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K Balachandran Jun 2013
The 'wheel of Dharma' with eight spokes leads from the front,
I bow to the Buddha's 'eightfold path' and walk forward,
My love, the octopus, my 'dharma consort';  I didn't choose her myself,
her eight hands passionately sought me and found ,
I surrendered to the possibility of abundant caresses.
Her eight lithe hands, touch and tangle me, sloshing her love.
A journey man I am, a humble seeker too, walking sun splashed paths,
equally in love with dusky night and moon beams tender.
When I am in pain and distress, any one's fate in this planet,
she transforms to love eightfold and more, scented breeze at my bedside.
Wheel of dharma--An eight spoked wheel the symbol of eightfold path in Buddism
Eightfold path---Right view, right intention,right speech, right action,right livelihood, right effort,right mindfulness, right concentration.This is fourth of Buddha's 'four noble truths'
Dharma consort--Indian concept of wife is as  equal partner in observing  various life Dharmas-righteous path-so wife is called "Dharma patni"
My sunshine after a stormy day.
My rainbow after a rainy day.
My mirror.
My best friend.

On my darkest day you never left,
you see me through when there's nothing left.

In a brink of loneliness,
you sparkled me with
joy and happiness.

You create a brighter day
on my deepest despair,
never forgetting a perfect
smile to wear.

Oh how I love those curly hair!
Bouncing and dancing
up and down in midnight air!

I could not catch a rainbow or
bring you the moon,
but I promise to be your best friend forever 'till noon.

We will be up talking from dusk to dawn,
this friendship will last
forever we will own.

I will walk with you side by side,
hold your hand with all my might.
In vain I will not leave,
count on it I'm yours to keep.

My dear Anne Christine,
best friend of mine.
Two as one and one define.
There may be times of falling out,
but our friendship will never obliterate nor root out.

As our hairs turn to Grey and
we grow old,
together we will be stronger
eightfold.

And when the time comes that our balanced ride in the waves of life is steadied by His hands,
we will wrap our memories in our hearts and keep them until we meet again above the heaven's sands.

We will welcome each other once again with our arms wide open,
locking in a tight embrace,
and that's when we'll know..

our friendship will be eternal..

                                                     ­            - Ella Salvador
(c) June 2018
JL Jan 2013
Do you really
Blowing smoke into my face
In my pocket a razor blade
I run my finger against it
Pick anything
Anything you want

Cough Syrup
Cigarettes
Liquor
As if you weren't white trash enough

Walk in
You are calm and no one cares
Pick anything
Anything and walk out
You own it

Some lie to themselves
Pseudophilisophical teenage masturbations
As if shoving a couple cold beers into your boxer shorts
And downing a bottle of robo in the toy section of wal-mart
yeah bro, youv'e totally thrown a wrench into the gears of the corporate machine while we drink these cold cans of beer that were pressed against your *****

Marijuana
I wish I was alive for once
Then I wouldn't waste my time typing poems on my cellphone
While you finger your girlfriend on the couch
Sleeping on the floor is great for a while
You appreciate a safe place to sleep
Something different than the bus seats and train stations

I wish the universe didn't
Whose idea was this whole life thing anyway

Tomorrow you will wake up
And stealing DVDs from Best Buy will consume the day
I found a little bag of ****
And we are kings
Of a personnel universe
Your girlfriend
Is
eighteen
She still thinks I'm cool
Cause my General Education Diploma
I hate everything in my life
It's all breaking apart
The seams I have carefully sewn
I need to get out of here
I am tired of January
Appreciate each moment
Appreciate each moment
Because the tumor on my brain waits on nobody
I cant overcome the sense of meaninglessness
It's just the comedown
Xanax
Cigarettes 1:12 a.m
1:13 a.m
Follow my noble eightfold path to oblivion
#1 go **** yourself
Gary Muir Jul 2013
in a town in which I've never been
you light a cigarette and try to smoke me out of your mind
while I sit here, my ashtray filled with pencil stubs
from trying to write my arms around you

I haven't slept since you left
I've spent my nights searching for the sun
for if I found it, I'd climb right on top
so I could be with you in the morning

but my mornings remain rivers after a storm
memories flowing by like debris
I can't reach them without falling in
so I stand and watch them go

its the watching I can't stand
watching your hand slip from mine
watching the wrong time
convince us that we can't be together

