John Rhodes

Spirits of Bondage and Inherent Transcendence John Rhodes

My poetry utilizes common fantasies and riddles about our customary habits giving them depth and value where there was none, making you wonder about the real hidden implications to regular life. I try to wake the reader from the monotonous one-dimensional rituals and conventions that we perform half asleep, to see that we are really at all times on a fantastic stage. I believe that there is a true meaning to Zen riddles whose style of questioning I try to use in my poems. For example I think there is a subtle Western meaning and message in the Zen Koan "One Hand Clapping" that one should consider without giving up the reasonless Eastern interpretation. It is simply that one always needs two of everything to create an experience, so subject and object are one. Thusly, when there are two hands instead of one, there is fused awareness: two in one. One by itself is a very lonely experience and two together is unity as in God and the disciple, or the disciple and the teacher. One is division and two is unity. It is this mystical rationale that I utilize in writing my "American Zen Riddles" shedding a western light on the almost indescribable Eastern truths. My poetry also speaks of ghosts and specters of material bondage, which bind us to irrational pseudo-truths, and of eventual and inherent transcendence, as the title of my book indicates. When I was young I practiced and preached ascetic detachment from the world, but only found transcendence when I discovered that I was trying to spiritually escape from something, which is a form of desire in itself. Now I have lost the "desire" to escape from material bondage, and in that way have escaped from that spiritual escapist viewpoint which I didn't know was controlling me too. Note: As of Febuary of 2006, I have been podcasting 3 poems at a time from my book, along with poems from other poets on my podcast at: http://mysticbabylon.podomatic.com every two weeks. You can subscribe to it on iTunes or other podcast directories