Opinion and Truth

Pythagoras:
"Most men perceive what they want to perceive
in search for facts that support their opinions,
but honest man will accept truth he finds
and construct view of life on what is real.
Truth is balance of ugly and beautiful."

Opinion and Truth
Measurement of Pythagoras
Hermead IX:2522-6

Hermead of Surazeus
Epic of Philosophers

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With Glass Eyes

With Glass Eyes
© Surazeus
2015 09 21

I see the dead more clearly with glass eyes,
for all around me in my memories
they struggle to survive ten thousand years
and urge my actions with excess of hope.

I trudge the narrow streets of city maze
and see my face fly past in shining glass,
then pause amazed by bridge of streaming thoughts
to realize why people thought they saw ghosts.

Our minds envision scenes of active play
that flash before our eyes while we walk way
of winding lanes through silent listening woods,
and seem to see their faces in the air.

I stop and close my eyes on busy street
and dream about young woman of my genes
who lived twenty generations ago
and remember how she invented ghosts.

Young woman who birthed my immortal soul
walks alone in woods, searching for her home,
but her near-sighted eyes cannot see clear,
so she walks lost in world of blurry shapes.

I shiver when my memory flashes bright
vision of my mother in streaming light
because I long to see her, though she lies
rotting to mud in her river-side grave.

Around me in the woods of shadowed rays
I see blurry bodies of moving forms,
not knowing my eyes can barely see clear,
so I grope forward in twilight of fear.

The crazy bearded man in tower of stone
from evening shadow looms and grips my hand,
and leads me trembling through warm door of light,
then wraps me safe by hearth of gleaming flames.

I see ghost of my mother everywhere,
I whisper, staring at his bright blue eyes,
though I know she is dead and buried deep
on river shore where apple trees bloom white.

The wizard holds small sphere of shining glass,
bright jewel he claims he forged from fallen star,
then sets it close before my blinking eye
and bids me perceive this world with glass eyes.

From blurry shapes of shifting color beams,
in sudden sharp relief of well-shaped forms,
emerge from wild illusions of my fear
solid objects of things I now see clear.

I often had to move too close to things
and lean my face so I could see things clear,
but now this shining jewel of dreaming star
allows my eyes to see things as they are.

I walk outside his tower in glow of dawn
and stare at grove of trees with fluttering leaves
that gleam so clear as never seen before
and there I weep with joy on river shore.

I see shapes of trees and every leaf clear,
and white blossoms on limbs of apple trees
gleam in perfect symmetry of shape,
and distant hills shimmer by shining lake.

Amazed I stare to see birds dart in trees,
spotted deer leaping among distant groves,
large brown cows grazing on lush slopes of hills,
and shining clouds swirling in clear blue sky.

All my life I saw no more than blurred shapes
of flickering colors, but now I perceive
beautiful symmetry of our whole world,
till my eyes blur again with joyful tears.

Continuing on my walk in city street
I ponder how that woman in my dreams,
who lived a thousand years before I wake,
thought she saw ghosts because she could not see.

Even now, as I walk past coffee shops
and bookstores crowded with students who talk
I see visions flash clear before my eyes
that beam before my face in empty space.

Now I know my brain, while perceiving world
of real forms where I walk, beams visions clear
so I see both this real world and dream world
in one flowing stream of conscious account.

When nameless ancestor, centuries ago,
whose brain could generate visions of hope,
first saw faces of people in clear air,
they thought spirits of the dead could still walk.

Now I know my brain generates their forms
from memories of their faces and their words
so spirits beam nowhere but in my mind,
while I dream this world I see with glass eyes.

I see the ghosts of every human being
who ever lived in visions of my eyes
for I conjure their forms from graves of books
and spring them alive with spells of sung words.

