“Now that we know the secrets of the universe, what remains as the ultimate question?” RascalPuff asked.
“It is, ‘Why do squirrels always run back under your car after they are already in the clear?’”
“Some things remain unfathomable,” ruminated Puff.

"The strain of cosmic travel took its toll—
An upholstery machine did swallow whole
My form, but I recovered well enough,
Though exorcists still claim my unpaid soul."

“How are you feeling? Wasn’t the trip quite a strain on you?” wondered Fredrick.
“Yes, I fell into an upholstery machine, but I am fully recovered now, but if I don’t pay my exorcist I may get repossessed.”

"Inflation stretched me thin," Nobody sighed,
"The road rose up to greet my wounded pride;
But weight I've lost since then, and gained some wit,
Though fortune-tellers short and small abide."

“Also, I entered a period of great inflationary expansion and suffered a small cut on my forehead when the road rose up to meet me, but I have since lost some weight.”

“Did you hear that the short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large?” asked WiseGuy.
“I have now. That is sure a puny pun that deserves punitive measures.”

"Does Nothing dwell out there?”young Fredrick pressed;
"No, nada, null and zilch," Nobody stressed,
"While pregnant possibility gives birth
To all invention, as Austin suggested."

“Does ‘nothing’ exist out there?” asked Fredrick.
“No, nada, null, zilch, naught, nix, nil, and zippo. Nothing is unconceivable of existence, while the pregnancy of possibility is the mother of all invention. Austin told me to say that.”

Of tainted money Profpat dared to speak;
"All money's tainted," said Nobody with pique,
"Taint yours and taint mine neither." Then at last
Came Austin's query of life's purpose deep.
“Since the government mostly paid for this trip, isn’t the money tainted?” asked Profpat.
“A lot of money is tainted. Taint yours and it taint mine.”

"Let life flow through you," Nobody replied,
Then told of memories from his father's pride:

“What is the purpose of life?” asked Austin, seriously.
“To let it flow through you.”

That first gleam followed by Olympic race,
Through tube to egg where spirit did reside.

“What is your first memory of flowing life?” continued Austin.
“I do remember being a gleam in my father’s eye, my first glint of spirit. And half of me seems to remember shooting down some sort of tube and emerging into some liquid, then some kind of Olympic swimming race and a merging with an oval football kind of thing and an endless floating about for many months.

Of floating months in darkness then he spoke,
Till voices cooed and ancient silence broke;
"There can't be more than water, calm and dark!"
Such wisdom from his pre-birth self awoke.

Then, about a month before I was born, I heard some sounds, like ‘Cootchy-cootchy-coo. Who’s in there?’ Then, the day before I was born, a voice told me that there is a whole big world out there, and I thought, no, there can’t be; there is only water and calm and darkness; that’s all there is; there can be nothing more. I guess I was not such a visionary back then.” “

"Born on my birthday," Nobody declared,
"Though parties waited till next year," he shared,
"My first words asked for shades against the light—
A writer's wit already well-prepared."

Then, the next day—I remember it well since I was born right on my birthday (but had no party until a year later), I was thrust into the light, and I think my first words were, well, it’s a bit hard to recall them since I was very young when I was born, but, since I am a writer, I did speak my first words early, and I think they were: ‘Does anyone have a pair of sunglasses; it’s awfully bright out here.’”

Then Lincoln asked why birthdays shift and change;
"February's confusions to arrange:
Fat Tuesday, Valentine's, and Presidents
All mixed in love's and skunks' shared monthly range.

The pancakes flow on Mardi Gras' wild day,
Then ashes mark our dustward-trending way;
Sweet Valentine's breaks Lenten fasts too soon—
Such paradox does February sway!”

Abraham Lincoln asked, “Why did they move my birthday?”
“Well, February is a confusing short month; for example, this year Fat Tuesday is on February 12, which used to be your birthday, before they moved it, and is the big finale of Mardi-Gras, when we’re supposed to eat enough pancakes and sausage to get us through the 40 days of Lent’s fast food (at Wendy’s & McDonalds), I mean fasting, and give up sweets, as of Ash Wednesday, the 13th, a sort of smoke-in day when we remember dust to dust and that we will eventually make ashes of ourselves, then VD on the 14th, I mean Valentine’s Day, when we are supposed to eat a lot of sweets again! What a mixed-up time. Also, Abe, we wanted another three-day weekend, so we combined all of youse guys birthdays into President’s Day. Plus, it is the month of love, as well as skunk mating season, but I repeat myself.”

Virginia, Austin's mother, sought to learn
The meaning road signs hold at every turn;
Nobody shared his wisdom of the way:
"Four ways to stop your car you must discern:

The brake, the clutch, emergency's firm grip,
And dragging foot—all four must make you slip
To standstill; STOP A-HEAD means just that thing:
A head blocks passage on your morning trip!

WATCH CHILDREN warns of romance in the air,
Get rooms, don't linger 'neath the signpost there;
And BIKE PATH leads between the yellow lines
Where cyclists claim the highway's central flair.

When yellow lights appear, just speed ahead—
They'll shift to green as physics' laws have said;
The morons crawl, the idiots race past,
While jaywalks grant the right to join the dead!”

“I don’t understand the new road signs,” stated Virginia, the only woman on ToeQuest, who is actually Austin’s mother. He signed her up so he could try to use her WebTV to get on ToeQuest from Chicago (it didn’t work very well).
“A 4-WAY-STOP sign means to use the foot brake, then downshift, pull the emergency brake, and drag your foot, as the four ways. STOP A-HEAD says that a head is in the road! WATCH OUT FOR CHILDREN means: Don’t hug, fondle, kiss, touch, or sweet-talk beneath the sign, for you may do the conceivable. So, get a room. BIKE PATH: The official path for bikes is between the two yellow lines in the middle of the road. Also remember that if you speed up when you see a yellow light it will never turn red, since its frequency shifts toward green as you near C, the speed of light! Furthermore, morons always drive slower than you and idiots drive faster than you! Finally, jay walkers have the right of death.”

