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Oh
Oh puppy waiting for a Frisbee. Oh dreams of last night. Planning to spill lead scratches out of my pencil here. Oh talent build me
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Creation
There is creation and only creation. Creation the only rule and the destruction of creation yet another creation. As erasing is part of drawing. There
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Kindling
I hate to break it to you, boys and girls. But none of this is real. The feelings . . they seem to be real,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/nicolas-cage-as-paul-wearing-a-knife-glove-in-dream-scenario-300x169.webp)
Dream Scenario Movie Review
A dreamy confusion or an awakening from the nightmare society? SPOILER ALERTS The movie Dream Scenario is about the ego and the collective unconscious, two
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-24-at-6.45.23 AM-300x232.png)
Squirrel, owl, man and god
Why is the squirrel not named wise in the fables like the owl? He twitches and rushes. He hunts vegetable nuts to save and hoard.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_20191201_063153-300x225.jpg)
Those
Those that worship the soft morning opening triumph over the narrative of madness that gets played over and over again. Those that always see light
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/IMG_0082-225x300.jpg)
Unclear
And if this universe, this one song, wants to know itself – wants to witness and celebrate its garden of unfolding;then what would an artist
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/IMG_2298-225x300.jpg)
Self making
You don’t become anything in this life – this life becomes you. The sons and daughters you birth shine back your flaws. The birds chirp
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/IMG_2211-211x300.jpg)
Cute
Start this day. And what is to be started? A moving across a road and into small towns. Loving forward. Loving further. Driving to get
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/IMG_6048-225x300.jpg)
Comedians again
All I want with sleep is to sleep better in order to wake better.To dream better in order to wake better. To energize better in
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_9090-EDIT-300x115.jpg)
Love all wrong
And what is love? And what if we got love all wrong? What would have been wrong about the getting. To think of it as
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/20150225_2352362-300x136.jpg)
Writing
What is the action of writing? The spilling of ink onto a page. A thought going from mind to letters. An activity of exhausting the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_1713-225x300.jpg)
That word
And of course, you’re saying things back to yourself. What’s here is here. So you’re going to spread the word?What is that word, exactly?Love? But
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Kill the character
And what are you afraid of?No self. Yes.Starting with no “success” or authoritative approval for the character so assiduously crafted. No relevance. As in, once
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_0091-225x300.jpg)
Wordless world
What is silence?What is without a word?Crows with no word, flying to an ocean with no word. The way a flag gets pushed by a
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Screenshot-2023-06-27-at-7.47.48-AM-300x141.png)
News flash
Who are you? Who means character in dream state.So that’s not what you’re after. What are you? is much more scientific.Bones, nerves, salt water blood
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_8019-300x94.jpg)
Play music
“Please, universal soul, practice some song, or something, through me.” – Rumi. This is always happening and you rarely know it. When you know it.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_0671-225x300.jpg)
Bliss or blah or black
What is your pattern? To avoid engaging with life. What is life?Life is the propagation of seeds, and ideas, and plants, and snails, and trash,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_1180-225x300.jpg)
Freedom
Is freedom a thing worth chasing?Or is it a game of dig another hole to hide in? First of all, what is freedom? Part of
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And you are?
Who is you? But wait. Back up. Start with a scientific example first. Gravity is true. Correct. Then go forward miles down that road and
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_0597-225x300.jpg)
Alienation games
If you think of the world as a world of stories – because that’s what it is – then you can see that the worst
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Message in the bottle
Is any of this interesting. Maybe. But what do I know? That there’s an “in-between” world, that houses beauty, and we touch it only furtively.We
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_9818-225x300.jpg)
What is true.
I am a potion of chemicals, cells, muscles and bones walking around a town.I am a beaker test sending results back to who knows where.I
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_6840-1-225x300.jpg)
Traveling with bags
To see clearly from moment to momentand accept what is. And what does it mean to see clearly? To take in what you can perceive
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What is urgent?
And how would I die?Why be safe?What is chance?What is bad luck but a story laid over chance?What is anything?Is there urgency here?What’s urgent? Not
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To crack a thunder
How can there be any other explanation for what’s going on here other than play?There is nothing more than an inter-play of witnesses.When someone demands
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Me against the rain
The rich people who paid millions to forgo life,to live in boxes with small views,who never leave their TV living roomsto see the world,who tell
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What, wait, what?
And who am I?Just a character drifting through others’ dreams.What am I?Really.A pattern of thought held in a bone case.A circular waveform, round and round.Thinking
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Particle pattern
And the dream marks everywhere.Balloons and jet fighters.Explosions all around.The large and small of the universe demands attention.F-22s blow weather balloons out of the sky.
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Rainbow in charge
The only argument for evil or sickness or rain or deathis for it to be a backdrop for love, health, sunshine, or life.There must be
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Why not?
Why not revere the sun? Why not drink the wine?Play with balls and Frisbees? Taste goose livers and reduced fruits?Why not touch a breast and
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The almost full moon
And all the truth you need is a moon covered up by some clouds And the blues it surrounds itself with. And the marching
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Is-ness business
What does knowledge mean? Agreement? To know is to decide with others that a thing is a thing. But what is truly known? Not much.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IMG_20200404_164100-1-225x300.jpg)
Absurd artist
And a sea bird says something to me. I place the fruit of the earth into my body. I drink herbs from the bushes. I
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Artificial Intelligence
Death is always here. To the bird, to the spider, to the trimmed branch. To the flower. To the leaf. All intertwined with the living.Death
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Vented ether
Waking slowly.And after all that, the moon is gone – casting a silhouette form around a lone pine tree. We are on the horizon. The
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Coyote pups
The coyote pups cackling this morning. The big white barn owl on the hunt. Sounds like fun, playing wildlife.While I play wildlife here.Everyone just a
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Extension
Further. You go further,and that means questioning the very root and basis of everything,and finding the jokes and laughing yourself silly about the nonsensical beliefs
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_9259-225x300.jpg)
Preaching (A loose essay)
I don’t care, and I don’t have a mind complicated enough to think that what I care about matters.That is the surrender required.Could you have
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_8990-225x300.jpg)
Pleasure
You look at me like you want something.And I doubt that it is simply sex.You want to know your self.But you think it comes through
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/tootsie-pops-300x162.png)
Tootsie Roll Pop
It’s structured like an Aesop fable.Boy asks cow behind a fence.Boy asks fox on a rock with Stevie Wonder sunglasses.Boy asks turtle with old man
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IMG_6755-298x300.jpg)
A stage
This is a stage to dance on.And I am armed with time today.Dali’s watch melts across my wrist.And the stars witness. And the city lights
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The Menu: Plato Cave Matrix
An updated version of Plato’s cave, this movie called The Menu. Kick in the eye. Ha! It’s also a comedic take on the Last Supper.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IMG_6412-300x225.jpg)
Fire
What’s wanted from a fire? Nothing required from a fire. It takes away. Fire taking away thought. Burning presence to sell you immediate wonder. Tearing
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pigs-in-zen-300x196.png)
Pigs in Zen
Your intellect will not figure out anything for you here. Your surrender will. The poems – the Bukowski “don’t try” moments – benefit from the
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What time is it?