Love For Knowledge

Love For Knowledge
© Surazeus
2015 09 20

Richard slouches low in the dirty couch
and watches Tina paint elegant swirls.
"In all my years of college, I cannot
recall one single teacher who inspired
love for knowledge in my dry dreary heart,
and not one guided me on path of wisdom.
I learned everything I know on my own.
I stumbled in a bleak haze of despair,
staggering through a labyrinth of disgust
at every book some professor assigned
for me to read, discounting every truth
proclaimed by some ancient foul rotting corpse
of a dead philosopher or novelist
who dared proclaim that his distorted vision
of this messy world was more true than mine.
Poets have no grand visions of this life
anymore, except for me, for my vision
incorporates all history of Mankind.
I am self-generated from my mind,
blooming into a genius of word play
in the clear sunlight of my own desire
to express how I perceive this whole world
of colliding atoms that spiral waves
of aggressive lust to reproduce models
of its hungry passion, and so we wake
from endless beautiful enchanting dream
of hunting, fighting, eating, building, singing,
and copulating to realize shocked
that we are alive after all these years,
millions of years since our brains first evolved
and started to devour this entire world.
This vision of the world inside my head
is nothing more than a model of the Cosmos.
I journeyed into underworld of fear
and battled monster of my own desire,
then transformed into clever clown of wit
to rise like Orpheus again from death
and become the Jester Messiah King.
I stand on street corners and hold a sheet
of blank paper while pretending to read
but I mouth nonsense words and call them poems,
and people drop money in my torn hat.
I am the Prophet of Nonsense, the King
of Nowhere, the Emperor of Ecstasy,
and all the dead ghosts of workers and slaves,
whose labor is exploited by fat pigs
sitting on plush thrones in posh country clubs
and rule over empires of factories and banks,
flock around me, invisible to eyes
of foolish mortals, and proclaim me God.
I am the embodiment of dead god
who was crucified on a telephone pole,
and now appears on television screen
in giant church with clean suit and slicked hair,
praising Jesus for his noble sacrifice
because like him I die for all your sins.
If you give me money, you give to God,
so offer your love in large dollar bills
for God wants me to live in a huge mansion
while you slave all week in a factory
and hope to win the ponzi lottery,
because I am the divine son of God."
Richard leaps to his feet and spreads his arms
wide toward the ceiling, then howls like a wolf,
and falls back laughing on the tattered couch.
"I smoked too much vision flower of joy
because I cannot remember a thing
I just said, though I dreamed I was Jesus
riding a donkey into the White House."
Richard drinks grape juice and stares out the window
where cars glide flashing on an arching bridge
that shimmers like a rainbow after rain
while ignoring the painting of his wife,
who died of cancer, painting futile hope.
"There is no afterlife after all, my love.
I ceased trying to comfort myself with proverb
that you are still alive in all your art.
Your art never smiles back at me or laughs."

Last Gleam Of Sun

Last Gleam Of Sun
© Surazeus
2015 09 18

The last gleam of sun for a hundred days
cracks ice on the frail window of my mind.
I cup my hands to catch its flapping wings
and dream a thousand flowers blooming gold.

Fading sunlight illuminates your words
you scribbled in haste thirteen years ago
in a quick note asking me to buy milk.
I see your gold smile in gray penciled words.

Another brutal winter of cold winds
and silent afternoons by crackling fire
where your knitting waits for you to return
closes around me in fragile wood shell.

Every car that rumbles past our cracked home
flashes vision of the red speeding truck
that crushed your car against a red brick wall.
You smile at me unchanged from your white desk.

The last gleam of sun for a thousand years
stabs my eyes with hope I will see you soon
in lush flower-blooming meadows of heaven,
but I realize that God is dead as you.

Ghost In Your Dream Machine

Ghost In Your Dream Machine
© Surazeus
2015 09 17

Maria works in the huge factory
somewhere in the maze of Mexico State,
sewing soles on expensive Nike shoes,
praying for souls in the Church of Saint Mary.

Maria dreams of being a movie star
somewhere in the haze of Mexico State,
singing on the bright television stage
while riding a bus to the Church of Saint Mary.

Everybody wants to be
a famous celebrity,
glam gods of the silver screen,
a ghost in your dream machine.

Maria meets a man with a golden smile
somewhere in the bars of Mexico State,
who beams, I can make you a movie star,
and you can leave the grim Church of Saint Mary.

Maria ignores his texts on the phone,
somewhere in the fear of Mexico State,
but meets him at midnight with bags and cash,
waving goodbye to the Church of Saint Mary.

Everybody wants to be
a famous celebrity,
glam gods of the silver screen,
a ghost in your dream machine.

Maria dances in the flashing lights
somewhere in the daze of Mexico State,
asking, when will I be a movie star,
worshipped with love in the Church of Saint Mary.