“The reception’s clear,” Nobody declared,
“No static mars the footage that I shared.”
Then Shakespeare rose to pose his ancient quest:
“To be or not to be?” – Nobody stared.

“Thanks, everyone, for your support,” said Nobody. “The reception was great; no static or noise. I can take some questions before we start the film that filmed the start.”

The Bard’s hand rose amid the questioning throng,
“Your query?” Nobody asked before long;
“To be or not to be,” came swift reply—
“Good answer,” proved the riddle right, not wrong.

For in that ancient doubt lay wisdom deep:
The choice between the waking and the sleep,
The dance of being and of nothingness,
Where questions asked are answers we must keep.

The questioner and answer fused as one,
Like stars that both cast light and light outrun;
In paradox of presence and its void,
The deepest truth had only just begun.

When Nothing asks of Something what is true,
And Something answers Nothing’s point of view,
The circle closes on itself complete—
As question, answer, wisdom shine anew.

“Where found you sustenance?” asked Austin bold,
“I gathered frozen food from ages old;
And cooked it in the cosmic microwave,
While drifting through the universe’s hold.”

“How did you survive after you left the last Daily Planet restaurant?” asked Austin.
“I picked up some frozen food in the Ice Age.”
“But how did you cook it?” persisted Austin, his brain having been temporarily fried, boiled, and sun roasted in New Jersey.
“Remember, there were microwaves all around.”

“Your vacuum, sir?” Profpat inquired with care,
“I bought two units, split my work to share;
The salesman promised half the labor saved—
So doubling up seemed only just and fair.”

“What words,” asked RascalPuff, “could best convey
Your journey to the cosmos’ earliest day?”
“Veni, Vidi, Velcro,” came reply,
“I came, I saw, and I stuck around to stay.”

“Did you get lost?” young Fredrick dared to ask;
“Alternative destinations were my task;
For never lost am I in time or space,
Though different paths my journey might unmask.”

“I never get lost, even if I’m told to; I discover alternate destinations.”

“Did riches flow?” asked Graybeard, seeking more,
“And might I have your tires from days of yore?”
“Yes, wealth I found, but faced a cruel choice then:
’Tween work and daytime TV’s endless bore.”

“Did you make enough money to retire, and, if so, can I have your old tires?” inquired Graybeard.
“Yes, I did, but it’s really a cruel choice: Work or watch daytime TV.”

“Did Everything make sense?” came Fredrick’s plea;
“At times I thought so,” Nobody did agree,
“But consciousness returned to set me straight,
And mystery resumed its sovereignty.”

“Did you understand Everything?” asked Fredrick.
“Often I thought I did, but then I regained consciousness.”

Then ChickenMan inquired with solemn face
If cosmic eggs had marked primordial space;
“Inconceivable!” Nobody declared,
“Though in your query lies peculiar grace.”

ChickenMan probed, “Were any chickens harmed during the making of your film? Also, did Mother Earth and Father Time produce the cosmic egg?”
“Inconceivable, but I like your approach… now let’s see your departure.”

“What’s reality?” Mkirkpatrick mused;
“Much ado about nothing,” None refused.
Then Clinton asked of Hillary’s great run—
“Blame Macy’s sales,” Nobody’s words diffused.

“Is your journey responsible for Hillary running for President?” asked Bill Clinton.
“No, but there was a Presidents’ Day sale at Macy’s and men’s pants were half off.”

“I’m cured now,” said Bill. “There is no relationship, depending on what the meaning of ‘is’ is. There is really no safe sex from aides. Also, I went to a self-help group for compulsive talkers; it’s called ‘On and On Anon’.”

The Presidents debated dynasties,
Of Bushes, Gores, and Chads’ uncertainties;
“No politics!” cried Nobody at last,
“Those blood-sucking insects bring no ease!”

“Why are the two President Clintons always out beating the Bushes?” quizzed ElderBush of Bill.
“Because Al tried to Gore you and lost to Chad, so I must run for First Gentleman to restore our dynasty over yours. Plus, one handy lady bird is worth two bushes anytime.”
“Okay Presidents,” interjected Nobody, “no politics, a word that means many blood sucking insects. I’m still taking questions.”

“The answers simple are,” Nobody taught,
“Just yes and no and maybe interlock;
To children all mean yes, but questions still
Remain the harder part of human thought.”

Of X-ray vision Graybeard did complain,
“Now only bones appear!” he cried in pain;
“Perhaps an airport job?” suggested None,
“Where such a gift might yet some purpose gain.”

Profpat posed riddle of two scholars’ fate:
One versed in arts, one trained to calculate;
Their paths crossed where french fries perfume the air—
“Would you like fries?” sealed their unequal state.

“What did the arts graduate say to the engineering graduate?” asked Profpat.
“Would you like fries with your order, sir?”

Two branches of the tree of learning fair,
Two roads that led to meetings strange and rare;
One builds the world while one serves up its food,
In cosmic jest that neither planned to share.

The engineering mind may draft its schemes,
While arts explore the meaning of our dreams;
Yet here they meet where hunger levels all,
And wisdom’s not quite what it sometimes seems.

Oh irony of education’s way,
Where knowledge leads us down its paths astray;
Some build the restaurants, some work within—
While both still chase their bread from day to day.

