Another
interesting issue of words for you to read and enjoy, as the weather improves
in your part of the globe take the
time to read and spark your own sense of creativity.
A Life & Death Situation
By Michael Levy
© June 2002.
Most of us have a virus protector on our computer. Unfortunately
the world is full of sick minded people and we have to be
very cautions and guard against many attacks. But what shield do we
possess to help our minds cope with the stresses and
strains of modern day living? The answer is a simple one. We are living
as a human being, but we are in essence a loving soul.
The essence is eternal whereas the human beings mind & body is
a temporary identity. A few weeks ago I was asked to
explain the sensations of the soul by a delightful lady.
I started by saying;
A soul is the essence of intelligent energy that recognizes true wisdom
within the senses of Love in Joy. The soul becomes part
of the physical human being, the moment the first cell is born. It
is the true "life" identity of a human. Just look at a babies face
when it has food and comfort. It embodies a pure bundle of joy.
The lady then asked me, "What about death? Doesn't that take away our joy? Is anything left?"
I responded;
There can never be death of a soul. The body expires but intelligent
energy cannot disappear. Joy is the core understanding of a
soul. The only true feelings are love and joy and all the positive
feelings that grow from them. Once we are aware of our love &
joy in our physical life, then the spirit of past loved ones are sparked
in our minds. We are aware there presence is "Alive" and
connected to our souls. We are still connected to all the loved ones
who have transcended back into spirit.
This understanding should be the true mental picture of the myth
called "life & death," otherwise we will just hold a memory of
a physical being and that brings a loss and sadness. We will feel a
loss, which attaches to a negative emotion, instead of
our souls joy. We love our family and friends but love is not a possession.
There are no permanent structures in a physical life.
Why concentrate our thoughts on a finite individual that is a temporary
visitor. Isn't it better to be aware of our continuous true
self?
She then asked me;
do you really want to say "The ONLY true feelings are Love and
Joy"? Doesn't this invalidate people that are feeling
other things such as grief, sadness, loss, anger right now? Those feelings
are indeed also very real, necessary for the
grieving process and "true"...aren't they?
I Responded;
Only in the eyes of the physical beings conditioning dwells grief and
suffering. This ego (Ease God Out) image of ourselves is
only a temporary condition and not reality. We cannot live by such
basic emotions or we will waste most of our life in a
negative thought mist. This may sound harsh, but the opposite is true.
To live in joy, spreads joy, to live with grief, spreads
grief. Giving joy is caring. Spreading grief is selfish. We grieve
for our loss, not for the loved one, for their physical presence
has gone.
There is a big difference in emotions and feelings. We can only
hold grief when there is a loss. Physically there is a loss and our
emotions feel that loss. In our true state the can never be a loss
for spirit cannot die, for it was not born. It flows through us as
the wind brushes our cheek. That is our true identity. The whole of
the cosmos is our domain. How can we grieve over an
eternal energy force that we are? It makes no sense to cry and go against
the realities of infinite wisdom.
The emotions that seem so real are part of our ego's view of the
world and not real at all. Reality means lasting and nothing in
the physical lasts. This is a deep subject whom many folks take a lifetime
to learn and then it is too late. Most people never do
comprehend the true meaning of "life & death."
Folks need to continually ask more questions and the more questions
we ask, the clearer our reality becomes. The ONLY
true feelings are love & joy. There can be no other reason to exist
on earth without these feelings. We are not put on earth to
suffer as many religions preach.
Over many thousands of years, we have been trained to believe
grieving is a normal response to the death of a loved one;
especially a sudden death. But that does not mean it is natural to
grieve. To understand it is like peeling an onion. Each layer
will make us cry until we get to the end. Once we eat it, we will stop
crying and just enjoy its flavor and goodness. After a
while we learn if we cook it first, then peel each layer, we will not
cry. Why live life in the raw?
We need to accept who we truly are and the recipe for that take
time and practice. If we live with half baked ideas, we will
get indigestion very often. If we live only by emotions, we will cry
very often. We will all feel negative emotions, for that is how
our bodies have evolved. But the fight or flight emotions we originally
felt, are today replaced with many other emotions that
injure our immune systems and put us in an early grave. Our minds have
not adjusted to modern day living and some religious
rules & regulations only make matter worse. The spiritual essence
of each religion is pure, but mankind changes it to suit its
own power base.
The simple answer to the meaning of life is, God put us on earth
to enjoy every second,' no matter what chaos, catastrophes
and tragedies surrounds us.
Now who wants to argue with God?
