Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Approach Of Midnight

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know,
You must go by the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess,
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not,
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know.
And what you own is what you do not own.
And where you are is where you are not.




The saint gives confession a certain quality that it receives only through him, a quality so precious that one might even believe the Lord had precisely this quality in mind when he instituted confession. Precisely the saint who has sinned the least could make the perfect confession: the confession of his distance from God, a confession that also includes all sinners. The confession of the saints, more than any other, is ecclesial and social. It is that confession in which the other sinners participate. It is indeed a fruit so pure that it may not be consumed by one person alone.



I entered into unknowing, and remained unknowing, transcending all knowledge. I entered into unknowing, yet when I saw myself there, without knowing where I was, I understood great things.

I will not say what I felt for I remained in unknowing.

Transcending all knowledge.

That perfect knowledge was of peace and holiness held at no remove in profound solitude; It was something so secret that I was left stammering, transcending all knowledge. So overwhelmed, so absorbed and withdrawn, that my senses were left deprived of all their sensing, and my spirit was given an understanding, while not understanding, transcending all knowledge.

He who truly arrives there cuts free from himself; all that he knew before now seems worthless, and his knowledge so soars that he is left in unknowing, transcending all knowledge. The higher he ascends the less he understands, because the cloud is dark which lit up the night; whoever knows this remains always in unknowing, transcending all knowledge.

This knowledge in unknowing is so overwhelming that wise men disputing can never overthrow it, for their knowledge does not reach to the understanding of not understanding, transcending all knowledge. And this supreme knowledge is so exalted that no power of man or learning can grasp it; he who masters himself will, with knowledge in unknowing, always be transcending. And if you should want to hear: this highest knowledge lies in the loftiest sense in the essence of God; this is a work of His mercy, to leave one without understanding, transcending all knowledge.

So people get ready there's a train a'comin'...you don't need no ticket you just get onboard...it's a mystical train that leaves just before midnight...it'll set your spirit free as it rolls steadily along the track to that place where you are not...a Special Streamline.


To travel wisely and rightly toward the highest destiny of your immortal soul you've got to have true power and dominion over the spirits. I'm doin' it once, and once is enough. Looking into things, the truth of things, is really seeing like seeing into metal and making it melt, seeing it for what it was and revealing it for what it was with hard words and vicious insight. I was born like this, I had no choice. I was born with the gift of a golden voice and twenty-seven angels from the great beyond.

They tied me to this table right here in the tower of song.



Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back

They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track

But you'll be hearin' from me baby long after I'm gone

I'll be speakin to you sweetly from my window in the tower of song


Monday, October 08, 2007

Coffee and Cigarettes

It was getting near time to meet up with Iggy Jim down at the old Paradise restaurant. I had been busy all morning collecting cold wet coins from milk bottles down on tobacco road after a long night of trying to sleep on the heated air grates around the VG hospital so the warmth of my usual hangout for a few hours would be blessed relief. I'd be a bit late but I figured Iggy Jim would be cool and that he'd understand if I told him how busy a medical morning it had been.

Back at diggers dive later that night Johnny Mac and I were talking about our favorite records of the moment and he said he thought that Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own by Taj Mahal had really captured the liberating essence of the times in which we lived.

That was true enough and I dug that song myself, but I said I thought that Edgar Winter's version of J. D. Loudermilk's Tobacco Road was more poignant and more graphically descriptive of the reality of our dirt poor lives no matter how crazy champagne or cocaine made us.

Johnny Mac said he couldn't argue with that as indeed he also identified very personally with Tobacco Road.

Since we were discussing this in a diggers dive, I decided to search around until I found that record which surely had to be somewhere in the recovery room upstairs from the shooting gallery. It was bound to be in that rambling stack. Sure enough, Max the junkie had it stashed underneath his harpoon gun…now was it track 5 or 6..?

Just copped this new needle...man, talk about blessed relief...

So was it track 5 or track 6...? I can't remember...doesn't matter… actually just reminds me of 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago Transit Authority and our days and nights in Amsterdam in 1969. I've never actually been to Amsterdam but I've been to 1969...pretty much the same thing...William Burroughs was "Rat Tat Tat Katalli" [with a gun] and beauty was a blond sheathed, lace draped waif in deer skin boots with a bounty on her potions and a seventeen year old vision to sell.

And we were buyin' it all in quantity.

Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say
Flashing lights against the sky
Giving up I close my eyes
Sitting cross-legged on the floor
25 or 6 to 4

Staring blindly into space
Getting up to splash my face
Wanting just to stay awake
Wondering how much I can take
Should I try to do some more
25 or 6 to 4

Feeling like I ought to sleep
Spinning room is sinking deep
Searching for something to say
Waiting for the break of day
25 or 6 to 4
25 or 6 to 4
. .