Of ancestors and trees they spoke at length,
Of cheese that made the moon’s eternal strength;
Of holy water boiled free from hell,
And TV romance tested gravity’s length.

“Did you meet any of your ancestor’s ancestors?” asked Graybeard.
“I saw my family tree.”
“What the heck!” wondered Graybeard out loud.
“My great-ancestors descended from the trees.”
“What is the moon made of?” asked Rascal.
“Swiss cheese.”
“But it’s all hard and crusty, although it does have holes.”
“That’s what happens when you leave cheese out.”
“How do you make holy water?” questioned Profpat.
“You boil the hell out of it!”
“What do you think about sex on TV?” wondered Lloyd.
“It can’t hurt you unless you fall off. Now let’s get serious, folks. We’re all used to the new language features by now and the joke industry that they spawned.”

In Time’s own garden, Nobody did spy
The golden lights that danced across the sky;
Where CARE sat marking shadows as they passed,
And “now” became both answer and reply.

“What did you see in the Garden of Time?” asked Mkirkpatrick.
“There were glimmers and gleams and golden dappled lights like stars hovering and floating slowly about the scene, and a door that invited me into the inner sanctum of the night watchmen’s mainspring. There I found CARE, a gentle old man who sat silently by the sundial in Time’s Sanctuary and slowly marked the hours by the shadows that crept over the face of eternity. I asked him, ‘What time is it?’
“And he answered to my surprise, ‘Do you mean now?’“
“Yogi?” I asked.
“No, Yogi is my distant relative, twice removed, but he kept coming back.”

The riddle of the present moment stands:
Eternal reward flows through time’s swift sands;
Though never passing, always moving on—
This paradox that no one understands.

“Anyway, here is the riddle of now:“

A moment contains eternal reward;
Both past and future are rolled thereinward.
Time never passes; it stays as it is;
Still, it is ceaselessly moving onward.

The holistic right brain remains of course
For us to take in the overall view,
While the logical left brain is also there to recognize
The detailed relationships between objects.

As such, so goes the universe,
Since we are formed in its image.
So then this gives us a clue
To the nature of the universe.

Seeing that the brain is
Divided into two hemispheres,
Each with their own
Characteristic mode of thought,
Which can communicate with each other,
Means that we are looking very deeply
Into the way that reality itself is constructed.

These two complimentary aspects
To the cosmos are thus absolutely essential,
One being of the whole:
The apparently indivisible,
Continuous fluid entity
Although discrete at unnoticeable levels,
The other being the interrelationships of the parts.

Each interpretation may not appear
At exactly the same time,
But the Yin ever gives way to Yang
And ever then back to Yin, and so on,
The rounded life of the mind
Thus continuing to fully roll,
As the cycle of this symmetry
Turns and returns;
If not, one either gets totally lost
In the details or prematurely halts
After but an apparent whole.

The holistic right brain mode is unfocused,
As we see in some people
Who are unconcerned with details,
It always building the scene in parallel
To form a single entity;
Whereas, the focused left side of brain
Isolates a target of interest and tracks it
And its derivatives sequentially and serially.

Yet the two sides of the overall brain
Are connected to each other
And so the speed of the juggling act
Can meld them together
Into a complete balance like that
Portrayed by the revolving Yin-Yang symbol,
Each ever receding and giving rise to the other
Such does the universe go both ways too,
Its separate parts implicated
With everything else in the whole.

During conscious observation
The ‘hereness’ and ‘nowness’
Of reality crystalizes and remains,
We establishing what that reality is to some extent.

We define and refine the nature of reality
That leads to the mind’s outlook.

Counterintuitive? Cyclical?

Yes but it is the universe in dialog with itself;
The wave functions and yet the function waves.

The universe supplies the means of its own creation,
Its possibilities supplying the avenues
And the probability and workability
That carve out the paths leading to success.

So here we are, then and now,
The rains of change falling everywhere,
The streams being carved out,
The water rising back up to the sky,
The rain then falling everywhere,
The streams recarving and meandering
Toward more meaning and so on.

From time’s shores toward oblivion’s worlds,
The quantum ‘vacuum’ fields send forth their whirls,
The sea parting into base discrete swirls,
Unto stars and life—ephemerals pearled.

Quantum fields’ Presence, through transient veins,
Running Quicksilver-like, fuels our gains—
Taking all the temporary shapes as
They change and perish all—but It remains.

Since the quantum fields are everywhere,
The elementaries, like ‘kinks’, can move
To anyplace in the realms of the fields.
As in a rope, only the quanta move.

At each level of organization
Of temporaries in the universe,
New capabilities become available,
And so they take on a life of their own.

The quantum vacuum field waves are the strokes
That write the elementaries’ letters
As the Cosmic alphabet for wording
Of the elements and the forces that

Phrase the molecules’ interactions
Unto the cells’ sentences that make for
The lives’ paragraphs of the species that
Experience the uni-versed story,

In a book from Babel’s Great Library:
The epic tales of the temporaries,
Their glorious triumphs and sad failures,
Amid complexity’s unwinding spring.

The great needle plays, stitches, winds, and paves
As the strands of quantum fields’ webs of waves
That weave the warp, weft, and woof, uni-versed,
Into being’s fabric of Earth’s living braids.

Quantum fields are the fundamental strokes
Whose excitations at harmonics cloaks
The field quanta with stability
To persist and obtain mobility.

As letters of the Cosmic alphabet,
The elementary particles beget,
Combining in words to write the story
Of the stars, atoms, cells, and life’s glory.

