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A World Without String is ChaosJetinho
© Copyright, Charles R. Riley, July 4, 2002
Brazil is always moving,
Tardy, we search by the smell of the orchid.
It is night and we hear the sound of growing.
The human has a soul,
but also a nation shares a soul
in Samba,
In passion for a defining game.
Music of profound feeling leaves faint traces of notes
like footprints in the sand
to lead us to the land of oceans.
Warm hearts give clarity to the sea,
and breakers bring tears,
as we circle lower
guided by false reports and treacheries
of our own fears.
The embrace of Rio lures us
to share our humanity.
To find this port of entry
one must discard the compass and altimeter
for more subtle and evasive means,
Jetinho.
How does one take in a place,
a sacred rock tied in tender embraces
of tiled tunnels and shrines to saints.
Yet there are seeming incongruities.
There seems to be a misunderstanding
regarding the use of dental floss
in private parts in public places.
I encourage missionary work in this area
by highly motivated dentishtas.
The Minister of Health has been alerted.
Jetinho is a double edged sword.
The other side is a goldmine
of taxes dug from the mineshaft of banks
by brutish power and wealth.
Courts decreed tax on savings unconstitutional.
The government decreed,
“No tax, but contributions.”
The rocks, the beaches endure.
Soccer replaces jobs, food, and money.
Man does not live by bread alone.
A highly health conscious population will endure the burr.
Mouth to mouth is practiced frequently,
at beaches, on busses, at stoplights, phone booths…
Gender is not a question. Men and women are matched
in wrestling matches as observed on park benches.
Often, the woman wins a man’s heart,
and it has been heard some have ruthlessly gone to the extent
of breaking many hearts.
Rio is a river of romance,
fluid and tireless.
With passion, the many words grow a glorious intertwining tree of life.
The words combine in an incessant surge of energy and grace,
cascading in the evenings
through the chasms in the buildings.
The sweet softness of words of communion
tower above the churches and climb the walls
like vines reaching heaven
now as it should be.
The angels sing Choro and Samba
to soothe the soul with the fluid rhythms.
People do not lie quietly at the beach
awaiting the sun.
They advance into the sun and stand in the sky and stir with it
to radiate the sun within themselves.
Taoists have no problems here.
Taoists all know each other
as they are not exclusive.
Anyone can be a Taoist
whether they want to be or not.
Even if they choose not to be a Taoist,
they are freely accepted as Taoists who are not Taoists.
Taoists are in communion with all.
Therefore, they are on good terms with all,
recognizing the sounds of Rio as greeting hymns,
smiles for children,
singing birds carried by God in a cage
secure from fear
to fresh air in a park
that is the embracing arms
of Copacabana, Ipanema, Gloria, Flamingo, Bahai…
Roberto Is a Policia of Culture and Tourism.
Roberto is a policia of culture and tourism.
He answers questions
with the deadly combination of Italian and Carioca.
No interrogation could be so effective.
He answers questions of the question of where is the best place to go or be,
and while questioning one finds one is there already,
having a good time of it and the other place forgotten behind a fog.
Gladly he discovers your innermost needs,
and it is his job to leave his post to escort you there.
He has run for higher office,
but we need him here and now.
He is indispensable in his position,
raising the caliber of police with his impartation of ideas,
encouraging start up businesses for the less fortunate.
Music and art flourish from his outpost at Copacabana.
He protects the innocent not only with a strong hand for justice,
but by drawing out what is good in man.
The Man I Invited In
Written on the National Day of Soccer in Rio de Janiero.
I met a man who said he tried to clean the water,
but he had to pay a bribe so he could do one thing
and pay another bribe to someone to let him do another, and
on and on.
It cost too much and the water remains dirty and has
permeated our hearts.
I wanted a man to make a home in my heart,
to teach me peace always,
riding a tiger into an eternity of happiness.
Maybe if I visited him more often,
he would accept my invitation,
instead of leaving me at the door of a palace.
He said he would address me in public,
but I have seldom met him as described.
It is perhaps my fault for not finding him.
I’ve looked through the eyes of many men
to find him, but perhaps there is still something
within that obscures the door.
After so many years, there’s bound to be clutter.
If I emptied everything, and picked up the desolate mother
and child,
would one act be enough to irresistibly invite him in
and ride the tiger into eternity or at least follow the long
screech of the monkey.
How many acts would it take?
Would the audience leave with impatience
Finally leaving us alone to savor each other.
Follow the road without fear he said,
but acts alone are not enough.
The road of desolation leads on forever.
There is a parallel road one must take to find him
not in a place or person.
It is the road of invisibility
in which the gross substance is removed in the furnace
of our life.
No shape is left and no shadow.
We fit together unobtrusively.