Journals full of things I didn’t do. Lists of maybes. The triumph of not being hasty. Libraries of the ideas of others that kind of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/IMG_8414-300x223.jpg)
The dead
The dead say eliminate . . . get things out. Don’t contain things. The dead desire the stages of beauty only the living have. The
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Baller
A small boy picked up a baseball, round as the earth. ‘Have a ball,’ someone might have said. A small boy jumped toward the hoop
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The cinema
And a mystic said, ‘Brains are no place for serious thinking.’ Adherents sat in a crowded cinema – chained to their seats. Some hollered at
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Ways through
It was said the only way out is through. It can be a short way or a long way. All the ways through these pages
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Deliberation
Is the doing deliberate? Does the man have a plan? Or is doing coming through the man via the objective world? When the plan emerges
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Cluster
And these frames, they get jostled. And these pipes, they get clogged. And these recipes and algorithms get troubled and buggy. The mechanism is failing,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/IMG_7884-139x300.png)
The shape and shade of things
Attempting to explore the world before the end. And that’s not a melodrama. It’s just what is for everyone. And the simplest of choices is
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I am
Alan Watts said you are an aperture through which the universe sees and experiences itself. But it’s worse than that in “real life.” Actually, you
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Fires and footsteps
Liking the color and shape of things, I turn off the sound to human drama. So much insistence that something is going on here that’s
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Fears again
And his the fear of someone fancy. A woman beyond his reach by clever definitions of Gucci and bling. A person beneath sparkling way brighter
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Meeting
This frame, this animal, this director of importance demands to live. When the “I am” inside has seen enough. And the groundhog day keeps rising,
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Enlightenment
If you have a spot that needs a thought,put an image there.If you have a space that needs grace,hang a painting high.If you have a
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Search
You will not find your self in thoughts.Your self stands by and watches as your thought-of-self scampers about a room,looking for keys that are in
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Arisen and dead
Is death something to be worried about?Is death to be feared?Is discomfort?Or is discomfort fear itself manifested?Alcohol gone to upset stomach.Rumination gone to headache.Overwork turned
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Same shows
I see religious people, and I see a comforting agreement.I see anti-religious people, and I see political agreement.I see surfers, and I say, “How were
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Hoot
Thinking of the constellation charioteer and looking at it.And thinking of how J could come to a party alone becausemy fantasy is that she’s unattached
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Happening
If the evidence is man and man is nature,then nature wants to see itself.The galaxies want to witness their unfoldings and destructions.Witnessing in the mirror.
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Panic
Who are you?A collection of things to do?A running loop of gags?A pattern of flexing muscles? A pair of eyes tracking stars. A membrane of
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Deleting files
Maybe ideas of wanting are tied to phases of life.Of youth to striving.Of middle age to pondering.Old age to surrendering.Why wouldn’t it be otherwise? But
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Not that love
A kind of love that’s not the one they agree on.An erasing of thought.That kind of love.An erasing of experience.A purging of agreement. Not the
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The hockey player
Ego stop, and just describe this man.The hockey player is one of the fastest on the ice.The seats in the stands are empty.There is no
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Persist
Arising again.Awakening at dawn to finally clear skies and a canopy of stars.To a grouping some society long ago decided was Orion.Arising to read the
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Tinkering
Why poison the frame?There is no way to get away from it. Even if the art is surrounded by a moat of mud – the
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Investment
When I say I contain much, what am I?What is that container?That “I” is a membrane of thoughts around a lifetime of characters played carefully.A
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Nailed
And the woman said, “I’m nothing. I’m nobody, and I don’t do nothing.” In a nonchalant Mancunian accent she actually said that,as if it weren’t
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Selling out, and in
If I own art, I don’t want to own cheap art.If I’m making art, I don’t want to create cheap art.If I’m painting a wall,
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The towel rack
The girls who live in fancy housessensed trouble when the bathroom towel rack pulled off of the wall.Drywall dust scattered across cheap tiles. Oh shit,
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Gamer
The world is whatever game you make it up to be. You could make it about avenging a villain or an abuser. It could be
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/IMG_0210-300x300.jpg)
Flick in the eye
And the day started with limp thoughts. Vapid, empty, thankless thoughts. As if a universe of sparkling wonder ever cared a whit for one egotistical
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/IMG_3515-1-225x300.jpg)
Fear
What is fear but a prevention mechanism?Prevention of what?Of chance?Of development?It’s not some homily from the “just do it” crowd.Or we’d all be nuked by
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Desire diet
And the man wants dandelion tea or dandelion capsules or just dandelions.Always wanting some bettering of the vessel while the vessel deteriorates.But the self improves
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Bench time
A lichen and moss covered wood bench.Squirrels discarding acorn husks from above.Just out of range from being skulled.Nike the dominant shoe walking by.Rarely an Asics;
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Student union piano
And a purple-haired college girl sat down at the sleek black pianoin the corner of a fancy traditional room of the EMUwith rustic oil paintings
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_7470-300x225.jpg)
Oregon city blocks
And the house-less, home-less, place-less, loneliness of Eugene streets bicker with themselves as the orange morning breaks.There are spoils to be divided from the student
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PXL_20210210_152947317-169x300.jpg)
Secrets
Morning show. First light.The brain is different at dawn. There are secrets in every one of us, and they’re the same secrets.They’re the ones that
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PXL_20210226_135510853.MP_-300x169.jpg)
Heart work
And the woman in the park wearing scrubs heads to work.She’ll send catheter-driven blades, saws and cameras through pig and antelope hearts. What are you
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PXL_20210310_150323573-169x300.jpg)
Dog bolsa
Life is truly wonderful, and anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit. A man in a white park maintenance truck said “hey” to
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Untitled-300x174.png)
Football
And the woman at the park disparaged football.And the men at the park bristled at the heresy.A player hating the game.But no doubt the woman
