Poem: God's Beach

Walking heavily through the sand,
The feet below me, heels below toes,
Betray my strength.

The suns beats down like in Houston.
Washing out all color,
Like a torturous metal slide burning
Angel thighs as they slide
Down from heaven.

The palms are white and look
Like 30 foot dandelions for the angels
To blow away.

Like some self absorbed lizard
I crawl through this playground of God's
Scaring the children as they look at me
In awe and confusion.

Haiku: The Lions on the Beach

Hemingway you ghost!
The lions on the beach are
your rattling chains.

Beyond

We pursue our own interests.
We are capitalist and happy.
We work from 9 to 5 and die
after 65, because we are no longer

needed. What are we but nearsighted?
Do you think you care about
people you can’t see or those
you don’t know? No. We do not shout

at those in power because we
believe we are in heaven,
but man is deeply evil and believes he is good.
If a man is elected to lead

he can still be evil and believe he is good.
He peruses his own interests. He is nearsighted;
delusional bad apple spoiling.
Don’t join the system.

Cheat the game and make millions only
to give it away. Make your life and
give it away. Truly love those you can’t see,
only then will you break free and see truth.

The only life worth leading
is the life driven to seeing
beyond this idyllic snow globe
and loving those we don’t know

A Letter to Brian Greene

Dr. Greene,

I'm currently reading your book, Fabric of the Cosmos and I would like to first state that I am big fan and I am truly enjoying the read!  I am just now reading your chapter on the multiple dimensions necessary for string theory and you made a statement that I wanted to comment on.  In your description of how to "visualize" multiple dimensions you say that it's pretty difficult to visualize 6 dimensions and you haven't met anyone who could.

Well I certainly don't claim to, but I had to laugh a little bit because when I was a Freshman math major at Trinity University in San Antonio in 2001, I was taking basic undergraduate linear algebra and was floored by the idea that I couldn't visualize the inputs of my equations when they were bigger than 4 dimensions.  I then thought about it a little more and I wrote my professor at the time Dr. Chapman a memo on how I imagined different dimensions higher than 3 or 4.

Assumption:  Clearly, we live in a world of 3 visible spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension.  Since man has taught History I'm pretty sure we have used the concept of a "time-line" to describe the changing of our 3 spatial dimensions across time.  By doing so we took the mathematical R3 and converted its "infinite" size to an infinitesimal point and simply gave the point a "nudge" in the direction of time and the time-line was drawn.  My assumption was that any time we were in an infinite 3 spatial dimension space we could then, for the purposes of visualization convert that space into an infinitesimal point. 

Induction:  I don't claim this to be a proof by induction but just the method at which I used to visualize higher dimensions.  Once you shrunk the infinite world to the size of a point and struck it you drew a line.  This was R4 and if you struck that line (much like a guitar string) it would vibrate showing you the 5th dimension or R5.  You could imagine this as different possible futures (maybe even your multiverse picture).  If you have now a membrane in that is R5, you can imagine that much like a drum and when you strike it, it vibrates like a drum showing you the 6th (R6) dimension or a new infinite space with 3 spatial dimensions within which each point represented a snapshot of our 3 dimensional space.  So continuing on you can quickly see that R6 can then via the assumption be shrunk down to a point and the process repeated.  Continuing you would see the pattern that dimensions that can be written as R(3n) where n is a whole number are "spaces" and by assumption equivalently points, R(3n+1) are lines similar to our time line, and R(3n+2) are membranes or planes.

Now this is for whole numbers of n.  Clearly there exists a R(0) which is the infinitesimal points in our world.  Since it can be written R(3n) is can then be assumed to also be an infinite space.  Inside this space we can then start going backwards using n as negative integers.  R(-1) is equivalent to R(3n+2) where n = -1.  So it is a membrane.  Further down is R(-2) which can be written R(3n+1) where n = -1 so R(-2) is a line and lastly R(3n) where n = -1 is a point in that space.  Now you can then use this method of "visualization" just as I did in Linear Algebra to try to imagine what different dimensions "look" like.  Clearly, this is only for the purposes of helping my 18 year-old self get through my freshman year, but I thought that now you could at least say you've met someone who tried to visualize not only 6 dimensions below ours but "n" dimensions above and below our ours.

I know you're a busy man and I don't want to take any more of your time, but thank you again for writing your book and keep up the good work, and with that I'll leave you with a poem your book has inspired.

I have written a beautiful proof
String theory is true!  No goof!
The letters are quite small
Plancnk's constant they are tall
Just trust me, I'm telling the truth.

The Land Of The Free

Have we come to an agreement;
an understanding of the word?
Anger is rising off the cement
Sweaty money changing hands

Is this the America we want?
Or do we live like puppets for Blair
As Bush sings Sweet Home Obama
Racism is replaced with a new slavery

God’s name is used not only vain
but in idiocy and in politics
How are we different from 17th
Century France?

There are no more lines, Republican
and Democrat. They are put there
to blind us from the truth
that we are just puppets of greater men.

The Prophecy Continued

Part 1

"Camil, what are you thinking about?" Abraham walked into the viewing deck and say Camil looking out at Aurocia. Abraham was young but you wouldn't know by looking at him. Both Camil and Abraham came up through the Mohammed Intraship Police Squad. Abraham was practically two meters tall, 125 kg and was intimidatingly strong. His booming low voice could stop a thief in his tracks, far better than anyone else chasing him down. Camil, although the same age, did not rise through the ranks as quickly, partly because of her sex. She did, however, have a gifted intelligence, was excellent in martial arts, and was stunningly beautiful.

