Opus of Encounter

                                  
A                                  
                        
Jack                                  
                        
&                          
                        
Reita                                    
                        
Creation                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                
                        
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                  
Evocation                          
                            
                         
If                                    
                                  
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken                                  
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,                                  
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,                                  
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:                                  
                                  
If you can fill the unforgiving minute                                  
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,                                      
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,                                      
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!                                  
                                
                                  
A Poison Tree                          
                            
I was angry with my friend:                                    
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.                                    
I was angry with my foe:                                    
I told it not, my wrath did grow.                                    
                                
                                  
1492                                
                                  
There falls each ancient barrier that the art                                    
Of race or creed or rank devised, to rear                                    
Grim bulwarked hatred between heart and heart!                                    
                                
                                  
Aria Diva                                 
                          
                                  
Iconicity moves in chaudieu                                  
touching orations(1)                                    
Sacred temple in whiten dust                                  
The epic of the wheat(2)                                  
is pressed into the consciousness,                                  
There is happiness and smiling and it’s beautiful...                                  
And I can do nothing but love                                
                                
The four o’clock inner vestibules                                  
Where there are perfect gloxinias                                  
encased in the windows of the cathedral...                                  
                                
Slow moving men and women of evening repertoire fill the vestibules                                 
                                  
I fail to share their heart murmurs of thinking,                                  
Simultaneous penetrating keenness,                                  
the seriousness of their expressions...                                  
                                
The unfathomable gravity                                  
                                
I’ll be the crowd of one miserable                                  
shivering in rags and tattered comforter                                  
finding satisfaction in watching                                    
the prolonged defilement of disdain.                                  
                                  
                                  
           
Interlude                            
                          
                                  
There are...                                  
                                  
Little froggy woggies(3)                                    
singing all night long                                  
                                  
On their froggy little loggies                                    
smoking little froggy bongs                                  
                                  
I can hear them in the darkness                                    
singing froggy little songs                                  
                                  
In their little froggy tenor                                    
with their little pollywogs                                  
                                  
I can see them through the curtain                                    
doing froggy little wrongs                                  
                                  
Eating little froggy spiders                                    
with their froggy little tongues                                  
                                  
... and the little froggy lovers                                    
             going yawn yawn yawn                                  
                   for they’re getting groggy woggie                                    
         as it's getting close to dawn.                                  
                                
                                                                                                          
                                  
                                  
Aria Divo                               
                                
                                  
Do not seek in vain to borrow                                  
from her being surcease of sorrow(4),                                  
Edgar made friend of the Raven,                                  
What word was in stillness spoken?                                  
Was it the whispered word Lenore or                                  
was it indeed something more?                                  
Should you go chase that rainbow,                                  
Expect no gold in return.                                  
                                  
                                  
Sonny! Buddy! Honey! Boo!                                  
Bibles abound, hymns and sounds,                                  
Headless canonicals eschew,                                  
Hear the Proverbs(5) echo loud.                                  
                                  
Outcast you are? Alienated?                                  
Tarred and marred?                                  
Trapped in the belly of the beast?                                  
Who condemned you to die inside?                                  
Confess to yourself at least!                                  
                                  
Blanket apologies overlook,                                  
Masks of humanity spit on then toss,                                  
If she says, you accept Jesus Christ(6),                                  
Tell her, secondhand redemptions don't exist!                                  
                                
Redefine friendship for it's a lie,                                  
Friends in need aren't friends indeed(7)!                                  
Redefine respect, it's not given or earned,                                  
Respect, ergo, is achieved.                                  
                                  
Ignorance… not bliss, you've been conned!                                  
Ignorance is quintessential pain                                  
For it leaves you defenseless                                  
against fear of time and fate(8).                                  
                                  
Algebra, photography or poetry,                                  
Cravings countless for pregnant minds,                                  
Never part with philosophy,                                  
Your redemption therein lies                                  
No redemption in religion, though                                  
Catechism… bullshit lies(9).                                  
                                  
                                  
Do stand against the tide,                                  
you're not insane but bravely sane,                                  
Conventional wisdom is a ghastly hell                                  
whose dwellers burn in pain.                                  
                                  
Run with Holden in the Rye(10),                                  
With Cathy and Henry sip red wine(11),                                  
Learn from Marquis of Charenton(12),                                  
Listen to Julia and Mari brew a storm(13),                                  
and you shall never be alone or seek a shoulder to cry on.                                  
                                  
Life but an intense odyssey                                  
Time for rest in death plenty                                  
Subdue reptiles of the mind(14),                                  
Damn safety of lethargy!                                  
                                
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
Interlude                               
                                  
                                
Planes                                  
and trains                                  
and rabbits                                  
and ducks                                  
                                  
Swings                                  
and hearts                                  
and little girls                                  
                                  
Froggy woggies                                  
and little tongues                                  
I've no time                                    
to hem and haw                                      
drop                                  
by drop                                  
I melt away                                  
at least                                  
I've the guts                                    
to try.                                  
                                  
