Godzilla vs. Buddha
A poem about time & happiness
**(1)**
I dreamt I was a bottle,
a plastic thing so chic,
shining just like magic,
transparent to the light.
Plastic may be nothing,
a bottle on your table,
but the stuff we make into plastic
remembers where it came from,
remembers ancient landscapes,
dinosaurs who came hunting.
Plastic’s made from oil.
The oil was made from forests,
alive with birds and chirping,
creatures lost to time.
An asteroid hit the Yucatan
66 million years ago…
It all ended.
I dreamt a land of brightness,
darkness, eons ending,
an Earth before me fleeting,
evolving to this Present.
Years went by like seconds.
The Sun looked at me, laughing,
“You caught me, John! I was napping!”
I dreamt I saw a cave 28,000 years ago.
I dreamt I was a woman,
far back searching in that cave,
leaving my own ochre handprints
on walls I felt were magic.
One time I was a priestess
in a temple in Phoenicia,
communing with the sea,
sending ships and sailors trading.
The Eastern Mediterranean, 9th Century BCE,
was a bit different from our world…
We swim in a later ocean,
with airplanes and high spaceships,
but all cultures have their logic,
explanations about the forces
behind apparent Nature.
World views always seem consistent.
Homo sapiens, Neanderthals in furs,
Denisovans in Russian forests -
We all ask(ed) probing questions
about how all things work.
(My mother gave me trouble.
I always was insistent.)
We see the stars at night,
but is someone seeing us?
- Hearing all our foibles,
the aroma of our love,
knowing we’re just like them,
down roads to other stars.
We dance to Earth’s own music,
awash and setting jive.
The Galaxy’s communicating.
Everyone’s alive.
**(2)**
History somehow found me.
She showed me my own face.
Do you think you’re just this moment,
early 21st century?
Well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you,
a path from here to there,
all those cars within you,
from Brooklyn to Manhattan…
Did you know that bridge opened
in 1883?
No cars, just lots of horses,
… but that bridge is still there.
Maybe Time has found you.
She found me where I was hiding,
treading water in unhidden misery,
eating tiny crumbs,
forgetting who had sent me,
living like a bum.
Time has some hidden treasures,
Ecstasy among them.
A stranger thing could not be said
to normal understanding.
**********************
Ecstasy and time are generally thought to have nothing at all in common, except for all the negative connotations about time passing. If the present moment one is in is viewed as a wavefront, then the meditative ecstatic experience herein mentioned is actually learning to be aware of the ripples left in its wake, which we refer to as History. We live under the illusion that the wavefront we find ourselves in is the only existent reality, but all the ripples of time past also contain an energy.
***********************
**(3)**
Death and taxes,
germs and aircraft,
You thought you knew it all.
The Universe has its secrets,
available to be balled.
(Normal is normal, but dumb rhymes last forever.)
There’s so much more to living
than politics and taxes.
How did we get amnesia
to such unimaginable
Love Joy?
- available all for free,
just requiring effort,
letting in the energy
with which we are embedded,
breathing in the Time -
Einstein discovered Time is the 4th Dimension,
a milieu of endless hidden gratitude,
a standup act
boundless, yet funny,
accepting my not hidden,
laugh-lost and extremely
ultra bad attitude.
You know we’re all just idiots,
giants made of stone,
thinking we’re unhappy,
shivering to a bone.
If I mention meditation,
it’s not mindfulness,
it’s not mantra.
It’s watching your own energy,
from outside to the inner,
knowing Time can hold you.
Forget that you’re a sinner.
It took a bit of doing
to get to this strange knowing,
at odds with all unhappiness,
a house that needs no showing.
There are suns beyond all seasons,
spring sprung and laughing magic,
caffeine loaded Mountain Dew,
laughter with your lover,
pizza sent to you,
Jokes that last forever,
and in this moment, too,
laughing with the Buddhas,
and green Godzilla, too.
I started off this poem
in a different vein entirely!
Something about plastic…
But what the hell can I ever do?
I saw a light fantastic,
penetration of the goo.
Laughter is upon me,
but, trust me, it’s not fake,
not like all the bullshit,
not like all the crap.
We’re taught to lie to our own selves
constantly,
make effort for “positivity.”
Naturalness happens by its own self.
You don’t have to practice.
Your eyes will lead to You!
People are so funny,
striving to attain some other,
when magic is among us,
just invisible from our training.
Cultures are against it
- because then you’re not a slave.
OK! It’s what happened
when I looked at all the energy,
the nature of this Universe,
secrets which can’t be always hidden,
but often are ignored,
by eons of crazy cultures
wanting people to be unhappy.
Iron swords, atom bombs, mass murder,
a job you know is pointless,
lives wasted, missing action,
when around us all is magic.
“Fuck you!” I said to tragic.
Just breathe in, look, and ask it.
____________________________
© “John” Lesly Levin 2020
