Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify.
The good artist is a vehicle of truth, he/she formulates ideas which would otherwise remain vague and focuses attention upon facts which can no longer be ignored.

The Inferno is a picture of human society in a state of futility and corruption, lack of living faith, loose morality, greedy consumption, financial irresponsibility and uncontrolled bad temper; a self-opinionated and obstinate individualism; violence, sterility, and lack of reverence for life and property including one’s own; exploitation of sex, the commercialization of religion, the pandering to superstition and conditioning of people’s minds by mass hysteria and spell-binding of all kinds, venality and string pulling in public affairs, hypocrisy, intellectual and material dishonesty, fomenting discord (class against class,nation against nation) for profit, the falsification and corruption of all means of communication; the exploitation of the lowest and stupidest mass-emotions; treachery even to the fundamental of kinship, country, the chosen friend, and the sworn allegiance: these are all-too recognisable stages that lead to the cold death of society and the extinguishing of all civilised relations.

Francisco X. Alarcon, Chicano poet, professor, critic and editor.
A man of gentle revolutionary nature, loyal friend and authentic sincere writer.
He was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, and now lives in the life to come.
Whatever you are now my friend poet, I love and miss you Francisco. Hector Ahumada.

FROM “OF DARK LOVE” by Francisco X. Alarcon
I
there has never been a sun for this love,
lie crazed flower it buds in the dark,
is at once a crow of thorns and
a garland of spring around temples

a fire, a wound, the bitterest fruit,
but also breeze and water-source,
a bite to the soul – your breath,
a treetruk in the current – your chest

make me walk over turbid waters,
be the ax that breaks this lock,
the dew that weeps from trees

if I become mute kissing your thighs
it is that my heart is eagerly searching
your flesh for a new dawning

I observe the image
of a lower back x-ray.
The vertebral bodies
are deformed and osteoporotic.
It is the lumbar spine
of a Russian construction worker.
The patient’s translator says
that I look like Engels,
“The philosopher, you know.”

I look at the radiograph again
and imagine the man
pouring cement
among the noises of hammers,
saws and engines.
After work
he whistles and smokes a cigarette
on his way home.

Then, like in the cinema
about a trillion synchronized moving parts
to the past life of the worker
spark action in the mind.
I do not ask questions.
The old man is proud of his pain.
I have no control of the mind.
So I continue the vision.

A series of stereotyped
images of Russia.
From airline posters, stamps,
and ruble bills.
At this moment the mind
suggests the abolition
of all forms of the word
“is” or “to be.”

The narration is fragile,
inconsistent and confused.
It is hard to listen
without prejudice.
So, I sit in front of an image
that appears to be a lower back x-ray of a man,
possible a Russian construction worker.

“IT IS BETTER TO OFFER NO EXCUSE THAN A BAD ONE.”

My heart has become able
To take on all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles,
For monks, an abbey.

It is a temple for idols
And for whoever circumvent it, the Kaaba.
It is the tablets of the Torah
And also the pages of the Koran!

I believe in the religion
Of Love
Whatever direction its caravans may take,
For love is my religion and my faith.

IBN ‘ARABI, was born in Andalusia and lived between 1165 and 1240.

“Human beings are highly predictable as physicochemical systems; less so as living bodies; much less so as conscious beings; and hardly at all as self-aware persons. The reason for this unpredictability lies in the nature of freedom. In the face of freedom, “knowledge for manipulation” is impossible, but “knowledge for understanding” is indispensable.”

“In the absence of sustained study of such unscientific questions as:
What is the meaning and purpose of man’s existence?
What is good and what is evil?
What are man’s absolute rights and duties?
A civilization will necessarily and inescapably sink ever more deeply into anguish, despair and loss of freedom. Its people will suffer a steady decline in health and happiness, no matter how high may be their standard of living or how successful…”

You were here in the earth – in cities –
now you are not.
Where are you ?
Bones in the ground,
thoughts in my mind.

Sad Dust Glories.
Poems written
work summer
in sierra woods

” I have no difficulty about enhancing memory. Removing memory is more complicated… to go into your head and pluck out a memory of unfortunate love experience, that is a bad idea. You know, in the end, we are who we are. We are all part of what we have experienced…Would I have liked to have had the Viennese [Holocaust] experience removed from me? No! And it was horrible. But it shapes you.”

From Trauma and Memory – Peter A. Levine, PhD

” Bhikkhus, there are countless philosophies, doctrines, and theories in this world. People criticize each other and argue endlessly over their theories. According to my investigation, there are sixty-two main theories which underline the thousand of philosophies and religions current in our world. Looked at from the Way of Enlightenment and Emancipation, all sixty-two of these theories contain errors and create obstacles.”
The Buddha proceeded to explain the sixty-two theories and expose their errors…