Greetings. As some of you may know, I have been going deep into the poems of Josh Bond. There is saying about wisdom: When you take one step toward wisdom, wisdom takes two steps toward you. I think this saying has been worded in different ways. However the saying goes, Josh’s work is stepping into the frontiers of my heart and soul. 
My process has been to encounter Josh’s latest NaPo poem, as selected by Veronica Bond, circa the eleventh hour, into high noon, where I will read the poem, reading it multiple times through out the day, studying the poem ever deeply. A bit later in the day I will lay with my eyes closed and seek to communicate with the poem as well as, perhaps, Joshua. 
Tis wild, I can see his poems, in my mind’s eye, they begin to turn and come apart, speaking to me.
I have not gone this deep into poetry for a while. 
I mean…
I remember being a freshman in High school, gazing into the work of Rimbaud and Baudelaire, trying to understand their techniques. 
In a constant state of reading and writing, a poet possessed. 
During these times, I expanded into other writers and began to memorize quotes, automatically, introducing them into conversation.
I soon got to the point where I asked myself why I keep quoting and being influenced by other people.
I was able to consciously stop memorizing and keep outside influences filtered, perhaps.
It feels like am back to those times…
It is challenging, exciting and inspires expansion of consciousness.
I feel like I am in the studio, with the master, learning new techniques, seeing techniques that I work with or have worked with, working the techniques.
I feel Josh is here, with me, saying: That’s it, Pablo. You’re doing great. With a beautiful smile. I can hear his voice. I talk to him. Talk to him about stuff only he can understand. And he nods in understanding, always with a smiling vibration. Understanding.
It has been very emotional for me. 
For me, when one dies: Everyone dies. I mean. Every death should be connected to every other dead. Including your own!..
Remember, you too shall: Die!
Yes, it has been deeply emotional…
I was here, gazing out the window, into the sky, and tears began to stir, on the horizon.
In the way that all dead connects to every other death, so too, does life connect to every other life.
I thought of my own father, who has passed. 
I thought about how I never listened to a lot of people. 
The only people I really ever listened to were: My mom, my dad, my uncle and my wrestling coach. My wrestling coach believed I coulda been a state champion. (I remember my junior year, I got kicked off the team just before the district tournament, for getting caught with marijuana at school and… The assistant coach was with our heavyweight, Sam, who was, like me, a rebel, yelling at him, words, echoing in the Dutch Dome, “You and Martinez don’t care about anything!”)
It’s fucked up. I know the coach meant well. But he was fuckin wrong… I worked harder than anyone! You think I did that because I didn’t care? 
I think about that, how I trusted and listened to so few. I attribute it to a strong will and a desire to personally achieve: Ascension.
I think of being a young person, three years old, five years old, eight years old…
On the job site with my dad, my uncle and a gang of the gruff, rough and tough. 
They had to be the toughest of the tough to do our job.
I remember learning every aspect of the job. 
My dad, who is an Aztec chieftain, artisan and Holy man,  would do the thing, explaining his thought process, and I would immediately seek to do the thing, listening to his instructions after gaining the data of application. I would then, instinctively, develop my own tricks. 
I became a super good worker. 
When I was fifteen, I could easily outwork the biggest and baddest individuals. 
I realize that these thoughts are surfacing, based upon my interactions with Josh and his work. 
That he has become: One of the few people I have ever listened to.
It is not that I do not respect people…
I feel very wolf like, in the way that I connect with people, perhaps, especially after the ordeals of my existence. I feel like I got a lot meaner, in my own heart, whilst still keeping the innocent and loving aspects, I always remember having. 
Tis a strange thing, the things life does to you. 
In accepting the counsel and advisement of Josh Bond, I am transported to a time when I was innocent, a light of love and curiosity in my eye, not yet subjected to the slings and the arrows.
I remember sitting at the table with my dad for hours, talking over the stars.
I believe I was pure of heart and my dad could see that and that is why he shared what he shared.
To see my heart return to these places, is having a cleansing effect. 
Reminding me…
Such profound assemblages. 
And here… We arrive at the place of what some have called: The problem.
Perhaps…
Perhaps: I am a rebel..?
Have you seen the movie: A Clockwork Orange?
The part where Alex’s probation officer pays him a visit, investigating the bashing of ol Billy Boy and his gang of droogz..?
The probation officer is like, “You are an intelligent young man. I don’t know what it is that gets into you. You've got not too bad of a brain! Is it some devil that crawls inside of you? 
Somehow I survived it all, to get to a luxurious palace of introspection, seeking the meaning of it all. 
The meaning of it all. 
I feel I have always been and will always be: Searching.
There were few who I ever shared any of this with. 
I have been sharing them with Josh and listening to his replies. 
I know I must be: Impeccable. 
And yet, I feel more fallen angel then angel.
I like being driven by anger and madness. 
Depression, anxiety and sadness.
The humanness -
of
All of this.
The bad ass who made treasure from trash. 
Blood 
of
a slit-wrist – Chalice: Alchemist
of
All of this. 
There was a full house for our fathers – How shall it be for: We?
… I think of the Great Love of Josh and Veronica Bond. 
The two of you, orbiting one another.
Over the days, across the ellipsis of traveling suns and moons. 
The great works…
The light and shadow…
The coolness of the stone that absorbs and emanates, a gentle vibrancy.
… 
Veronika Bond said we would be guided by Josh’s angel wings... 
…
For POEM SIX, Veronika selected “Rise to the Challenge”, a beautiful piece about how the necessities of war are revealed to be the propellents of peace, how the limbs we train to kill become the limbs we trained to climb out of the trenches of war, in order to light the lamp of peace and healing.  My favorite elements of the poem are: 1. How the poem goes right in, using shortening lines and extended stanza, with the words [door] and [open] ending [L1+2], as well as the internal slide rhyme in [L2] [ since glimpsed]. 2. The multi layered application of [training]. 3. The control of tone, both, tempered and accelerated in [Stanza II L 4] with [up and up and up]. 4. The structure, how they look like wings.:))) 5. [Stanza III] turns so well, with [lamp] so perfectly placed, calling us to rise to the challenge. 
It is profound to write with Josh, to absorb the elements and see how they manifest through me…
Even spooky at times…
For the last two poems, I incorporated, both, the aesthetics and essence of the poem, into my poetic responses, seeing them mirror and morph, but having a similar appearance and meaning. 
Recently, a fellow DUP member, Adelphina, shared that she is working on a novel based on her screenplay. It reminded me how I had thought of the idea of doing a comic book, screenplay and novel with the same story, how that would mirror and morph, expanding the energetic construct, evolving on multiple levels. 
In seeing how my work has interacted with the work of Josh Bond’s, I thought to expand it into different, other… Spaces. 
Like taking this poem, being rooted in elements of brevity. (I think brevity has a complex, intricate spectrum, which Josh walks masterfully). 
So I was thinking.. With this poem I could take “Rise to the Challenge”, and expand it into an epic poem of ostentatious stanzas. [:ppp] 
For Poem Seven, which I have yet to read, but am excited to do so… (I’ve been having lotta fun doing this…)
For Poem Seven I was thinkin of doin an immediate response, rather than meditating throughout the day. I think it is good to add variation to the processes. 
So many considerations in the melting pot of creation.
Here is the poem “Rise to the Challenge”, by Josh Bond, followed by poetic response by Pablo Cipher_O Martinez. 
___________________________________
Rise to the Challenge by Josh Bond
As we walked through the door
long since glimpsed as open
waiting for so many years
we knew it had been 
a training for just 
this moment