If we do, we will cry and grieve a lot. When we walk with Spirit
in each step we take, no harm can befall us, so what is there
to be unhappy about? Health, Wealth and Joy will flow freely if we
allow nature to take its course. Once we can accept our
true identity, we can live as member of the universe. What is the point
of subsisting detached from a higher reality, as an ego
being, with no club card into spirits truths? A soul’s energy.......
is life's potency. Where there's life, there lives a soul. Our sole
purpose is to enjoy. What are you waiting for? After all; it is not
as though it is a life or death situation?
******************************************
http://www.pointoflife.com
******************************************
MICHAEL LEVY.
Author, Poet, Motivational / Financial Speaker.
Credentials
Michael's Articles and Poems are now on over 1500 web sites, journals and magazines. His latest story has just been published in "Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul" He has appeared on hundreds of radio programs, Channel 4TV in the U K and recently a live interview on NBC 6 in the USA. Michael was a recent guest on the Howard Stern Show. He is a keynote guest speaker and was a guest lecturer (Finance, Health and Inspiration) on the maiden transatlantic voyage of the Norwegian Sun. Michael's new book "Invest With A Genius" was published on the 28th January 2002.
Contact for an Interview or book review.
Michael Levy
954 785 8439
mikmikl@aol.com
http://www.pointoflife.com
Fort Lauderdale.
Florida. 33308
********************************
Review
Nitro
Records sent me a copy of their latest compilation “Punkzilla” containing
the best work of many of the bands that
make us this label. It features 20 cuts from a lot of these bands,
so what you have here is a disc of over 60 of the best of punk.
To give you a some of bands, they are; AFI, The Damned, Son of Sam,
Original Sinners and The Offsprings.
Let’s
be honest here, Punk is one of those style of music you either hate or
love with a passion. To many listeners,
punk is loud, obnoxious and loud. It is stereotyped as three chords
with choruses that contain much in the way of obscenity and
a lack of any sort of musical ability and skill. The question that
needs to be asked, what would make someone want to buy this
CD? The answer is because it does contain some of the best punk bands
out there. This is a CD of music that is loud, proud
and is filled with passion. Some of the songs do feature people singing
at very high speeds, but the message is relevant and
does speak to a specific generation. What sort of message, well messages
of defiance of a desire to be their own person and
not be pushed around by any group or persons with an agenda. Actually,
the messages are very interesting and certainly one
will have to get used to the style the message is given, it is worth
listening to and appreciating. The CD will also give a person
an appreciation of the various acts that are out there and while they
may exist on the fringe of pop culture, I’m not sure any one
of them would want to be part of the modern musical scene.
Should
you purchase it? Well, let me be honest, if you hate punk, you won’t enjoy
this CD. It is all that you will expect
from the style and I don’t think you’ll change your mind. If you are
huge into the scene, go for it, you probably know the
groups and so this will help you to appreciate some of the best of
each group. What if you want to try it, well, this may be the
CD for you. As I said, there is a wide variety of groups and with the
20 tracks you will find one that makes you appreciate their
musical ability and the message. If you wish to have more information,
go to the website: www.nitrorecords.com
Poetry
FIRSTYOUDON’TUNDERSTAND,
ANDNOWYOUSAYYOUDO,
I DON’TGETYOU.
YOUSAYITWILLBEALRIGHT,
WHENI SAYITWON’T,
I STILLDON’TGETIT.
YOUSAYI WILLGETITSOMEDAY,
I SAYI GETITKNOW,
BUTYOUWON’TTALKABOUTIT.
I DON’TGETIT.
WHENYOUSAYNOTTOLIE
WHATDOYOUTHINKYOU’REDOING
LYING.
I STILLDON’TGETIT
MAYBEI’MNOTSUPPOSETOGETIT,
MAYBE‘I’LLGETWHENI AMOLDER
BUTJUSTDON’TTALKTOME
ANDDON’TTELLMERIGHTFROMWRONG
WHENI KNOWITFROMTHESTART.
When you return, come unnoticed,
Steal back silently late at night, and
Let your entrance be mostly unseen,
Without a trumpet voluntary
To mark the moment
And no grand polonaise,
But return like a tired worker
At the end of the midnight shift,
Moving slowly in the darkness,
Quiet, as not to awaken those who slumber
And dream deeply in metered respiration.
When you come back again,
Let your footsteps fall in the hallway, pianissimo,
Your shadow moving through the bedroom doorway
Just a bit ahead of you.
The nocturne of silhouetted movements as you undress
And clothes fall to the floor
With the muffled rustling of a bird taking flight,
The half-step inversion of you
Peeling back the bedspread and sheet
And your weight shifting on the mattress.
