No Loitering

Perhaps
it was forgotten
you were once free,

and now calloused
by false hopes
and dreams

set
with that glue
to planet Earth routine.

No longer to give
notice to the signs that read:

"No Loitering"
(City Ordinance Title 03.6732 Sec. C).

Recession Blues.
Languishing 401Ks.
Home values upside down.
Credit lines slashed, and
tight money flows.

Laid off
from company downsizing
to find you are
too educated for the job market,
or condsidered by others
too "old".

And foreclosure looms.

Space is "For Rent"
and "For Sale",

but now you are
a beggar, and
have no means.

Better change gears-
better yet,
change direction-

dump
that old set of wheels
you've been carting round in
you call the body,

hop out and snatch up
a tall, sturdy ladder,
climb
to the tip top
of your favorite tree,

and read this sign:

"Loitering Welcome.
Muse Away The Day."
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.

The Albatross

Life maker,
life taker,
towering phoenix on high,
magically over the oceans you cross
with powers no one can deny.

Alone at the bow
I stood there in awe-
bound by your imposing form,
rapt in uncertainty
as to what I saw
and feelings equally torn.

Dreaded serpent from Hades
whom ancient mariners did flee?
Or, Protector of the Seas
and beacon to guide me free?

Or, a child's dream, albatross-
imagination's pilot afar.
You deathfully sank
into the flaming sun
and divinely rose
as an evening star.

A heavenly kite in aerial bliss
playfully drawing the sun
as your tail,
when by your pluck
tacked to the wind
to give impetus
to your sail.

Then assumed another form:

The wind became your brush,
the seas and clouds your hues
and painted before my eyes
a rainbow through the skies.

Mage of ethereal being
girded with unflagging wings,
showing me more
than compass,
map or guide
to a universe as free
as the boundless
endless skies.

Immortal being,
artist and creator!

The seasons follow your stay
where the sea is your dominion
and the skies ever
your play.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization, The Conclusion

Globalization
is an idea.


An idea can be good or bad,
constructive or destructive.


There's a wide gap
between the two poles.


As the gap
between beauty and ugliness,
love and hate,
truth and falsehood.


As the gap between
round and flat worlds.


Where in one mountain peaks
reach the heavens,
while in the other
a levelling process ends
in oblivion.


Globalization
in and of itself
is not the curse.


The curse resides
in what makes the gap
where one end expands
into greater spheres of existence
and the other end contracts
into the "only one".


The former is Truth.
The latter is a lie.


And the lie is
the Reactive Mind.
~~


Chad went on to enroll in the Anatomy of Human Mind Course at the Dianetics Foundation.
The first lecture-"The Reactive Mind"-resolved remaining doubts he'd found the map.


What struck him most? Well, it goes back to those Psych courses he'd taken in school
and never believed their weight in paper and was left to wonder what the mind really was.
It seemed far fetched to Chad how thought and ability were controlled by chemical reactions. And how it was all chalked up to heredity and Pavlov's dogs and conditioning.


Mr. Hubbard's research proved the mathematical impossibility the "brain" could store the vast quantity of perceptic memory accumulated over one's lifetime, and in fact could only store about a single month's worth of data.


The truth was the brain is not the mind at all. The mind is something much, much more.


The Reactive Mind became real to Chad as he observed it in himself and others in doing the demonstrations and drills on the course. Armed with this true data, Chad realized the fields of Psychology and Psychiatry were mere dramatizations of the stimulus-response mechanism of the Reactive Mind. The same mechanism which called up the hidden voices Chad could not quiet, held in place the pain and sorrow of his life and exacted upon him the same ferocity of a wild predator attacking its prey. To wield unbridled power without his control and forcing unreasoned acts that he'd forever regret.


The same mechanism that was flattening a round world.


Chad realized at last it was the Reactive Mind's bidding behind all the turbulence and upheavel in the world.