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_20150421_000404-225x300.jpg)
Unbeliever
You mistake me for a believer in things.Nothing could be further from the truth.Wait.That’s wrong.All things are right next to the truth.All things now and
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_1998.HEIC-225x300.jpg)
Paid in full
Arising again, the sky goes from a blackish dotted blue to some kind of powdered tone of navy. To cerulean with a band of dusty
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_6898-225x300.jpg)
An insensitive one
Everybody knows someone dying or dead. Some tear-jerker of a story they’ve put in a boxed narrative and held at arm’s length like some garbage
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_7265-2-300x201.jpg)
Color cards
What you enjoy when a cloud goes by and the sun throws pink onto everything is the fact that nothing’s going on here but oh
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PXL_20210126_152544140-300x169.jpg)
Current event
To remember that feeling and attitudenot rationality and logicare the currencies of the mud and flood world.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_5182-225x300.jpg)
A reminder
The truth, should you care, is that nothing’s going on here.Grasp that and you can flip into the other truth that everything’s going on here.And
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PXL_20210307_143712248-169x300.jpg)
Lost keys
There were days when you hid your keys, when you hid your phone, when you hid your remote control.And you pretended to be frustrated with
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_6755-298x300.jpg)
Light you
Stare at a street lamp.Understand what a street lamp is.Are you beginning to see the light?You are that.Do you see the waves coming from the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_5579-300x249.jpg)
Your image
“There are love stories, and there is obliteration into love.” – Rumi “Your desire must be disciplined, and what you want to happen in time,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/PXL_20210120_154910347-169x300.jpg)
Purpose
And there are stories the human child should and shouldn’t know. Grimm’s fairy tales come to mind. Friday the 13th. Days of infamy – you
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_7028-260x300.jpg)
Sunflower
The sunflowers came up on schedule. A ladder climbing up from a seed. Swaying awkwardly in the morning wind. All rusty, golden, dusty and yellow.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_4015-225x300.jpg)
Vanity
“It is vain to skulk.” – Walt Whitman One can get the feeling that something is ending. But nothing ever ends. It only bursts out.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_2531-225x300.jpg)
Many moons
At dawn today, an absurd little insect scampered south on a vinyl floor made to look like French oak. Way back when, the moon, like
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_6837-1-300x225.jpg)
Early waking
To wake early is just to be with the morning. It’s no other exercise. It’s not getting to something else sooner. It’s not some way
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_4336-225x300.jpg)
Dog knows
The dog only knows the noun.There’s the word squirrel, and she knows what that is.‘Coyote’ and she goes bananas.Bunny is known.But not ‘not a squirrel’
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/pkd2-19-300x218.png)
Man the switch
If you hang around long enough, you get to do lots of things.But those things are not you.He caught a fish.He slid down a snowy
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/PXL_20210201_160852419.MP_-169x300.jpg)
Algo
Things show up for you because of the algorithm. “These are not popular headlines,” he said. “It’s obscure stuff.” “So they just show up for
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/projection-300x141.png)
Projection
And who are the bugs that get into the house? What are the parts that explain your existence? What do you want of the self?
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_6845-288x300.jpg)
Whitman the heretic
Cryptic can seem pretentious.That owl is hunting every night, but I see it only five times a year. I’m taken care of by generations of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_6966-225x300.jpg)
Business
A poor girl is dazzled by wealth.A rich one is bored with two thousand dollar hand bags. A painter struggles to keep the image of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/PXL_20210116_154523062-300x169.jpg)
Hide and seek
As an adult, you pretend you don’t know where anything is.Where are my keys?What’s my password?What is this life and where is it going? As
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_6838-225x300.jpg)
Good morning
And the sky births things that would be comforting in death.Death but a process from one place to another. Jets like thorns floating across with
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/PXL_20210123_155907365-300x169.jpg)
Opposite motion
What is the process of waking up in the morning? Addition. Of adding on an alarm bell or a funky sound or a radio station.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_6850-225x300.jpg)
Edge of eye sky
Everything is alive with the animating force of you. If you have access to greatness – to godlike power – and you do, you would
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_1086-225x300.jpg)
Vocation
A baker sees the world in terms of hunger and sustaining. And scents of toasty, secure warmth. A certain delight that comes with passing risen
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_0172-300x216.jpg)
Daybreak
Must one convince the self that the world is full of wonders? Or is it just so? The dawn sky delivers awe to a man,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_0072-300x225.jpg)
Within
And the day is a process of delusion. One wakens with some clarity then layers gum onto the eyes as the hours pass. Gum from
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_0210-300x300.jpg)
Journey
And she said, “Journey,” like she’s on some kind of a reasoned itinerary. “This is my journey.” “How’s your journey?” And the man couldn’t help
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_6004-225x300.jpg)
Thou art
Sitting around with the glow of a pre-dawn street lamp – one notices what it is. Of course, it’s energy from the sun re-routed through
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_6816-225x300.jpg)
Drama
And everyone says, “I don’t do drama.” But if they’re players in the game, they have to. Drama is the currency and the purpose of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/PXL_20201230_164256304.MP_-300x169.jpg)
TV channel
A big, burly pine tree grows too high for the neighborhood association. Someone on the road above prefers their view of below has no obstructions
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_1328-1-225x300.jpg)
Scatter
Thoughts are things, and things are thoughts, and you, my friend are stuck in a thing pattern. . . a thought pattern. And there is
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/20150111_134345-300x169.jpg)
Video game
“And let’s say the game you play is a metaphor for life.” His son dropped the game controller at age 17 and stared back at
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_6786-300x225.jpg)
Preaching (A loose essay)
I don’t care, and I don’t have a mind complicated enough to think that what I care about matters. That is the surrender required. Could
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/DSCN7002-300x225.jpg)
Exteriors
To see clearly. And to know your own story of love. However improbable that could be. To notice what you missed 10,000 times. The kestrel
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/PXL_20210207_162314216.MP_-169x300.jpg)
Bird cloud
Who knows what they’ve been named, but the way they jump through the bush and clean it of berries is sublime. Whistles and a chatter
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/wonka-300x170.png)
Curiosity
If there’s no more wonder, then there are no more poems. And what is wonder but a simple curiosity? With a splash of something else
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_0308-300x300.jpg)
Rocket ship
