A Shaman at the Andover Library

Before the internet went viral

descending toward the digital–electric hell of virtual realities in which the mind keeps playing with itself

and love is left abandoned at the altar like a guru gone unheeded and the vows of realization left completely unintended,

I would browse the local library,

which of course was just another stage of hellish A.I. reality the mind has played since mind evolved from swamps in molecules of being,

and there within said library, I met a homeless man who read the newspapers and whispered softly to himself

about the wildness of the world

and how the shamans like himself no longer could assist in mind's complex descent from sky to ceiling—

no one listens anymore, he said to me while noticing I was eavesdropping on his private conversation with the world.

No one listens anymore.

Reflexive Prophecy

Love is the turn

and self-awareness is the return

but the digital is the wild mind’s shot

at double or nothing—

from my lips to the cloud’s ear.

Neurological science is following a dead end

so the digital-electric looks to create

a brand new virtual reality.

Stop in the name of love—

return to forever.

Playing with Lalla G:105. Awake

In the waning moonlight, the madwoman rises

to soothe her pain in the light of that Supreme.

Lalla Lalla the beloved awakens!

And all vitalities merge in a shimmering lake.

Playing with Lalla G:13. Difference

You have six and I have six;

now tell me Blue-throated Shiva,

what exactly is the difference here?

Oh, never mind, I totally know.

You are the master of your six

and make them accolades of immortality.

But I’ve been enslaved by mine

making them blemishes of personality. 

Playing with Lalla G: 95. Nandi

How do I manage five elements, ten vital energies,

and eleven functions of senses, expressions, and mind?

They have emptied out this container and run away!

If only they had pulled upon a single lead together,

the happy bull of Shiva would not have gone astray.

Playing with Lalla G:102/103. Way

I, Lalla, wished only to be a natural lovely cotton flower 

but the cleaning woman split me and the carding man shred me 

and the spinner then conditioned me to fine thin thread upon its wheel—

and lastly I was stretched upon the weaver's loom 

and woven into finished useful worldly cloth.

Only when the washing one turns me over stone,

and scrubs me with hard earth and soap,

and the tailor works its scissors on me, piece by piece, 

am I, Lalla, open to the way of that supreme truth.

Playing with Lalla G:7. Who

Lord Shiva! I didn’t realize precisely what I am.

I merely thought I was this substance of a body.

You are me and I am you. O that I never knew!

Asking who are you and who am I undoes that doubt of who.

Playing with Lalla G:8. Thou

Shiva the Auspicious One or Vishnu the Demon-Killer

or Buddha the Conqueror or the Lotus-Born Lord Brahma,

whatever your designation is as That, please alleviate

this unwell woman from the sickness which is this world,

in the name of Thou or Thou or Thou or Thou or Thou.

Playing with Lalla G:18. Ashes

Let them cast a thousand curses at this naked woman.

Their pointed words will never touch my heart.

I am devoted to the innate and annealing truth of Shiva.

Nothing but polishing comes from throwing ashes on a mirror.

Playing with Lalla G:83. Release

I've seen a wise man die of hunger.

And leaves fall in winter even with the slightest wind.

I’ve seen a fool beat his cook.

And Lalla waits for love of an absurd world to let go.