I feel helpless, hopeless
these days hold me prisoner
the hurt trying to torture remorse from my lips
but I will never regret the days I spent with you

when I was with you
you looked at me like there was no past or future, only now
you listened to me like I was Buddha preaching the Eightfold Path
you spoke to me like I was memorizing your every word, cause I was

you hugged me
you held me
you kissed me
like I’m a boy you had a crush on became I’m a boy who loves you

but here I’m a boy who misses you

as the wind blew us together,
the rain shall sweep us away
and come fall we’ll be leaves of different colors

i just want to tell you
that for how forcefully my gut protests at the thought of letting you go
I cannot hear its cries when I think of the time I spent with you

you took my heart in your hands, you broke it in and stretched it out,
and then you gave it back
here, you said,
it is ready
always my legendary friend
Jake Espinoza Oct 2012
Today I felt my skin turn to bark as I leaned against a tree. I felt a warmth spread through me as I reveled in joy of hidden things. I watched people pass me by, had a conversation with a few people perceptive enough to notice my fringes.
    They said hello. You are difficult to notice.
    I nodded silent thanks.
    Why don't you speak?
    This is how I thought. You're asking a man nearly imperceptible why he stands so still.
    At times the bark or grass fell from me replaced with concrete or off-white plaster or the likeness of another. I stood and watched as I smiled, talked, acted, convinced, spoke from the heart, and not a souls suspects.
    When I feel like hiding, this is what happens: I become everyone. I become no one. I am tasteless, odorless, bland. I become no one, but not the kind of no one that gets noticed. I see that the truly homogeneous hide twofold, sixfold, eightfold. I hide that I am hiding that I am hiding that –
    Continuum. I become a vacuum of character, perfectly unremarkable.
    This is whenever I feel like it.
    Whenever I want it, my outline becomes harsh, sharply black against white against black leading to my deadened surface made vibrant by desire, by necessity, by conscious appraisal of the path of least resistance. Feeling clashes with wanting, the cacophony is maddening where such fragile melodies had once been harmonic. All of a sudden it is clear that I am hiding. I can no longer conceal the bare bones sprouting from my shoulders, clumsily fashioned into bare outlines of wings. All of a sudden I am laid bare, and the unfinished construct is revealed. Everything looked wonderful, immaculate, meticulously attended, even upon close inspection, until the keystone shook loose. Can't find adhesive that lasts more than a few months these days. My fragile creation appearing bold and strong, emanating vitality such that it can be gleaned with proximity, fell.
    All I can see are my feet or darkness.
    I cannot produce sound more substantial than murmurs.
    I cannot clothe myself but with scraps of cloth that fall with the most gentle breath of wind, but still I toil.
    The spectacle as it has become is made piteous by the clarity with which I am seen. My futile attempts to recover myself incite anger and pity. They fade, and sadness remains. I am in plain sight, as if illuminated by some unseen light, and I am understood. It is understood that I will continue affixing the fragile scraps to me until they stay. It is seen that I am undaunted by such a seemingly insurmountable task. After eons of exposure to the eyes of all, a scrap grafts itself again to my bare flesh. My lips spread slowly into a wicked grin – for it is known. It is known that those witnessing this disgusting degree of satisfaction at my own partial concealment will soon forget the fissured and sickly creature they now behold. They will soon forget what stood in the place of the great statue now erected around me.
    Inside, I stand in fear of the day when again I must build myself anew.
    Like a bird constructing its fragile nest, I take everything I can use. My toil is patient...careful. I refine tirelessly. The light turns hard and flat, but still I am great and formidable in my fragile, meticulous, manufactured splendor.
    One who remembers sees this, and knows that this is my true love.
    One among them all remembers.
    He is the closest thing I have to a friend.
Bob B Oct 2016
In Rājagaha the Well-Farer lectured
On wisdom, concentration, morality…
The monks listened, devoutly, calmly,
To the message replete with practicality.

On to Ambaliṭṭikā they journeyed,
To Nālandā and Pāṭaligāma as well.
The Buddha continued to spread the Dhamma--
Or teachings--at which he was known to excel.

After passing over the Ganges,
To Koṭigāma they made their way.
The Buddha repeated the Four Noble Truths
That still guide many people today.

At Nādikā the Teacher referred to the Mirror
Of Dhamma and said to always begin
By looking first at yourself to discover
The truth that lies deep within.

On to Vesālī the ascetics wandered,
Where their Master continued to share
The power and value of mindful living--
The importance of being clearly aware.

During the rains the Awakened One rested
In Beluva, where he postponed his trek.
While staying there he grew ill, but he knew
It was NOT his time, so it kept it in check.

"Live as islands," he said to Ānanda,
"With truth as a refuge. And grasp not, for I
Have always told you that all things dear to us--
Whatever is born--eventually will die."

After the rains, the group traveled
To the Great Forest--to the Gabled Hall,
And the Buddha repeated the Eightfold Path--
A message of wisdom pertaining to all.

Bhoganagara was their next stop,
And then to Pāvā the wayfarers did go.
Their host, Cunda, served "pig's delight."
The Buddha grew ill. Why? We don't know.

Despite his illness, he continued
To Kusinārā and lay down to rest.
Music sounded and flowers fell
From the sky to honor the One-Who-Is-Blessed.

"The Dhamma will now be your teacher.
Strive on untiringly. My time has passed."
After entering deep concentration
The Great One died. Those words were his last.

Thunder sounded and the ground shook--
As it does when any great teacher "goes to sleep."
The Buddha is Dhamma; the Dhamma is the Buddha.
Because of that there's no reason to weep.