The weave of the quantum fields as strokes writes
The letters of the elemental bytes—
The alphabet of the standard model,
Atoms then forming the stars’ words whose mights

Merge to form molecules, as the phrases,
On to proteins/cells, as verse sentences,
In to organisms ‘stanza paragraphs,
And to the poem stories of the species.

Of this concordance of literature,
We’re the Cosmos’ poetic adventure,
Sentient poems being unified-verses,
As both the contained and the container.

We are both essence and form, as poems versed,
Ever unveiling this life’s deeper thirsts,
As new riches, through strokes, letters, phonemes,
Words, phrases, and sentences—uni versed.

We have rhythm, reason, rhyme, meter, sense,
Metric, melody, and beauty’s true pense,
Revealed through life’s participation,
From the latent whence into us hence.

A poem is a truth fleshed in living words,
Which by showing unapprehended proof
Lifts the veil to reveal hidden beauty:
It’s life’s image drawn in eternal truth.

And in the ancient light that bathes us all,
The cosmic background’s rippled waterfall,
We find at last the pattern’s sacred trace:
The hologram from which all shadows fall.

As Bohm proposed, the cosmos flows and streams,
A vast implicate order beyond dreams,
Where wholeness dwells in every finite space
And time itself is not quite what it seems.

Bohm, too, suggested that the whole universe could be thought of as a kind of giant, flowing hologram, or holo-movement, in which a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in the same finite space. In reality, time is an illusion.

The solid world that meets our searching eyes
Is but projection from more subtle skies,
Unfolding and enfolding endlessly
As particles dissolve and crystallize.

The explicate order is a projection from higher dimen–sional levels of reality, and the apparent stability and solidity of the objects and entities composing it are generated and sustained by a ceaseless process of enfoldment and unfoldment, for the illusions of sub–atomic particles are constantly dissolving into the implicate order and then recrystallizing.

Like frames of film that flicker swift and bright,
Reality performs its dance of light,
Too quick for mortal minds to comprehend
The constant flux of day dissolved in night.

Our reality dissolves and reforms in a constant dance that, like moving pictures, cannot be perceived.

In dreams we glimpse this virtual display,
This matrix where our consciousness holds sway,
And wonder: might we craft such worlds ourselves?
(Dear Spielberg, have we got a role to play?)

We knew that this same type of stunning virtual reality was likely, for it is presented to us in our night dreams for our amusement or self-improvement, or some such reason. It would be interesting to know more of how the holographic reality operates, of course, so we could get to the next step, maybe even build our own virtual reality. Mr. Spielberg would surely buy into that.

Dreams as Cinema

Each night when slumber draws its velvet screen,
A filmmaker unknown sets forth unseen,
To craft such tales as Hollywood might prize—
More vivid than what waking eyes have seen.

Within these plays, we soar on wings of thought,
Through jungle depths where physics counts for naught,
While viewpoints shift like master-crafted scenes—
Such artistry no mortal hand has wrought.

Perhaps, instead of building a virtual reality, though, we could tap into the one that already exists within us and is flexible enough to produce great movies: again, our own night dreams. If we could only record them, keeping the ones with movie quality film and exciting story lines, we could make and sell movies without paying millions of dollars to writers, directors, actors, and filmers.

What cosmic force directs these nightly shows,
Where characters emerge none living knows,
Where music lingers past the morning light,
And wisdom deeper than our learning flows?

But who or what is the source of these night dream movies? Who is the producer, the director, etc.—for night dreams seem to contain surprises, a production capacity way beyond that of ourselves, of people acting in character modes that we as individuals might not even possess, say, that of being singers or comedians or whatever.

Perhaps we need not build new worlds to find
The greatest spectacles of humankind;
They dwell already in our dreaming hearts,
These films no earthly studio designed.

For in that space between our sleep and wake,
What masterworks does consciousness forsake?
If we could capture but a fragment’s worth,
What fortunes might these phantom pictures make!

Yet deeper still the mystery remains:
What power fills our minds with these refrains?
What hidden talents lurk beneath our thoughts,
To birth such art within our sleeping brains?

So let us pause before these nightly plays,
And contemplate their meaning through the haze;
For in these dreams might lie some greater truth
About reality’s mysterious ways.

I have many lucid dreams and observe them closely; they are really quite spectacular. Sometimes, I just watch; other times I amaze the onlookers with my ability to fly and hover. One time, some music kept playing for a minute or so after I awoke. Other times, I am just amused by the viewpoint: I was in a plane that was crashing through a jungle, but the viewpoint suddenly switched to one that was from outside the plane, just as real movies do. So, dreams, their mere happening, should be telling us something remarkable about reality, and these kinds of clues are what I try to make significance of.

THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE

When a tree falls in the forest
And there’s no one around to hear it,
Does it make a sound?

No, for there is no ear to turn
The sound waves into sound.

Nor is there a smell, for there is no nose
For the odorous molecules to attach to,
Nor has it any color, for there is
No retina to decode the light frequencies.

What does it look like, then?

It doesn’t look like anything,
For there is no brain to put it all together
By detecting form, color, texture,
Size, taste, smell, or vision.

Since the entropy of a black hole is known
To depend on the surface area of
The event horizon and NOT on its volume,
Then our third dimension MIGHT BE a projection.

A projected illusion, as in a hologram,
May still be used as it were really there
Since we can make sense of it, so to speak,
But, in truth, the third dimension may not exist.

Thus, apparently separate particles,
Like created photon pairs,
Copy the other when one is changed,
Because, in truth, they are still
The same thing in the projector room.

If the universe is holographic,
Then the tree in the forest,
Whether seen or not,

Is, at heart, an interference pattern
Brought to life only when we tune it in.

This is the mystery of the realness
Of sleeping dreams revealed:
We tune in to the interference patterns,
Whether awake or asleep,
To bring alive the reality projected.