But with the Map, Chad had regained not only control of his thoughts, but his self-determinism to act and play to the beat of his own drum. He remained in his hometown of Buffalo, pursuing the lost dream to live as the artist he was. And to help others in his town whose hopes had been dashed by the virus of Gobalization to find their way back to a round world as Pier Angelo had helped him set foot on the Road to Truth.


As far as regrets for Wall Street, Chad wrote in his diary:


"When I embarked on the road of self-discovery, I admit I was still out for myself. Wall Street was the "King of the Mountain" and that's what I had come to believe life was all about. It was material in all its aspects."


"Losing that quest to the vagaries of a flat world, I was devastated without a Map to lead me from danger. I had to suffer through the very darkness which I had allowed to obscure my vision, to face my fears and uncertainties and wrest away from the Reactive Mind that part of me it had enslaved."


"Before I knew of such a demon running my life, I had groped through darkness with a mere spark of me to light the way. But once on the road and sure-footed by the Map, that spark became a flame and then a fire. That tiny spark had been enough to lead me to a single man and his books, and to others who offered their hands to pull me up from the edge of the abyss."


"Who's to say what the outcome might have been had I not made the trip to the library that day."


"But what I do know is that I found myself again, the person who I am, and realized the beauty of life comes from living a complete life which includes all the Dynamics or Circles or Spheres or Urges of existence. And that is what fuels the fire to make it rage ever brighter, ever larger, to make the world we live in more true, more round."


"I was asked by a friend if I ever regretted not pursuing Wall Street, regretted missing out on the billions made during the "BIG BUBBLE"?


"Pausing in contemplation and looking very stoic, I replied, But didn't you here, the bubble burst?"


THE END
~~


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization Part IX

What makes gleaming eyes
opened to the beauty of the world
shrivel closed and beauty fade
like wilting flowers?

The world seen as ideal
as though it were
the only realm
to become
cynical retort.

What perverts
free imagination
into a fixed idea,
a single map,
unchartered and
misguided?

And what should distill
the eight urges of life
into the "only one".

And how does a world,
spherical and round,
grow flat?
~~

Chad had to know more.
"A new Slant On Life" was
answering many questions,
but he found himself asking
more and nore questions.

He logged onto the Net
and found the Dianetics Site
which listed more
of Mr. Hubbard's books.
The one that really indicated-
"The Dynamics of Life"-
he promply ordered.

Chad was rife with anticipation.
There remained, however,
a restive, nullifying voice saying,
"It's too good to be true."

Chad tossed and turned
each sleepless night
waiting for the book,
praying to himself
he'd found the map,
that he wasn't chasing
an illusion, while
fending off echoing barbs
of the hidden voice,
the unrelenting cynicism
of a flat world.
~~

Chad met the postman
at the door to retrieve
the mail and was handed
a brown envelope.
"Ah!" sighed Chad,
"It must be my book."

Not waiting to traverse
the creaky flight of stairs,
Chad broke open the package
and removed the book.

A smaller envelope fell
to the floor as he slid
out the book-
an invitation it appeared,
handwritten in calligraphy-

It read:

ANATOMY OF HUMAN COURSE
DIANETICS SELF-IMPROVEMENT CENTER
836 MAIN ST.
BUFFALO, NY

INTRO-LECTURE: "WHAT IS STRESS
AND HOW TO REVENT IT"

THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2009, 7:30 PM
ADMISSION FREE

GUEST LECTURER PIER ANGELO, NOTED ITALIAN ARTIST,
MUSICIAN AND LECTURER AND ORIGINATOR AND HOST
OF ANATOMY OF HUMAN MIND LECTURE SERIES FOR ITALIAN TV.

RSVP
716-856-3910
~~

"Man, the stress has been
getting to me", Chad thought
as he finished reading
the invitation.

"The loss of my Wall Street job,
the struggle to pay school loans
on server's tips
in a spend-less-economy,
depression that lingers
through anxious days and
sleepless nights."

Just as Chad's eyes had opened
to the world about him,
so, too, he felt its pain.

