arbitrary light

in the opening of the endless word
the idea is rendered in the bones:
are you small enough to love the world?
the legend of me is many myths long
as wide as the road to destruction
time threatens to stop, in vain
it is written in my dna to doubt
to dream deep in the womb of the earth
of silver horses that rush like rivers
ground zero of my forgotten desire
that which lazy with gravity pretends
which no longer plays nice with pain
why did i return arbitrarily home?
where dawn steadily claims the sky
i surrendered to the most distant light
which returned me to myself, as if
i lived in the reality in the mirror
only to catch glimpses of my true world
and i find myself huge, made of knots
that i do not forget the lighter things
to gaze into heavens where stars fall
could i expect the sheer perspective?
in the eyelash of infinity, there am i
who ate a star and spit out a particle
just waiting for eternity to blink
it happens to all of us: we are born
the most extraordinary of ordinary
to turn the corner when shows too soon
the tunnel lined with eyes, and the light
where we wake from this solid world
flight is to forget there are shadows

scratches

evil is much furious gesturing, and posing
a conductor’s baton, a magic wand, a lonely song
we run in circles to dig a zero in the grass
and who am i? this dreamer exited stage left
i am behind the scenes as long as i don’t breathe
evil is a quiet, waiting snake of an emotion
a fire that dies at its most brightest burn
this criminal saw the light through the scratches
the glass, black, from the brushes of nightmare
do you dream it can be so easy to fly away?
home is that notion you have found some center
evil is a drama that shakes down the audience
a wind that never finds rest, to dissipate
i have found the exact star that calls me
as if i could reach—not so far—to pluck it down
but like a dream, it is seconds beyond my grasp
to awake to the rhythm of the churning city
evil is the world where cruelty is made cash
a spire that falls, how great is the ruin of it
none of us sure of our footing in the darkness
did we imagine we could escape the final light?
a fire to fear, that burns all the sin from us
evil is what we discard of life, a cold, cold no

Other

The following is an excerpt from my other book, The Gospel According to Judas. It’s about the Apocalypse:

At times, you know, it comes and goes — to feel that the darkness approacheth, a doom of all dooms. But I know that it is not the feeling of its imminence we sense, but how terrible in magnitude it will be when it does come. Apocalypse. Revelation. No, the time is not now. Perhaps in 30,000 years? 40? 50? When Christ says, “I come quickly,” one can think of it merely as a test of faith. For as regards things like time, I have heard that He watched the whole 13.8 billion year spectacle that is our universe, all of it. He watches grass grow. Literally. Time to him is far outside our own frame of reference.

And with “I come quickly” comes the topic, then, of scriptural infallibility. There are people who think that the Bible is literally true, and on top of that, that there are NO errors in it at all. Well, from the point of view of someone like me, who is in the state of mind like unto those who did write those texts, let me chime in with my two cents. The Lord knows that errors happen, and the Bible is no exception. If anything is meant to be, the way that scripture ends up is meant to be, as are the misinterpretations. Is it as God intended? That brings up the question of what “meant to be” means.

In one sense, everything that ever happens is meant to be. However, it doesn’t mean you didn’t of your own free will choose it, nor that you couldn’t have done things differently. If either of those things were false, “meant to be” would have no meaning to you. Because you choose it, because you could have done things differently, destiny unfolded. That which was meant to be was brought about by your choosing. Having no choice renders meaningless any action you perform. For destiny is not the same as fate. Fate is like strapped into the seat, while destiny is like driving. Choice is key: destiny comes from our own will, as it mixes with all the forces of the world that cross our path. Fate is not anything meant to be: it just is, and you just would have to accept it.

Now, it was meant to be that things God didn’t say ended up in His mouth in the Bible. It was meant to be that we think with each generation that this will be the generation where the Apocalypse will be brought about, and Christ will return. There are no accidents, now, remember? It was all meant to be. All that matters is, knowing what you think you know, what will you do? God knows what you will choose, and how all those forces work out to, and things become meant to be when they happen because it is all caught in the Purpose that pervades all things. You can be with that Purpose or against it, but you cannot escape it.