Everything connects to everything else
Through overlapping interference patterns,
And so nothing is so separate at all, as it seems,
But is one large all-encompassing whole.

Memory, too, seems to be holographic,
Residing everywhere in the brain,
Every piece associated with others related,
Instantly broadcasting all the connections.

Every part of a hologram contains the whole,
The whole universe contained within
A grain of sand, all eternity within a moment,
The universe rumbling when an electron vibrates.

We are part and parcel of everything—
We are the cosmos; we are life; we are love;
We are all that is; we are the creator
Of the dance as well as the dancer.

Whether the past is recorded and accessible
As part of the holographic whole is not known
Or whether the other two dimensions are
Projected, as well, but perhaps we shall see.

This then is the secret of the universe,
Knowing of that which underlies all reality:
Fundamental, absolute, indestructible,
Omnipresent, indeterminate, but all pervasive.
Why absolute and fundamental?

Because it is made of one piece—itself,
And therefore indestructible, and eternal, too,
And makes up all that there is, everywhere.

The no-place of no laws is the first cause,
Requiring nothing but the same ‘because’.
Forever and always anything goes,
This being the final answer to the TOEs.

Existents are not infinitely old:
The tale of their making is ever told;
They’re not unbreakable/unmakeable;
They are ‘sum-thing’—zero-sum formable.

Existents ever back to ‘no-thing’ trace,
Such as this universe, now in a race,
Even accelerating, from ‘no-thing’,
From the fuel that can never stop giving.

The null balance continues, remains, then,
As the reason things can’t be so frozen
That they don’t react, nor so fleeting
That all remains as chaos everlasting.

Confirmation abounds: as space and time,
Charge polarity, matter and its anti,
Kinetic/potential—stuff/gravity,
Smallest and largest, and reason and rhyme.

As per the explosive Big Bang Theory,
Our own ‘verse appeared, nearly instantly,
Going from not there to here, inflating—
A low probability happening.

As for ‘no-thing’, we knew it all along,
Philosophically, logically—as strong,
And now, factly—the triad that we love,
For there’s ‘no-thing’ to make anything of.

What meaning, then, of every- from ‘no-thing’?
Well, there was no option, no deciding—
Information’s content’s in the same row,
For both ‘no-thing’ and everything: zero.

Stillness/nonexistence/no-thing/zero
Is the root of all, where anything goes,
As the state cannot remain, unconstrained,
For that state is perfectly unstable.

This bottom, default condition must leak,
Making movement natural, so to speak,
Not quietus, and, even afterwards,
Everything still moves, outward—every-ward.

The above is the basis-eternal,
Or as best as ‘forever’ we can call,
There being nothing before that state,
Or at least more nothing, at any rate.

The state is anywhere and everywhere,
Nothing beyond it but itself out there,
Which extent could be called as ‘infinite’—
A first cause has nil outside/before it.

So, we have reached the simplest state of all,
Through the simpler, to where we get our call,
From up here, where we are, as composite,
From organs, cells, molecules, atoms, and bits.

In the greater Cosmos, everything happens,
Universes everywhere, working/flattened,
Some even the same, having more of us,
Even many times over—no big fuss,

Cause-and-effect must then do what it does,
For all that will be, now, or ever was.
Events, and will, must depend on something,
Or the air-headed chimes would be ringing.

We are as tourists along for the ride,
Plus more, since ever within the play.
It seems new: we’re not on the scripted side—
There is fun and enjoyment through the day.

Nothing cannot be, so, then, something must—
That is all there is to tell of our crust
In a parentheses of eternity
Live, null’s paternity-maternity.

The largest is so large, near everywhere,
Since the smallest is so small, barely there.
At the mid-point, there’s finite unity,
We’re suspended there, hovering entirely.

The nonexistence of Nothing must then be
Neutral and symmetrical, totally,
While existence within nonexistence
Must be polar—as asymmetrical.

Matter/anti are each half of ‘at large’,
Being polar and opposite in charge,
While photons represent all of the cosmos,
Being neutral, as both plus and minus.

In free space, there can only be two, yes,
Two stable charged matter particles,
Electrons and protons (makes atoms),
With no lasting uncharged neutron sums.

And, so, too, there can only be but one
Uncharged energy particle:
The photon, one, the sinusoidal wave,
And zero charged energy particles.

Oppositional-transitional schemes
Abound, such as the strong/weak nuclear
Versus the trans-electric-magnetic,
And space/matter versus past-now-future.

The void pulsates in a structured sequence.
A field is present throughout space immense,
Out of which all particles must ‘condense’—
Occurring where the field’s extremely intense.

Atoms are tied bundles of inertia,
Knots in the field and fabric of space;
Yet matter defines the structure of space…
The Yin is in the Yang, and vice-versa!

It is to this world that we are fine-tuned
By evolution—millions of species loomed,
And so we may not do so well elsewhere:
But Earth’s not always—we should go somewhere.

There is reality ‘out there’, for sure;
We have senses to take it in, as pure.
The brain paints a useful face upon it,
Such as colors for wave frequencies, etc.

Consciousness is ever a brain process,
One which can be halted, never-the-less,
By anesthesia, poison/drugs,
A blow to the head, a faint, or by sleep.

Change the brain and consciousness changes too.
Take drugs and the emotions change, anew.
Damage the brain and the mind’s damaged too.
Consciousness emerges only from the brain!

In identifying consciousness,
We often confuse what is floating in
The stream of consciousness with the water itself;
Thus, we note not the sea in which we ‘see’.