She said, “The age of ambition is coming to a close.” For her, it might be the end of wanting a baby. The end of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_6105-225x300.jpg)
Safe
You are not granted any safety. None at birth, none in life, and none at death. And what is safety but a deception by the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_6677-300x300.jpg)
Sea king
How to recapture a spirit of insanity? Further. How much further could you take this? Past shuddering sage leaves in a container garden. How to
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_20210127_163903-225x300.jpg)
The sin
What is it to play the game well? At the root, not to violate the law. The law? To commit the sin of boredom. Whatever’s
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/smudge-300x206.png)
Smudge
She smudged the room with a burning, smoking smudger thing. A bad juju might leave the premises. And what better game to play? It’s no
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_4808-225x300.jpg)
Argue
If you’re in an argument with life – what would it be about and why? What’s the reason here? Why reason? Is there such a
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_5161-1-300x151.jpg)
Heresy
Is there really anything to figure out but the gurgling sound of a song bird? Knowing that a certain chipmunk makes a similar alarm-bell ring.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_1802-300x225.jpg)
Showtime
This character’s a walking TV show for the others. To the extent he hits lines, crafts dramas, provides mystery and resolves dilemmas, he’s successful. Few
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_3727-225x300.jpg)
Curved lines
And she said, “Talk in straight lines,” as guidance to the conversation.He was playing with words, as usual, but saying things no less direct than
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_20161011_090849-300x225.jpg)
Light on black
You’re about to experience one of life’s cherished lessons. Those around you die. And, by extension, you die. Yes, the end of intricately confabulated stories
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_20200221_120637-225x300.jpg)
Arcade machine
Oh morning, oh fungus rising, oh leaned over poppies, oh gears of the biker heading down the hill. Teach me about living now. How to
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_4851-300x225.jpg)
Over and over
A human staring down a ruse of permanence in a world that’s actually doing slow-motion impermanence. The snail dead today rises anew tomorrow. Obituaries fill
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/PANO_20161121_081528-300x62.jpg)
Assemble
And the couples assemble because they agree about lies. Or, they fall into sex, then they justify further by agreeing on narratives – stories they’ve
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_4336-225x300.jpg)
Laser strike
The hummingbird sounds off like some kind of pressing laser gunfight. Crows make a beeline in the sky for garbage somewhere. Micro mist drops place
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_0370-300x300.jpg)
The death side of death
From something to nothing.There’s the hard part.All this to _________________.Flat line, unknown.Unknowable.Knowledge not even a factor.The holy ghost in reverse.No action.Take away.No action.No.Something not even
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PXL_20210123_151745478-169x300.jpg)
The life side of death
Look, look, look. What is all this? Why does the dog sniff? What is the law of the land? The lawn pushes upward to light,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_6606-300x225.jpg)
Stop making sense
I can easily tell embarrassing and mortifying stories about my former selves because those characters are not me. They’re interesting roles in a book of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_2886-300x225.jpg)
Take away
Take away. Take away. Take away. As the day takes away, it goes from morning fog to thick marine layer to bright burn off. From
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_4885-225x300.jpg)
Star brights
“Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so. Only what nobody denies is so.”– Walt Whitman So little is truth.So much is
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_1115.HEIC-300x225.jpg)
Miracle now
The problem with thinking is that 99.7% of it is not true. And there’s a certain delight to an argument in your mind, but it’s
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/DSCN6240-300x225.jpg)
Hummingbird
A hummingbird hovered over the grown-out lawn. Early morning. Sun crested the hill. No breeze. The down draft of its wings pushed long leaves of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_6258-225x300.jpg)
Love story
It’s possible, but improbable, that a bird has a song of hope. Only a fool would put that kind of emotion onto a nerve bulbed
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_20150410_202453-1-225x300.jpg)
Stumble or dance
And I changed shorts in the bedroom closet. Dumb, pulling clingy fabric over grippy running shoes. I stumbled and goofed. Everything’s a trap. You either
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_5694-225x300.jpg)
Story
To change the story you’re telling is to change the life you’re living. Bukowski tells of women, hard-ons and boozing. Waiting out the clock, taking
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/coyote-and-birdhouse-205x300.png)
Sensation of disconnect
If you are the sum of your senses, then you are green – the dominant color of this particular spot. You are a thick gray-white
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/PXL_20210126_154444807-300x169.jpg)
Fascination
And there’s usually not much of anything going on. The people are pushed and pulled around town, around freeways, through airports based on stories they’ve
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/plane-300x161.png)
Showing
I am a god mission. I want to own the night and the dawn and the coyote hours. The purple sky along the black horizon.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_6078-225x300.jpg)
Disappearing
Am I separate from these pages? I feel them as me. Ha! Pencil lead to paper. Follow the lines. Practice the way we think in
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_6199-1-225x300.jpg)
Light
Why is this bunch of nerves sampling this world? Am I a planet probe? Am I reporting back to something else? What’s to report? I
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/PXL_20210215_142215074-300x169.jpg)
A subtle fear
There are meanings in numbers, like the code you choose for your combo lock. There are meanings in the lines on your hand and the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_4477-225x300.jpg)
Thanksgiving in spring
Death is on the line. It could be incredibly painful, like a birth.It could be soft and slow, like a lifelong distraction.The fact that it’s
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_3904-225x300.jpg)
Doing
The girl with the bow on her head lecturing other toddlers about the importance of squirrels. The woman in technology-designed shoes, shorts and tank-top pumping
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_6176-225x300.jpg)
The anti-script
Roads less traveled . . . You could just as easily forgo the script and think yourself a maverick by deciding not to have children
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/onion-pepper-lime-copy-signed-inverted-HCHB-300x297.jpg)
Not poems
These are not poems. They are a peeling of a personal onion. It’s not art, it’s an elimination game. Looking under each level to find
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_6306-225x300.jpg)
Get used to it
You are the assembler of your experience. Fear alone keeps you from scenes of beauty. Fear of insignificance, like when the dog denied you her
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_6305-225x300.jpg)
Away it goes
What are the agreements? We all get up and exercise. We have pets on leashes. We marvel at nature miracles as if they’re rarely under
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1489.HEIC-300x225.jpg)
The pond (alt: You could)
And you could, at the behest of a guru, wait for the pond to clear, for the mud to settle and the surface to stretch
