There was once an old Buddhist monk.
One day he wrote himself a letter:
“You have done a wonderful job in
this life. Tbe Pure Land (paradise)
awaits. Love, Budda”
This inspired me to request an email
I asked her to pls send word expressing
her undying love for me. Either that or
an email deriding me for being a repulsive
pervert. I asked her to surprise me with the
truth. Her usual charge for a vid is 20 to 30.
Let’s see what she says.
— fb
I can’t even remember
If I’ve written this
Poem before. After all,
I read the same poems,
Play the same songs,
Watch the same films,
And dream the same dreams
Again and again, so it really
Doesn’t matter if I’ve written
This poem before. The same
Delusions again and again:
A world where creatures
Need not eat other creatures,
A world where people only
Fall in love with those who
Can love them back. A world
Where a human being can love
Another human being, and
Not just their beauty or
Money. Pick your
Delusion, baby. There’s just
So many. Just enough to keep
Us alive for a while though.
Nietzsche said that man is
The unhappy animal, but that
Doesn’t apply to everybody. So
I say that man is the delusional
Animal, because we all keep
Believing in something we know
Can’t be true. We have to. We
Just do. My unknown God, we just
Do.
— FB
Another morning of
trying to force this
failing body from
this warm futon
to carry on the
life struggles known
to peasantry. On
mornings like this,
I used to visualize
a woman standing
above me, a luminescent,
fair creature, an angel,
a warrior princess,
a valkyrie, holding
out her dove-white
but strong hand,
ready to clasp mine
and pull me up and
into the fray common
to those who never
won life’s lottery; but
just like the so-called
“real” women of flesh-
and-bowels, who cavort
their way through life’s
deadly pageantry, I finally
gave her up too this morning,
because she was never
really there anyway, you
see, just like the “real” ones,
a few of whom were
present, sure, for a
time, at least in body,
while the gravy was
good; but they never
stayed through the thin
gruel days. So where does
an imaginary warrior-
maiden and soul-mate
Sail after a man has finally
said goodbye?
Does she head over
to comfort the worst
of men: the braggarts,
the blockheads, the
mindless materialists,
the drug dealers, the
pimps and puppy abusers?
Are these the ones that
imaginary valkyries fly
towards to pull up from
their beds and futons to face
life’s hard realities? I wouldn’t
be surprised if that’s true;
after all, what did the so-called
real women do, most often,
with their priceless, life-giving
eyes, and thighs, and lips, and
all the rest, but gift them to the
most worthless and least grateful
of men? Therefore, following more
than half-a-century of scribbling
love notes and poetry and even
sometimes song mixed
with sincerity of longing, and not
looking half-bad at all, according
to more than a few, I finally gave
up on those real women of lovely
flesh but thin blood; and this
morning, I even said my final
Farewell to my angel of light, my
valkyrie, my princess of the
mind. This may be poetry, or it
may be self-pity; but it
also happens to be the undiluted,
undeluded reality of my life, and
the lives of many others too. So fly
away fly on, and keep flying, my
valkyrie, because you
were never really there above my
bed. Spread those wings
And soar into some gods-
forsaken eternity, and
I’ll stay under these covers just a
little while more.
–Fyodor Bukowski, author of Mail-Order Annie
Delusions
Delusions
Everywhere
So many heads
Just swimming
With them. Hey
Look, I’m friends
With a thousand
Malaysian Beauty
Queens, and they’re
All 18. And Lookie
Here, my impromptu
Poem got 9 likes, and
I wrote it on the clock
At work. The boss is
Such a jerk. And don’t
forget to Thumbs-up the
vid of my old 80s rock
band too because we
would have made it
for Sure if our singer
Hadn’t been such
A flake. Delusions
Of grandeur and
Goodness too in
The vast Buddhaverse
Of virtue-signalling
Bodhisatvas and
That blue Hindu
God and his consort
Too: Look how hip
your Views are, loving
Me so much that
You don’t think I
Should have a
Gun in a world like
This….And then
There’s the
Smarmy fool
Who discounts
Appalling realities
As “conspiracy
theories” bc he
Doesn’t know
That phrase was
Concocted by
A certain intelligence
Agency to throw us
Of the trail of Who
Did JFK. Delusions
Delusions like
Politics and
Religions whose
Perpetrators are
All in the pockets
Of the same pay-
Masters. But I know,
I know, reality is just
Too much for us to
Take down straight,
So mix our drinks
With that sweet
Delusion-juice,
Bartender,
And thank you very
Much.
