Poetry -- -- -- the art of glimpsing into the aleph the infinity and nothingness of the unconscious and tapping into the streams of consciousness rivers of images oceans of ideas symbols, pictures, art – poetry – free associating between unconscious symbology like in a dream but your conscious mind is there too conscious and unconscious together joined in the poetic instant reflexive instantaneous connections of images and ideas And it isn’t found in dusty books You might find it there but it’s in life it is life being in and out of existence at the same time the connection of the images of the you in time and space with the images of the you from the self that lies outside those dimensions and in the poetic instant life is real not plastic And it’s about the truth.

        "What is the poetry about?" The worn English professor asks the wild eyed freshman. The professor was too worn to see the fire in the student’s eyes After years of neglect his poetic instinct was tarnished in hybernation he was happy if he got students to get beyond the notion that "poetry is something that rhymes."

        But the wild eyed student glared at the worn professor angry for not being noticed and he replied with what he felt was real: "Poetry is about the truth!" he exclaimed. "You can’t say it’s rational. It doesn’t follow the linear reasoning of philosophical or scientific thought. Unlike mathematics poetry is the belief that 1,7,4,9,8,3,4, is as logical – or, sensible – a sequence as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7."

        The professor looks into the student’s eyes into the fire of truth laughs insanely and dies of a heart attack.

        At least he died laughing the student thought. At least he died in a poetic instant, a poetic moment. The shock of reconnecting with the place where the poetry is that space between time and time between space where art resides where the truth is visible outside the plastic world – the shock – it was too much for the old man thought the wild eyed student.

        And then he laughed and he laughed and the other students stared and they stared. And the senior class President asked "What are you laughing about? – you wild eyed boy?"

        And the boy said: "He answered his own question." The Class President stared at him. The rest of the class stared at him. "Don’t you get it. He’s been wanting to know what poetry’s about. He’s been asking the same question year after year after year and he doesn’t find a satisfactory answer he doesn’t find the truth so he waits in his office for another semester another term another chance to ask THE QUESTION and another term to dismiss their answers one by one until I retire to the study to the office hoping that someone will bring me the answer. The waiting. The wait. That was his life. And finally somebody has the guts to answer the question. What is poetry about? It’s about the fucking truth old man. It’s about life. It’s not about hiding in your study year after year while the truth runs wild in the streets and hallways. It’s about going places on your feet in your mind it’s active. What is poetry about? It’s about seeing infinity and nothing collapse into each other and surviving the vision the sound the experience to share it with others. And you finally had the nerve to turn and face the answer to see chaos staring back from your bathroom mirror to hear the laughter of the abyss rolling like thunder through your ears while you strain to listen to Lou Reed talk of friends and death – you had the nerve and you turned and the streams of consciousness the wiring of your mind criss-crossed and you saw poetry, truth, the space between the lies we all live and you were afraid of the vision afraid to go back and share it and so you did what so many of them do – you died.

        There are really only three choices you know. You can die. You can go insane. Or you can go back into the cave and help people to understand the truth. The first is the easiest. You took the easy root easy route old man. At least if you went insane you might be able to cross reality planes with the rest of us and help us keep our balance. But death it seems like a real cop out although I can’t blame anyone who chooses death either by suicide or natural causes. Life can really wear you down. So I don’t blame you for going nuts. I understand that from where you’ve been your ideas make just as much sense as this rational sane society that we find ourselves trapped in.

        So you choose to go back to try to share and you’re sitting at the table talking to the student and she’s not plastic like the rest but she’s seen so little. You wonder if you have the patience to share all of this much longer. She asks you "What is a radical in our culture today?" "Is there a place for radicals?"

        And you tell her that you don’t like the word "radical." "It’s them labeling us." "It’s a label of domination. Just like insane or mentally ill. It says you’re out of the mainstream of society. And even though their river is flowing full of blood not water - poison liquids of culture flowing through them all gradually forming into the plastic that surrounds their lives – they like their river."

        "And since you see other rivers other oceans other thoughts and dreams you are a threat to the main stream – the main stream might not be the main one anymore if they see all those other streams all those other pictures so they call you a radical."

        "Well what does it really tell you about me if someone tells you that ‘I’m a radical.’ Does it tell you something like ‘I’m a poet’ ‘I’m an artist.’ ‘I’m a capitalist a pastor a doctor-lawyer-dental assistant’ It’s just labels trying to define you Tell you what you are what you think – Who am I? I am who I am. I stole that last line from somewhere maybe a children’s cartoon character or maybe from God I don’t remember but I don’t think anybody will mind."

        "What is the place for radicals in our culture?" she asks.

        "Not much use for them, it seems. But you need a few now and then just to scare people into not changing anything much."

        Rebels. Are rebels the same as radicals. Can I be radically non-rebellious? At least in your dreams, said the psychiatrist Just take four lithium and call me in the morning. And I’m in the attic now nearly moved from my cave and as I look out over the Mississippi River into Davenport Iowa I wonder what the people are thinking in Davenport and I wonder if this is where Kerouac was when he realized that God really is Pooh-bear and Lou Reed says I want all of it not just some of it and I pause – radically – and wonder if I really want all of it I’m not even sure how much of it I need and somehow in this attic cold air leaking in through the windows it seems like I have found it.

        What is poetry about? If you have to ask you just don’t get it. And he shuts the office door and never returns and the dream of the wild-eyed boy comes back whenever he slips into the plastic places and pushes him back to the place where the poetry is the nexus the aleph the truth of infinity and nothing in one poetic moment. That instant contains it all.

        Explore that one instant and you will see it all.