Rising out the world, you and I,
a finite flame among the infinite darkness
of two nebulous chasms…
Born into a disenchanted world
of Cartesian rationalism, our minds
and spirits isolated from the universal,
a race of convulsionaries trudging
though the wastelands of a technocratic
nightmare, afraid of what we might become
if we rid ourselves of the empty shell of appearances
and live out the soul’s yearning–that luminous
source that whispers from the depths.
To become a nobody, in the highest sense
of the word, a BEING whose nature
transcends the lower realms of
the synthetic self, and to coalesce with the
timeless flame — the “divine creative
energy resounding through all things.”
Those who know are calm and steadfast
and have no need to disguise their
ignorance with grandstanding and
lavish exhibitionism. Their identities
extend over and above the limits of
the garnished flesh, the wildfires of
intuition still ablaze, their transparent
eyes gaze upon a sublime truth
that lies beyond the paraphernalia
of the measurable, “a lover” they are,
“of uncontained and immortal beauty.”
Our cosmic task, my friends,
is to not piss away our
passing days on the
idiotic distractions cooked up
by this cosmetic culture, clutching
like desperate fools on to
possessions and prestige, shackling
ourselves to fixed formulas and
stifling belief systems.
We’re here to honor our brief existence
by elevating our minds
above the sterile protocols of this
menacing matrix. To break free
from the cultural constraints
and unleash our own life-energies
toward a universal way
of being.
We are here to evade the muck
that’s continually heaved at us,
and revel beneath the empty skies
like Dionysian gypsies,
opening ourselves
to the cosmic mysteries
that are playing out
endlessly
beneath the surface of
conceptual reality.
We are here to strip ourselves of
the myriad of fashionable falsities
and to actively participate in
the poetry of life.
Our task is not to lose ourselves to
the mundane necessities,
but to courageously overcome
all that keeps us from hearkening
the eternal throb of the spirit.
We are here to doff our civilized masks
and reconnect with our higher nature.
To reacquaint ourselves once again
with the wisdom of the ancients,
to explore the majestic beauty
of the natural world,
to pursue the unknown in
spite of our fears,
to read,
to create,
to love,
to feed our divine curiosities,
and to make living itself
the highest art.
By: Erik Rittenberry
–from Poetic Outlaws