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PXL_20210125_160705437-1-300x169.jpg)
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/IMG_1685.HEIC-300x225.jpg)
The character
If I’m a dreamer, have I dreamed this into being?A mudslinger.A baseball player.A quarterback.A genius at a desk, pushing eraser flotsam across a vinyl ocean.A
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/IMG_5627-225x300.jpg)
Nowhere
What is further?Further than where? Nowhere is further than here.Hey, there’s a doozie. Nowhere is definitely further than here.But, there’s certainly nothing further than what’s
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/IMG_5932-300x225.jpg)
Yes
Yes, sitting near a fire and telling half-truths. Yes, hands across a body. Yes, pulling words from thin air only to send them back. Yes,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_2532-225x300.jpg)
So many cameras
And why do you reckon there are so many cameras proliferating? It’s certainly not for the narcs. So many symbols for eyes. So many replications
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_4825-1-225x300.jpg)
Instructions
Why not act out a wonderful, simple play . . . right here on earth . . . for the gods in the front rows
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_5135-300x178.jpg)
Peach seem
And I want to be kissed by the creature inside me. Knowing she’s death.Knowing she’s written on my recipe. I want my tongue to go
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_0234-300x300.jpg)
[Null set]
Maybe there are no words for this.Maybe just paintbrush strokesand confetti wilderness. I am the inheritor of you. The breast wider than an athletic build.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/PXL_20210127_160330472-300x169.jpg)
That breeze
And what are you? Look at your hands. You’re dying. Your shell is cracking and thinning. The purple return vessels are coming to the surface,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_20161101_143614-300x194.jpg)
Juice
Deathbed notice, To get juice from every minute. Made into an obsession. Paying excruciating 😉 attention and to never be folded into the game of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_20170722_172906-300x236.jpg)
The ears
What happens between your ears, boy, is more real than anything out here. “Habit yourself to the dazzle of the light,” said Whitman. Out here
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_4592-225x300.jpg)
Performative
I fiddle with words as the craftsman across the street builds a nicer interior for the ego of another.He measures, saws and binds.I do something
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_4738-225x300.jpg)
Re-boot
Creation is not only what the world wants;It’s what you want.You nurse a pathetic orchid just to see it bloom once more.You write words down,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_2801-225x300.jpg)
Trash day
And what could I take away to be a more simple character?Ideas from the past.Things from the garage.Images of used up meaning.Clothing that says unsure
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_2531-225x300.jpg)
Degenerate
And it wants so badly to go on. The evidence is everywhere.Spring bursts forth.The walking man looks for evidence of life.The grasses push up below
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Flower-and-Grasshopper-PR-Dunn-300x265.jpeg)
And when
And I have a strange optimism when I read my own words. And when I see my own flowers pop up from the soil. And
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20150225_235236_2-300x136.jpg)
Death to this pencil, right?
Books and books of sprouted thoughts, screenplay starts, sketches turned paintings . . . Does anyone think it’s real? Certainly not me. I can smell
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_0022-300x300.jpg)
Coupling
As if to couple,it would be my job to overwhelm you with a washing worship of sorts.Not a job as in work but a job
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_4782-225x300.jpg)
Coffee breathe
There’s a smell of last night’s fire in the room. A skin forms on the top of hot coffee, and it flexes with twitching geometric
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_5274-300x221.jpg)
The sky
Seems like it’s always about the sky. The sky above and the sky within.The one within is an area that doesn’t know words.A space free
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/crowd-300x146.png)
Greatest game
I am the sum of time forever.I am the sum of none of it.I am only a starving witness.I am alien to Earth. Was I
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IMG_5156-300x225.jpg)
Feels fine
What’s to report back to the gods? The experiment is failing. The ants have abandoned the hill and decided to smoke weed away from prying
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IMG_2513-225x300.jpg)
Reporting on 0
They’re doing what they do. Fretting about the prices of things. Their worth and the cost of things coming and going, as if they had
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IMG_3856-225x300.jpg)
Sneeze
To understand desire,you need to come to terms with the galaxy under your nose.All is here.When you do that, you understand truth.By understanding truth you
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IMG_4888-300x225.jpg)
Am not
What am I not?I am not a narrative. I am a constantly appearing thing.An experiencing thing – within moments, I gather up what they are
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IMG_1267-300x225.jpg)
Unfolding
Dreaming of a woman’s touch that has no webs attached.Loving every scene found.The home made into a fantasy. Feeling the absurdity with an oddball urgency.You
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IMG_5060-225x300.jpg)
Perpetual
What’s really going on? You’re hurtling toward death. Death of the organism. Your family is dying. Your home is disintegrating. Your planet is ending. All
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/PXL_20210209_151545458-300x169.jpg)
Find the worm
Live up the illusory dance, even though it’s known as fake. Nothing is more important or less important than anything else, so there’s no way
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/PXL_20210130_153520394.PORTRAIT-169x300.jpg)
Walt Whitman
He walked through battlefields and deathly triage outposts Fascinating on the beauty of the redness of blood exiting the living. Draining in transition to death.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/IMG_0036-300x300.jpg)
Pencil smell
An upside-down four-limbed octopus, I am. Nerve ganglion creature of an alien planet. Planet alien to who but me. And why? To giggle and be
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/PXL_20210131_155936965.MP_-300x169.jpg)
Abiding
Does a dried leaf surrender to gravity? Does a man actually rage against the dying of the light? Does the stream’s water surrender to new
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_4677-225x300.jpg)
Sleight of hand
Why does the will keep going? What is the game it’s programmed to play? What needs to move forward in time? If time is a
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_4680-1-225x300.jpg)
Self letter
What starts with me? What ends? Enthusiasm. Going. Making sense. Absurd laugh. A shell of being trouncing across a planet. A hedonist. Chocolate, wine and
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_4554-225x300.jpg)
Staged perfection
The scene changed from dull to wild color circus. It was as much us crafting the scene as a god peering down. Possible it took
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_4454-300x189.jpg)
Oceanfront property
A dirty, sewage-punctuated road to the left running straight to a beach called little closeout. A term devised to keep other surfers away. A lie
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_4516-225x300.jpg)
Nothing to solve
Interested in what’s going on here . . . But it appears not much. The noise of a dryer looping some clothing. A toe torn
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/IMG_4484-225x300.jpg)
Wait
If death is on the table – a skull awaiting eternity – is there truly urgency? If so, what is urgent?