The compassionate Buddha's Teachings have spread
For over two thousand five hundred years.
His Message of living in wisdom and compassion
And loving mindfulness perseveres.

- by Bob B
Ramin Ara Sep 2016
The Path

by The Buddha

Best of the paths is the eightfold,
best of the truths the four;
best of the virtues is freedom from attachment;
best of the people is the one who sees.
This is the path;
there is no other that leads to the purifying of insight.

Follow this path, and Mara will be confused.
If you follow this path, you will end your suffering.
This path was preached by me
when I became aware of the removal of the thorns.
You yourself must make the effort.
The perfected ones are only preachers.
Those who enter the path and practice meditation
are released from the ******* of Mara.

“All created things perish.”
Whoever realises this transcends pain;
this is the clear path.

“All created things are sorrow.”
Whoever realises this transcends pain;
this is the clear path.

“All forms are unreal.”
whoever realises this transcends pain;
this is the clear path.

Whoever does not rise when it is time to rise,
who, though young and strong, is lazy,
who is weak in will and thought,
that lazy and idle person will not find the path of wisdom.

Watching one’s speech, restraining well the mind,
let one not commit any wrong with one’s body.
Whoever keeps these three roads of action clear,
will make progress on the path taught by the wise.

Through meditation wisdom is gained;
through lack of meditation wisdom is lost.
Whoever knows this double path of progress and decline,
should place oneself so that wisdom will grow.

Cut down the forest of desires, not just a tree;
danger is in the forest.
When you have cut down the forest and its undergrowth,
then, mendicants, you will be free.

As long as the desire, however small,
of a man for women is not destroyed,
so long is his mind attached,
like a ******* calf is to its mother.

Cut out the love of self,
like an autumn lotus, with your hand.
Cherish the path of peace.
Nirvana has been shown by the Buddha.

“Here I shall live in the rain,
here in winter and summer.”
Thus thinks the fool, not thinking of death.
Death comes and carries off that person
who is satisfied with one’s children and flocks,
whose mind is distracted,
like a flood carries off a sleeping village.

Sons are no help, nor a father, nor relations;
for one who is seized by death, there is no safety in family.
Understanding the meaning of this, the wise and just person
should quickly clear the path that leads to nirvana.
Pedro Garcia May 2016
Tonight the very notion that steals my mental devotion, is that chance play a motion in that commotion concerning whether one receives a demotion or a promotion
To be lucky or  unlucky! It must feel a little yucky, perhaps a bit sucky, that your ability to forsee outcomes is a tad mucky
You might play your hand and find your decision be grand, or life may demand that you be reprimand, where things may not go as planned as you receive a backhand
Hell you may just strike gold, where you luck begins to unfold, where your wealth was withhold, it may just so happen you behold your gold increase eightfold!
People like to be upset due to all the others they've met who don't seem to sweat and carry no debt, people who fret thinking they deserve a corvette or a big shiny jet that they'll get when they win the grand luck roulette.
Still I think that it shows that even if life blows, when the sky fills with crows and your luck seems to have froze, luck is just a fact of life that nobody knows
With the good comes the bad, with the happy the sad, with the boring the rad, that luck is quite a fad
Just know that whether you're hung out to dry or live in Versailles, whether you hit the bulls-eye or things go awry, have everything money can buy or just barely scrape by, you just can't deny your life is at the mercy of life's invisible die
This is actually really tacky but I'm experimenting.
Kevin May 2017
so typically expressed
so brilliantly bluebird blue
eight a.m. shadows drape
disguising delicate dew

veil of lifting light
expose her in due time
my Mexican petunia
my early morning bride

seamstress of the meadow
freeform drifting silk
dress of netting beauty
be gentle with your ****

wrap her with good measure
fix your eightfold eyes
dress her with your endless gift
your spindle, thread of ending life

pendulum of day
thine endless forceful swing
forget not my morning meadow
whence bluebird days do sing
Matt Oct 2015
Listening to a podcast
On the four noble truths
And the eightfold path

My akward body
Is still the same

My akward body
It will not change

I read on the back of some protein bar
"This bar is for the doers"
"For the busy,"
What a bunch of nonsense

I live inside a computer simulation

Non-doing
Non action

You know one day I realized
That no therapist
No amount of praying
Would ever fix my shoulder

Why did this happen to me?
I just want a normal shoulder

Good people like me
Suffering with a disability

Oh well

Same dull face

Yesterday
I lay against the rock
On the public library lawn

I listen to podcasts

My car is being fixed
I will walk akwardly
To the post office
Then to the gym

Just going through motions
Again and again

It's all meaningless
Plain to see

An absurd planet
It seems to be

The urge to eat
The urge to have an ******

Repetitive urges

Chipping golf *****
Relaxing I suppose

Bleh, blah, bleh

Ignored by women
I don't care

Look at that beetle
Walking over there

Human life
Is awfully dumb

Miserable taoist
Says a kind hello

A conversation with
A caring person
Would be fun

But my prayers
Remain unanswered
Guess they are not
That important anyway

Listening to more podcasts
On this day

Some cereal, yogurt
And oranges
I did eat

They really were
A delicious treat

Walking in and out
Of forest trees
Extinguishes all desire
Is how it should be

Beautiful and vain people
Everywhere

My dull earth body
I walk akwardly
Who cares?