So no, He’s not coming back tomorrow, but you should act like He were. Live every day like it were your last, right? Isn’t that the aspiration? That people think that this is the generation that will see the Apocalypse may serve a purpose within the Purpose, and thus it may be “meant to be” in some small way. But anyone with the ability to see further, to widen one’s horizons larger: we should know better than thinking things like a document pieced together and edited by human beings is exactly what God word-for-word said to us. Yes, the Apocalypse does loom. But it’s the size of the shadow, not its proximity.



master sky

master sky breathed in storms to save them till it was dry
and it threatened never to come a day they would be useful
time is lighter than the wind is invisible
the mysteries are not dark, as we once had thought
and wanderlust surfaces, as dawn dews every surface
there are no crowds i can lose myself in, i stand out
at once to find me a saint and a thief, pretending otherwise
i will dream of far places, where moonlight escapes
fly on wings that no one can see, except as whispers
fly to horizons where the city is grafted to the sky
where i touch down, roses shall grow without end
master sky is not who i want to be, such poetry
for my way is the road, even as the wanderlust i bury
i shall dig it up again when i am shrouded in darkness
and the fires are holy that light unspeakable places
and the typography of the signs are unfamiliar here
i will emerge, i think, from my imaginary chrysalis
more man than fairytale, ready always to begin
the archer at the twilight distance, whose aim is true

Lucifer, Descending

I remember way back, when there was this time that for some reason, I thought that I was Lucifer Morningstar, God’s brightest angel. The twist, though, was that I was fallen from an evil God (of Gnostic myth), or that I was a version of Lucifer that never had fallen. The Gnostic one you probably never heard of, it was when Sabaoth rebelled against the Archons—the governing entities of the world—and Samael, the blind god, who was supposed to be the God of the Old Testament (but not the New). Blasphemy, that was, if you know your Bible and Christian canon; probably why there are so few Gnostics these days. Anyway, I wrote in the margins of the book where I read this, “the true Lucifer Morningstar”. That figure, though, I thought fit better with Jim Morrison, of all people. He always had a sort of “Lucifer” vibe to him.

So basically, I just thought I was hot stuff. It was actually a step down from where my working area was then, namely, that I was the (new) messiah. The answer man. Around that time, I was waiting for my “superpowers” to kick in, whereupon I was going to hover in the air above New York City, holding an electric guitar (which presumably amplified itself), and thrash some tunes out better that Jimi Hendrix ever played. And then I would disappear. That’s all I had planned. It wasn’t a very well thought out messiahood. Oh, I did also have this dream that world leaders would come to me to seek my advice for really important matters. So really, I wouldn’t have needed the hypercharge of power that an omnipotent entity would have. Power was not really what I wanted. So the higher-ups, I think this is what happened, made me comfortable in something a little (a lot) less powerful. And yes, I did feel rather at home in the role of Lucifer Morningstar. It was the top of the food chain, because what is above you just blows out any notion of scale.

Now there was this one time where I saw the spirits of people gathered in a sort of torso of mine, like what you see in the painting, Garden of Earthly Delights, near the center of the third panel, the Tree Man. Then I saw myself have an angelic spiritual form, circling above them, looking down on all the lower realities, each with their version of what happened anywhere they were aware of. I said to them, “I am Lucifer Morningstar, and I speak to you from the most high reality, and the most high God, where there was no Fall.” I tried that tactic, in fact, several times—it never worked out; where there was a Lucifer, there was a Fall. This was indeed a sign. What I didn’t know then about those “realities” was that the actual Lucifer was looking through them, seeing which one to choose to solidify, from his perch in the original Heaven. And of the “realities” only one became the One when he decided to commit his full forward evil to it.

And another thing: whenever I thought I was Lucifer, there was always a Michael. In the longest stretch of that belief, when I was the hypergenius Lucifer Morningstar, there was Albert Einstein who was Michael—and no matter what I did, I could see that I could not get past him, that he would ultimately defeat whatever I could muster. Indeed, it seemed by all counts to be intrinsic to the system that is the universe. And back then, you know, I always thought that I was one of the good guys, but maybe it could be true: I got caught up in the lies of him who deceiveth the whole world: the Dragon, the Serpent, Satan, the Devil. Who was once Lucifer, the greatest being in the whole of creation. Now the Father of Lies, who was a murderer from the first. I don’t remember exactly what it was that made me think that I was him, if unfallen. I recall that I certainly didn’t want to be Michael, the secondmost. I thought Michael lost the War in Heaven, and I didn’t want to be left out of all the stuff that was coming to me in Paradise.