The brain interprets reality and puts
A face on the waves of sound, light, color, touch,
And a sense on molecules’ smell and taste.
Consciousness is the brain’s perception of itself.

Consciousness mediates thoughts versus outcomes
And is distributed all over the body,
From the nerve spindles to the spine to the brain,
A way to actionize without committing.

Conscious Awareness, which can but witness,
Is a safe haven from which to observe
The drama of our lives playing in our minds,
Granting us a sobering distance from it.

Why three space dimensions, plus one of time?
There must be three dimensions because
The singularity/nothingness demands
Existential closure—to nonexistence…

Which demands the compositional parity
Of positive and negative, as charge,
Which in turn demands that space be cubic:
Dimensionality inevitable!

The three space dimensions are compositional,
So the nullification of existence
At totality must be carried out
Via electric charge polarity,
An aspect of time, along with motion.

Over Man came the Triumph of Love
But Chastity gave it quite a shove;
However, Death then all conquered,
But this was not the final word…

For Time happily reigned over all,
Or so it thought—as its thrall,
But, Divinity vanquished its trend;
Yet, still, this was not the end…

For, as ever, the basis was left to sting,
Since Nothing overwhelms everything.

Something does not compute about the way
Thought—of eternity/infinity,
In that duration of eternity
Of all the past has already happened…

And that the extent of an infinity
Has been attained. Neither can be, as thought.
There can be ‘boundless’ without infinite—

Boundless surfaces enclose finite spheres…
They just go round and round, never ending.
N dimensions can be bounded by n-1.
A 1D line bounds a 2D finite plane.
A 0D point bounds a 1D line.

It could be that boundless 3D space bounds
A 4D finite hypervolume hypercube.
This arrangement is all extent (distance),
But, inside, one distance converts to time,
By the speed of light, as spacetime distance.

Hypervolume (distance^4) =
c(distance/time) * spacetime(distance^3 * time)

So, time is but internal to spacetime,
Being just a difference of space(s).

So, there is no time, then, externally,
And, internally, everything happens,
In the boundless ‘eternity’ within,

Happening over and over again,

As well as many times, too, everywhere,
In the boundless ‘infinity’ within.

The Cosmos contains its own history,
As well as its own ‘infinite’ spacetime.
Everything and every-time, both boundless,
Doth go round and round, perpetually.

Eternal causes cannot happen,
And so these must be equation-replaced—
The zero-sum balance that provides for the
Conservation laws ultimately precise.

Infinite extent cannot be, and so
There must be return from it, although it
Goes round and round, but seeming infinite.
Space(s) is/are a difference of time(s).

And it is still that existence has to be
Of nonexistence—there’s no other source.

We are faced with two seeming paradoxes:
A distribution of nothing versus
The same exact base forever, unmade.
One has to give, and must give, and does so.

The notion of the same exact stuff, as just
Sitting around and being there, as is,
Begs the question’s answer for more reasons.
Why its total amount, for example?

(+)
C
h
S p a c e
r
g
e
(-)

Which may be the same as

T
i
V a c u u m s p a c e
e
s

Neither Nothing nor Infinite can be,
Like the same as that neither complete vacuum
Nor total solidness is possible—
The midpoint is finite unity (1).

It’s as if Infinite * Nothing = 1.
Or is it Infinite * Infinitesimal = 1?

As Nothing cannot be, something must be,
But it can’t be infinitely solid.

There can’t be stillness, which would be ‘no time’’;
There can’t be ‘all at once’; mid-point is ‘now’.

It’s as if Stillness * All-At-Once = Now.
Or the Slow Moves * Really Fast Moves = Now?

As stillness cannot be, motion must be,
But it can’t be of an unlimited speed.
Eternity can’t be; time’s secondary.
Infinity can’t be; there’s round and round.

Infinite can’t be, not the largest nor smallest:
The finite is their difference or product.
Eternal can’t be, not past’s nor future’s,
So, ‘now’ is ever-present, ever ‘here’.

Only ‘no-thing' can make basic thing(s).
There’s no other source, no way around it!
We have to deal with this, but it goes as
Kinetic stuff, of gravity’s potential.

Did a lack of anything (no-thing) remain?
We know that it didn’t, for there’s something.

What rules/limits would apply to ‘no-thing'?
None, for that state would have no laws at all.

This means that anything goes, for ‘no-thing’,
And when anything goes, something workable
Comes out of it. This is ‘Possibility’,
And it must be the default position.

Either basic stuff always existed
Or stuff is forever made from nothing.
If always, the stuff is a set amount—
Stuff cannot have always been, in that count;

There would have been no point at which its total
Could have been specified, nor its makeup;
Therefore, this forces the other option,
That of a zero-sum distribution—
Balanced opposites—nature-confirmed.

Since all from nothing must be so, we know
That a state of the lack of anything
Must be unstable, that anything goes,

Since the state is lawless—so arrangements
Of various basic things may occur,
Some of which can form working universes.

There are no past-eternals beyond nothing;
All supposed past-eternal things end,
With nothing. Eternals, and infinites,
In actuality, can never complete.

In good time, millions of species arrived,
This taking billions of the years gone by.
There’s no past-eternal to our universe,
For it is about 14 billion years old.

It may disperse unto photons, but not
To infinity for eternity,
For those endings can never be attained,
As ‘never-ending’ can’t ever be reached.

Our sun is quite usable for about
3-5 billion more years, and we’re on
An outermost arm of the galaxy,
A safe place, from the wild galactic core.

While not fully made in the shade, on Earth,
It’s still a great place, since most of it works.
Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide
Made organics; one cell entered another.

All things had beginnings, like electrons,
Life, rocks, solar systems, or Gods supposed;
So none can be First and Fundamental—
There’s no complex from Complex from COMPLEX.