Fitting together smoothly we are inseparable.
Empty, we see clearly with no mind to hamper our perception.
The thread of ourselves suspends a mind.
A stone is the mind unrestricted.
Walk In the Sky
Today, we took a walk in the sky.
Christ breathed the cloud of unknowing on Cocovado.
From the cloud emerged a messenger
with a bristling beard and glasses.
He spoke many languages
and he explained he was near death,
which he did not fear.
There was life after death.
He often came to visit Christ in the clouds,
where money was tossed away
and nuns made their pilgrimages.
Occasionally, the spirits parted the veil of the clouds
to reveal distances
beyond our reach,
yet embraced.
I was called away to do service to my family.
Sadly, the messenger descended into the cloud,
and yet he was still with me
in the embrace,
the cloud of unknowing,
that unsettling cloud.
Miami was too hot.
Alaska was too cold.
Looking for a place before death to live led to the cloud of
unknowing.
The message was always the same devout summons.
I owe my life to the dead
to Christ, priests, Taoists, Da Liu, soldiers, parents, the cow,
the harvest, Trojans,
Dardanians, Celtic bards, and monks of various persuasions.
Roots grow in the air as do the people of the river.
They twine together like writhing snakes.
Roses float in the water speaking of enchantment
to honor the wife of the sea.
Ropes shed tears from eyes of a mask.
A beehive is the lampshade of the bride.
In the square of the butcher,
Lamas has graciously waited 140 years.
kisses were counted round the table.
We shared the fruit of the wedding
with grandparents
and the gate of the sea
undulated with a child embraced and rocked
in the wave by mythological seals,
Servants of majesty.
Roses flowed softly in her soul
with a pleasant smile of pride and thanksgiving.
In Praise of the Spirit of the Jackson River
© Copyright, Charles Riley, April, 2002
“Planet Fun revolves around the earth.”
“No, the Sun!”
“That’s an interesting concept.
How do we interpret.”
One father was a child of nine.
The six-year-old was skeptical.
“How do you explain that limp, those wrinkles?”
“He grew too fast.
He was out-of-doors for too long in the rain and sun.
His parents used to fertilize him.
Now he goes to Bayberry to consort with Trapist Monks. Spiritual water will grow you so you are the age of the river wherever you are in time.
He sings the river songs with a throat of rocks.
Song compresses time into the short breadth of a velvet green hummingbird.
He won’t ride on a canoe, but under it.
For a joke, he tossed us in, conspiring with Neptune’s nymphs.
He even warned us of what we couldn’t comprehend or foresee even as it was pointed out. Even in consummation, we could not comprehend, but accept less perfectly the directions, the signs, the will. The flowers along the road spun beauty without spinning and sang fresh songs of praise to a higher order. The florist of the rich lord of the forest adorns the expansive altar.
Another worthless friend offers the remembrance and celebration of Mass on the mountain above the Jackson River.
The cathedral ceiling is the vaulted sky, thus outstripping even the bishop in his poverty, his need.
The holy river flows in to fulfill and feed.
Gorging himself on the creed of the reed, the rod danced graceful curves for that which we do not have.
If we caught the sacred fish, what need would we have to fulfill?
How would we fulfill our destiny without the needy river, a need to fulfill the will of the Spirit?
Less perfect, we must choose.”
“Peace I bring to your weary souls,” said the holy water.
“You poor souls who have hired the workers and pay them such good wages that they have no need of doing the work. You must do it yourself and you grow old and weary.
Take heart. Do not heap ashes upon your troublesome heads, a canoe will tip refreshing you in the cool water, the water of your ancestors, your being, flowing into yourself.
The flood will wash away all the clutter of your mind and spirit and restore the ultimate need.
Empty yourself here Sweet Lili and become the comely need.
Receive these fruitful flowers and venomous snakes along a mountain fire-road.”
“Yes,” the ancient mariner said in incongruous environs of mountain and stream, “there is even beauty in the diamond heads and mosaic patterns, which she warily tread.”
“She received the mountains, the springs, the coyotes, campfires, and rest in green pastures along rivers of pristine beauty.
Dance with me awhile Sweet Lili.
You bring joy to the river and all her needs.
The turbulent foam foments the troublesome child of our salvation in old age
with a Tweety Bird rod in her hand and his.
We catch the fiery red chariot wheels of the sun rising, the mountain forests in rapturous praise, the sacred river of origins and destinations.
Like the holy family, we exist in one trinity, a unity of earth, wood, fire, water, and emptiness.
Yes, the nine-year-old father returned with the roots he grew fond of.
They are spread on the living room floor, where he can unroll his sleeping bag on friendly reminders.”
World Soccer Cup 2002
It is a time for happiness and a time for sadness.