___________________________________________________________
Tender
And I saw today with some surprise
How beauty is the cosmic currency,
A universal tender, that will valet park me
Near the main entrance of a higher consciousness,
That swings open doors wide
And buys Sunday brunch at 10:00 a.m.
At outdoor cafés opposite the beach,
Under a Catalina sky of blue silk,
Draped like a canopy over the green sea.
And I have come to know well
That some lessons are best learned slow,
The result of repeated study.
I have worked long like a dullard,
Drilled each detail into memory as an imbecile
And trained my eye on each liquid movement,
Graceful and poised, of bare arm and naked thigh,
How the mere hint of a wiggle in the ass
Is like a wad of cold hard cash.
___________________________________________________________
Trio
I.
Ode To April
And I recalled the opening line
Of Elliott's Wasteland:
"April is the cruelest month"
And I think that somehow the same
Could be said of any month,
May, June, July,
August, September
And not to forget
November and December.
Indeed things green and things yellow
Are growing quite irrepressibly
And soon a hint of color will crawl up
The bare willows and upon the ash and maple
New foliage will sprout, modest at first,
But growing toward green crescendos.
I remember my grandfather
Was a modernist in his old age.
He would slip into spells of incoherence,
Utter words in odd tongues, not of European origin
But more exotic. On summer afternoons,
He would sit in the shade beneath a tree
And rest his back upon its bark and trunk
And sometimes in fragments,
More often in the gibberish of delirium,
Speak to me like Sybil.
I believe that Spring is strong
And April is not fragile but merely subtle.
Sprouts peek most shyly from the earth,
Green shafts against the black soil,
Tendril roots twisting down.
There is no cruelty in
Of modest beginnings
Or in the small starting of things.
He has closed his eyes and
Oh that I could awaken him,
Just grab his arm and say:
"Grandpa, wake up. You walked in the sun too long."
He would open his eyes and look at me,
And mumble something in Arabic
That sounded slightly slurred
And wave his arm for me to go way,
To let him sleep.
The days grow longer and the light
Now streams in the big window
Just after sunrise, and April is the month
Of things sleeping and slow awakenings,
Of fragments that grow
Toward the fullness of meaning.
II.
At Lake St. Clair
Fishing at Lake St. Clair today,
Alone on a long pier,
Just north of the power plant
Where the line of steel smokestacks,
The "Seven Sisters" dominate the sky,
And I always think them
The perfect classical form,
Tall and slender as they are,
Ionic columns left standing upright
Amid the rubble of some ruins
The water-tinted orange
In the first light after sunrise,
Its surface choppy and textured
As if painted on a canvas, pasted on thick
With the short pointed strokes of a palette knife,
And I recalled a fragment from long ago:
"White-caped waves sweep the lake--
My father's dreams"
And me picking out with such care
Painted spoons of speckled green,
And a feathered jig with a chartreuse head.
For you know my grandfather was a modernist,
My father was a neo-romantic, but I,
I am a fisherman.
For the measure of a man I know
Is in pike and pickerel and perch.
III.
Piano Sonata
Things are most pure in their beginnings,
As if time somehow tarnishes
Innocence and stains
The sweetest intentions.
It is the April of things, rather than their August,
That is most lovely,
Tendrils of hope
With roots that grip tenacious and deep,
The watercolor that seeps across
A sketch of charcoal landscape.
In the rain today
I found a faint trace of music,
A fragment of melody
That is the sound of a piano sonata,
Notes that resonated softly
And make me remember
Black and white summers
When I crossed the river on Macarthur Bridge,
The sunlight
On the surface of the water shining brightly,
The waves gleaming
Like schools of chrome minnows.
It is raining and I hear my grandfather's footsteps
On each wooden step as he walks up the front porch,
I hear him stop to cough and then continue.
Memory is a fragmentary thing.
And I cannot simply decide
And struggle a great deal
And muse endlessly upon the troubling question:
Is it the April within us that God loves?
Or is the April within us God's love itself?
___________________________________________________________
Confession Of A Pedophile Priest
"Forgive me Father for I have sinned"
And broken the sanctity of holy vows
With a single kiss
Of a sleeping hermaphrodite.
Oh, I have traced with my mouth
The pink crescent shade on one perfect cheek.
I brushed my lips across radiating warmth
And inhaled the strangely sweet scent of sin,
A mere trace of odor,
A slight smell of ripeness
Like the last fruits of late summer.
"Well, Aqua Velva my genitalia"
My voice is the song of the castrati.
The Jubilate Domino of my tongue
That touches and shapes each word
And mingles with the moistness of each new note.
Within the dimness of dark boundaries
And in the of fogginess of faded demarcations
I am hopeless to help myself
Or fight off the gnawing temptations
That grow so irresistibly
Into the fullness of compulsion.