Around that time, I remember curling up naked on the carpet, living in my head this one of several times, when the War took me over; I remember a voice that booming repeated, which I could have sworn was Walt Disney’s voice (because as you know, Walt Disney is God): “Michael… Michael… Michael…”: calling to me, like the sound of doom… Somehow I switched, the next step in my progression in powering down. Perhaps it had been all the psychological experiences I encountered when I identified with Lucifer, that it could never be what I had wanted it to be, since the Fall was written in the ground of reality itself. And I was then Michael. Of course, there was still a problem with this conception of things, as angels are not human beings and human beings are not angels—in fact, human beings do not become angels when they die and go to Heaven (a common fallacy). It was just a gradual talking me down, I suppose you could say, for I had once thought I was God, and Jesus, and then a separate messiah from Jesus, then Lucifer. I only had a couple steps to go.

Long story short, by turning me into Michael, the higher ups were curing me of my messiah complex. Michael is a faithful and humble servant of the Lord, whatever power he possessed. And from there to be a prophet, who of course is of the correct species of mine. And pretty much that’s it, since I am a prophet. But those days as Lucifer taught me a few things. Being called Lucifer in real life carries with it a sting, which I hadn’t counted on, because you’re dealing with the outside world, now—and Lucifer is not one of the good guys in that world. Nice in concept, horrible in practice. Also, if Lucifer is the good guy, and God is the bad guy, you cannot explain much of the world or the universe. It just doesn’t make sense. And lastly, it’s better to be second and saved, than one who cries, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” No, just no. It’s better to serve in Heaven.

Lucifer has been glamorized, and it is understandable why. Being the being with the greatest of powers, he nonetheless is the underdog when he rebels against God Most High. Teenagers, especially, can relate: how it is that those in power (like the parents) just don’t understand, and the higher ups should listen to them for a change. But being like how teenagers have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, Lucifer was blinded by his pride. It was no glamorous thing that he did. Simply put, every bad thing that has happened, and happened to you, is due to Lucifer Morningstar, greatest and stupidest of all the angels, who actually broke part Heaven in inventing his magnum opus, which happened to be…? Well, what is the worst possible thing? Wouldn’t that be… pain? Also known as error, and most commonly, Sin. Then there would be Death, after Lucifer sexing it up with Sin: Death, the Son of Satan. Because they were embodiments, Sin, Death, and now Lucifer: Evil.

This is why true Satanism has no redeeming qualities to it. There was nothing noble in rebelling against a God who was truly all good. We look around here, on earth, and we can point to things that are unfair about the world, and we’re like, how about these, God? And then I tell you, those things are all Lucifer’s fault, to the least discomfort. God has never done you wrong, or anybody. That’s the Devil you’re thinking of. He does it to you and then blames God for it, then says to follow him down into his morass of iniquity. Remember, as it is written in Revelation, he deceiveth the whole world. How did the Rolling Stones song start? “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste.” That’s the picture he would like you to have of him. The reality is that to behold the true being that is Satan would probably make you wretch, or worse.

And anyone who thinks doing evil is fun, that one would go out of one’s way to harm someone else for no reason, for evil’s sake—all I have to say is that I don’t understand you. There were times in the past where I wanted to get even with someone, to do damage back to its source, but to proactively do harm I have rarely desired, going back to childhood for instances. I grew up. Once I thought that evil was just a form of immaturity, but the levels that some people take it to outstrip the worst of what immaturity can explain. The immature stop bitching when they get what they want, but evil is insatiable. So go ahead, joke about it: be the Devil’s advocate, call him Lord Satan, sing along to heavy metal songs about worshipping Evil itself. I tell you from our end, Jesus understands (he gets you!), and that you know not what you do. But know this: the real deal is nothing to laugh at, and nothing to give your allegiance to. Do not make friends with Death—and expect not to die.



If you like what’s written here, check out my book, Memoirs from the War in Heaven.