Chapter 111 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)


CXI

You do enjoy the curve
Of a well-turned phrase.

* * * *
Any distraction will do.

* * * *
There’s just something missing
In the linear nature
Of a lumber company forest.

* * * *
The pain you’ve endured is nothing
Compared to what could lie ahead.

* * * *
Don’t you wonder why you bother sometimes?

* * * *
It a judge for yourself kind of universe.

* * * *
There are some lies you’d rather hear.

* * * *
How green the grass is everywhere else.

* * * *
You never know when a treasure
Might be learned or remembered.
Which are, of course, the same thing.

* * * *
Follow any train of thought
And you’ll find the answer.

* * * *
There are way too many variables for us
To believe we control the experiment anymore.

* * * *
If you cannot see with more than two eyes,
You’ll miss the meaning of everything.

* * * *
How difficult it must be
For the lifeforms of this planet
To be subjugated and destroyed by us.

* * * *
Don’t let the reflection in the mirror
Convince you that you are growing old.
You are far older than any mirage.

* * * *
Another tube of toothpaste squeezed dry.
How quickly life passes.

* * * *
There are times to attack, times to defend,
Times to retreat, times to hide, times to surrender.
You cannot resist an unfathomable opponent.

* * * *
To abide prior to all form and function
Is to see the commonality
Of all attributes.

* * * *
Marines complain a lot, too.
But the job gets done.

* * * *
What discipline is sometimes required
To be loyal to just one woman.

* * * *
Not that disloyalty is a bad thing.

* * * *
So bold as children.
Why so many inhibitions
As time grows older?

* * * *
You may pretty clever,
But are you very bright?

* * * *
In your adult life, have you ever even taken one breath
Free of the anxiety of desire’s imaginary play?

* * * *
Consciousness is the creator of all delusion.
Its still end is the ending of all delusion.

* * * *
What a difference between digging a ditch
And talking about it.

* * * *
As to what the point is,
Don’t we each make that up
As we go along?

* * * *
Do don’t have to submit.

* * * *
The last traces of compassion drain away.

* * * *
Be one with both creation and destruction.
The are flip sides of the same illusionary coin.

* * * *
Find the most elemental within
And you will see it everywhere.

* * * *
Another gift from god.

* * * *
What a curse to be so driven.

* * * *
Are you a human being?
Or a human doing?

* * * *
Be careful what doors you open.
They are not always easy to close,
Nor the rooms easy to leave.

* * * *
Oh, that some things would never change.

* * * *
How locked in habitual patterns
Each and everyone of us.

* * * *
Just because someone else is attached
Doesn’t mean you must be.

* * * *
Disappear into a breath.

* * * *
Perfection is.

* * * *
What is your life?

* * * *
Give your eyes to godness?

* * * *
The mind is a screen of virtual reality
Filled with dramas to suit your nature.

* * * *
Learning happens in so many ways,
Prices, and methods of payment.

* * * *
You forget else you would
Be herenow all the time.

* * * *
There is something timeless about revenge.

* * * *
There will be peace soon enough.

* * * *
Only the innocent bear no grudges.

* * * *
Just another drug weaving
Its spell upon consciousness.

* * * *
You are very, very equal
To everything and everyone.

* * * *
Mazemaker.

* * * *
The difference between war and terrorism
Is merely a matter of economic scale.

* * * *
There’s not much reality base
In the view from an ivory tower.

* * * *
Life is suffering, and most people do.

* * * *
An infinity of analogies.

* * * *
Irony walker.

* * * *
This is the mortal exchange.

* * * *
What penis doesn't think it’s cock of the walk?

* * * *
Remember
What you used to remember?
So much forgotten.

* * * *
More of the same old same old.

* * * *
Ponder the agony
All life since creation
Has endured.

* * * *
Despite all sensory stimulation to the contrary,
Every moment is exactly the same.

* * * *
Guaranteed they’ll only care till the next headline.
How is it we have become so comfortably numb?

* * * *
Personal responsibility
Is what its all about.

* * * *
You can statistically count on the reality
That any given lifeform, human or otherwise,
Will act in whatever way suits its own best interest.

* * * *
We are all acts of incongruity.

* * * *
Isn’t there something quite incredible
About the everyday ordinariness of it all?

* * * *
Some wade, some float, some swim.
The drama runs every course
Under the sun.

* * * *
Stupidity has a very good batting average.

* * * *
So many dramas, so many dreams.
Call them dreamas.

* * * *
So, what do you want from god?

* * * *
So many dreams playing out each other.

* * * *
It’s all cycles and phases.

* * * *
Well, it didn’t kill you, so are you stronger?

* * * *
Look, but don’t touch,
May be the wiser policy.

* * * *
The trick is to enjoy the process of futility.

* * * *
How often a face seems to show the underlying spirit.

* * * *
Despite all appearances to the contrary,
You are not the role you play.

* * * *
In reality, history has never been
More than a short term proposition.

* * * *
A lot of things get done in youth
That won’t happen down the pike.

* * * *
If you listen fully,
There will be no room for thought.

* * * *
God must be so weary of us.
Probably not dead;
Just stopped paying attention.

* * * *
As real as she seems, she, too,
Is a ghost, a spirit passing like smoke
Across the screen of your senses.

* * * *
We’ve all got more words than we need.

* * * *
Everyone plays out the play
According to the script
Their imagination has written.

* * * *
It’ as simple as that.

* * * *
All plots wash into oblivion’s still silence.

* * * *
I got nothing to do well.

* * * *
A little power shows one’s
True character very quickly.

* * * *
Nice theory.
What remains of your life
Will be its test.

* * * *
Bodily functions.
How tiring they can be.

* * * *
If you have to ask, “What’s the point?”
Then it’s probably not for you.

* * * *
You’re not thirsty, you’re not hungry,
You’re not wanting for anything,
Yet still you want something.

* * * *
Nothing left to prove, what to do?

* * * *
Good manners are so much more pleasant.

* * * *
The time that is known
Is not the time that passes.

* * * *
Some people spend their lifetimes
Studying pygmies in South America
Or gnat dung in a funded laboratory.
You?  You spent it channel surfing
Time and space in every manner
The twentieth century offered.
Special thanks to the many
Denizens of California
Whose performances
Offered endless grist
For the mill of this mind.

* * * *
This one’s for you.

* * * *
Seek wisdom
And then release its shackles
As you have all others.

* * * *
You are blessed to be so mad.
Would that it were so contagious
That this human extravaganza
Might retrieve some sanity.

* * * *
Always assume the bullet
Is chambered and the safety off.

* * * *
The separation created by the senses is ever an illusion,
One that the seer must become blind to, to see clearly.

* * * *
Every strand of beingness
Is the point that has no point
The center that has no center.
The babbling of consciousness
To which you hold is all illusion.

* * * *
The knower knows only
A limited frame of reference.
Wisdom is the extrapolation
Of the common distillation
Of all consciousness.

* * * *
The bricks of time have erected
The illusory walls of separation
In minds across the human play.

* * * *
You may have all the answers,
But do you really believe you need
To be thinking about them
All the time?

* * * *
Who knows who’s who
Where’s where,
What’s what,
Why’s why,
When’s when,
Or how’s how?

* * * *
Most seekers only seek
To stroke their vanity.

* * * *
Even wisdom becomes noise,
More conceptual entertainment.

* * * *
Ask yourself who you are
Until you discern who you are not.


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The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved