DESCARTES AND THE CRAZY MAN

Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning

The world is not what I want it to be

But the world is still the magnificent mystery

In which I am stuck between Plato’s ideals

And Jesus’s Kingdom and Buddha’s Nirvana

And the crazy man at the bus stop

The world—It is in your face. It won’t let you go.

Descartes got it right. Throw it all out. It is all

A bundle of thought knots: concepts—illusions

Birth and death and memory and hope

A dance with realities we don’t understand

You Think: The fact that you can doubt your doubts

Is a clue. There is a you behind the you you think

You are—who loves the ideals, lives in the Kingdom,

Dances in Nirvana and gives the crazy man at the bus stop

A hug—He stares at you thinking you are crazy.

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Pick Up Truck

Decades ago riding, in the back of a pick-up truck, My good buddy Rick and I were talking philosophy, Truth and Counter-truth I told him—waddya mean? Life is both real and an illusion--particle-wave duality We are flesh and we are spirit—50 years later, my flesh Has lower back pain and sciatica but the spirit still loves Riding in the back of pick-up trucks—which is now illegal

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Blue Dog

Blue Dog, Bark at the rabbits and Chase the squirrels back to the nest. Darkness awaits us just behind twilight. The owls and coyotes will watch us With eyes that see in the night.

CurranPoem

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