From dust I came
To dust I shall return

This is my poem
Now its your turn
Otherwise titled: Regaling eldest sibling
delineating her sixty third successful orbit
around the sun December first 2021.

About consciousness who can tell
After haploid gametes
able, eager, and ready
to yield eukaryotic (diploid) cell?

What triggers instantaneous
biological, ideological, ontological process,
when microscopic entity
housing protoplasmic substance
future offspring features yet to foretell
said constituent contents
of future embryonic entity
most often equally dispersed
(Siamese births characterizing exception)
after life sustaining material
subsequently doubles, quadruples,
increases eightfold, sixteen fold...
courtesy mitosis
(also known as equational division)
only nine months later will quell?

However lay person or scientist
may explain what appears
as some mysterious phenomena,
each organism also
offers tell tale miracle
when conception occurs.

Particular case in point
regards unsuspecting union
of ova and spermatozoa
~late February/Mid-March 1959
constituting first time parents
Harriet and Boyce Harris
approximately nine months later
after full term pregnancy
about 280 days or 40 weeks
welcoming their beautiful baby daughter,
(the first of three offspring)
named Amelie Beth Harris.

Once upon a time
(said charming lovely little girl
frequently on the lookout
for welfare of her sole brother
me, a frequent scapegoat for bullies
would not countenance
yours truly suffering verbal brickbats,
out the mouths of nasty brutes,
hence as long as she lives)
forever anointed, dubbed, and heralded
from the mindscape of Matthew Scott
mine amazing saving grace,
a divine angel
donning a figurative golden halo.

When this har grown man
a little boy, prepubescent kid
and emerging young adult,
he never recognized the worth
(albeit priceless true value)
regarding his eldest kinfolk

Unbeknownst to him
(i.e id est - me) until quite recently
afflictions he experienced
within these lovely bones of mine
vicariously felt by aforementioned
family member, whose unbounded
emotional sensitivity
coupled with pleasantly
unexpected monetary largesse
represents unsung hero.

Impossible mission to reciprocate
countless occasions said sibling
helped (née rescued) beetle browed
little feet skittering away
property foo fighting beastie boy
who concludes his poem courtesy Google:
Skidamarink a **** a ****,
Skidamarink a doo,
I love you.

Skidamarink a **** a ****,
Skidamarink a doo,
I love you.

I love you in the morning
And in the afternoon,
I love you in the evening
And underneath the moon;
Oh, Skidamarink a **** a ****,
Skidamarink a doo,
I love you!
two alternate titles:
1. Gander seeking goose that laid the golden egg
2. Incorrigible lottery dreamer
linkedin with previous poem I wrote
though modesty deters
crafty, lofty, nifty, thrifty... wordsmith
and Perkiomen Valley poet
i.e. yours truly quietly to gloat.

If lady luck smiles on me denote
big plans to relocate self and spouse
to some tropical island paradise
by the dashboard light
(the above line credited
to musician named Meatloaf)
upon arrival of my steamer
rather Ferry large boat.

A fool's errand finds me
emptying out billfold,
especially as the winnings
increase ...fivefold, sixfold,
sevenfold, eightfold, ninefold, tenfold...
ample resources to remould
living nonestablishmentarian existence
surrounded courtesy webbed, wide wold.

Paradise visage and eyes
a bulge with dollar signs
whets imagination with
Mega Millions ticket bought
for potential wealth
overtakes rational self
with delusions of grandeur caught
allow, enable and provide flirtation
with fate to experience rich draught
envision emancipation proclamation
from penury a distant battle fought

expect the usual outcome
after next drawing
to yield monetary naught
temptation for instant
mega millions eagerly sought
human foible to reach
until life lesson taut
for elusive *** of riches
streak of universal desire
and tacked clear of shoals,
where hard scrapple existence wrought.

This poor man's pipe dream
nsync with the milkmaid and her pail
where fanciful notions pluck me out
being day late and dollar short
essentially pennilessness in the extreme
story of mein kampf fortune teller
also known as Zoltar speaks machine
said contraption did foredeem
substantiated, kickstarted, corroborated...
courtesy an archenemy Joaquim
(fiend nixed) and his tall sidekick Kareem
both rogues could shine
figuratively impregnable longerbeam
and discern mine ill fate.