"The sin of Sodom"
In the quiet of the sacristy
And in the twilight of the corridor
That leads to a bedroom
I suffer the burning flagellation
Of angel feather kisses,
In a litany of misguided desires
That is the limpness of a eunuch's lust
And can never be satisfied
By the most solemn benediction
Of yet another young boy's body.
___________________________________________________________
Building
It sometimes feels as if each word is a brick
And the space between each line, a layer of mortar,
That will dry slowly and harden with time,
For it is the simple rules of symmetry that apply
And a certain one up the other construction
That brings to lines a lightness and geometric grace
And to angles the sharp contrast of light and shadow
That is the secret of the pediment and pilaster
And the articulated magic of the cornice.
It is the one line written by Theodore Dreiser
"Who shall interpret the language of stones?"
That somehow endeared me to the man.
And I recall it often and whisper the question,
Sometimes half silent, Often out loud,
As I stand facing each new façade or run my hand
Against the cool smoothness of granite and
The sandy roughness of hewn limestone.
It is with shape and form, the building blocks
Of structure, that I speak to you now,
With plumb lines and yard long levels,
With rock cut and laid with precision,
With pigment mixed with plaster,
And with stone that is somehow budding
New foliage, flowering and beginning to bloom
And to grow to span the distance from earth to heaven.
___________________________________________________________
Cloud Boulevard
In Pennsylvania coal country,
Near the Pocono's,
Where far horizons rise to the sky,
I know that today the town of Hazelton
Is oddly still in the sunlight
Like a cat sitting on the window sill,
And Cloud Boulevard stretches greenly lush
With long lawns that lay before tall wood frame homes,
And it seems to me
That time advances with a lazy reluctance
On afternoons such as this in mid-May.
I have come to walk on Cloud Boulevard
And to remember my life here as a stranger,
A life lived
At what now seems a great distance away
From this coolness in the air
That I now breathe so deeply, and I stroll
Slowly to the East so that the late afternoon sun
Casts my long shadow on the sidewalk
And I pass down this street like a ghost,
Not so much as darkness, but rather,
More as an absence of light.
___________________________________________________________
Words On The Road
On the road leading from town today,
My thoughts ranging on a rural landscape
Of barns in varying degrees of dereliction
And lean slightly to one side
Next to the perfect vertical of solos,
Some with domes and others without,
Against a background green of newly planted fields,
I thought of her, quite suddenly she came to mind,
Just the way she always does, with no more foreshadowing
Than a sunlit afternoon in late May,
And just barely, I heard the words, so silent,
They teetered on the threshold
Of audible perception,
And echoed in that nether region
That is not quite reality, where one would call it
Perhaps an aural hallucination,
A momentary confusion of the senses,
An illusion of a fleeting nature
That makes the wind seem to
Whisper, or the breeze
That would bend the tree limbs to
Mimic human speech and say
To me in a single breath,
No, more a hoarse exhale:
"Quo Vadis?"
And remember the introspections and
Revelations that occur to a sole traveler
Upon a lonely stretch of road,
That makes even the most determined and resolute
Slow their pace or perhaps fully stop
And reflect on their destination and
Question for a moment their mission.
____________________________________________
(c) 2002 Doug Tanoury
__________________________________________
Doug Tanoury is primarily a poet of the Internet with the majority of
his work never leaving electronic form. His
verse can be read at electronic magazines and journals across the world.
The greatest influence on Doug's work was his 7th grade poetry anthology
from Sister Debra's English class:
Reflections On A Gift Of Watermelon Pickle And Other Modern Verse (Stephen
Dunning, Edward Lueders and Hugh
Smith, (c)1966 by Scott Foresman & Company) He still keeps a copy
of it at his writing desk.
Visit Funky Dog Publishing at:
http://www.funkydogpublishing.com/
When a little boy fell from the sky
on an August day in forty five,
the sun was clouded by a pinkish hue
the city covered by a huge mushroom.
A presence was felt for miles around
as Raindrops of Destruction fell to the ground.
The war had gone on for far too long
between countries who thought that they were strong
as Enola Gay flew over that Bay
they say there was a debt to repay.
Buildings burned and lives were shattered.
Revenge, was that really all that mattered?
A fire ball of radiation destroying, killing
and scarring forever, the memories
of those who heard that huge explosion,
and managed to survive the devastation.
