Unlearning Metaphor (The White Clouds Were Dragons in the Sky)

The white clouds were dragons in the sky.
The imperishable expanse trafficked by visions
of multitudinous thought-forms
was a mirror for my somnambulant soul.

~

My third grade teacher taught us the difference
between simile and metaphor
- a distinction proven imaginary –
and solicited examples from the students
to test our comprehension.

Cheeks were red like roses
and school was pulling teeth.
Then me:
“The white clouds were dragons in the sky.”
The teacher was pleased.

~

My twenty-third year found me in Los Angeles
“It’s hard to really say why,” I’d say
when asked how a Wyoming boy found himself there
but if even it were for the moment
I’m beginning to describe,
then that would be justification in itself.

In the solarium of some New Age commune
in the stench and concrete of Central on West Adams,
I met a friend I’d strummed guitar with back in Laramie.
“We’ll just duck in here a moment,” he said,
adding that there was no speaking in that meditating place.

We sat in cushioned chairs; windows pointed south into L.A.
Minutes passed. I spied a cloud hovering over some Angelino street
and it struck me as a gorilla’s grimace.
I reflected on the godhood of imagination.
Who knows how much time passed?

~

Another time – I was racing down El Segundo into South-Central;
I reflected that no matter how far you seem to drive these streets,
you’re still in L.A…

An infinite prison seemed to me
more oppressive than
a cubicle five-by-five wide.

I could see unobtainable mountains beyond the city…
I could see the sky…
Stars too were hidden behind that veil…
They too were within my prison’s walls.

~

Learn from the clouds what is the nature of mind;
the lions, swords, spaceships, the woman’s face…
particles wisp in and out of forms the mind invents.
None of them is really there, not even you, your mind.

Perhaps once there was a Franciscan monk.
He stared at his ancient Roman-lettered book
until he realized the pages were a swarm of dust,
and that swarm of dust a swarm itself, and Jesus, a swarm.

The smoke is made of light,
the light is made of invisible light.
The mind is smoke.
I hover above a fire,
unseen.

Run away from prison
and the guards will shoot you down.
The only way to escape the prison
is to be bigger than the jail.
They can’t put you where you will not fit.
This world is the infinite prison;
you run forever and you’re still in the walls,
and sooner or later the jailer gets you,
but be bigger, bigger than endless,
because “endless” is a word.
It’s only six letters long.
I am more than an alphabet
and less than a dot or stroke.
There is no “I”
despite anything “I” say.
No typeset prison,
no cosmic prison,
no mind prison,
no human jail.
No cat.
No collar.
No road.
No music.
No head.
No Jesus.
No me.
No nothing.
No everything.
No dragon.
No cloud.
No me.

-BTN '08