Maria weeps in the dark motel room,
somewhere in the hell of Mexico State,
after twelve men pay for an hour of love,
and leave her bruised in the Church of Saint Mary.

Everybody wants to be
a famous celebrity,
glam gods of the silver screen,
a ghost in your dream machine.

Maria runs down endless alleyways
somewhere in the maze of Mexico State,
searching for home behind locked golden gates,
and finds refuge in the Church of Saint Mary.

Hiding from the man with the golden gun,
somewhere in the hope of Mexico State,
Maria floats lost in the Grand Canal
like Ophelia from the Church of Saint Mary.

Everybody wants to be
a famous celebrity,
glam gods of the silver screen,
a ghost in your dream machine.

Hero King

Hero King
Wisdom of Athena
Hermead I:46-62

Warriors who founded dynasties of kings
play grand roles of power on martial stage
of history, killing tyrants and thieves,
and decree rules that foster common good
to stabilize smooth social interactions
between groups, manage prosperous production
of commercial enterprise on lush farms,
and support design of religious art
in songs and plays that relate noble deeds
of great hero who founded nation state.
Yet every great hero king, mortal man
who inhabits body of flesh and blood
like us, grows old, dies, and crumbles to dust,
and power of his personal authority
dissolves in wind that howls in empty halls,
and all his grand Ozymandian boasts
echo dumb over waste land of his works.

Hermead Epic of Philosophers
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

The Experience of Composing Poetry

I think of close reading as visualizing the human character who might be speaking the text, and how the text may record their process of thought to comprehend the universe.

And I would ask myself, how successfully does this text generate a vision of humanity in my mind? Does this character spring to life in a memorable way? Does their contemplation recorded by the text ascend beyond a jumbled mix of concepts and impressions and generate a transcendent vision that will glow in the minds of readers for a thousand years? If so, then the poem is a memorable text of code that generates a coherent vision of life and is thus successful.

Adam, Apollo, Achilles, Odysseus, Jesus, Hamlet, Lear. These names conjure characters whose sole existence resides in the seeds of the text of poems and stories from which they spring to life as if they were real human beings. They live in our minds as long as we read the text where their spirits dwell.

I don't know yet how successful I have been or not, but I tried to conjure dead Greek philosophers to life by composing an epic about their lives and ideas.

I have dreamed their lives and experienced the quest for truth in the action of composing my epic narrative poem about their lives. Then I will die. Whether anyone experiences the same or not is irrelevant to me as a poet. I grew beyond myself in the process of composing the epic, and experienced the joy of discovery.

http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

Value of Loving Friends

Value of Loving Friends

Epikouros speaking to his followers
in Kepidion garden of paradise:

"Among all good things that wisdom provides
to insure complete happiness in life,
greatest treasures we gain are loving friends.
Sure conviction which inspires confidence
that terrible events or things we fear
never last forever and soon disperse,
also reveals amid evil we suffer
nothing enhances safe security
as much as will strong heart-connecting bonds
of close enduring friendship with good people."

from Garden of Epikouros
Hermead Vol 5
Epic of Philosophers
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

Quest-Romance of the Epic Hermead

Quest-Romance of the Epic Hermead

Individually, the episodes of the Hermead, epic of philosophers, are each a quest-romance, the journey of the seeker of truth as they explore the nature of the world.

All together they constitute an epic of heroic action performed by many individuals who each contributed to the development of philosophy and science that form the foundation of our civilization.

Each philosopher is a clever Odysseus seeking to found a school of wisdom, a Jason searching for the golden fleece of wisdom, and a Hamlet questioning the meaning of life, as they invent answers that accurately explain the real world.

http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

#EpicPoem #Epic #Poetry #HistoricalFiction #AncientHistory #Philosophy #HistoryOfScience #DawnOfHumanity #Academia