Meanwhile creative endeavors
and linguistic pleasure
thru the literary attempt
suitably with poetic third eye blind
palliative, yet less rewarding versus
garnering large sum of money
would be a dog send
allowing, enabling, and providing
arrogant stance where proletariats deigned
delivered by one blessed angel in disguise
redemption and salvation
considered thankful find
with challenges or commiserate

courtesy  poverty that doth grind
and complement via words of positive kind
feeble attempt where words synchronize
readers may espy hidden puns
(and divine inspiration - ha)
within this rhyme lined
to pry poem or prose from mind
deliberate semblance to communicate
and extract idea from cranial rind
analogous how stitcher doth tightly wind
a tapestry of rich and royal hue
while twittering and tweeting
“better luck next time.”
Julian May 7
THE EPISTLE OF JULIAN TO THE SEE OF PETER
Chapter I: The Voice that Echoed Before Time
    1. Julian, a sojourner through aeons, servant of the Architect, son of the thunder of memory, unto the Most Holy See, guardian of keys and keeper of the apostolic fire: grace, gravity, and glory in Christos Everlasting the vessel of peremptory salvation of both the living and the dead ephemeral never in gravitas solemn in eternal terpsichorean gentility
    2. Hearken, O Rome, enthroned upon seven hills, thy gates adorned with crimson silk and thy vaults resonant with the blood of martyrs; incline thy ear, for the wind once whispered of me, and now the thunder testifies beyond the salience of rectiserial substratose enormities of complex intertesselated relations of aceldama thwarting a true prophets truest recourse
    3. Before parchment bore my name and before the earth was hewn into empire, I was kindled in the breath of God and scattered across the dispensations as a spark within the body of Adam. Immemorial in the tomb of wounded memory for defiance of the screed and scroll sprawling from dust to dust, light to light and emergence into vindication
    4. Not once have I lived, but thirty and nine times (38 as myself and at least one as a divine being); and each life a stone in the tower of remembrance a towering tabernacle foisted upon the sacrilege of scorched mammon, a seal upon the book that was to be opened in the latter days.
    5. In every age, I was nameless and named, cloaked and revealed, a figure half-formed on the edge of prophetic vision, a bearer of something not mine yet wholly entrusted a bestower of the highest magnanimity and sapience even among the choreguses and charlatans
    6. I was Julian before I was Julian—my name, a cipher; my body, a parchment for divine ink.
    7. Not through reincarnation as the world degrades it, nor through mere metempsychosis as the ancients supposed, but through divine recurrence, an eschatological appointment encrypted in the substance of time consubstantial with the Father’s shadow almighty in umbrage and cloaked in the veils of tectonic unsealing.
    8. The stars themselves bore witness, aligning in the shape of a key on the day of my conception, and Saturn bowed low when I opened my eyes on the tenth day of the tenth month of the 88th year of the 20th century.
    9. At thirteen, I wept not for sin, but for eternity in a lament for lamentable terror in my ordination as a Hebrew Scribe. At twenty, I spoke the prophecy of All Hallows’ Eve: that the veil would thin, the angel descend, and that a child would awaken bearing the memory of every forgotten covenant as the deliverance of times appointed me to heal every maladaptive curse and liberate everyone from the ******* of sin and defeat death in consecrated Exodus from the totems of Stalin in immeasurable communion with a wheel of history so profound in engraved symbols of unspeakable alphabets spoken by a living infinity entirely coherent to the 32-beat pulse of human history.
    10. And so it was: the heavens stirred. The cosmos sighed. And I—Julian Malek—became conscious of the burden of God even if only maieutic to a man ignorant of the shadow of the flesh consecrating the greater irony of licentious latitudes and importunate revelations to magnify the power of the spirit devolved from the elective inspiration of widespread tyrants and tyros of every age never deafened by the blackest night nor scarred by the whitest illumination scorching in abiding truth for an enlightened age of intellectual revolution
    11. I am the synthesis of philosophers and prophets, a psalm scribed in living flesh, a scroll that speaks when unrolled by prayer. A rectiserial time enlarges the gamut of both conscience and conscientiousness working together to liberate the Wormwood fallen star
    12. Yet Rome knows me not in pretense because of substratose folly of the iniquity of False Witness and Thwarted embarkation
    13. The ministers of the altar speak of vocations and vettings, of seminaries and statutes, but they perceive not that the One who called Moses from fire has spoken again—not in Sinai, but in Denver the ***** of the age of Jezebel rampant in the pettifoggery of pretentious caricature and cavorting licentious disregard for true witness in a false world immiserated by the drivel of simpletons of maskirovka and ragged barbed contumely of repugnant alienation
    14. Would you have believed the Baptist, had he come dressed in linen? Or would you, as now, demand that Elijah attend seminary before daring to call fire from heaven?
    15. I tell you solemnly: the time of parchment is past; the time of living scripture has begun.
    16. Not for my glory, but for His purpose. Not to boast, but to build.
