It started
with me and mom
making a little head
of a professor,
and then,
kindergarten
where I learned everything,
and then,
a little class
in drawing,
and then,
doodles, doodles
and more doodles,
and then,
a drip painting
and geometric marker art,
and then,
a long pause,
and then,
I decided to teach myself
better drawing skills,
and then,
I found throw-away canvases
which I painted over,
and then,
I bought canvases,
and then,
I did one big painting
and decided
that I'd rather work small,
and then,
I cut out little pieces of paper
and painted on them,
and then,
I ripped up little pieces of paper
and painted and drew on them,
and that's how it was
and that's how it is.
So, I remember
my sister and me
sitting outside
on the front porch,
while a thunderstorm
was coming up the street,
and it seems like
when you are kids,
you know each other,
you know who you are,
but when you grow up
after all the stuff
that gets put into you
by life,
that you don't even know
your brother and sister,
anymore,
so my sister and I
have been through
a most scary
and loving trip,
and
we worry
about each other,
but probably
we should just
not worry
and let ourselves
be free.
My sister has a philosophy,
which I have a little trouble with,
but which I think
I should put into my own words
so that we might feel better,
so people are like animals,
and you know
we do have brains
which are part
reptilian and part mammalian,
and we do
belong to the animal kingdom,
so we train each other
to be good animals
who don't poop
in the house,
so it begins
with childhood
and such things
as toilet training,
and then in school,
it's the same thing,
and religion and work
and in personal relationships
and in all of life,
and the training
is simple
you get an A
for good behavior
and you flunk
for bad behavior.
Simple.
I have had
many spiritual experiences,
but none of them
have been validated
by someone
who seems to know,
like a Zen Master
or somebody like that,
and since
I can't validate
my own experience,
because I don't know
what enlightenment
actually is,
I'm stuck
with some kind of
wishy-washy understanding
of where I stand,
so, instead of being enlightened,
what I have been
is diagnosed,
which is a kind of
negative validation,
meaning I'm sort of
crazy,
so, I don't know
if I'm crazy or enlightened
and who cares
anyway.
The hippies said
when I was freaking out,
don't worry, man,
everything's cool,
so, I believe
that the good,
like good habits,
is bad,
because it forces you
into a trap
that you may not like,
and the bad,
is bad,
because it frees you
into a trap
that you really won't like,
but the cool
is like
a little bad,
a little good,
and a bunch
of in-between,
and cool heads
will prevail,
if we just
let them.
I am sort of frightened
in public,
so, a long time ago,
I decided
that a good way
to defend myself
was to put on
a good offense,
you know,
like that football saying,
so, as I was walking around
in public,
I would greet people
with a "Hi"
and try to be pleasant
so they wouldn't beat me up
or something,
but I came to realize
that actually
it was an offensive
kind of speech,
because of my wrong motivation,
so I decided
to just be kind
for no reason,
but then
what I started to see
was that
by being kind,
people seemed to think
that I was hitting on them
or something,
so the girls
seemed to get all moist
and the men
toughened up
because of their homophobia,
but I still practice kindness
for no reason,
and have dropped
my offensive offense.
I'm kinda scared of my name.
I changed it when I became
a poet. My old name, which is
the real one, kinda scares
me, too. The computer always
spells it "Christ" or "Christoph"
or "Christophe". That really
bugs me. It's enough ta give ya
a complex or something. So,
my pseudonym was invented
so that I wouldn't be scared.
But, it scares me. I'm sixty one
and I'm not dead, presently,
but I smoke, so, you know what
they say! And, you know, I'm not
a spring chicken anymore!