                                                              
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
Ode                                 
                            
                                
I met the daughter of irony,                                  
born to defy symmetry,                                  
looking for balance and absurdity,                                  
Sophia decently obscene.                                  
                                  
Sophia: my mind's flooding, I'm distracted.                                  
                                  
   Me: so let's take off on a tangent.                                  
                                  
Sophia: but where indeed?                                  
                                  
   Me: o'er the Rubicon and Event Horizon.                                  
                                  
Sophia: I'll saddle up the steed.                                  
                                  
Strokes of genius,                                  
Flights of fancy,                                  
Leaps of zest and boundless wants,                                  
Thoughts of morrow and hates                                  
ceaseless from eternities past.                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
Bel Canto                                
                                
                                  
Dripping off her tongue like honey,                                  
thus her lips spake these words:                                  
                                  
It was dawn... a different air...                                  
I didn't want to leave there...                                  
It was long ago and far away                                  
where the white washed the rock from the seabed...                                  
                                  
There was a shore flowing across the damp sand...                                  
the sky filled with mistiness...                                  
it was such a mysterious land where the sun was unshown...                                  
where the day was baby blue and where nothing could again compare...                                  
                                  
It was real, everything was parallel                                  
and there were no words...                                  
                                  
there were no rays of god... no peril...                                  
                                
My sweet memory...                                  
A fear and tremble of pure innocence                                  
in hues where all the colors were inside a Jonquil wind...                                  
                                  
The dream inside the gray                                  
as I tread the distance unable                                  
to catch the trace of it again...                                  
                                  
How far in the wind is the dream?                            
                             
More beautiful than I had ever dared,                                  
more beautiful than I wondered be,                                  
it shined for one second to let me to see...                                  
                                  
In a colored thought, I woke in eternity                                  
                                
Was the earth from the outer mind surrounded by glows of sunshine?                                  
                                  
A minute turned it blank and the colors ran white...                                  
                                  
Then, against the day I lost sight                                  
                                
There were tones that pleaded for limpidness in a Saturn concerto.                                  
                                  
                                  
| Dragonfly |                                  
                                  
What is it that you cannot touch...                    
that we have found divine, and made pretty                   
by chiseled scars and auburn pain.                     
In honor.  Precedence to new ages...                    
They will not pass slowly, nor weep in vain,                   
for if the dragonfly told secrets to Saturn,                 
the precious moments, and all the tea cups...                 
would shatter to the ground in silence.      
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
Coda                                
                                
                                  
                                
Rita: if you were to live on another planet, which one and why?                                  
                                  
Jack: I'd only consider living on another planet if I came down with a terminal illness. Then I'd choose to go to Mars because it's within the realm of possibility now (look up Mars One Project). And why? Because instead of agonizing over an intractable problem, I'd rather spend the last days of my life expanding my bounded rationality as much as I can.                                      
                                  
Rita: what is your ideal leisure afternoon?                                  
                                  
Jack: singing Star Spangled Banner over the microphone in the middle of Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on 4th of July with people singing along followed by a discussion on The Pursuit of Happiness.                                  
                                  
Rita: what is your most marked characteristic?                                  
                                  
Jack: refusal of defeat and straightforwardness but since there is no such thing as a "well-rounded character" until one self-actualizes; I have to come back to that question with a different answer at different points in time as I get to know myself further and further.                                  
                                  
Rita: who is your ideal partner in life?                                  
                                  
Jack: one that rouses my jaded appetites to fever pitch.                                  
                                  
Rita: what is your motto?                                  
                                  
Jack: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
                                  
Jack: define innocence.                                  
                                  
Rita: Anything that is not premeditated and has gone unthought-of, and then with the element of, now, caught in blindsidedness…therein lies innocence. It starts with the thought that you thought you might know something, but it comes to an end from within, and admitting that you knew nothing at all.                                  
                                  
Jack: name any counterweights you employ against the cognizance and fear of time and death.                                  
                                  
Rita: I think that we all need outlets.  I write about life, and I continue to learn from it. Everyone has pain and fear from time to time.  I’ve learned forgiveness.  Pain has nothing, and then all to do with forgiveness.  I know about opinions.  My spiritual self is important to me – it somehow knows me, without being told who.  I’ve been the same person forever – my core beliefs have never changed, but in writing and learning and reaching out in those times that I do not let the fear overcome me, I’ve learned a different language to speak it.  For me, life is wonderful and beautiful, but life is painful at times, and so I take those risks to release it.  Just letting go of something without knowing what it is that you’re letting go of, or ever knowing why.                                  
                                  
                                  
   
Jack: if you came down with a terminal illness, how would you choose to go?                                  
                                  
Rita: I’ve always been a thrill seeker.  The higher the better is my motto.  If I had that once in a lifetime chance to see Earth – this beautiful marvel of Cerulean blue suspended in the darkness of the magnetosphere; I would fly to the moon for the chance at the sight of it.  And I’d die kicking and screaming with my moon boots on just for another glimpse of the magnificence.   And so just put me on the ISS till I die of enchantment. Life is terminal.  Enjoy the view.                                  
                                  