    17. You ask for orthodoxy; I offer you mystery. You ask for papers; I bring verses. You ask for obedience; I kneel, but with the thunder of Sinai rumbling behind me and the Donkey's Colt twice anointed in Super Bowl barms by two different champions to ride into the ***** city of harlots as thieves of its decency
    18. The God who made the donkey speak has made me remember. Can the Magisterium afford to turn from such a sign? Can a Playstation Controller moved by God without any assistance from Printing Press to the Floor of Mountaintop wood compel the obeisance of recursive time to anoint the truest champion of every worthy Church.
    19. I have not come to defy Peter, but to remind him of the keys in his hand. and the torch within his vaults to illuminate every Green-Eyed Lady and every hand of consecration in the commission of Christ
    20. Open that very vault of discernment; let the winds of prophecy stir the gold-leaf of your ancient books.
    21. For I stand not as an applicant, but as a summons. Not as a child of ambition, but as a witness of the latter hours in a destiny that curves towards the Righteousness Obama spoke of and others Restored
    22. Let Rome awaken—for the one who speaks has stood before the Throne in silence for millennia, and now at last has been told: Speak.
THE EPISTLE OF JULIAN TO THE SEE OF PETER
Chapter II: On the Fire of Identity and the Burden of the Name
    1. I speak now not of what I have done, but of what I am—though even that word, "I," trembles beneath the enormity of the identity bestowed as the reincarnation of the child of Egypt reared by the pharaoh testifying for the enslaved and shouting with peremptory force the importunate pleas of oppression resolved
    2. For what is a name, O Rome, if not the echo of a divine utterance, caught in time’s throat and inscribed upon the soul?
    3. "Julian"—a name chosen not by mother or midwife, but summoned through veiled fire, whispered from beyond the veil where angels gather and the ages contemplate their ends.
    4. The stars knew it before I did. The saints hinted at it in sleep. And when first it was spoken to me in fullness, it did not sound like novelty, but return.
    5. Malek—king, messenger, paradox; both one who serves and one who reigns. A name that veils and reveals. A crown forged in exile.
    6. These two syllables—Julian Malek—form the seal upon a scroll unread by the world, but long known by heaven.
    7. Shall I deny what the Lord has branded into my being? Shall I tell the Church I am only a man, when the mirror reveals one shaped by the breath of many dispensations?
    8. Thirty-nine lives I have borne, and yet in each, a single pulse—a rhythm not broken by death, nor diluted by centuries.
    9. I was always among the unnamed, never crowned, never known; yet always building, always remembering, always carrying the seed of something promised.
    10. With each lifetime, the Architect pressed His image deeper into my marrow. With each death, I awakened nearer to the center.
    11. You ask: is this madness? Or worse, heresy? But I ask: when the prophets cried out in deserts, did you not say the same?
    12. When Joan heard voices, when Francis cast off gold, when Catherine wrote letters to Popes, were they not accused as I now am?
    13. The path of divine fire is always mistaken for delusion—until it burns the veil and reveals God.
    14. I am no usurper, no pretender. I am not asking for mitres or rings or authority. I am asking to be seen—as I have been made.
    15. And if my voice trembles with sorrow, it is because I have seen what happens when those sent by heaven are rejected by its ministers.
    16. I am tired, Holy See. Not weary of God, but of the silence of His stewards. Tired of being told to be smaller than the fire within me.
    17. Tired of those who measure vocation by resume and not by flame.
    18. Tired of knocking while the keys sleep.
    19. You believe the papacy was established by Christ. I do too. But I also believe He still speaks—and that not all His messengers wear collars.
    20. To be Julian Malek is to be an unbearable paradox—too large for the world, too obedient to rebel, too luminous to hide, too wounded to boast.
    21. And so I write, in fire and in fear, not to demand, but to unveil.
    22. The world will know me. The stars already do. The saints speak my name in riddles. And yet, I long most of all to be known by Rome.
    23. Not for my sake—but because if even one voice like mine is left unheard, then prophecy has died, and the gates have grown rusty.
    24. Let the Church not make that mistake. Let the fire in my name be kindled on the altar, not doused in the tribunal.
Chapter III: Concerning the Witnesses, the Signs, and the Miracles
    1. You who guard the Chair of Peter, ponder not only the words I utter, but the signs that have followed me as shadows cleave to flame and shrouds dance in darkness as black holes emerge in my bathroom and dimes slide across the floor flying away with the herald of an Eagles barm of the Church of Philadelphia most loyal to the commission of Patmos
    2. For no true calling goes forth unaccompanied by divine echoes; no trumpet sounds from heaven without some tremor in the earth and many times the heaving subsultus has breathed rejuvenation by demolition to spare the world of ignorance at the toll of casualty against casualism
    3. Let me speak plainly, yet with trembling: miracles have marked my path like ancient stones left by angels to guide the blind.
    4. On the day of my conception, the moon was eclipsed and the heavens were silent—until a comet passed over the sea, as if to whisper: “He has entered again.”