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/20150211_195031-300x169.jpg)
Intelligence inside
Intelligence, data, information and what’s it all for? Why did it become the collective obsession? The moon sinks down into the horizon anyway. The ants
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IMG_1086-300x146.jpg)
Disgust
So quickly what was once a kitchen preparation headed for a mouth becomes a taboo piece of disgust within a trash can. How can it
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screenshot-2021-11-14-200655-300x156.png)
Don’t try, said Bukowski
No hall of fame for first world guys who worked with mania and tried their hardest. May as well believe in heaven or that money
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IMG_3916-300x225.jpg)
Animal
What is an animal? Animal is what you are minus this animating chatter. The inner nag of language and voice. Were you born when you
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IMG_0413-169x300.jpg)
Availing
Like a sane soldier, I await a death with a master’s curiosity. Awake. Alive. Availing.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IMG_1725.HEIC-225x300.jpg)
The lamp
How much of the lamp is the light? The post The reflector The element The filament The glass The aurora The halo spikes beyond the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IMG_3695-300x225.jpg)
Punching goddess
Describing things I think are real. Bright eyes. Orange and blue sky crossed slowly by gray, lumbering low clouds. Dog smell, wet from the harbor.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IMG_20200102_164014-225x300.jpg)
Small truths
I’ve seen the owl. I’ve seen the bobcat. And they don’t believe me. Miracles of nature in their midst, and they deny it. Nothing so
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/fire-300x240.jpg)
Ape fire
Reality is a story. That’s all. And the story unliked is the one where achievements go for naught. Life was futile, and here come all
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/upsidedown-whale-298x300.jpg)
Duality
Eating whale steak by the light of a whale oil lamp. Eating sirloin with an ox bone knife. Consuming something with the thing itself. Feeding
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/swingset-300x198.png)
Swingset
Nobody knows where words come from, or strokes of a paint brush. The why – because. The where – who knows. Please remember me, says
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_20210127_163903-225x300.jpg)
Who on earth
And who do you think you are? I am. That’s the start. The lights are on. I’m behind the eyes, awake as awake can be.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_4039-225x300.jpg)
Trust no thought
“Truth” happens when bunches of people get into agreement with one another. They huddle and nod yes, yes, yes, As the storm that kills all
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_1183-225x300.jpg)
Sweet parts
The women with sweet parts come down the hill. And the only danger for a man is loss. But even with that, more comes and
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DANDELIONS-241x300.png)
The curious case of John McAfee (Part 1)
A man comes across a computer virus, something called the Brain Computer Virus. It terrifies him. This virus breaks a constructed biological system – a
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_3774-300x228.jpg)
What kind of drama?
Rings of silver, white, gray and black jiggle in the lighted still-life water glass. A splash of blue, a dash of yellow. Track lighting from
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/smoke-300x139.png)
Smoke
A distant memory. A childhood sound. Na, na, na, na, na, na . . . But not a fun one. An endless, jibbering echo of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/canvas-blank-300x148.png)
Empty canvas
You found another blank slate, A clean canvas, A small but giant place for a story starting now. For God sakes, don’t bring yesterday’s story
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_0506-300x169.jpg)
Rise
Rise up like bread dough, not like a revolutionary. Something inside pumping life into a package of skin. Dreams from the night before coded into
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/pattern-300x223.png)
Patterns
For the awake, two patterns matter – what you notice and what you paste onto what you notice. And the pasting on is often how
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/lightning-300x142.png)
Unforgotten
Lightning strikes over parked sea boat masts, Dividing the sky into puzzle pieces. A hasty wind turns the harbor top into scales of a fish.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_0110-300x225.jpg)
Dream
To dream something into being, to imagine it. Would it start with you? How could it? You are not start. You are a hash on
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_0381-300x300.jpg)
Mercury
Oh science master. Oh quivering mercury. Oh liquid Earth. Assistant of twisted car wreck metals and forever bunnies. Thank you for moving the set pieces
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_0199-300x247.jpg)
Confidence
No such thing as confidence. Unless you have confidence in that fact, there’s a thing. A trust in oneself, a humble trust that the self
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_2830-300x285.jpg)
My time
Every one of us walking in the park sees it as my time. And everyone is right, no matter how bitchy they become about it.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/blue-green-wave-300x132.png)
Conjuring
I conjure and am conjured. My hands unleash the smallest and most medium-sized truths I know. The mind allows them through. The character plays with
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PXL_20210216_142127027.MP_-300x169.jpg)
Dog walking
They gather to walk dogs. But the dogs would rather wrestle and chase. Neutered animals still desiring to play act at the game of “something’s
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_0957-300x225.jpg)
Open book
I’m an open book, he says. But his book is full of coded poems, only open for the thinking.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_0920-300x225.jpg)
Biology
In the biological outer world, we’re all out here, playing in the gully because of sex. That’s it. A game that wants to be rebooted
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_3518-300x167.jpg)
Lonely one
Once the story stops, the lonely days cease. A narrative clipped. Evidence ground away by pulling back to see what actually is. Grinding to dust
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_3538-225x300.jpg)
Who are you, J?
