Neurotic as Hell

I slowly wound my way around the 11th floor of Buchanon Tower, the 1st level devoted to the history department, a somber and stuffy precursor to its nexus on the 12th floor, the lofty perch of cardigan-wearing, pipe-smoking historians and their horn-rimmed secretaries who don't like to be asked questions. I walked down the dimly lit corridor and rounded the corner, but upon raising my eyes from the boring carpet I noticed her, my professor. The one whom I fear and loath more than a thousand devils dancing around a fire in the depths of a haunted forest. I saw her, at the other end of the hallway, packed up for the day, clearly headed towards the elevator. This struck fear into my heart as I too was headed towards the elevator. What was I to do? How could I endure such an awkward ride in a confined space with someone that I had laughed at the last time we spoke. She'd told me that I didn't matter in my writing; I opened up my mouth and laughed in her face. Now I was faced with riding in an elevator with this malicious bitch. What indeed was I to do? I broke out into a sweat! What could have happened? my bowels clenched tightly! The first possible future is that we could have reached the elevators at the same time, exchanging awkward head nods and muffled greetings followed immediately by a polite scuffle over who should press the button to call the elevator. What could have endured in those long moments while the ancient elevator rumbled up to the 11th floor? What sort of terse comments could be made, what awkwardly school-related questions could be uttered? This awkward silence would continue as we - on pins and needles- entered the elevator. "Oh you're headed to the ground level too, what a coincidence!" I would press the big G, my salvation from this tiny prison, I would hit the "close door" button to speed up the process. I would divert my eyes, look around at the floor and ceiling, the many luminecent buttons on the walls. Are these walls getting smaller, is the nauseous lurching of my coffin decending into death and redemption trying to drive me mad? Will I explode on her in this cage, will I go over the edge and tell her that in an objective study it was deduced that 9/10 orphans would prefer to have Ebenezer Scrooge and Michael Jackson as their gay fathers to one day in her company. I probably wouldn't say anything, just do my heart a little more damage. Finally, after painfully stopping at every other floor we'd reach the end of our painful decent, I'd allow her to get off first and then I would bolt, run, hide from this insane power structure. This is only one option though...what if, what if she, while waiting for the elevator, did something infinitely more awkward and asked me to take another elevator, or perhaps less severe made up some excuse that she forgot something in her office or had to use the washroom or had decided to take the stairs for a change. Would she make that awkward sacrfice to save us both from the even worse fate of that elevator ride? We would both know the reason for this last moment cop-out, we would both feel the lead weight of true hate buffet the bottum of our guts. We would both understand that hate was reciprocated, a relationship from hell, a feeling of intense loneliness.

What actually happened, in that dark corridor as her back was turned to me while she locked her office door, not really her office, she was a sessional? What did I do, I thought quickly, all of the awkward possibilities stood stark infront of me, and I like a brave young warrior lurched into an alcove in the corridor, I hid, trembling with the fear of so many horrific possibilities. Obfuscated my soul from the devil who lurked the hallways, trying to push us into hell's gaping maw. How could I let this woman ruin a day that I wasn't obligated to listen to her blather on for an hour and a half. And that is what I did, I avoided the impending disaster on my mood and found hope for the future on the wall. I found an advertizment for a class called Philosophy of History, the class I have been seeking for my entire degree. I enrolled that evening. I also got a B+ in this woman's class, how very odd...

First Thought Good Thought?

If nothing gets done on December the 12th there'll be hell to pay and no one will be able to do anything about it. It'll pass by without a sound, without a thought, without a being. I'm not denying that it was ever there, just that no one will remember it, comfortably numb as we are. I think there's a show on the tube tonight, maybe I should watch it? Bother, bother, bother, what's my brother got to do with it? If I don't make an impression something dreadfully wretched will happen. Something like the skies will open up and angry monkeys with terrifying black eyeballs of pestilance will come scampering out like so many third graders onto a playground. Full of wrath, full of envy, full of pride, slothful and gluttenous lust- a slow kind of debauchery. There's nothing new under the sun and it's all getting less and less new, stained-tarnished like a rusted out toyota, but when someone does figure upon something new and unique, when life is created spontaneously from the most sorrowful depths of some poor mutants soul, it is magnificent, like a day that no one remembers, that slipped by on the calendar, undetected, a blank virgin piece of paper...

