An Elegy for the Sage

By Alex Raia

An Elegy for the Sage

All things joyous gave him his ticket

His ticket to fly, his ticket to forget

I’m sure he smiled when he passed through the gate

Where the ticket clerks name is Death

He felt that death was to begin anew

I think we could all use his wisdom

How could he leave so soon?

So I am left feeling blue

And salty like the Dead Sea

A sea that rolls me over and feeds me its surplus

From an 8 foot tall wave

The spine of the wave rises to meet my mortal flesh

Relentless, the wave tosses me under the surface

I guzzle a mass of salt water in an effort to breathe

I recover with a saline pang in the back of my throat

I cannot rinse my mouth of this hurt, so I digest

It’s very sad to see the Sage go

He once said that trying to define yourself

Is like trying to bite your own teeth

He dissected the human thinking epidemic

He breached the castle walls surrounding the heart

Only to find: What kaleidoscopic, sensitive beings we are inside

He spoke of mysteries, never of certainties

His truth resonates with my whole being

It gets passed on through mysterious ripples;

Wave-trails of his wisdom can still be felt

If you keep your boat still enough

He would think my idolatry vain

And perhaps I would agree

He and I agree on a lot of things, you see

But if I were to show him this note

He would laugh into a coughing fit

As he put out his cigarette

He truly understood the Universe

And everyone who understands the Universe knows:

That when the daffodil wilts,

Or when the squirrel gets hit by a car,

Or when the whale spills ashore,

Or when the author has nothing left to say anymore

The body dries up, but the energy remains

Forevermore

An Ode to Tea

It all starts in the kettle
Burdened with the boil,

Charming when it whistles;

the coach that calls me over

To simply say “job well done”

I always make haste

In pouring the boiled water over

A sweet and pungent bag

Of eleuthero and mint leaf

And lemongrass too

Steaming and hissing briefly

The water begins its transformation

Into a rejuvenating potion

By some primordial magic trick

I forget this drink was once water

My elation is for this tea

Before I commence in sipping

I twist the crystallized cap of the jar

Waking the saccharine honey from slumber

Into a cold spoon and a hot bath

Whisking the syrupy gold into the elixir

The aqueous transformation is complete

The first sip is a slap awake

From a jittery Monarch Butterfly

It brings me swiftly back

To my forlorn sense of taste

In which, nothing so warm and pleasant

And nectarous has engaged

My perceptive palette

Since last Christmas day

Everything is still now

I am getting up now

The last sip is all a slurp

I float into keen awareness

Of the ones I hold dear

The room bustles with life and noise

I owe my silence to them,

Listening to their racing conversations

I owe my silence to them,

The tea and the honey

Categories belittle, namely names

Everything is Beautiful Here

As I walk along the mild crest
Of mother natures shapely breast
I see bees nuzzling the honeysuckle
Borrowing the nectar a while,
They use it for a homegrown sneeze
To bustle the flowers, brush up the trees
Pollen is in limbo, clinging to a bees knees

I begin to wonder about the names I leave
Plain to see before you, I shall ask
How they came to be
Before honeysuckle became known as a vine
And before a bee got that buzzy design,
Did mother nature write a script?
Did it say we will fill every line?
Did it say we will use words till the crypt?
Even if it takes all of time?
Will it make us any smarter?
The answer is left to the unknown
Just like you can't see the gusts of wind
But you trust it's there, for you have seen what it has blown

True beauty is not in knowing, but in seeing
That the bee and the vine are being
One organism, like cells of a body
Each on an autonomic path
Just parts of a whole
Just bubbles in a bath

Categories only exist in unreality
Names are given by those
who know their own fatality
And those who know too well
That nature is untameable
And even more so unnameable
Go ahead, take a picture with that camera
Capture a part, for the whole is unframeable
It's all living, breathing and sneezing as one
You've made a mistake Aristotle
But you're damage is already done

Natural things care not for their names
The names we give only oppress
I care for the games, so I will address
Although, I care more to caress
The beautiful land that we humans steadily infest
But I will always love the land;
For the grass field is mother natures dress

Eastern Philosophy: Taoism

An Ode To Lao-Tzu

I am the brown leaf
Swept from underneath
Blown across a beaten path
Ignored by strangers
Touched by the winds wrath

I am the angry downpour
Blasted from heavens teeth
Giving a cliff-side bird grief

I am the sack of rice
Providing food for all the mice
In the tiny house
Filled with spice and louse

I am the boiling kettle
Made with crude iron metal
Warming the lonely traveler
Who has only just begun to settle

I am in all, and all is in me
I am in the bird, and I am in the tree
If you look for me
You will not find
If you think of me
Do not use your mind