We have ‘emergence’ proceeding apace,
In all, but ‘apace’ is restrained by time,
Yet all things eventually decay/fade,
The universe unwinding, like a spring.

This slow decay allows for assemblies,
Such as flowers, trading local gains for
Losses, in quality of substance,
Though not in quantity of substance.

Of substance’s and energy’s balance,
Dispersion, and decay of quality
Comes the emergence of what we would call
Change, vision, growth, and more complexity.

The universe bubbled out of ‘nothing’,
Pluses forming matter; minuses residing in forces,
All in perfect balance, self-sufficient,
Needing nothing outside of itself, zilch.

Existence is a zero-balance tree,
Of opposites: matter and its anti,
Opposing charge, the weak versus strong force;
All from ‘nothing’, to form reality.

Totality cannot to limits cling,
Or it wouldn’t be All, so it’s bounding
None, granting eternity’s duration,
And infinity’s extent: everything.

Meat Loaf sang what he wouldn’t do for love,
While country music titles soared above
All reason’s reach (we’ll leave those well alone),
As culture shifted like a hand-switched glove.

Meat Loaf recorded his greatest song of ‘I’ll Do Anything for Love, But I Won’t Do That.’ Let’s not get into country music song titles.

Through currents twisted by the cosmic dance,
Past Albuquerque’s dangerous circumstance,
Nobody swam (no butterfly allowed!)
Till Earth 2025 came into glance.

All applauded his return, giving a great reception to the improver of reception, and told him of Earth’s many new marvels, for

That tin-foil fix worked magic past all hope:

The tin foil had beat the odds, accomplishing some fantastic things:

The world bloomed color’s full kaleidoscope!
The fifties saw both life and TV shine,
As black and white lost their restricted scope.

Color had arrived in the world, along with color TV, in the late 1950’s (just look at the black and white TV shows made before then for proof).

High Definition brought its crystal view
(Perhaps too crystal—showing pimples too);
While Earth embraced its newly sharpened sight,
And welcomed home the one who made it true.

High Definition had arrived, as well, which allowed us to examine in great detail the pimples on a person’s face.

They celebrated he who dared to swim
Through time’s deep waters, both bright and dim;
Who fixed reception’s cosmic crystal set,
Though language quirks still followed every whim.

For in this tale of temporal repair,
Where words shift meaning through the quantum air,
Nobody proved that sometimes tinfoil dreams
Can make reality beyond compare.

Three gifts of heaven grace our mortal sphere:
Sweet flowers’ bloom, night visions crystal clear,
And elfin folk who dance twixt earth and sky—
Though some, like fallen angels, prove not dear.

Three types of “heavenly” things had become permanent features of the world: flowers, night dreams, and elfin creatures, the latter of which were the long sought missing link between man and angel (unfortunately some angels had gone bad, although many had remained good, and thus many leprechauns couldn’t be trusted).

The Dark Age lifted sooner than before,
As Y1K brought wisdom to restore;

The Dark Ages had gotten brighter sooner (the Y1K problem),

The printing press, a century advanced,
Spread knowledge wide from learning’s sacred store.

the printing press had been invented a century sooner,

In Oxford’s halls, a humble sweeper found
Old Omar’s verses, dormant underground;
While Plato’s newest thoughts lay close beside,
‘Beyond Metaphysics,’ wisdom newly crowned.

a book of Omar Khayyàm’s thousand year old quatrains was discovered in the Bodleian library by a janitor, not having been noticed there before, along with Plato’s new book of the month, ‘Beyond Metaphysics’.

The Bard unblocked his pen (no fish required),
His genius finally fully fired;
While gentle blondes sought gentler company,
And Magdalene’s true story was acquired.

Someone named Shakespeare had gotten over his writer’s block of trying to open a lock with a fish and so had written some of the greatest stuff ever. Blondes began to prefer gentlemen. James the Lesser was shown to really have less, actually being Mary Magdelane.

The iPod’s tune drew minds from reality,
As Apple’s fruit grew sweeter on the tree;

and Apple computers and products were improving and catching on to let us tune out reality (of all things) with the ipod.

While sixty summers now seemed young indeed—
Ten years more life, a gift of destiny.

Ten years had been added to the human life span, meaning that sixty was not old anymore!

Cartoons kept the children in their sway,
While Kovacs’ words on TV held their day—
That “medium” meant excellence was rare—
And thus we learned to cast the worst away.

However, we were stuck with cartoons, but, hey, they keep kids busy! Ernie Kovak’s saying of ‘Television is a medium because anything well done is rare’ still stood firm, but we could better see what was worthless.

Though strangers bid us each a pleasant time,
Their plans might lead to regions more sublime;

People still told others to ‘Have a nice day’ even though they probably had other plans.

And even on the phone, hands dance through air,
As gesture preceded verbal rhyme.

Everyone still talked with their hands, even while on the phone, indicating that gestures had proceeded language.

Now men with nipples walk beneath the sun,
While consciousness, once naps had come undone,
Grew bright as dawn—yet some cared not to share
The wisdom that enlightenment had won.

However, men now had nipples, but no matter. Enlightenment grew bright, consciousness becoming more that just ‘that boring time between naps’, but some still didn’t know and didn’t care one way or the other to know the difference between ignorance, apathy, and ambivalence.

Why call a “building” when its build is done?
Such puzzles leave us wondering, just for fun;

As for why a ‘building; was called that after it was built, no one knew.

And why’s a thesaurus not some ancient heir
To dinosaurs whose time has long since run?

And why wasn’t a thesaurus a type of dinosaur?

