Speaking

Speak the future

your spirit

goodness

into existence

and actions speak louder

than words.

Myselves 2: Bike ride

2.

Today I was riding my bike home going against traffic on a one way road. But it isn't my fault because there are no other roads to get to my house, really. There are, but they are totally out of the way and they are cobblestoned and my bike has fine road tires so cobblestones aren't that fun to ride on. Anyway, I was coming home and was approaching this intersection. I looked around for cars and stuff because Brazilian drivers have not evolved any standardized, functional driving etiquette. Then, all of a sudden, another guy on a bicycle is coming with traffic, my way, on my side of the road. He isn't looking either, of course, he is looking for cars because they are the main danger. But he continues pedaling along and I finally say, “amigão!” just as he is like a meter in front of me. There is a car turning onto our road and the driver sticks her head out the window, slows down and looks at us both as we collide and says, “olha só, 'ta tendo um accidente de bicileta na rua!” and I wanted to slap her right there and then but it was statement of fact. Indisputable. There was in fact, a bike-on-bike accident being had in the middle of the fucking road. A legitimate cause for embarrassment. But my beef was not just with Miss Óbvia.

I rode away a little angry and a little humored and I kind of had to make a choice of whether I wanted to be angry about what happened or just laugh it off. I ended up analyzing my anger and listening to Joao The Angry. Joao the Angry was like, “that motherfucker! He wasn't even looking. Fucking Brazil, man. I tell ya...” meanwhile another Joao is listening, many Joao The Sharp, and he is like, “wait a minute, was I looking?” So then both Joaos tried to remember. They each asked themselves, “what did I see, where was I looking, what do a remember about what just transpired?” Nothing. Both of em drew a blank! No one knows where Joao was at that moment and so Joao was probably where ever the other guy on the bike was: trying to make sure a wild Brazilian behind a wheel wasn't going to run his ass over. Both Joao and the other guy where simply riding their bikes, looking out for their lives and each totally forgot to think that the other might be there. And that is Life.

So, I wasn't mad about it anymore, but not being mad was kinda a bummer because I had no one to blame, really, but myself and Chance or whatever and that's not nearly as cool. It would have been so much easier and natural to tell a story in which I was the guy who was right and he was the guy who was fucking ignorant and wrong and stupid. I mean, I'm not stupid. I don't do stupid things and usually problems are not my fault.

Let it be noted: that last comment was Joao the Man talking out of turn.

Myselves 1

1.

“When I talk to myselves,” began Jimmy (or whomever he might have been at the moment), “I ask myself three questions: Is this idea actually any good?; Am I the first dude to have the idea? And if not, is someone else with way more resources and money already working on the idea? If so, great, let him do it. I don't need to do it.” That night (July 3rd 2014), Jimmy claimed that maybe creation isn't all it is cracked up to be. I think he used the expression, “the bee's knees”, which is an expression I really like. But the idea of “myselves” is pretty interesting and got me thinking just now, which is the 4^th of July, the day after the above commentary by Jimmy.

Today I am thinking, there are many Joaos.  There is Joao the Man: Joao The Man is a Joao who walks around thinking he is The Man and sometimes feels like he is The Man and even tells himself sometimes, usually in his head, in private, in a whisper, “you're The Man”. Then there is Joao the Humble. Joao the Humble is a Saint type character designed, most likely, to temper Joao the Great or Joao the Man (he has more than one name for himself, come to think of it). Joao The Humble is pious and religious and makes Joao the Flesh pray before lunch and dinner and makes him really think twice before repeating mistakes. Joao the Humble does not always win and is super understanding. There is Joao The Rebel and Joao the Sharp. Joao the Rebel has a disdain for Life and an often uninformed criticism of Reality and/or The System. He is always kind of like, “Fuck this Shit", whatever or whomever it may be. Then Joao The Humble comes by and talks to him. Sometimes this talk takes days. And Joao The Flesh walks around pensive and people call him moody and then Joao The Sensitive appears:  he usually hides in the darkness of my mind because the brightness of the Realm of Living Energy just makes that motherfucker crazy...Joao The Sensitive can't handle shit, but he is pretty good at certain stuff...like being sensitive. And expressing that sensitivity. Joao The Sensitive has a vivid imagination and kind of can't distinguish between what he feels and what is quote unquote “real”. He sort of lives in a place with no lines, no boundaries, where all is One and Chaos is the true reality and living is simply making sense of all of that chaos and building a little sand castle to pass the time, until high tide, until bed time.

Morning

Ginger can be grated 

and thrown into hot water

in the morning before the ants wake up

and make yet another attempt

at the inside of the honey jar

which I have learned to tie up

in a plastic bag by now.

Ants are outwitted once again.

At this hour in the South American winter

the sky is pink, openning up.

In the quiet, everything seems more

fragile.  You walk lighter,

you place things more gently,

you turn the pages more carefully.

Give me a kiss, too,

sacred Silence.  It'll remain

between just the two of us --

I will never tell --

you can keep a secret,

can't you?

Time is on our side

I believe there is more to Life

and I want it.

That wallet so thick

I can't sit comfortably

and mom will say

“you see, you did it”

and I will say “I couldn't have

without your love and support.”

I believe in a higher power

position from which I can

command with fear and love

and I will learn loads about Life

and people and myself

and ultimately, about the Truth

and Peace and maybe even God.

I believe there is nothing perfect

save for the warmth between the hands

of The Beginning and The End

who are strolling in a park

big and exquisite in ways that prove

I am but a small being on a small planet.

I believe that the entire Universe

is in that space between their hands

and they are madly in love (Alf and Ohm,

as they are introduced by friends)

and that we are a germ from their

sneezes or kisses or some more lascivious

exchange of bodily fluid

and because of this

we have Grace,

this possibility of Forever

this confidence that there will be tomorrow

more, better,

and I will be forgiven.

Rise and Shine

A great big sky is overhead
waiting for you:

the sun wants to draw your portrait
on the sidewalk, steps, and grass.

There are friends who want to laugh with you
and there is breakfast, lunch, and dinner, too.

And there are probably a bunch of other small stuff
that will try to bother you,

but don't sweat those things,
the wise advise (and they are right, I know that now).

Rock n' Roll all the way through
from one dream to the next.

What Those Enigmatic Looks Mean to Me (Lovers in the School of Athens)

1. 

We are not meant to be.

You chose me

and now I chose you,

but for my own reasons -- and I know

that I don`t know all of them.

But we are at a point

as a species

in which all things have a reason

even if we don`t know them

supposedly time will tell

just as soon as I am running out of it

shutting my eyes, maybe

then I will hum myself

into that dream we used to talk about.

2. 

Sometimes things are not

only what they seem to be

who I am to you is not

only what my name is

or whatever you see

on the other side of that peephole

of a pronoun.

I would tell you about 

the Kingdom of God

and how my real home

isn't so hard to get to

but there are no street signs leading
there, really;

more like ancient heiroglyphs

so old you can't be sure they are there

but I don't talk like you

hence the last three lines.

What I see in the ordinary day

is actually just a crude representation

of what is going on in His Eternity

which is Eternal and so requires

certain things to happen

sometimes for no graspable reason.

I could say the same talking about

parallel universes or

using references to Greek philosophers

who debated if Truth was up or down

Here or There

as they walked through a courtyard

and descended the steps

where all the students hangout thinking.

If you look at the painting

you can see us right there

leaning against that pillar
in a past life.