and crops were scorched. The people expressed their fears of not having enough food and it made the Stonecutter afraid too, for as king they would blame him. After court the Stonecutter began regretting his choice to become king. The comforts were good but he had not the power he needed to take care of all his subjects.

And the wild spirit appeared before him. “Well?” said the wild spirit “Are you enjoying heaven?” The stonecutter told the wild spirit of his discomfort and fears for his subjects. “Your life was good, you can have another chance to decide how you would like to enjoy heaven.” said the wild spirit. The stonecutter thought carefully “I would like to be the Sun. I can restrain myself then and allow the people their crops and stop this drought. Also, It must feel good to be the Sun and have all that energy and light to give.” The wild spirit gave a crooked smile, waved his ethereal, willowy hand and the Stonecutter became the Sun!

Now the Stonecutter felt really warm and good. He smiled down on the earth and glowed his energy and light just enough that the crops of his kingdom and the world were healthy. This made him very happy, and he began thinking that this is really what heaven should be like. After a while, as he watched the earth, he saw great rain clouds gathering and swirling over large parts of the earth. These rain clouds poured rain to the sound of thunder and ravaged the crops, flooded homes and drowned livestock.

As the Stonecutter watched, he became angry, and an angry Sun is not what anyone wants. His heat flared up and some clouds burned away, crops were dried and a drought began. The stonecutter realized what he was doing and tried to calm down. It was really a great responsibility to be the Sun, and it took a control that the Stonecutter only knew with his stonecutting.

The wild spirit appeared before the Stonecutter, who was already thinking what he should do.

“I will become one of those great rainclouds that even as the Sun I cannot dismiss with my heat.”

The wild spirit nodded, trying to hide his gleeful chuckling, and waved his frail hand again.

Now the Stonecutter was a great raincloud, and the feeling of being one was very different- he felt his emotions become even harder to control. As he desired, the wind bent the trees and lashed out against the the land. He poured his emotions down on the earth, but the Stonecutter tried to gain control. He thought about the discipline and precision he needed to cut stone, steadily saving his energy to make progress all day. He managed to calm down some and his rain subsided, his wind lessened. But he had already angered the Sun and provoked a heat wave. The Stonecutter as a giant raincloud tried to puff himself up and protect the world against the heat. He could only do so much and found that the emotions of the cosmos was too much for him, and he looked down on the earth for some stability. He saw the Great Mountain, standing imperturbable by all the heat and rain and wind, rising so high, its slopes unmoved, it supported whole forests and towns of people. Before another wave of emotion could overwhelm the Stonecutter he called out to the wild spirit “I want to be the Great Mountain!”

The wild spirit appeared and with a handwave the Stonecutter was the Great Mountain. The Stonecutter felt his strength and stability and knew that he was doing something important for people and beasts and forests, as the changeable weather went through their moods. He felt his stability stretching out into the future, on and on, and he knew he could provide his endurance until the end of days. Then he felt a little sting that came again and again until he was slightly annoyed. He looked to his foot and saw a little stonecutter, and each strike of his pickaxe brought the little sting. He knew the focus of this stonecutter to cut the right sized slabs of the Great Mountain’s body, and a stonecutter’s will to go on to the end of his life, where his son would take over and the sting would never end as long as the Mountain was peopled. Now the Great mountain, weighed his long endurance against the tiny sting of a falling pickaxe again and again, and the Great Mountain realized this mild annoyance, over the centuries, would grow and not stop. The quiet mind of the Mountain gained a measure of respect for the little stonecutter, even though he was so small, and his work was relatively insignificant over his lifetime. He looked at his own experience as the Stonecutter, before he was the Great Mountain, and admired the qualities of a man who could do such tiring work every day, cherishing his wife and children and leading a good and fair life, though the life was a rough one. The Great Mountain sat there as his moments grew longer and longer, all the while there was the reminder of a stonecutter to keep his mind from gaining true quietude. Finally, as his awareness was placed solidly and firmly on a storm raging on his southern face, and a stonecutter stinging him on his eastern face, The Great Mountain rumbled a sigh. The wild spirit appeared before him, but this time there were no tricks or cunning in his eyes. For the wild spirit knew this teaching, older than the world, that was dawning on the Great Mountain now. The Great Mountain spoke: “My idea of heaven has changed again, I wish to be a stonecutter.” There was no giggling this time from the wild spirit, who only nodded knowingly and waved his ghostly hand again.

The Stonecutter that was once the Great Mountain, a Giant Raincloud, and the Sun itself became a stonecutter. And with a heart full of wisdom, the Stonecutter began a day of work. Kissing his wife and children goodbye, he shouldered his pickaxe and trudged steadily to his work site. He felt the strike of his pickaxe reverberate through his body, but the Stonecutter’s mind was unmoved. He knew now that heaven had been here all the time, and he needed only wisdom to find heaven where he stood, where he had always stood, as a stonecutter.

With that, his mind became even lighter, the dreams brought on by the wild spirit disappeared. The Stonecutter rose to the highest heaven, where the pleasures and bliss are no greater than the pleasures and bliss the Stonecutter found as a stonecutter, when virtue and wisdom come together to comprehend one’s place in the world.