Behold! A color new had come to stay—
Not found in rainbow’s arc of light’s display:
’Twas brown that graced our world with earthen hue,

A new and useful color had appeared that was not even in the rainbow: brown.

While humor spread through words in fresh wordplay.

Humor was now more widespread, due to expanded and duplicate word meanings.

The penny candy rose to nickel’s height,

And cigarettes blazed forth at costs to fright;
I insured each pack against their doom—
Small fires claimed them in the quiet night.

Cigarettes now cost $1000 a pack. I insured all of my packs, but they were eventually consumed by a series of small fires.

The court dismissed my claims with stern disdain,
And branded me an arsonist in pain;

My insurance company wouldn’t pay, so I took them to court, where I was convicted of arson.

Yet still the world grew better than before—
The worst was merely “worser” in its strain.

However, all in all, the world was a better place, in that the worst times were now only the ‘worser’.

Poor Pluto’s been banished to the underworld,
Charon rowing him to the Land of the Forgotten.
Schoolchildren petitioned for his return,
But he was voted off of the solar island.

On ToeQuest, souls were gifted yearly flight
Around the sun—with Poughkeepsie’s delight;
Second place earned two trips to that town fair,
Third place got three—oh what a curious plight!

Everyone on ToeQuest was awarded a free annual trip around the sun and one special trip to Poughkeepsie, NY. Second place was two trips to Poughkeepsie; third place, three trips to Poughkeepsie.

One rigid mode of thought’s score
Consumes the other with folklore,
Unbending, unyielding with perfect defense,
To orchestrate life’s symphony at the song’s expense.

We’re happy to ferret out the truth;
However, when subjected to the proof,
We wish that the coin could stand on its edge,
But see that it cannot, which is knowledge.

So lets define the world and human existence
On a couple hundred years of material witness,
Or burn the measuring eye to the stake!
After all, our freedom’s what it seeks to forsake!

Evolution didn’t work by chance for us to live,
For natural selection is the scientific alternative
To Intelligent Design from something outside;
The coin of determination has no other side.

The secret is simply that a secret does exist
And no amount of data can take away this,
But this doesn’t mean a ghost in the machinery;
Perhaps the heart isn’t just a pump, the liver a refinery.

We often forget the secret, willingly,
In order to live life excitingly,
Which it still would be, either way,
As we’re still part of the play, anyway.

But of course there is a past of ‘whethers’
Through which we’ve been weathered;
Surely we are moved as dust from gust to gust,
But is two-twice-two as four always a must?

Math, too, is a must, and we try, as ever,
To predict a week ahead the weather,
Yet the data are to much to work with,
But indetermination measures not random’s width.

Is not an unfree will a blatant contradiction
Developed from the an ‘enlightened conviction’?
If I’ve made a choice then I have willed it,
And if it’s been willed then freedom’s fulfilled it.

This is what I mean, that the will willed one’s self,
Which is that one does not will the will itself.
The neurons vote, based on who one is;
Naught else is there to answer the quiz.

And of course it’s in and of a misguided pit
To say that from the past we’ve distilled it.
Is not the idea of complete self-autonomy a ruse
Born from the illusion of the existentialist blues?

We distill what comes into us, too,
For it has to become part of us, new,
For mirror neurons act it out, while we are still,
Invading our sanctum and altering the will.

But of course, this is to be much expected
From a culture that lacks all mythical perspective.
’Nonsense’ we call it, a virtue of not thinking,
From which we have long since been departing,
So now will behold in all its transparency
Beyond childish ideals of essence and archaic fantasy.

That’s close, but it’s thinking that has grown,
By science and logic informed from reason sown,
In place of feeling, sensation, wishes, and the pleas
To have the universe be what it ought to be.

Do not distort with a desire for meaning.
Oh, the babe, lets leave the child a’weening,
But I ask of you: have you not tried ‘in-betweening?

There are two ways of living, at times merging,
One of just state of being, of its only showing,
And one of the being plus the under-knowing,
Though when with wife, we say not of hormoning.

And in that same breath we say all is forgiven;
Why hold humans responsible, leading to derision?
Of course an eye for an eye was an unjust decision
Well, we have a system that draws a line between
A crime of passion and a thought-out, sought-for infliction.

“The universe made me do it,” says the accused,
And the Judge replies, “Well, this does excuse,
But I still have to sentence you to the pen,
Until the universe can’t make you do it again,”

Why must it be a question of absolute freedom
As complete randomness over an unbending system
That structures everything that ever was, is, and will be,
Right down to the elementary structures of incomprehensibility.

What is set forth in the beginning
Is ever of itself continuing,
Restrained by time, yes, but unfolding,
For there is nothing else inputting.

I may understand why this has to be;
I have felt the rapture of black and white toxicity,
But why subjugate all possibility for novelty?

It will still be novel, even such as a new parking lot,
For the dopamine neurotransmitters will stir the pot.
New is still new, on the grand tour through life,
But do some predicting, to then avoid some strife.

Can such a thought hope to cast a wrench into these gears,
A tool so heavy that dissuades all of our fears?
Will all order and inertia be torn asunder?
Will we have giant ants wearing top hats over,
With all rationality considered a blunder?

The truth was not sought to drop a spanner into the works,
But turns out to grant more of compassion’s perks
For those afflicted with the inability for learning,
We eliminating great annoyances burning.

Am I simply a delusional puddle here,
Perceiving just my liquid perimeter,
As I think to myself I can control
The very rain that expands my rule.
And the humidity that thins.
Should I condemn as that which sins?

There are no sins, but just destiny’s fate,
Which even includes one’s learnings of late.
We are whirl-pools, of the same oscillations,
Some lasting, but of the same instantiations.