(c) debisa_genius
http://archive.shadowpoetry.com/d/debisa/genius.html
http://www.postpoems.com/members/debisa_genius/
An ice-cold splash from the tap at reveille;
a pail of creek-water from a sunny sparkle over rocks
where 8-yr-olds make fairy-gardens;
3 sprigs of Indian paintbrush & 2 blue feathers
from a crested robber-jay; at lunch, a pitcher
of bug-juice that smudges raspberry smiles;
7 pinches of trail-dust from a hike to the lake;
1 dirty Band-Aid on a bunged-up knee; &
16 breaths held breathless after flashlights-out
while Jill tells ghost stories under stars:
In the campfire circle, dump all together
in a big black pot suspended over leaping flame.
Stir to the count of little girls, the night before
they all go home. Prompt them to the songs
they’ve sung all summer. Swat in a few
mosquitoes and bring to boil; ladle into cups
and pass around the circle. Look each girl
in the eye and make her swear
she’ll come back, in spite of all
her homesick vows.
AD TE LEVAVI
The chant began by itself before dawn,
before the dogs ran out into the pallor
the stars left. Their barking
diminished with distance
while morning gathered voice, layer on layer
till there’s no space that isn’t wistful
praise. Last night was ice and fire
on the bridge, the old cabin
tucked into rocks below the grade
smoldered. Now there are ashes to scatter,
if we could climb a mountain
high enough. For all the song
of morning, the ground is covered
with such a fine powdering,
I could write a poem
in the dust and ashes, a short
one to replace the others.
REVERBERATIONS
A steamship tilts, subsides
obliquely into ocean, sinks
as you watch from your own small boat
at anchor on a huge calm sea.
But look, the great gray ship
resurfaces, bucks on its own wake
and slips again underneath.
When it comes up a second time,
closer, it rears higher
then dives deeper.
The third time is always
a man drowning. But this ship
soars, sharpened beak of a prow
skyward; plummets, gunmetal
pelican. Surely such force
would bury it in bottom mud.
But no, it erupts, closer still,
shock-waves against your bow.
Small boat for a time
at anchor
in a hugeness of waters.
LAROUSSE ALABAMA
Eel’s flesh is quite nourishing,
as the ancient Romans knew, delicate
but also a little heavy. It’s best
to remove the fat between flesh and skin,
but quickly. Eel must be kept alive
until the last moment.
A small fish-pond in the kitchen
works well, if you change the water
frequently; a healthy eel may roil
and soil it ‘remember, this is not
simple vegetable minestrone.
It’s important not to listen
if the eels sing. The Greeks knew
eels are not sirens. But if you hear
deep-ocean among the measuring spoons,
it’s time to refocus: check the fire,
clear your mind of reservations. Bang
the eel’s head against the griddle,
just hard enough to stun. Remember,
this isn’t Circe’s island,
this is Learning to Cook
Ethnic in America.
LOVER OF BRIDGES
You’ve burned your crossings all
along the way, a red smear on the sky
behind you. Somewhere ahead
in darkness, she’s waiting
for you to take her floating
a-way down south to an unsung spring.
But now, you’re sailing past
the heaps of smoking retreads,
field fires and cankered crops,
past the miles of docks
and babbling phone lines
through a thunderstorm that blots
out everything
but your hand on the rudder,
silent as love or disappearance;
dreams of passing with her
burning even that last bridge.
Taylor Graham
piper@innercite.com
This
issue marks the end of 4 years of publication. Thank you all for contributing
and making this effort possible month
in and month out, okay, with the exception of maybe 2 issues.
As for next month, I’m hoping you can contribute some
photographs and the poems that have come out of the inspiration.
Send me your digital or scanned pictures and I will include
them in the July issue. This issue will be, among other things
the beginning of volume 5. Imagine that, starting 5 years of
publishing excellence. What does the future hold, I haven’t a
clue. Will there be changes, well, even “WIRED” magazine
changed this June with new graphics, format and style. Will “Above
Ground Testing” experience the same thing, who knows?
Remember, WIRED got 10 years out of the same style before they decided
to change.
Some
of the things upcoming, perhaps an interview for August, I do have a person
in mind and they should be receiving
an email from me in the next couple of days. So be warned, that’s
all I can say. Beyond that, things are up in the air, if a few
people answer my email in the positive we may have a very special issue
in September or October, again, things have to wait.
As things change there is one constant this publication exists because
of your contributions. So, keep sending your work, invite
your equally talented friends to share their work around the world.
To
add my constant little note; all works are copyrighted by the various authors.
Respect their rights. If I’ve said
anything interesting that you want to quote, just mention my name.
If you want to write to say ‘hi’, or send a work, be it
literary or anything else, send them to pabear_7@yahoo.com.
I also have yahoo messenger, so type that address in and we
can always chat, if I’m on-line. This can be a fun experience.