From Manhattan to Oxnard

I recently walked the Brooklyn Bridge in ecstasy.
The clouds, the humid April wind, the scattering rains,
Knowing all the time that I was in Oxnard.
Oppositions attract.

Manhattan or Oxnard I ask?
Empty being, Full being? Mind? Matter?
Zen Master Rama is LA and Manhattan.
But Oxnard?
I could be in East Village, LOWESA,
Lower East Side,
Marxist being flooded,
Culture, no nature,
only mind full and bright
Yet grey.

I am of North Oxnard,
bleak, clean lines,
People unaware of themselves as cattle,
Racing in California metal down Ventura way,
Turning down the monopoly troughs to Gonzales road.
And then onto the Boulevard -- Oxnard Boulevard!
No nothing,
the ancient peaks above me,
Guarding the Western power lines,
looking down
At the muddy haze of Oxnard dreams
from where I descend.
Egypt and Atlantis!
Yet I have taken incarnation here,
In the dark,
Draining my dreary schoolboy crushes
Snapping my lost powers to this Oxnard dream,
Until broken I must run to the desert
Who like a mother cradles me in power and wisdom
Which again are crushed against the Oxnard strawberries.

Who am I to complain?
How many of you have visited the ancient sacred trailer of Lord Rodney,
Now dead, lost in the dungeons of this fallen empire.
Thoreau was right, Rodney is Buddha.
He has gone mad with Slim Pickins and Trudy,
And Massive Wade has sunken into the earth,
While the Nuclear Nazi and I are locked in this bungalow,
Thousands of years since the Jesus glow from Israel.
I cannot but help but pick up the pen of this sticky keyboard,
And tell you of Oxnard existences.

All is mind but that which isn't.
Oxnard, some strange dead, living mind,
Souls huddled West of those ancient deserts,
Meeting the young and old,
Night-tripping to LA and Ventura,
Sex, beer, and the loss of energy and innocence,
The rings of awareness tight around everyone
Not loose and wild like Manhattan,
No subway people suffering,
(as to go full circle to ecstatic consciousness)
Not the crisp, clear Zazen forest leaves of Boston,
Not the raw dying power of Los Angeles,
Or the crazy Indian nirvana of Marin,
No the Oxnard energy is still by the oceans,
The art and achievement of the west,
Pounded into the stench of fertilizer
And fast-food consciousness.

The energy again shifts into a frenzy of dream vortexes,
Weird women throwing weird powers at me,
Amateurs who probably swept pyramids in Egypt,
Now draining this Sphinx-aspiring occultist,
Speaking to you live,
Shackled to an HP-150 terminal,
Writing to you about these Oxnard incarnations,
The battles I have lost,
The few I have won,
The dharma I have not followed,
That none follow,
In this cloudy heated summer basin.

I meditate in Oxnard,
How could anyone follow with these dreams,
Of huge violent trucks,
Dreams of desert oil wars,
Jungle Latin conquest for the ending,
Which will bury Oxnard's name
And clear the bright colored soda-stains of Manhattan cement,
The subway piss of Brooklyn,
My little dreams,
A flash of light,
Back forever
Other worlds beckon,
From Oxnard to Manhattan.