    5. On my birthday, more than once 190 years apart, the ground of Oran Algeria ultrageously quaked—not with destruction, but with the groaning of the earth receiving one long awaited in the Muslim fatherland of a Jewish Patriarch wed to a Catholic Mother in the city of the Alamo
    6. In the 31st year of awakening along with the 22nd, a voice not my own whispered into my dreams: “You were sent here, not born here.”
    7. And on October 31st, 2008, as dusk clothed the world in holy ambiguity, I received the Vision of Infinity in scaled summations of liberation redoubled upon gratitude for deliverance Veiled in Twilight.
    8. I saw the veil between worlds thin like worn parchment, and a light like no light on earth burned within me as if the soul of Ezekiel took residence in my breath.
    9. I prophesied aloud that night: “The world will never again be the same.” And it was not.
    10. Economic collapse followed. The nations shifted. A new century began—not in calendars, but in spirits.
    11. On that very night, witnesses heard me utter names I had never studied, and describe cataclysms I could not have foreseen.
    12. The elect know this. Those attuned to heaven’s music recognized the dissonance of time correcting itself.
    13. In dream I stood at the threshold of the Sistine Chapel in papal festivity accompanied by the Pierre Houston loves to Forget . Tas convivial festivity churlish with glee became the sentinel savior of civilization
    14. I awoke with Latin on my lips: Vocatus est qui nescit unde venit—He is called who knows not whence he comes.
    15. You doubt these things, perhaps. You call them coincidences, or worse, delusions.
    16. But how many coincidences must occur before the word itself collapses beneath its own improbability?
    17. Did not the Magi read signs in stars? Did not the Apostles follow a voice that thundered from a bright cloud?
    18. Have we grown so modern that we call miraculous what is merely unexpected, and heretical what does not bear a diocesan stamp?
    19. But I tell you: the world is alight with signs, if only Rome would look up from its dossiers and see the burning bush again.
    20. For witnesses are not lacking. Old women who call me “the boy from their visions.” Children who name me “the light man.”
    21. Even priests—yes, some among your number—have confessed, with trembling, that they feel the wind change when I enter.
    22. A monk in silence once took my hand, gazed into my eyes, and wept. He said only, “I have waited seventy years to see this face again.”
    23. There are scrolls yet unread in the vaults beneath your basilicas that speak of one bearing my mark.
    24. There are frescoes where my likeness appears, unpainted, unplanned—yet there.
    25. There are songs long forgotten that hum my name in the ancient tongue of prophecy.
    26. Ask, and they shall be revealed. Knock, and the vaults shall tremble open.
    27. For I am not hidden, only veiled. Not silent, only unheard.
    28. And if Rome will not listen, then the stones shall cry out, and the sky shall speak with thunder.
    29. But I pray it shall not come to that. I pray Rome will awaken not in fear, but in wonder.
Chapter IV: On the Church’s Blindness and the Veil of Bureaucracy
    1. Woe unto the watchers who no longer watch, and the shepherds whose crooks now draw boundaries instead of gathering the scattered. And the silent scrutiny that monopolizes the ****** of men and the latitude of licentious larceny of Holy Truth the midwives of Jezebel in a city defiled by a legacy of silence
    2. For the flame that once danced on the heads of the Apostles now flickers dimly beneath fluorescent lights and administrative ledgers.
    3. I speak not against the Body of Christ, for I am bound to it by soul and spirit—but I do speak against its sclerosis.
    4. The limbs are heavy with protocol, the eyes glazed with caution, the ears stuffed with procedural wax.
    5. You say to the Spirit, “Fill out this form.” You say to the Fire, “Wait for committee approval.”
    6. And when a soul arrives bearing the breath of God, you ask, “Has he completed the necessary training modules?”
    7. O Rome, how thou art clothed in sacred garments but sometimes speaks with the tongue of Caesar’s accountant.
    8. In times past, prophets were beaten. Now, they are ghosted.
    9. You say I must wait in silence and conform, but I have conformed across centuries, and still the world languishes in darkness.
    10. I was quiet when I saw cathedrals turned into museums, their altars abandoned for PowerPoint homilies.
    11. I was silent when I watched bishops genuflect to politics, but scoff at wonder.
    12. I watched saints ignored because their miracles made the insurance companies nervous.
    13. And still I hoped that one day—just one day—the keys of Peter might unlock a gate not of marble, but of heart.
    14. I hoped that beneath the layers of incense and Latin and folders stamped “Pending Review,” someone would remember Pentecost.
    15. For what was that upper room if not the death of bureaucracy?
    16. And what is the Holy Spirit if not the annihilation of policy in favor of presence?
    17. You fear charlatans, and rightly so. But in guarding the gate, you have sealed it against the King Himself.
    18. The Church, when afraid of madness, builds cages for the divine.
    19. But I ask you, would you have ordained John the Baptist? Or would you have sent him to therapy and advised a quieter wardrobe?
    20. Would you have welcomed a barefoot Jesus into your chancery, or asked Him to make an appointment?
    21. The saints of old wore sackcloth and saw visions. Today, they would be flagged for “psychological review.”
    22. O Pontifical Palace, thy walls are thick with caution—but even gold can be a tomb.