And who do you think you are, J? Acceptable answers would have been: God, the watcher, or ‘not J.’ All the other stuff – the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_3541-300x204.jpg)
Shine moments
The beauty of the dump. The brightness on a patch of water. A tree in the eye of a dog. You looking at you in
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_3525-300x225.jpg)
Two eyes
Two eyes to see the world. One with what is. And one with what isn’t. One direct. And one with a reflection. One with nature,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_3299-300x222.png)
No retreat
And you retreated a bit. But where did you retreat to? A few books. An easy surf spot. Courts for playing ball. The single life
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_2445-300x225.jpg)
Meat puppet
“What if I’m just a character in a play called your life?” he asks a friend. And he wakes with a playground in front of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_3347-300x267.jpg)
Waking
A beautiful woman with a golden heart and enthusiasm for days calls to talk about her wonderful life. What a brilliant window of time to
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_3112-225x300.jpg)
Fleeting fear
And sometimes a fear – fear that this drift of a life cheats the world of something. Absurd. Plenty of us live and die, contributing
![cemetery](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_3373-225x300.jpg)
A mini-course in the freedom of a death march
You don’t get more. You get less. There’s no extra sparkly here or toys or special flavors. There’s taking away, losing, and less. There’s stripping
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_2125-225x300.jpg)
Nature
Sunlight on the wakeup side of a Japanese maple. Snail craning neck sideways. Faith birdhouse waiting for some new homeowner. Dew drips down from maple
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_20130516_121146-225x300.jpg)
My expired war
I had my war. I laid down at gunpoint too many times. I sampled fear and turned fearless in one day. I took a ride
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/drunken-hawk-261x300.png)
Headmaster ritual
I’m nowhere you can’t be or haven’t been. The settings and scenes don’t change much. You just keep getting pestered by the things that show
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_20200404_175337-300x242.jpg)
Rodents
We’re all rodents here, with plenty of food. Illusions of lack abound. The only task is to widen the eyes and see what’s really going
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_3038-300x246.jpg)
Always here
Nightshade on the hill. In my life. A stipe of dripping glaze on pottery. A reaching pine that pretends to bow down. A handful of
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_3221-225x300.jpg)
Those who mask
And the jester knows not how he jests or if he jests. He’s clad with shiny ideas – a fist full of data and facts,
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/PXL_20210120_144615433.NIGHT_-300x169.jpg)
Music awake
An arrival like a note in the street. Like a worm born of dirt. Like a mermaid. My own personal Buddha. A gem in the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_3019-225x300.jpg)
Surrender Pattern
A young boy of maybe six years cries then laughs then throws a stick my way. He grabs it near my chair then throws it
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/van-gogh-exhibit-300x209.png)
Rooms in the mansion
Dream about renting out rooms in my mansion. I am, and the lights are on. Consciousness, that’s all. Nothing more to it. No goo-ruuu nonsense
![The WThe Wedge Newport Beach California](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_2717-scaled-e1653142129881-300x198.jpg)
Surfing
When you paddle into a big wave, you’re committed. When you enter into the asylum, you’re committed. The physical push yields a return of energy
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_0660-300x132.jpg)
By what brighter star?
Oil on concrete. Water on the oil. Color on the ground. By what brighter star might you navigate? You want your self to understand. Who
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_20171020_175359-EFFECTS-300x225.jpg)
Yellow
The color yellow says something bright. Something so different than the others. The sky behind comes through thick tropical clouds. A dawn noticed. One day’s
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Deepak-Chopra-1-300x225.jpg)
Funny man
It’s 14 years from now and the dog died today, or was it yesterday? The stunning thing is how absolutely none of this matters. The
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_2847-300x225.jpg)
Nothing for Everything
People as frauds. The Catcher in the Rye phonies prance the surface. And I put on a costume or two. The Stranger. Caufield. K. Z.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/converted-IMG_0883-1-225x300.jpg)
The quantified self
Every little smart watch check says ‘who am I?’ How many steps becomes the person? Every analog watch check says ‘time to death?’ The count
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_2821-225x300.jpg)
Senseless chatter
And hello to Joyce, chooser of sounds, and to a simpler Hemingway post shotgun blast. Why music artists sing la la la la la la
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Untitled-300x259.png)
You fool
The world is always this bright. The colors are always there. Clouds or no clouds. Wind or none. Can you write a softer symphony? Paint
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/stiller-dodge-300x224.jpg)
Saucy threesome
And the most absurd of things. . . She pretends to broker bits of the Earth, as if she could receive money for trading the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_2681-300x196.jpg)
Fear coach
“What are you afraid of?” he asks her. She doesn’t know but will say something like spiders or social ostracism. And he relents. “Obscurity.” “But
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_2602-300x225.jpg)
That space
Would you trade nothing for everything? What is really yours? Say truth now. Past and future? Those were never yours. A chattering mind? That’s a
![clouds light tustin sky](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_2572-300x225.jpg)
Dreaming of the dreamer
Died last night. The day was gone. Little things done will come back a little bigger tomorrow. How to explain to J or L that
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_1351-300x275.jpg)
Clearly babble
World doing utter nonsense. Doublespeak. Gobbelty-gook. Mary Poppins-Tweedle-Dum-upsidedown-babble. Name anything people care about, and it will be useless drivel. What’s so important? What’s your flavor
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_1622-225x300.jpg)
Importance
Why on Earth is it so important to do something here? Who says so? What’s important to do? Who defines important? If one were to
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_1959-225x300.jpg)
Unwell
None of us are well. And it stems from this stark reality of our dispositions. Our denial. We have two facts surrounding us from all
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_0238-300x300.jpg)
A day in June
It doesn’t lament the work it took to deliver. A hawk just brings a mouse. A writer writes. A painter paints. A poet poems. Kids
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_2014-225x300.jpg)
Sameness birthed
What could be changed in a moment to create a radically different person at a later date? What turn now could lead to destination unknown?
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_0355-300x219.jpg)
Bones below
Four child hawks and one mother. The mouse feeds them and my dog finds the tiny bones below. Treats for one looking in low places.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_2325-225x300.jpg)
Blueberry
Remembering the dead and measuring time in the stiffness of blueberries. He that is always love, like Rumi’s little stories, blooms again with a gardener
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_0885-1-225x300.jpg)
Metaphor for
Down in the Earth, slaves settle into mercy’s tomb Their conducting rope reaches up to the top crust What did they sacrifice? Jesus Christ, a
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_20200125_171943-300x225.jpg)
Know nothings
What is faith but a mere settling into what is? Wherever you stop is perfect. Whatever you do is perfect. This is infinite, so mistakes
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_1789-225x300.jpg)
Futile dandelion
Fear. Fear of insignificance. Fear of irrelevance. Fear of FUTILITY. So what. Thank you, Miles Davis. Onwards. Does the dandelion think its activity is futile?
