{"id":1334,"date":"2014-02-05T14:21:37","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T19:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1334"},"modified":"2014-02-05T14:25:28","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T19:25:28","slug":"poem-tao-plunges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/05\/poem-tao-plunges\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: As The Tao Plunges"},"content":{"rendered":"

As The Tao Plunges<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I seek boundless horizons
\nBeyond what can be billed
\nWhat you can have
\nFore walls
\nNo bull work
\nA retainer for passable living
\nA cistern to dammed dreams
\nReining upon you
\nOnly knot to be brothered with
\nAs some look out
\nYour winnows
\nPunctuating all that you can
\nA fort
\nOut to sea
\nA veritable glass menagerie
\nTo one’s peers
\nPipe dreams
\nLeading too
\nA fire place
\nYour hanker chief
\nScant comfort you
\nAs most daze
\nFacing a cold hearth
\nAn exhausting flue
\nAnd ashen remains
\nYet why carp it
\nWhen you can have
\nYour Parkay\u00ae floors
\nFor butter or worse
\nAs you slip
\nPitter pottering a bout
\nYour life cast
\nDangerously close to kiln
\nFor my ran some
\nI seek the earth’s bounty
\nTo rise up
\nTo meet my feat
\nAnd when I fall
\nI shall look up
\nSharing a ceiling with the stars
\nNo guise worrying
\nA bout some prostrate iffy canopy
\nFor without
\nYou might lose your marble’s
\nStony ledges looking good
\nAs the Tao plunges
\nAnd to the great abyss plumb it
\nTo one’s own depth
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

This poem explores the relationship between the commonplace cubicles of the workplace, both literally and figuratively, and the great abyss singing its siren song, daring skilled sailors to plumb it, risking one’s own depth.\u00a0 A life, well, lived, requires effort.\u00a0 Beyond that, I’m not a big fan of work.\u00a0 This is particularly true in modern America, pawning itself off as the pinnacle of Western civilization.\u00a0 You’d think that the timeless questions of humanity had been answered once and for all, and all that you had to do is buy (and sell) one of the many great brands available.\u00a0 Well, in my book, brands are for cattle.\u00a0 Plus, my preference for vegetarianism leaves me with little use for cattle — or sheep — or chickens.\u00a0 These days, people expend huge amounts of energy, and cash, to dress themselves up with others’ brands, defining themselves by what they own — or what owns them — by what they consume — or by what consumes them!\u00a0 The fact that many people will pay extra for essentially advertising another’s brand shows the vacuousness of our own unique lives.\u00a0 Gee, at least get paid to be a walking billboard.\u00a0 And as I like to say, if you are going to sell yourself, at least get a good price!\u00a0 It seems that living vicariously through someone else’s image, identity, celebrity, or sheer familiarity in pop culture, commands more value than undamming our own dreams.<\/p>\n

The Tao is a masterful critique of the superficial.\u00a0 The Tao in Chinese history and culture plays, perfectly synchronously with itself, a balancing role in contrast to Confucianism with its focus on set rules, set roles, and the centrality of propriety.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Western civilization suffers from the worst of both worlds.\u00a0 Modern America lacks both the harmony and balance of the Tao, and suffers a sociopathy, even nihilism, that Confucianism holds in check.\u00a0 Perhaps America can harness its restlessness to throw off the dehumanizing forces of greed and undue focus on economic necessity.\u00a0 The Tao offers a vision of the rest that gives rise to all.\u00a0 The Tao is more than serendipitously short.\u00a0 The Tao is concise, poetic, and sparse on words precisely because reality and relentlessly emerging life cannot be reduced to any imperial plan assuring a particular outcome.\u00a0 It surely cannot be reduced to a brand!\u00a0 The awesome abundance of nature’s bounty and the beautiful openness of human experience invites us, even begs us, into continual re-birth and re-creation.\u00a0 All of creation groans for our freedom and participation in its bounty.\u00a0 So, if it should seem that your life is ever in the toil it, be mindful as the Tao plunges, bypassing technological fixes and vexations, your dammed dreams may very well be unplugged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As The Tao Plunges I seek boundless horizons Beyond what can be billed What you can have Fore walls No bull work A retainer for passable living A cistern to dammed dreams Reining upon you Only knot to be brothered … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[503,536,572,563,294,400,537,573,576,574,516,88,538,393,577,428,115,117,446,431,559,305,578,579,359,475,438,548,379,467,658,291,94,90,490,544,601,260,600,226,575,320,529,371,179,85,380,583],"class_list":["post-1334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-abundance","tag-abyss","tag-advertising","tag-america","tag-awe","tag-balance","tag-beautiful","tag-celebrity","tag-confucianism","tag-creation","tag-culture","tag-dehumanizing","tag-dream","tag-dreams","tag-economic","tag-experience","tag-freedom","tag-greed","tag-harmony","tag-heart","tag-history","tag-humanity","tag-identity","tag-image","tag-life","tag-logic","tag-mind","tag-modern","tag-nature","tag-nihilism","tag-poems","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-pop-culture","tag-propriety","tag-questions","tag-reality","tag-risk","tag-rules","tag-sociopathy","tag-superficial","tag-tao","tag-time","tag-timeless-question","tag-vegetarianism","tag-western-civilization","tag-work","tag-workplace"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: As The Tao Plunges | Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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