"Sometimes I just wonder what it felt like to look out a window and see blue skies."

"Well can't you just hit the iView, see right here, you've seen this. It'll look just like anywhere on Earth apparen.."

"I know that! I'm saying for real though. To see a window, look at a blue sky and open it. What would that be like? To be outside."

"Well from, what I understand, when our ancestors were on Earth, we spent most of our time in doors."

"I suppose we took that for granted." Camil said.

Code Red Camil Code Red, There is open fire in sector 63, stern/starboard quadrant. It's Dr. Thatcher is over there. Code Red, Camil, do you read.

Over the intercom, Camil and Abraham heard the warning and ran out of the view deck.

"Roger that, we're on our way."

Camil and Abraham raced through the corridors to sector 63 which was also 42 floors below them in engineering. They jumped into the lev and as it took them down they grabbed their weapons. The each carried a chemo-nuclear, semi-automatic rifle. Instead of traditional gun powder, a small nuclear reaction is created in each bullet to project it forward at speeds not possible in previous technology. The bullets were chemically designed to disintegrate upon hitting anything other than what was programmed to be the target. They each had small head pieces that projected an image into their eye and they then could set the target, and the transmission would be sent to the bullet. The collateral damage in the halls of the Mohammed used to be pretty high in a fire fight before the advent of these weapons.

The doors to the lev opened immediately they were showered with bullets. The assailant had disabled the chemical disintegration and they were now sitting ducks.

Camil went low and ran out towards Dr. Thatcher who was in the hall as Abraham opened fire to cover here.

"Still, no ID confirm on the assailant." Abraham reported to his earpiece.

"Just cover me." Camil yelled back.

She reached Dr. Thatcher who was bleeding heavily from his neck. He had trouble speaking and was chocking on his own blood.

"Hold on Doc, you're gonna be fine…Doc! Stay with me."

Dr. Thatcher reached up at Camil and grabbed her face. "It's…a…lie"

"What's a lie, Dr. Thatcher, come on, stay with me!"

He closed his eyes and fell limp in her arms.

"Shit!" She screamed and ran towards the assailant. Showering him with chemical dust from the missed fire.

"CAMIL, wait" Abraham lumbered after her.

The assailant ran around the corner and into the emergency transport bay. He typed in a code into the panel on the wall and alarms began to go off. Camil looked into the bay window and saw his face. He was wearing face paint and looked back at her with wild blue eyes. He screamed at the top of his lungs in some language. Just then the transport bay doors opened and he was sucked out of the bay, his skin ripped like a burning sausage from the low pressure and he froze just as quickly from the ultra low temperature.

 

 

Extended Stay

Mind-numbing...Drunk again...well maybe not drunk but well you know...I'm laying here in bed, watching Conan, and the jokes start out extra funny but what seems like an eternity but is only 20 minutes...I realize I must have the visage of a vegetable.

The glory of it all is the repetition. Master percussionists wouldn't enjoy this routine as well as I do. Tick for tick, every day is the same as the last. Subtly over time little things change but I have done my best to hold them back. I look out of the window rarely now....

When she comes to clean the bedroom, I sit in the tub with the door locked. As the years went by she tried to talk to me through the door. She wasn't the first. There were many before her. Some angry and would beat the door. They would say,

"Mister open up. Are you crazy? I need to clean the bathroom? Are you crazy?"

I didn't say anything I could feel the anger inside me build up and I could explode if I wanted to but I know the ramifications of that. If I blew up the manager would come andhe like his bosses before him would try to kick me out. I would be shoved back out and I like it here. I do. I really like it here.

If you're reading this I must have passed. I kept this hidden in the bottom of my vinyl toiletries case. It was next to the empty trial size tube of Crest, the empty bottle of Brut cologne, the empty bottle of Goldbond. When I first came here I should mention that I didn't intend to use more than was in those bottles.

For fear that those in the hotel that have taken care of me will be implicated I do not want to write explicitly my location, but I will tell you this. I am at a major hotel in a major city. Many thousands of people have stayed here. It's very well possible the number is close to a million. I watch them. Not many people know they are being watched when the check in but I see them. I don't go out the front door but when you check in look around. If you see some windows into rooms. You might find someone nodding slightly from a distance. You will probably be so enthralled in your luggage and those wild kids that won't fucking stand still you'll never see a thing.

Excuse my temper.

The reason I am writing this tonight in the cold blue haze of Conan is to tell you the story of how I left this room. I came here 20 years ago in 1986. I could tell you in 10 pages what I did between then and now but I think you'll find it a bit repetitive after paragraph one. I am writing this because now I am dying. I am dying because I left. I left because I fell in love again.

I promise you this story does not have a happy ending...
In the traditional sense.

But you need to know that somewhere at the bottom of this black vinyl toiletry bag, beyond the soap stains and faded scent of Brut, I found hope. I retire back here to spend my remaining hours as I spent them for years but I can be proud that when I was given one more chance I took it. Ah screw it.

Why do my legs feel like they're on fire after standing up from sitting down too long. If Darwin was right and we were built to move then our legs would hurt while we were sitting down not after. If you relax enough, if you truly give up, you won't feel any pain.

How is that natural selection?