— Fyodor Bukowski
Nietzsche once wrote that man is the unhappy animal. I say that man is the delusional animal. It’s horribly simple: during evolution we developed consciousness, and this heightened awareness told our ancestors that one day they would die. It also told us them lots of other things they wished were not true. (For a catalog of some of those harsh truths, listen to any Muddy Water’s CD). Today most people still believe in either a “just God” or some kind of cosmic karma; in other words, most still think that in the end the good guys will win and the really bad guys will go to hell. I’m not saying that both of those concepts are definitely delusions, but they just might be.
Even to the jaded and cynical among us, it was a shock to see OJ cleared of murder late in the 20th Century, despite the avalanche of evidence presented against him at his trial. We’d always harbored the suspicion, or for some of us, the near-certainty, that justice in this universe is as random as everything else seems to be. And of course, if justice is faithless or fickle, it’s not really justice. But here was the hard evidence that our belief in justice is a delusion: a jury, in the supposedly best criminal just-us system in the world, set OJ free, while the friends and family of his victims. along with most of us, looked on with horror.
As a kid I had a poster of OJ on my wall. I had nothing against him. But it seemed to me–and any other sane adult–that beyond a shadow of a doubt, he had committed double murder–not against some evil beings or cartoon villains, but against a woman who’d married him and her innocent young friend. To see OJ smiling, his supporters dancing and cheering in the streets, the hot blondes who continued to date him after his release, etc., was just more frosting on that cancerous cake. To know in the back of your mind that life is wildly unfair is one thing; to see proof on the magic TV that there is no justice, even for the most wicked, is another.
Well, you could argue that OJ did end up receiving some justice, even if it was for a ludicrous, Three Stooges-style robbery. And for a time there it seemed that at least OJ might rot and die in his luxury prison. It wouldn’t have been as satisfying as seeing him crushed to death and then tossed into a bog or fed to wild pigs, but at least it would have given the friends and family of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman some sense of inner peace to know that he’s off the streets. And it would have left the rest of us some room to hope that justice is real after all.
But instead, now we’ll have to watch as OJ dates hot blondes, smiles for the camera, makes money being a buffoon, etc. And we’ll at some point have to look at the pained expressions of at least some of the friends and family of Ron and Nicole, whose only crime was to be born in a world like this.
sounds extreme and distasteful too
but you didn’t know the old man.
He had an uncanny knack for deceiving
himself a he pursued his own
comfort and pleasure
to the detriment of every
living being he came into
contact with, especially those
he spawned himself, like when
he’d fart aloud proudly in his
old Nash Rambler, but then
after my little brother laughed
and did the same, “dad” reddened,
pulled the car over, and gravely
threatened to stuff Lil’ Mike into the
trunk, until his tiny lips quivered and
he bawled his eyes out and threw up
all over himself, while I sat stoner-faced
and wondered why guys like dad
were ever born and allowed to breed.
Then I became an atheist. But years later,
now an adult, I guilted myself into visiting
dad in his Taj Mahal McMansion off the lake.
We’d sit and he’d talk about politics and religion,
then to bolster his beliefs, he’d always lift a yellow
book up to my face and exhort me to read about the
healing miracles performed by the Virgin Mary at
Fatima or Majigoria, I can’t remember which,
while his latest drug-addled hooker scampered
past us and out the front door, and my now-crippled
brother sat in a wheelchair in a tiny apartment
with my mother. So on one such occasion, I asked
“dad” why he didn’t sell some of his gold coins
or Pre-Colombian vases and take Mike to Majigoria
or Fatima for a healing, and then I’d believe.
Dad blinked, turned purple, then after a long pause,
and with a straight face, he said that Mike was only
faking and could really walk but simply sat in a
wheelchair or crawled on his hands and knees
because he was lazy and liked to be waited on
by mom. But when I mentioned the accident, the
hospital, doctors, and disability check, dad simply
got up and stomped back to his bedroom.
And I sat there wondering why it’s not legal
to kill a creature like him. But sadly, it was already
the age of DNA evidence and CSI, so I quietly decided
that since it seemed to me that neither God nor Karma
could really exist, I’d have to piss on “dad’s” grave
one day, and if somehow the gassy ghost of his former
self rose up and haunted me after, I’d just stare at it
and state with a straight face that what I’d just sprayed
on his grave wasn’t piss at all–just lemonade.
Musings, Mutterings, and Condemnations 