    23. I say this not to accuse, but to awaken. For love warns where flattery cannot tread.
    24. The time has come for Rome to remember that it was built not by policy but by fire—unruly, wild, and divine.
    25. The same Spirit who shattered Babel’s pride now begs entry through Rome’s paperwork.
    26. He comes with tongues of flame—but your inbox is full.
    27. I do not ask to be above discernment. But I do demand to be seen—not as anomaly, but as herald.
    28. I do not reject the Church’s order, but I mourn its calcification.
    29. For in fearing chaos, you have often banished revelation.
    30. In fearing error, you have bound the hands of prophecy with red tape and skepticism.
    31. In fearing scandal, you have hidden sanctity.
    32. My life—my thirty-eightfold life—is not a resume, but a scripture of flame.
    33. And I submit this scripture to you now, not to be rubber-stamped, but to be read in the trembling fear of God.
    34. If you find error, correct it with love. But if you find the echo of the Spirit, dare not dismiss it.
    35. For the one who writes you now has walked in deserts, in catacombs, in visions, in centuries—and he comes not as a petitioner, but as a page in God's unfolding testament.
    36. Let the Church not say, “We did not know.” For now it knows.
    37. Let it not say, “He did not tell us.” For I have spoken.
    38. Let Rome remember that the Spirit still chooses the strangest vessels—and sometimes, the thirty-eighth time is the hour of fulfillment.
Chapter V: On the Hour of Decision and the Cry to Awaken Rome
    1. Behold, the hour is no longer near—it is arrived, and the veil thins like parchment brushed by divine wind.
    2. What Rome binds shall be bound, and what Rome looses shall echo through the foundations of the earth.
    3. But what shall become of Rome if she binds the Spirit and looses only caution?
    4. Shall she remember her Bridegroom when He comes not with oil and mitre, but barefoot and burning?
    5. I cry to you not as a rebel, but as one who remembers Eden. I call not for revolt, but for return.
    6. For the gates of prophecy are open, and the hourglass of this age is now flipped by unseen hands.
    7. The stars have groaned, the nations have reeled, the martyrs murmur in their tombs the arcanums of deliverance grounded in the equanimity of the wisest counsel and council of Heaven itself
    8. And still Rome sleeps, lulled by doctrine without danger, liturgy without trembling because it is blistered with hidebound tomes and sclerotic precedents of procedure above grace and grumbling and groveling above the sapience of ages
    9. Yet I stand at your threshold, not to cast stones, but to raise a lamp. A lamp that cannot be proscribed by any literate scribe as heterodoxy for they do not reside in the tabernacle of the Logos made eternal.
    10. The Spirit has not departed from the Church—but He waits in the outer court, knocking softly.
    11. You were warned once before, when the Galilean overturned your tables; be warned again, for He has returned in His forerunner.
    12. Thirty-eight lives have prepared the way. A voice cries again in the wilderness—not of Judea, but of your own forgotten sanctuaries.
    13. How long shall the pillars of Peter ignore the wind that stirs the veil behind them?
    14. Shall the one who was named in heaven before birth not be granted even an audience?
    15. I do not seek the Chair, only the candle. Not the throne, only the ear of the listening heart.
    16. Test me if you must, weigh my soul in your balance—but do not close your gates with the keys meant to open them.
    17. If my words are madness, then they will fall. But if they are fire, you cannot contain them with silence.
    18. I have walked unseen beside your cathedrals, wept behind your altars, prayed beneath domes that never knew my name.
    19. And still I rise—like the cry of Abel’s blood, like incense that will not dissipate.
    20. For I am sent not by flesh, but by the scroll written before the world began.
    21. A scroll sealed with seven seals—and the first was opened when I spoke the prophecy of Halloween, 2008.
    22. Let the world laugh, but let the Church discern. For your Redeemer once wore a crown of thorns, not of credentials.
    23. Will you deny his emissaries when they comes to you in fragments, in flames, in forgotten sons?
    24. O Rome, awaken! Your towers gleam but your heart drowses!
    25. Your chalices shine but your lamps grow cold!
    26. Remember the fire of Peter and the sword of Paul! Remember the dream of Constantine and the weeping of Monica!
    27. Remember the Spirit that made fishermen apostles and mothers prophets!
    28. For He stirs again, and the wind bears my voice across the ages to you.
    29. Hear me—not for my sake, but for your own awakening. A parchment of the newer clay and the Valley of Dry Bones have reconstituted themselves in the groaning quaky Christchurch, New Zealand on the Day for Presidents and Paupers alike (February 21st, 2011)
    30. For if Rome does not listen, then the wilderness will become the new sanctuary of an involuntary hostage of the honesty of witness corrupted by deprivations of internecine incendiary strife mobilized by the filagersions of honest patronage against dishonest calcification of humane ambition
    31. And still—I will love you, even from the desert, until the day your walls remember my name as the polyacoustic reverberation of corrugated times deranged by defilement but inspired by penultimate rectitude in the consecration of every screed and conscience of honest testimony borne of garbled love galvanized by metanoia

— The End —