Aware I Am Alive

Aware I Am Alive
Surazeus

Young world explorer stands on high hill top,
cape fluttering in wind, hand grasping long wand,
and bright jewel gleaming in his other hand,
as he turns around, eyes observing island
of treed mountains, lush valleys, and broad streams
that flow in deep sparkling Okeanos Sea.
"How beautiful this world shines in my eyes,
all whole solid shapes of mountains, trees, clouds,
and animals bulging within tight bounds
of their shapes, yet I see fabric of web
composing their bodies formed from small parts,
particles shining as they throb and swirl.
What holds their shapes together and prevents
solid bodies from dissolving to dust
when pulsing gusts of wind blast at their skins?
How quiet and still appears at this flash
of changing time round hill where trees sprout tall
and wide lake that shimmers in rays of light,
and everywhere around me in clear space
I seem to sense someone observing me.
I feel some unseen presence shining bright
as if warm sun is gazing down at me,
but this conceit was planted in my mind,
like farmer planting seed in soil that sprouts
into sapling that will bear juicy fruit,
when my father pointed to shining sphere
and called him Helios, and explained that sun
is powerful god who rides horse of white fire
and sees everything that occurs on Gaia.
Helios, if you are real, descend on wings
and reveal your face so I can detect
conscious awareness in your blazing eyes.
When I shout my words advance across lake,
and echo back from cliff behind tall trees,
as if I am divine spirit of light
observing myself talking by clear lake.
I wait, yet nothing happens that seems strange,
and when I look around at hill of trees
I see nothing but mound of crumbling dirt
and tall thin trunks where leaves flutter in wind.
I look down and see shadow of my soul
cast by my body blocking rays of light,
and fancy I see my own self appear
across lake expanse and swim toward my spot.
I feel my chest and face, and know I am
real living human talking to myself,
for I am alone in meadow of flowers,
and no one but me stands on this lake shore,
so I know I alone am here awake.
I beam my conscious soul on wind-blown words
like sphere of fire beams flowing waves of light,
therefore I think sun is no conscious god,
and nothing more than giant ball of flames.
That shivering sense that presence of great mind
watches me is no more than my own mind.
I am Helios aware I am alive."

from Garden of Epikouros
Hermead Epic of Philosophers
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

Kill For Religion

Kill For Religion
Surazeus
2015 09 11

If your religion leads you to kill people
and enforce your beliefs through spurious law,
then your faith is weak as you still refuse
to admit you realize god is not real. 

I Tamed Fire

I Tamed Fire

Right after Prometheus is chained
to a cliff on Mount Kaukasus
for stealing fire and giving it to men.

Straining against iron chains to break free
till muscles bulge aching sore, wise fire-thief
howls wordless rage against cruel tyranny,
then slumps weeping and groans in bleak despair.
"I tamed fire and smelted metal from stone,
expressing gusts of wind to whip flames hot,
but now rings of metal bind my soul tight,
and wild elements I tamed now tame me.
I roamed free all my life on mountain slopes
through dark woods, and along lush river shores,
but now I hang chained on high frigid cliff,
body imprisoned while my mind roams far.
I push my soul against boundaries of death,
motivated by desire to teach truth
and elevate men from low mud of fear
to stand tall and gaze at infinite stars,
but now my soul trembles restrained by chains
high above dark world among gleaming stars.
Vast infinite space of lightless death stretches
wide around my frail body small as pebble
of broken cliff lost on seashore of time,
and now I feel as if our world falls forward,
hurling swift down into cold gusting wind
as if giant ball rolls tumbling down slope
of enormous ice mountain formed from stars."

from Fire of Prometheus
Hermead III:2761-85

Buy Hermead Epic of Philosophers
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Third Option in Yellowfacegate

I have great respect and admiration for Sherman Alexie. He is a very intelligent, humorous, talented storyteller. We met as students at Washington State University in 1987 when my best friend, Yakama poet Arthur Tulee, introduced us in the cafeteria one day because of a complicated situation involving the university literary journal.

I have seen Sherman three times over the years giving his enlightening and entertaining readings. I saw his very first reading when he performed as Lester Falls-Apart at Powell's Books in Seattle in 1991, a bookstore in Denver in 1995 when I was a hitchhiking street musician, and a university bookstore in Anne Arbor, Michigan in 2005 when I was a graduate student in cartography.

Because I am acquainted with his personality and world view, detected from our few conversations and reading his stories and poems, I knew he would have an honest explanation of his thinking process for his decision to publish the poem in Best American Poetry when Yellowfacegate exploded several days ago. I waited for his justification while reading a vast array of responses from all sides of the issue.

