(Listen to "A Practical Treatise...")
A Practical Treatise On
Surviving Svadisthana
Unsubtle Svadisthana, that temptress, shameless vixen
Untroubled primadonna, High Empress of Addiction
Enrapturing with sirens’ entreaties sung with scented
prana
Encapturing with wires discreetly strung with floral
fauna
For fools saving sweetly her promises of love
From her jeweled cave obliquely lighted from above
Not innocent, but blameless—acquitted by aesthetes;
Her filament, while flameless, emitting light and heat
Where cultivating clarity would exercise futility—
A self-indulgent charity of imminent senility,
Like trying to find the forest behind all those trees
And then remind the florist the reason for the bees;
Her beauty, grace, and elegance refined to the
exquisite,
An alchemic brace of elements, combined to make a
visit
With neither clear beginning, nor middle, nor end
Rather, ever-cheerful spinning of her riddles that
tend
Toward suspicious implication of the spiritually
satirical
Suggesting exploration of a theory holding miracles
Beyond concatenation listing serial empiricals
And vexing integration of ethereal materials
So obvious she obviates, a pane of frosted glass
That foggy mist that implicates while plainly sneaking
past
Assertions independent are absorbed and briefly chewed
Their gustatory relevance somewhat less than food
The fuel of choice instead is movement
That fluid voice whose sole improvement
Is rhythm and meter, the pace of the beat
The treble in tweeter, the bass at your feet
The sound of the motion, the song of the tribe
The pound of the ocean, the throng of the vibe
Where it can be lonely to mark your own stride
But if you are only along for the ride,
Relinquish the reins, steer
clear of the lever,
Extinguish your flame for fear it will sever
Your link to the game, you surely will never
Distinguish the pain from ultimate pleasure
For agony and ecstasy are sisters in extremes
Dragon’s wings of symmetry, the twisting on a theme
But magic is what magic does, and agency is key
Organic shifts, titanic shoves, creativity.
The mistress pays respect to only those who
orchestrate
And interplay, injecting tonal flows to syncopate.
The energy’s available, the instrument is free
The answer’s unassailable: The aegis falls on thee.
Strike the chord.
Be the source, then blow a kiss to Luck
Fill your gourd.
Channel the force. Follow your
bliss. Conduct!