Jack: does "judge not lest ye be judged" ring true for you?                                  
                                  
Rita: Judging is the normal capacity of our brains; it’s what we do.  There is a certain judgment that is taught, one that is always sizing the others around you.                                  
There is the sizing ups of the environment around us – this is completely normal but if all one does is stand back and judge others, because that’s what was taught to them,                                    
it makes them self-conscious and their own gift overlooked.                                  
                                                                      
                                                                 ____                                  
                                
                                  
(1) Inspired by the opening illustration of Honoré de Balzac's 1841 novel Catherine de Medici 1898 edition, translated by Clara Bell;                                  
                                  
The illustration depicts someone at the door against an ominous backdrop. On the opposite page there is inscribed: “I am Chaudieu”. Chaudieu is a character in the novel but it's pronounced like shadow so I read a double meaning into it                                    
                                  
+ Iconicity is a portmanteau of icon and synchronicity. Chaudieu is the icon and indeed the unseen audience or daemon with which I relate, coexist and develop, hence synchronicity.                                    
                                  
+ Touching orations: more than one person saying the same thing throughout history; one generation to the next, like a meme. It is the transfer of ideas that spread and are evolving throughout ages. It has to do with delivering a message to mankind; but the message does get lost.                                    
                                  
There always have been famous orations delivered till either the principle was exhausted or the strength. I believe it was William Pitt who upon refusal to negotiate with France in his tenure as the British prime minister spoke these words in the House of Commons:                                    
                                  
They (orations/ messages to mankind) are messengers of chance in that someone might hear them.                                  
                                  
(2) Reference to Frank Norris's 1903 novel The Pit: A Story of Chicago from The Epic of The Wheat trilogy.                                    
                                  
(3) Endearing for frogs.                                    
                                  
(4) Play on Edgar Allan Poe's Raven:                                    
                                  
Vainly had I sought to borrow                                    
from my books surcease of sorrow.                                  
                                  
(5) Reference to the Proverbs of Hell from William Blake's 1793 Bible The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.                                    
                                  
(6) Reference to an argument I had with a Christian zealot.                                    
Jan 4, 2014, Caracas, Venezuela. That particular day I was feeling chipper and I happened to be in a church and that was enough for the choir she-boon to assume and obtrude that I was feeling good because I'd placed my trust in Jesus.                                        
                                  
(7) A friend who needs you is no friend but a beggar of attention and affection.                                  
A friend who only takes you seriously or cares about you when you're in need is no friend but a bleeding heart.                                    
A friend is someone who doesn't need you, nor does he/ she want to be needed by you.                                  
A friend is someone whose company is so congenial you can relate to them even in their absence by remembering the thoughts they left you with.                                      
                                  
(8) Inspired by Bertrand Russell's 1903 essay A Free Man's Worship:                                    
                                  
The slave is doomed to worship Time and Fate and Death,                                    
because they are greater than anything he finds in himself,                                    
and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.                                    
                                  
The only certain things in life are time and death, everything else is arbitrary, negotiable or alienable. The fear of time and death weighs heavy on the mind and unless you employ the counterweight of copiousness, you're bound to die a thousand times before you die.                                      
                                  
(9) Catechism: a collection of questions and answers for religious indoctrination.                                    
                                  
Example:                                    
                                  
Q-What is the chief end of human life?                                    
A-To know and serve god.                                    
                                  
Philosophy is posing the right questions and since religion is philosophy with the questions left out, there can never be any questions in any catechism, only loaded questions which play on one's moral dilemmas, fears, insecurities and lack of knowledge and ready-made answers for the sole purpose of intimidation and submission and bullshit.                                    
Bullshit is what appears to be food for thought and it's so involved that unless you're in absolute command of your intellectual faculties; you won't be able to dismiss it as bullshit.                                      
Example: the chief end of human life is to know and serve god.                                    
Because you're afraid of death, you're inclined to think that if you make a pact with god, an exception would be made in your case and you would be reanimated beyond grave and that's the sole function of religion… play on your fears.                                    
Now the best way to detect and dismiss bullshit is to measure it against Lex Parsimoniae or Ockham's Razor which says in the absence of certainty, the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.                                  
                                  
(10) Reference to Jerome David Salinger's 1951 novel the Catcher in the Rye.                                    
                                  
(11) Reference to Ernest Hemingway's 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms.                                    
                                  
(12) Reference to Marquis De Sade and his latter life in Charenton lunatic asylum in the early 1800's in Saint-Maurice, France.                                    
                                  
(13) Reference to Julia Fischer and Mari Samuelsen, German and Norwegian violin virtuosi respectively + reference to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (Le Quattro Stagioni), third movement of Summer: Presto also known as Vivaldi's Storm.                                    
                                  
(14) Reference to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, third Memorable Fancy:                                    
                                  
The man who never alters his opinion                                    
is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.                                    
                                
                                  
____                                  
                                  
                                  
Opus of Encounter is the result of an extensive correspondence between Jack and I over a period of 26 days from May 17 to June 11, 2014.