Feminism: A Movement Caused By Men

For centuries, men have always given women a crippling stereotype which is to say that all women are inherently mad. Until recent history, women have settled for the lesser role in the sexes, allowing men to steer history on their own course. But, what these men of history never realized is that you cannot judge another unless that trait is already recognized in oneself. Therefore, with this logic we are all "crazy". It's absurd to think that one sex was belittled for so long a time, for women are our nature. Typically, men rely on their wits to make decisions before they act upon them, often ignoring intuitive emotions that women listen to. Maybe the male resentment of the woman has to do with the age old repressed femininity that the male contains but does not reveal or know how to consciously reveal. This side of the male has often been left astray and pushed aside for the egotistical masculine pride. Therefore, every man has similar emotional capacity as a woman but he is often deprived of such to retain the egotistic trait. In this deprivation of emotion, a man may find himself full of repressed emotions; leading to an overall disconnection from himself and the opposite sex. Hence, where the feminist movement finds its roots; in the heart of the broken man. Men have tried to understand women from a rational point of view, similar in the way science and mathematics are understood. All along, the only true understanding of sexes comes from the deep emotional connection that is formed between the two that cannot be formed directly through the conscious mind. Every male has an "anima", or unconscious feminine component. Conversely, every female has an "animus", or unconscious masculine component. The point being, men and women are connected in ways we may not be able to fathom by simply thinking about them. There is no man without woman, and no woman without man. If women are crazy, then men must be as well. Shall we quell the overdue ember of masculine pride in order to end the inflamed feminist movement? Settle our differences, ending sexism or whatever individual bias one might find against another sex. Only once we truly come to understand each other as parts of the whole will differences be realized as similarities.

Thoughts on Death and Disease

There is any number of things that can cause disease according to the studies of microbiology. The known causers of disease range anywhere from microscopic viruses to their larger counterparts, bacteria. This perspective is the most applicable to the ordinary man, commonly acting as the unbeliever of bodily strength and resilience. After all, our bodies are supposedly under protection by a homeostatic fortress that can only be compromised by the allowance of the immune system. Some illnesses cannot be prevented by the lymphatic regime that circulates in our blood. As many believe, with the help of medicine any disease can be cured. Just by taking a simple pill or a syrup one can be relieved of their symptoms. There are exceptions to this "cure-all" rule, though their roots exist in the unseen parts of the body. In fact, an apparently unwitting disease such as a cancer will turn ones cells against oneself, often with little hope of recovery. This disease in particular is one of the most feared by many of the contemporary western population. Medicine can't seem to cure it, because there are no microbes to fight off. The root cause of cancer can be traced back to certain physical things, but scientists claim that nearly everything will give you cancer. So it seems that a cancerous body is one that has turned against itself in an effort to bring one to their death. Initially, there must have been a resignation to death. Whether conscious or unconscious, the subject had to manifest death in some way. As life goes on the conscious ego fears death. For according to its logic, death is the utter end of the first and last life one has been given. Also, this would mean the death of ones ego, all of which only ever existed in the mind. One might get into the habit of worrying about what will happen after death. Perhaps, whether it will turn out to be a hell of eternal suffering or a heaven of eternal pleasure. The Atheist might tell you as a matter-of-fact; nothing will happen after death. It will suffice to say, that imagining nothing is impossible. One cannot exist in nothingness, so it is more likely that you'll go to hell, but even that is still very improbable. The more probable option would be that consciousness is reincarnated back into the circle of life on Earth. For when one dies, a baby will be born in their place. Will it be their consciousness? It is possible. Although, ones consciousness could never recall their past life. This is because memory is purely a physical thing existing solely in the brain, decomposing as the body does. If one can come to the realization that death is only a means to a new beginning, then disease will no longer be a thing attached to fear. Thus, life will be lived as if it were a game to be played, free and frivolously.

An Old Book

There is a magic feeling that arises when one leafs through the pages of an old book which has not been gazed upon in years. The pungent odor of degrading paper lends one an immediate feeling of relief, each page turned smelling more and more of sweet literature. The words in this book are not sacred, but they jump seamlessly from every page as if an old friend were telling you his brilliant idea at its initial conception. Simple phrases effectively resonate with every bone in ones body. The book is a mystery to the mind, yet all too predictable in nature. The overarching theme is unknown to the intellect, because ones unconscious is already passively performing it. With bleached pages flaunting their fragility, the book is slowly withering, following in the footsteps of its mortal author. The author speaks the truth, but his words are not geared towards a capricious audience. For contemporary literature tends to deem the past as something resembling forlorn history, retained but impertinent. The book takes a bound for the unspeakable, presenting its ideas though it were some profound classic literature one could read in spare time. Every now and then an old book in the untouched parts of the library can find its way into the right hands. This person is touched, simply by the fact such an author existed with ideas not unlike his own. The book finds itself in the hands of one who knows where to take its teachings. It carries an ember bright and lucid, so that someday one may rekindle the blaze.