A winner comforts a brother in loss with what is blessed.
A chain of hands held in adoration on bent knees,
Saints are raised in celebration with the keys to heaven.
Brazil of the sea and rocks,
St. George and Jesus saves a courageous blend of races and cultures
of pure explorers, who became exploration itself.
Brazil was the alchemist who discovered the secret of making gold,
not engineered of the cold mind,
but the thought of a heart vast and ready to embrace
with oriental respect
and Mediterranean passion.
Technology has advanced far beyond all computer science.
The calculation of the heart of poverty clearly indicates
a doubling of the population immediately following the demonstration of vigor
and praise to a God that sees us blindly.
A Land Without War
Let us remember the stones laid by slaves.
The queen ordered freedom for the slaves
and that was that.
The country wanted to be independent.
The king said okay, no problem.
Buildings and churches peer out
from the 18th Century
in wedding dresses,
thick with brocade and roses.
Narrow streets shelter the climbing ivy of the voices of a new
race of songbirds.
In the grandeur of Columbo,
Artisans of the glorious past meet jazz.
Jazz guided freedom and the closure of WWII
with the assumption of a band leader.
The future is children without a guide,
A gun hidden beneath T-shirts.
Nature looks down from silver terraces.
A boy prays he doesn’t have to take a life.
Drug lords exact prayers
of fear for the rich to feel goofy.
Their countries exist within and fragment a sleeping beauty.
Parents are slaves to the terrorist imperialism of drugs.
Children are scattered in the sand and recruited to undermine
sanity.
Where is the queen who will save us from ambiguity?
How do we fight a poison that refuses to be diagnosed?
Where is the doctor who will save us
from a flotsam of culture destroyed
with bright ideas, everyone vying for the spotlight.
Jeitinho is a double edged sword.
Corrupt politicians vote themselves extravagant raises, paid
for by borrowed money at the expense of hard work and
resources.
The poor follow the leader
and take what they can.
Every man for himself, and only the savage survive.
Out of control, Jeitinho becomes a snare for rabbits.
The war is within.
Sorrow is the harvest.
Who will build the home with a heart soft enough
to find and fill the future, before the void opens wide.
All systems have been tried.
There is the evil of capitalism and communism.
Male and Female
There is darkness before birth and darkness after death,
two sides to the same coin.
What occurs between the two faces is quickly done,
parting the veil of the bride.
To be yourself purified,
it is best to leave the darkness where it is.
Beyond the darkness is a world
that is not ours,
though we know it exists.
Our senses cannot perceive it.
Yet we know we exist in darkness.
Once we realize this,
There is no darkness.
Pluck out the eyes to find the light.
One side of the coin is male and one is female.
Without both sides, the coin does not exist.
A coin cannot exist without one side or the other.
If the male and female see each other as enemies, the coin
becomes impure,
Unbalanced, and loses it’s value.
The coin is discarded or burned in a fire
to restore the balance.
The male has his nature and the female hers.
They are different and the same.
To restore equality one must not mistake the compliment of
nature for our enemy,
Or Eden is lost in a game of blame and complaint.
The Imposing Edifice of Poverty
The palatial palace is the sanctuary of a vow of poverty.
Encased in iron and stone,
is a grave contradiction.
The edifice is not owned and yet there are servants,
royal coaches, and ornately adorned garments, royal
processions of gold and silver.
There is no time consuming demands to mar the building
stone
with the cries of children to dress,
To scold, to implore and threaten,
to watch on the edge of fear as in life threatening combat
that exhausts
and tests the remotest defenses of the soul.
Not even the day to day necessities
of cooking and shopping
or earning a dollar the hard way
at jobs of inhuman tribulation,
we suffered behind these well guarded walls.
The guards wear armor of adamant dogma and moral
compromise.
How is one to come to terms with such a vow of poverty,
that in practice is lost in proud achievement?
Many take their vow of poverty seriously
and pray and work and live simply.
Many do the good works
of teaching the poor,
living as they do
to give them a lift.
Many care for the sick and fight for justice
and a world in which we see the beauty of God in all,
no matter how they search and pray.
A few live for comfort in a vow of poverty.
The News from the Ravens
© Copyright, Charles Riley, April, 2002
The ravens not to be confused with the Ravens, carried honey in their beaks across the sea.
The honey fell on us and became running rivers of blood, said she.
So how do you tell honey that extracts blood, and is not the blood worthy of the earth?
Is not the spirit nourished in this death?
Shall the sick and wounded be our treasures?
Is there enough money to pay for the damages?
Love comes in honey and the flower is faithful.
Tears of complaint do not form the morning due of what is sorrowful.
In the Circle of the Cult
© Copyright, Charles Riley, April, 2002
The circle of the cult belies us separated in a cage of happiness.