All of a sudden the cards reshuffle themselves
the decades spent in training make total 
sense where the stakes had been 
ramped up and up and up 
and surrender finally 
is the only sane 
response

when at long last we get 
out into the world
to light a
lamp
______________________________
Rising Ascensions by Pablo Cipher_O Martinez

Red handprints upon all 
of our shoulders 
palm prints of touch 
by the forefathers 
of our fathers 
born to learn 
we have learned 
so much;
how to maim, how to 
kill,
how to crush

Cells of phones getting us down down down
taking the training 
making
our own training 

The modern war is spiritual 
a vision of blinded being 
lacking seeing 
immersed in 
a version 
of our 
selves
in need of revision 

Clarity 

&

Vision

Rising Ascensions 

***
Cipher
Pohms
***

6/30
______________________
Wow…
The poem turned out as three stanzas of similar length and appearance…
I did mine with heavier rhyme…
With the addition of an ending element..
It’s so interesting to see the interchangeability of elements...
I was thinking of the children of war, post peace…
How…
Humanity seems to go through cycles of was and peace..
How the modern technological age has displaced many of us into 
a grey world of depression and isolation…
Where we lose the perspectives gained, across time and ancestry…
The perspectives that came from our training, as human beings…
I think hope is not lost…
The greatest depths produce the greatest heights…
And people just might surprise you…
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