"My goals are shattered.
I have no direction,
no future."

"I've been living a sham
in a world of slippery slopes.

Chad clasped
the invitation tightly
in his hand.

"If only the map
is here."

When somewhere
out of the deep spoke
the hidden voice,
"How do you know
you won't be betrayed?"

"Shut up, damn you!"
Chad screaming
at the craven voice
hiding its face.

"Enough of you saying
I'm a marked man."

But somehow,
Chad mustered
enough courage and will
and RSVP'd
for the lecture.
~~

Chad was taken
from the start
with the speaker,
an Italian artist
named Pier,
whose smile seemed
to stretch from one end
of the room to the other,
absorbing and taking in
every listener as though
he was standing right
next to you-
a presence about him
that wriggled its way
under your skin.

What cares Chad came with
seemed to melt
into the night.

Every word,
despite his accent,
was clear with simple meaning
but profound impact.

Chad had sat through
many lectures as a student
and had always had the feeling
of being talked down to,
or talked at-
but this was different.

It was hard to explain,
the sensation of being
talked to and included
in the speaker's world
as though he was saying
each of us was valuable.

"And so, stress," said Pier,
"Is merely unbalanced effort."

Chad lit up like a light bulb:
"Wrong goals for wrong reasons
could only end in confusion",
he realized.

Pier continued,
"And so you think you are a king,
but you act like a begger."

Chad felt like he'd been lifted
out of his chair,
and the room was brighter
and he could feel
a smile undulating
across his face
dor the first time
in many months.

"I see. I was pretending
goals while knowing
I had compromised
for money, and set out
to garner a career
on Wall Street
rather than living
my passion for art."

"And every since,
I only grew colder,
uncaring and arrogant
so as to shield myself
from my own disdain,
all the while living
a naked existence
to propitiate to everyone
and everything who mattered
in my life."
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Globalization Part VIII

"Now this bell tolling
softly for another
says to me,
'Thou must die''.

Perchance
he for whom this bell tolls
may be do ill
as that he knows not
it tolls for him.

And perchance
I may think myself
so much better
than I am
as that they
who are about me,
and see my state,
may have caused
it to toll for me,
and I know not that...

No man is an island
entire of itself.
Every man is a piece
of the continent,
a part of the main.

If a clod be washed
away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as
if a promontory were,
as well as
if a manor of thy friend's
or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me
because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore
never send to know
for whom the bell tolls,
it tolls for thee."

John Donne (1572-1631). From "Meditation XVII".
~~

Awakened by sirens-
an ambulence, police cars
and firemen-
each with special duties
to mend the unraveling fabric
of a flat world,
Chad raised his head
which lay cradled
between chapters of the book,
eyes opened wide
from the routine signals
that commence the start
of another day.

"A New Slant On Life"-
for Chad had become
a new beginning.

Despite the sirens heralding
mischief and troubles
of the town, it was
a nice morning
bright with sun,
the air bracing, invigorating,
a sharp contrast to the summers
Chad spent in Chicago
when going to school.

Maybe from the endless stretch
of concrete and steel towering
above the shores of Lake Michigan
and insulating the city
from balmy lake breezes,
or sheer numbers of cars and trucks
extruding CO2 into sinking air,
making it thick and heavy
and giving the sensation
of too little oxygen,
it always felt hotter
than the weathermen said.

Chad realized how much
he'd missed the summers
of Buffalo, the yards ablaze
from spring to fall,
and dreamy times spent
beneath wooded canopies
of Delaware Park.

Not knowing why,
it was different now,
his home town,
since the time first coming
to Chicago and was bowled over
by its glitz and money,
how he vowed to never return
to a bedraggled factory town
like Buffalo to live.

It was as though
he was seeing his hometown
for the first time through
his own eyes.

There seemed to be
a deeper meaning
to everything.

