Constantly risking absurdity
                              and death
      whenever he performs above the heads
                                   of his audience
  the poet like an acrobat
                     climbs on rime
                         to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
                        above a sea of faces
               paces his way
                             to the other side of day
      performing entrechats
                           and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
                 and all without mistaking
      any thing
                 for what it may not be
    For he's the super realist
                       who must perforce perceive
          taut truth
                    before the taking of each stance or step
   in his supposed advance
                       toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
                         with gravity
                            to start her death-defying leap
     And he
           a little charleychaplin man
                                  who may or may not catch
              her fair eternal form
                            spreadeagled in the empty air
               of existence

What society thinks of as reality today is the hypnosis of social conditioning, an induced fiction in which we are all collectively participating. It is the melodrama of a humdrum existence, filled with trite obsessions and trivial pursuits, wherein our only fate is to be born, grow old, and die.

If we could just realize it, the keys to the miracle of life lie in our own consciousness.

It is our destiny to play an infinity of roles; we wear social masks in the drama of life, and it is in this sacrifice of the self for the self-image, the sacrifice of the spirit for the ego, that time is born.

The wizard knows that beyond the burden of memory and judgement lies the ocean of universal consciousness. We are as ripples in this vast ocean, and we have access to the totality of its infinite knowledge.

We are a conglomeration of ambiguities, an agglutination of different archetypal energies, where the sacred and the profane, the divine and he diabolical, the sinner and the saint all coexist.

There are so many personalities inside us all, competing for the use of this one body. It may be our destiny to play an infinity of roles, but we are not the roles we are playing.

Life is magical, mysterious, wondrous, and miraculous. Lose the magic, and you lose life. It becomes dull and joyless. When you have flashes of wonder, that is the wizard's touch. The worst curse to befall anyone is stagnation, a banal existence, the quiet desperation that comes out of a need for conformity.

There's a vulture over our culture
and the pigments in our hides
hang down their shades
thinking the odor of menudo
will keep them away.

The mashing of frijoles
for a thousand years will remind you
of the daily grind of finding and feeding
them clay pellets to your children.

The tortilla will survive
as our holy communion
and our daily bread,
but I fear for the tostada
for already she is hailed
as an open face taco.

El chile pica o no pica
and now we have
mild, medium, hot and very hot.

And I saw gluttonous bodies
protruding from empty hamburger boxes
that lived less than a blink
and now blighten my way.

And a yellow ribbon
proclaims the sales
of six billion
synthetic xerox hamburgers
with computerizd french fries.

And man became dogs' best friend
so they ate better than half the world
chunks of beef, protein and vitamin
for a healthier bow-wow.

So I think of our culture
and the neighborhood
leaving something to be desired.

The canned tamales came
wrapped in wax paper
because too many people
ate the corn husk,
with a knife and fork, no less.

The taco bell rang three times
and three times I denied their food
fearing they were xerox copies
and still some called it spanish food.

Then someone asked
where the best Mexican food was served
and I kept quiet thinking of the house
and th home that desired
something to be left.

We used to beat-box
the crews flew
in flocks to jock
a party

Infantile smile reflected
in kitchen tiles
as miles of shell tops
rushed the door

Pleading with older seeds
need to feed on graffiti fied
beat sneaking from home
just to smell base
Brothers broke beats to
complete melodic erotics
measuring reach of
head bobs where dreads
fled the scene
and suede heads lost penitentiary sheen

Industry artificially inseminating
mainstream semen up
the crotch of hiphop so to
subdue we drank
40 ounces of syncopated Similac