Like many others, reading his justification only increased my admiration for his integrity. Though I trust that he felt he made the right decision to publish the poem, I disagree and feel he should have chosen one of the other dozens of poems he loved as much.

It is interesting that Sherman felt he had only two options, publish the poem and weather the expected storm of vilification from all his long-time allies and loyal readers, or don't publish it and feel guilty that he exercised his power of editorship to exclude a poem he loved because it was published under false pretenses of a European-American male appropriating the persona of a Chinese-American female.

If I had been in the same dilemma, I would have chosen a third option that I feel would have denied the poem publication in the famous anthology while at the same time publicly acknowledging the situation. Sherman could have written about the situation in the editor's introduction, presenting the same criteria and thoughts that he expressed in his letter of justification for his editorial decision.

The act of appropriation would not have been rewarded with publication, and yet at the same time the incident would have been publicly acknowledged in a paragraph where Sherman could have described in detail what happened, and presented the name of the poem he felt deserves recognition.

I have to admit, I do not care for the poem at the center of the controversy, and most of the poems in most editions of the Best American Poetry don't do much for me personally, but that is because I have always been completely outside the official academy of poetics.

Over the past 30 years, during which I have written around 8,000 poems, and a 122,000-line epic poem, I had never taken a class in poetry, nor attended any semester-long workshops, until the past five years when I attended two online classes, and attended the local Chattahoochee Valley Writers Conference two years in row. I have only managed to get 13 poems published, and am self-publishing my epic in seven volumes because no publisher, large, small, or university wanted to publish it.

I have developed my own poetics and sense of aesthetics over many years of writing based on long-established principles of narrative and lyrical techniques, and only recently have I begun to connect to living poets online and started getting a feel for a wider range and in some cases completely alternate set of principles for the composition of poetry.

Sherman, as all editors do, chose the poems he felt are the best, but I think he could have chosen the third option in Yellowfacegate, and that would have been to not publish the poem but discuss the incident in the introduction, which would have fostered a far less hostile and vituperative response while initiating the potentially productive conversations necessary to correct the institutional problems that plague PoBiz.

Sherman is an intelligent and caring human being, so I am confident that he and all the other poets singing together in this country will continue to grow from this situation into a chorus of shared American voices. 

Hermead Epic of Philosophers
865,000 words in 122,000 lines of blank verse
Editions for sale:
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

Crocus Of Rebirth

Crocus Of Rebirth

For Sherman Alexie, who loves poems about Croci.

Khairestrate caresses fevered brow
of young woman who shifts in restless sleep.
"Our soul is like sweet Krokos flower that glows
bright purple with light of half-risen sun.
We bury our soul like Krokos bulb deep
in green swelling mound of our mother world,
and there we sleep in sweet refreshing dreams
during dark night of anguish and despair,
so Mother Khthonie dismantles our sorrows
and reassembles our love from rich dreams.
Then with bright rising sun that beams soft rays
over distant hills to wake living creatures
we wake from death and rise from dreaming minds
like tender shoot from buried Krokos bulb
which opens purple petals to receive
warm rays of kissing light that revives well
our animating soul from sleep of death,
and thus we rise again, healed and refreshed.
Like Krokos bulb must be buried to bloom,
we bury souls in sleep so we may thrive."

from Garden of Epikouros
Hermead Epic of Philosophers
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

Far Across Anahuac

Far Across Anahuac

© Surazeus

2013 05 14

My hitchhiking trip in 1993.

It was twenty years ago today

we hitchhiked far across Anahuac,

and I played my guitar on city streets

and sang stories about human life.

We traveled far across Anahuac,

searching for the meaning of life,

Simon and George in a grunge-folk band

on a quest for truth across our land.

We left Seattle on a sunny day

and hitchhiked down a rainy highway

through the pine mountains of Oregon

to the rainbow hills around Shasta Peak.

We danced in a San Francisco Park,

smoking flowers woven in our hair,

rode a rusty coupe across Death Valley

and talked to serpents in Albuquerque.

I ate red mushrooms at Jemez Springs

and danced with fairies in yellow pines

then rode all night south to El Paso

and drank coffee in Ciudad Juarez.