More than a place
to make money,
attain possessions
or live in "style".

from expansive parks
to wide, lazy boulevards
split into by grassy medians
to the Old World architecture
of churches and houses
and public squares,
Chad heard the quiet voices
of masons and carpenters,
draftsmen and engineers,
playing in a timeless recording
of brick and mortar:
"This is who we are."
~~

Chad no sooner had finished
his coffee than he was back
to the book, picking up
where he'd left off.

When came the chapter:
"The Eight Dynamics".

It was as if a tsunami
hit the Erie shore
with cataclysmic change
to reconstitute the landscape
of a flat world.

"I've been asleep all the while.
Disconnected from life.
My life a pretense of existence
as the 'only one',"
Chad chattered aloud.

But he wasn't the "only one".
Chad realized this to be
a lie of the flat world.

He'd penetrated its veil
that masks to hide
the truth from us all,
that forces its will to see
the world for material gain
and drags us into the deep.

To live for family,
community and nation,
the races of mankind,
the animals of the lands
and birds of the skies
and fishes of the seas,
the material being of Earth,
for all of spiritual existence
and God or Infinity.

And life and living meant
to exist and be
as each and every
one.

The idea of a perfect world
between the lines
of the pages
of the book.

Like imagination
when Chad was a child
and beauty commonplace
to everything, and all was bright
and shiny and free
like the stars in the skies,
like his endless dreams.

On day the world turned sour,
as the fruit rots on the tree,
and the stars no longer shone
and forgotten were the dreams.
~~

A flat world
has an ending.

It ends
at a far away cliff
or sudden drop
into the abyss.

Like a tsunami
when the shores are
calm and tranquill
and all are casual
about their way.

In a flat world
the map ends
in oblivion.

But in a true world,
the world which is lived
on self-determined truths,
there is no ending.

The true world
is round,
a sphere.

And the Eight Dynamics-
or circles or spheres-
when life breathes into them
can only
expand.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All rights reserved.

Globalization Part VII

A flat world
forwards agreement
towards naked existence.

Its institutions-
secular and sacred-effect
the leveling process of contagion
on the wings of false data.

Existence reduced
to "me".
~~

It was well past midnight.
Chad had lost track
of time.

The evening lay still and quiet
uncharacteristically absent
the comings and goings
from the coffeehouse
below Chad's flat.

The smell of hollyhocks, planted
along the sidewalk, loitered
in the heavy, summernight's air,
also having lost track of time
to curiously waft its way
through the open panes
of Chad's window.

Oddly enough,
Chad had not noticed.

Outside it was pitch black,
the moon off on furlough
and streetlights still out
having not been replaces
because of budget cuts
from the recession.

Chad sat at the small table
next to the window,
spellbound to the book,
squinting into focus each line
from too little light given off
by the energy-saving bulb
of the table lamp
he'd disrobed
of its shade.

Yet, Chad couldn't
put down the book.
Realization after realization
to unanswered questions
popped to view.

They were simple answers,
but nonetheless suppressed.

A passage read,
"If it's true for you,
it's true."

Suddenly, the words
grew bigger and brighter,
as if the moon had returned,
or the streetlights were changed,
or the nightmare had ended.

Chad felt different, lighter,
as when a burden's lifted
from the shoulders.

The lyrics of a song
of freedom flashed
to mind: "See me! Feel me!
Touch me!"

He realized he was
his own Truth.

Uncontrollably,
tears streamed
from his eyes.

He felt enthuiasm
not known since
his youth.

Lost dreams cascaded
before his eyes,
the ones he'd compromised
to a flat world-
the purpose to help others
supplanted by greed
for self, buried
beneath the mire
of cynicism.

"How perverted I'd become",
he said aloud as if to beckon
forgiveness that the moon
might shine its light
through the opened panes,
and the scent of hollyhocks
he'd now come to smell
would feel welcomed
to while away
in the darkness
of his flat.

Chad braced himself
against self-abasement
for his arrogance,
for turning his back
on the person he was
to become niggardly
and fawning
to a flat world.
~~

A flat world
is robotic.

In a flat world
we do not miss
the moon.