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_20200723_191357-169x300.jpg)
What is
What is a mate? A cell mate? A choice of commitment for the long haul? There is no long haul. A mate is a choice
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PXL_20210127_155848288.MP_-300x169.jpg)
You look
The world is your mirror, Miss H. You found someone different because you are someone different. Is there something special about me? Wrong question. There
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_2083-1-300x297.jpg)
Whalecraft
Why weary, and palsy arm at the oar? (Melville) Broken pattern and white whale seen. Avenging life with unity. On the path repeated, surrounded by
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_1536-225x300.jpg)
Television on fire
Ah, to sit slack-jawed, studying the hours unasked for. Pushing logic onto illogic. Knowing it’s more fun without the thinking. Why even put pen to
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_2119-300x225.jpg)
Quiet on the set
If the scene is nothing, and the production crew is no one, then hire the director, actor, writer, lighting team and cinematographer. Demand action and
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/butterfly-snail-300x240.jpg)
If infinity
If infinitywould quickly devour me I’d see the sun had been turned outand moon plunged into sea All tales eradicatedAll evidence annihilated The toads and
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PXL_20201231_174000940-169x300.jpg)
Huh
This poem held up as a desire to be involved in something completely ridiculous. Dress me up in jester clothes. Plaster on the decades. Only
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_2027-300x235.jpg)
Dog show
This play dream world is the mirror. Bitching truth with every little symbol and image. Irony all around mocks and steers to a truth. To
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PXL_20210131_172030686-300x169.jpg)
Fake war
Gloves off. Saw them on the road. Philos character puttering and muttering. Dissolving by the roadside while hitting the marks. Being the soaring tail eagle
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_2055-225x300.jpg)
Self sea
See self again. Re-thinking pattern, order, perfection. See again. All he’s been doing for decades is seeing self again. Then it’s stuffed away as the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/hanks-terminal-300x246.png)
Damn you, Tom Hanks
Joe vs. the Volcano Cast Away The Terminal Ha, ha, ha. Jaw on floor with the idea that the cast is away. Never thought about
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_2034-225x300.jpg)
Diabolic Fool
Clutching time like a branded fool, I walk a line in a crowded school. But one day I came to Mary, with one idea so
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_2028-296x300.jpg)
Into the lawful
Soaring into the living once more. Into the lawful. A dazzling wonder materializes before my eyes. A lovely face and frame prances through my text
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_2026-225x300.jpg)
Sitting, blasted with Walt Whitman
Dear God – placed here on a worn teak chair, blasted with the morning sun. A phrase foisted on my eyes: “Long enough have you
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_0233-300x300.jpg)
Prank
Into the looking glass went your eyes. And there you were again. Like the worm in your pocket after you stomped the Jerusalem beetle. You
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1115-300x225.jpg)
Onward
Oh Philos, you dug so industriously, like an ingenious prisoner with a spoon sneaked from the mess hall. Tunneling and pushing out past trails and
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1954-225x300.jpg)
Battlefield
And oh the silly battlefield of days before. An hour floating in a puddle of magnesium water. Breathwork and mind stilling in a chair called
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1754-300x232.jpg)
Nothing more
I am nothing more, nothing less. Just a ray of light looking into a dirty, pulsing goofball play. At a shit-stained stage with second-rate actors.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_0651-169x300.jpg)
Almost yellow
Take your time. Take your fortune. A green that’s almost yellow. Sprawling nightshade leaves on a hillside. Purple horns blaring bird chirps past humming bees.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1925-225x300.jpg)
Burn the day
What would I tell you, Philos, from just at the cusp of the grave? You tried too hard. You thought the other actors cared about
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1936-225x300.jpg)
Yo Adrian. Rocky.
“It feels like a party every day. Hey Jesse!” said the college boy. I can and do manipulate my emotions at will. When I let
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/art-room-bedroom-clouds-and-moon-300x199.jpg)
Moonset kingdom
He says he doesn’t like pines because the pollens give him allergies. The lines on the road here look like birthday candles, and there is
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1978-225x300.jpg)
Flit fly
Change, change, change. Delta gate two. Fat man in surgery mask parks nearby. Nerves straight into the skull via the teeth. Who would like a
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1660-1-225x300.jpg)
The beheading
https://youtu.be/iu5YhEhB8w4 And the calliope crashed to the ground. Curbside delivery. Asking the morning sounds for a hint of what’s to come. A meteor shower blocked
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1725-225x300.jpg)
Lights one way (part 2)
So what is the opposite of this death thing? A dream? The lights on. Arising. Awakening. Understanding a pack of lies then knowing they’re lies.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1961-225x300.jpg)
Death one way (part 1)
How far away is death? So near. Death is the stopping of the heart, the ceasing of the brain. The stillness of the fluids and
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_20161027_215444-300x225.jpg)
Whipping flame
The sounds of whipping flame in the morning breeze.
Car tires hum across the street above.
The chime of the harbor mouth bell buoy
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_0365-300x300.jpg)
Running out the clock
The puppy fails to grow fast enough for perception.
Tik tok.
The joke of all jokes – an app that burns life into insignificant ashes is named for the old devil who murders the moments.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/PXL_20210314_142956276.PORTRAIT-169x300.jpg)
To the vet
And the veterinarian loved animals, so she played the part.
And I loved words and signed up for that one.
“But I’ve lost the words to find righteousness in thought, ” I said.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1864-225x300.jpg)
Doublespeak unbeliever
No belief is true. No. Belief. Is. True. Even this one.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1026-225x300.jpg)
Hey you!
You are everywhere at once.
You are as far as I can imagine.
Co-create the imagining, but don’t force it. Let it come. Your circumstance is ideal.
Your dying days are paradise.
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_0288.jpg)
Black dog on sunrise morning
A big black dog greets me at my door. And I see a beautiful blonde woman in the light. And a fingernail moon, and the
![](https://philipryderdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_1348-225x300.jpg)
Bank shots from 180 feet away
No matter what I do, it keeps throwing life at me. The Jerusalem beetle got stomped out, and then in my pocket was a young,