Condemning words and gestures scorch supplicant hands.
The walls of insular code phrases dance on our tongues to wean us on the pride of our fall.
He or she serves the excuse without complaint.
If we broaden the circle with too much fairness, it is hard to tell the good from the bad and we drown.
We weave ourselves together with the good and the bad so that we might warm and nurture a child into the fabric.
A catholic openness to all draws us in, disturbing our quiet cage, deepening our rage.
In the open mirror, one who is perfectly happy would see oneself exactly as they are.
Others less fortunate see their innermost desires for which we waste away and grow mad.
The circle of the cult and desires for exclusive happiness bind, ensnare, and enslave.
A desire for everlasting life can make us inhuman and unrecognizable as ourselves,
sprouting lethal hair standing on end and emitting flames like a candle which highlights rage.
The prizes remain the heads of our enemies preserved in walnut oil and
hung in our desperation to find a word that is true, but where is the body.
On earth as it is in heaven is the way without knowing, the mirror without pride or degradation.
What Tide Washed Us In?
© Copyright, Charles Riley, April, 2002
Water blesses us and washes us in the baptism of warned tears.
The meadows bow their grasses to the spirit’s affairs.
Sorrow cannot overtake the cares of shadows that moonlit vagrants hitherto seek.
They fish the shadows in what was the mail spiked with ash for the meek.Brick tomorrows hold the family secure as mankind waves goodbye.
The good fellow to follow the tide and fish in the grasses for the spirit, plucked out an eye.
Institutions bear no allegiance, no tyranny to make obeisance.
When the wolves are the Sheppard, the fish in the shadows are tense.
What a contrast!
© Copyright, Charles Riley, November, 2001
What a contrast, the seagulls in the reflecting pool.
We build and they do not.
We build offices in which we construct sentences.
We think in discrete symbols if not with discretion.
Information filters our recognition.
We have emotions and impulses, but they are subordinates.
We make weapons to defend our coordinates.
Do the seagulls live in fear?
Do they shed a tear?
Will their love be any better if written in books?
Do you think they care about their looks?
An iron horse watches over the pool.
Some bird makes him a stool.
Go west. Go east.
It would be best if we lived without leaving,
even if we saw an exciting civilization teasing.
To learn your self takes such a small space.
Pulled here and there by unwary birds.
A Meditation on a Bus
or
If Buddha Was Here Today© Copyright, Charles Riley, August, 2001
The river of consciousness is the
dentist, the copier passing by.
The incense is the burnt diesel fumes
of the temple bus trophy.
We are all winners going home early.
Are we already there
in the burgeoning fair,
emerging like mutant Grendels
with briefcases from the building lair.
New nature breaches a new Taoist emptiness.
In your union, St. John of the Cross,
do we find happiness beyond all bliss.
Christ the Carpenter
The Way of the Cross
© Copyright, Charles Riley, July, 2001
The jagged upright of the cross
was transgressed by ocean
on the right
and sinners on the left.
The sand was the time that
passed and the souls
of the faithful.
We ran the path between the
ocean and sinners
having left the quiet
prayer of prenatal care.
in search of
Beyond the harsh world of
yes and no,
where the bright lights
glare on and off in the
burgeoning fair.
He leads us without a word
for who would notice us
in our penitential shirt of hair
and tight shoes,
when his
whisper would encompass the
world
with breezes so fair
we could lose our cares.
Who would notice wars
in the blare of the fair,
if a hand reached through
a tear in space
to quiet an exploding
supernova?
Yet he does this everyday
when hearts are
anguished with loss
and hearts heat with
the fusion of argument
and mistrust.
The four directions encompass
the realm of the cross,
as in our feeble boat
on an ocean we toss.
All dimensions of a space
we call time
meet in a spontaneous action
so divine,
The choice of a kind word, thought,
or prayer.
The realm of the cross is always there.
Silver Nets
© Copyright, Charles Riley, July, 2001
The sun is going down.
Consciousness is closing
for the night.
We attempted to catch
the ocean,
but it was too thin,
which brought a frown
on an almost six-year-old
plight.
The sky slowed two jets
in flight.
“We need a card for
grandma.”
The child, my son, says to write,
“I love you from Charles.”
My son caught the sky
with me when we fished
the dreams from a fisherman’s
pipe dropped by accident in
the lake of peace
dredged with silver nets of moonlit
skies.
I once journeyed the dark
a necessary ark
to the silver nets.
Now the nets are loaded
with priceless sunsets, fulfilling breezes,
and tri-colored kites
that swoop and dive
with grace and
beauty and pride
as a guide
To fill a heart
which once dwelled
on the divide.Click here to buy a book in print.
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