We do not see,
nor do we smell
lonesome hollyhocks.

We live without streetlights
to light the way
through eternal
darkness.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

Globalization Part VI

A flat world

works as a

hidden influence".

It's only power lies
in others

not knowing.

In a flat world

data is presumed true,

not evaluated.

~~

Without a map,

without direction,

his learning a sham,

Chad reconciled

himself he'd been living
a lie.

Assuming the things
he'd been taught as truth,
only to see
their "dead ends".

"Where is Truth?"

he mulled to himself.

"It's up to me to sift

through the chaos,

the debris left

from destruction,

to find my direction."

"My fault for not broadening

my horizons with courses

in Liberal Arts?"

"Might philosophy have given

the insights into life

I soarly lack?"

Chad rolled back

to college days and disabused

himself of such notions:

Plato- an hour of drudgery

where the professor expounded

Platonian reality

in differential calculus.

In one painful equation

after another, grating streaks

of chalk from a mad professor

who had gotten up

too late to dress

or neglected his laundry duties,

and moseyed in

in cut-offs frayed at the hems,

his shirt tails hanging

to the knees and wearing

flip-flops.

To Chad philosophy offered

little practical use and was

a waste of time and money.

There was endless study

of one great thinker refuting another

which did little more than sell

textbooks and contribute

to one's neurosis.

"Should I have taken

more Psychology courses?

Maybe I would have seen

the manic traits of Wall Street

in time to act?"

But all through school

Chad kept a quiet resentment

towards Psychology, taking

the minimum credits

for graduation.

It all started in high school-

or maybe before-

with a teacher

he couldn't stand.

A Ms. Grimes who was

an authoritarian and Chad

to avoid confrontation would sit

to the rear where he pretended

to pay attention, feeling safe

at not getting caught.

Chad confessed,

"Well, there was stuff

I didn't understand that made

me spinny and not want

to take more Psych courses."

Even so, Chad felt proud

he had compromised himself,

not swallowed hook, line

and sinker. Refused to agree

that man was a dog or accept

barbaric treatments of electric-shock

and lobotomy as valid therapies

of the mind.

As if with a thunder clap,

Chad flashed back to church,

the Sunday School classes

he stopped attending.

"Oh, no!" he thought,

"I strayed from faith

and lost my way

which is my undoing?"

But Chad recalled

one Sunday he had taken

a girlfriend to church-

a Spanish girl and Catholic-

and endured embarrasment

beyond belief as the preacher

delivered a scathing sermon

demonizing Catholicism.

And other preacher-

different church- absconded

with church funds

never to be seen

again.

~~

A flat world
has no barriers.
No windbreaks.

Its virus spreads
with wild abandon:
failing lives,
failing towns,
failing nations.

A failing world.

In a flat world
the hidden influence
insidiously resides
in institutions of learning
and temples of worship.

Contagion at the core
of civilization.
~~

Chad saw the trap.
Why he had falsely vested
hope in Wall Street.

To look out for "number one",
to live for money was
all that remained
in a flat world.
~~

Chad was needing to escape.
He searched at the library
for a book to whisk
him away.

After all the introspection,
there was still no map,
no solution.

Only where it was not.

He recalled reading
a fantasy novel-
"Battlefield Earth",
by an author named Hubbard.
The parallels between
the book and the world
he now saw were
hauntingly similar.

Scrolling the catalog,
Chad saw another
of Hubbard's novels-
"Mission Earth".

"Great! I'll check
that one out."

In the listing
another entry seized
his searching eyes.
It sounded nothing
like fantasy.

Chad continued scrolling,
but the odd title
kept calling him back
like an unfinished dream.

He rolled back
to the curious entry, staring
at the screen
in disbelief.

Chad blinked and squinted,
refocusing the words
before his eyes, still unsure
at what he read:

"A New Slant On Life".

"Can this be?" he thought,
pulling back his enthusiasm
still cynical and suspect
such thing existed.

But he had to find out
for himself.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.