We walked in Texas desert all night,

watching angels soar among stars,

and landed in jail with a cattle thief

then walked across a steel bridge at dawn.

We sang country in a semi-truck

then woke in a San Antonio park

on the first day I turned twenty-nine

and strolled crowded River Walk all day.

When our older selves gave us a ride

through the street fair in Austin at noon,

I sang Sounds of Silence to a crowd

who cheered nowhere else but in my head.

Rising like a dragon from waste land,

tall air traffic control tower spread

huge demon wings so I had to laugh

then wrote a poem in black book of dreams.

We slept under a Red River bridge

then strolled Oklahoma City streets

four years before Christian terrorist

bombed women and children for his god.

We returned to magic Jemez Springs

and I kissed cute fairy queen in snow,

walking nowhere in misty woods,

and listened to the howl of my heart.

We rode in a truck pulling a boat

through snow back to California hills,

and we parted ways on a lonely road

where I walked all night under stars.

I dreamed books by library hall three days

then rode a glass bus over treeless hills

where my grandma in a trailer house

took me hiking in Joshua Tree Park.

She bought me a brown suit teachers wear

and while I read Clan of the Cave Bear

I rode a greyhound bus along the coast

through Los Angeles to Seattle mist.

I slept in a hippy house twelve days,

singing lonesome ballads to cold stars

then lived in the upstairs office

of a political action committee.

I fell in love with a pretty blonde

while sitting alone in a grave yard,

reigning as Saturn, king of the dead

in a temple on a hill of flowers.

It was twenty years ago today

I hitchhiked far across Anahuac

Seattle to Mexico and back

on a vision quest for naked truth.

I found myself behind my own mask,

scribbling spells in a black book of dreams,

Surazeus one-man grunge-folk band

on a quest for truth across our land.

The Royalty Factor

The Royalty Factor

The royalty factor is the most consistent marker that determines who wins election as President of the United States.

Every person who has been elected President of the United States is a descendant of King Edward I Longshanks of England. Whoever has more royal genes tends to win the most votes, and most of the time they win the election. Bush has slightly less royal genes than Gore and Kerry which is why they won more votes, but since they are all three so closely related and equal in royal blood, Bush had people help him cheat so he "won".

Though he is half African, Obama is also half European, and on his mother's side he is closely related to all the previous Presidents. Obama has far more royal genes than both McCain and Romney which may explain why he easily beat them both in the elections.

In the current election, the only person I knew for sure has royal genes is Jeb Bush, but recently I read an article that explains that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both descended from King Edward I through John of Gaunt, the son of King Edward III.

Hillary is descended from John of Gaunt's daughter Joan Beaufort and Donald is descended from his son John Beaufort, both the children of his wife Katherine Swynford. They were the younger half-siblings of Henry Bolingbroke who crowned himself King Henry IV.

Bernie Sanders is Jewish, Ted Cruz is Hispanic, and Ben Carson is full African, so none of them have a chance at all.

People in the United States who are descended from King Edward I are more genetically predisposed to being good at campaigning and reigning. I think there is no other explanation than genetics for why the descendants of English kings always succeed in getting elected as President of the United States.

I am voting for Hillary Clinton​.

Dionysius II the Arrogant Dictator

Dionysius II the Arrogant Dictator

In volume 4 of Hermead, my epic of philosophers, I explore the life of Plato, the most famous Greek philosopher. Plato wrote about his conception of the perfect Republic, which he felt should be run by an enlightened philosopher king.

Plato had personal experience with how not to run a nation. Three times he went to Sicily, where Plato attempted to teach philosophy to the tyrant Dionysius I and then his son Dionysius II.

The first time he went, Dionysius I had Plato arrested and sold as a slave, and he was sent to fight as a gladiator in Cyrene in North Africa. His friends bought his freedom and he went to Athens and founded the Academy.

Two times after that he went to Sicily to teach philosophy to the younger Dionysius II with hopes to turn him into an enlightened philosopher-king. However, Dionysius was an arrogant, blustering blow-hard, much like a certain politician currently running for President of the United States.

Both times, Dionysius would pretend to be open to being taught philosophy, but his arrogance always prevailed, and he held Plato under house arrest, but both times let him go.

Eventually, Dionysius was overthrown, and ended up homeless and poor in Corinth where he would sit in the market and teach philosophy.

Read the life of Platon in
Hermead Volume 4
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

Origin Myths Sonnet

Origin Myths Sonnet
Surazeus

Old men with long beards and eyes full of stars
sat around stone altars of glowing flames
and told fantastic tales about ancestors,
describing clever acts of their achievements,
how they controlled fire and invented tools,
homes, bowls, sandals, musical instruments,
spears, swords, helmets, wagons on rolling wheels,
and other useful things that ease our lives.
Children who listened to elders relate
achievements of dead men misunderstood
and pictured mortal ancestors long dead
as immortal gods who personify
landscapes and elements of natural world,
and so devised myths to explain all things.

from Library of Demetrios Phalereus
Hermead Epic of Philosophers
http://tinyurl.com/HermeadEditions

We Are Clusters Of Atoms

We Are Clusters Of Atoms
Surazeus
2015 09 03

Donavan meditates on yoga mat
under willow tree by sparkling blue stream,
and stretches arms above his head to clap
as seven people in circle relax.
"I stretch my soul along hot asphalt roads
while driving engine-powered time machine
through ten thousand years of lost history
that shimmers in timeless fields where sunlight
weaves our flesh bodies from chemical swirls
in tapestries of bold dramatic action.
Like shining slime of white spiritual juice,
my soul trails behind my urgent expression
in spiraling ribbons of angel wings,
so hot atoms from animals and plants
I consumed, and assimilated whole
in vibrant rainbow soul, sparkle in clouds.
Wherever we go in maze of this world,
this enormous globe of molecules clumped
in thick spiraling sphere of atoms spewed
from blazing sun, we integrate our souls
in physical substance of cluttered time,
for time is chemical process of change."
Donavan opens his eyes and regards
attentive students with adoring sneer.
"We are all nothing more than talking fish
who swim together in shimmering air,
on endless search for biomass to eat
so we sustain aggressive force of life
that sparks sizzling ache of hungry desire
to beam visions showing how we survive.
My mouth is shaping expelled gusts of air
to cause subtle sounds which activate drum
of conception to throb inside your ear,
which sparks signals shining into your brain
and causes neural network to beam bright
vision of objects expressed by my words.
We are clusters of atoms that vibrate
with music of memory, and devour
other clusters of atoms to restore
beaming vision that flickers in our eyes,
so we stand in shimmering waves of light
that weave our bodies bright with rainbow soul."
Donavan stands, so they all hug and kiss,
and walk from park to drive purring cars home,
while he opens door to enter white box
where robot drinks juice to nourish his brain.

We Are Going To Die

We Are Going To Die
Surazeus
2015 09 02

All the way across the world,
dancing on old telephone lines,
angels without souls or eyes
fly war planes across bleeding skies.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Gangs of boys in rotten streets,
fighting for their slice of the pie,
work all day as money slaves,
pawns in the game the devil plays.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Cinderella hates her dad,
escapes from home and runs away,
branded by the king of pimps,
imprisoned in the house of lies.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Swinging hammer of despair,
Johnny builds new national bank,
leaps on midnight stage to sing,
and howls in rage, God save our King.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Cindy closes tight her eyes
when preacher pays for secret kiss,
dreams of sending kids to school,
and sewing clothes for pageant show.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Walking dirty streets at night,
where neon angels promise love,
Cindy searches for lost heart
and watches Johnny sing on stage.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Lost in castle of cement
sweet Cupid wakes up blind and drunk
and shoots wild arrow of hope.
Cindy and Johnny fall in love.
No one knows why we are going to die.

I love you, Cindy, angel face,
so take my hand and run away,
refugees from House of Hope,
searching for our own promised land.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Singing under starry skies,
they drive all night to Nowhere Town.
Johnny drives a garbage truck,
and Cindy raises four cute kids.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Throwing baseball in the park,
Johnny teaches his sons to play.
Baking cookies for the game,
Cindy teaches daughters to cook.
No one knows why we are going to die.

Drinking water from the well
poisoned by the rich fracking king,
zombies wander suburb streets,
when cancer eats their brains to mush.
No one knows why we are going to die.

When we find our paradise
our bodies rot to river mud.
Earth spins lost in outer space,
and empires crumble down to dust.
No one knows why we are going to die.