Sesame Seeds

I sit in the old, tattered booth at a Denny's. Yes, Denny's. Cheap, on the slide food for seniors and poor folk. A gourmets joke. A horrible bastard offspring of well-to-do parents. Yet, here I sit. Listening to the masses around me as the gorge themselves on $9.95 eggs with some sort of shredded newspaper. Quietly, I watch the people. The old couple in the corner sipping coffee and not looking at one another. A young man looking like he either just woke up or hasn't even begun to yet. A harried woman trying to coral 3 young blurs, which I assume are children. All mingling and mixing around me. A cacophony of small talk. I sit with my five dollar coffee. Its 12:12 pm. This moment only happens twice a day.
A brazen waitress with a smile as plastic as the menu covers asked me if I'm ready. Ready? Am I ready? What's going on? Is there some sort of execution going on? Fearful of my response I stall for time by pushing my chipped and almost disinfected cup towards her. She slowly tips the vintage 1972 classic coffee pot and pours a large gallon of what could be warm dishwater or bad diesel. Then finally she leaves me in peace as I croak "Just a few more minutes...please". Please? Why do I have to be polite to her? She's in the service industry. Should she not be treated like a washing machine or coffee maker? Just tell her what you want and instantaneously she returns with steaming piles of "food"? These questions run trough my head.
I stare at the menu for the first time. Amazing delights that would tantalize the palate of any patron. Strange adjectives float off the page to me. "Sizzling", "Fresh", "Spicy", "Delicious", "Bold". My hands hold the greasy cover. What are they protecting anyway? The amazing paper menu of a lower class diner? It startles me. Then there are the pictures. Blown-up photos of food that looks like Zeus himself eats here. Too good to be true. I finally decide on a burger. It doesn't matter to relate what kind because they all end up tasting the same. It just matters what kind of mammal, reptile or invertebrate they used for the meat.
"Decided yet?", the suddenly appearing waitress asks. My eyes gaze up at her. Feeling like a minion in the presence of the Overlord. I look at her beige uniform. Its almost like a sack but a feminine sack. Her age range anywhere from 20-45. Hard to tell with the peroxide hair and make-up. She could be a goddess who merely has this form to ridicule us mortals. In either case, my time was up. I order. A risky way to go to be sure. What if I chose wrong? What if the highly skilled chef in the back is also my assassin? Poisoning every other burger in a sick attempt at world domination. In a Denny's. But there's no time to worry about that now. I can't stall anymore. I don't want to appear as the tripped-out, jean clad, red checked shirt wearing psycho who worries about the CIA. Although I'm sure they have a hand in this.
I forge ahead ordering my almost meal. She snatches the menu away and trots off to whatever hell they get the substance they give us groveling peasants. I sit waiting for my meal. Giving up on finishing the Che Guevara specialty coffee I start listening. I close my eyes and try to feel the sounds around me. Safe, quiet and work productive radio plays in the background. So PC that no one would even dream of complaining. Heartache, heartbreak, happiness, hairspray. The music washes over me like slimy pond water. I need a shower. I open my eyes. T
The old couple has toddled out. They'll be back. Every week until they die. They're just speeding the process by coming to Denny's. The young man is staring at me. Why? Is he so tired that he's asleep without knowing it? Or is it something malicious? I stare back. Neither of us breaks contact, knowing the first one who blinks knows the game is up. For what seems an eternity we stare. Then "WHAM!".
Startled out of my self-willed mind game a burger lays before me. The waitress looks down her imperious nose and asks if theres anything else. No, i say with confidence, begone wench, I think. My meal looks nothing like the picture. Disappointed? No, just saddened by the lies this world has told me. Then I see them. The seeds. Sitting atop my sandwich . Laying almost perfectly like a synchronized swimmer. I knew that at this time that the young man was trying to kill me. What are the purpose of sesame seeds? Decoration? Digestion? Disintegration? I had to act fast. I turn in my booth to look behind me. A trucker is sitting there. Wearing his traditional garb of jean jacket and namesake hat. He leaves to go to the washroom or the kitchen, I can't say which I stealthily place my poisoned food on his table. Hanging precariously over the booth seat trying not to disturb the plastic plant I slink back to the booth and make my way to the door, duck walking.
The young man is now trying to shovel eggs into his gaping maw so he's distracted. I reach the altar of the great hostess while remaining hidden from view. I reach into my pocket and place some bills upon the altar as an offering to the Denny's god. I scuttle like a crab out the door. Safe and sound. Sound as a pound. For now. For there will always be Denny's like cockroaches they will survive. I just can't wait to return to where my madness began. Medication be damned.

FIN

Consumerism, consumer, consume

Once you have opened the packing
it will be entirely impossible
for you to suppress
the desire to overcome
such an exciting challenge of your tongue.
However, don't be dissapointed with your repeated failure;
you may continue with your habit.

Takes the thirst out of everyday time,
a pure whiff of oxygen, painting over a monochrome
world in primary colours.
We all know that
is why everyone loves fruit.

If dishes are nice, square ceilings become round.

What everyone can say, TASTY!
It's fresh, so mild, with some special coffee's
bitter and sourtaste.
LET'S HAVE SUCH A COFFEE NOW!

Refreshed and foppish sense,
and comfortable and fresh styles
will catch you who belong
to city groups.

Like smoke playing in the wind

Pavement, hardened by countless days of traffic, clicks beneath us as we walk the vacant streets. The sound is sharp and clean in the night air, snapping from our feet and skidding across the road like a rock across the surface of a still lake.
The heavy brown leather of my boots squeak with the strain as we push up-hill, our eyes struggle to adjust to approaching headlights before they pass, and we slip again into darkness. I have little to say; my mind is weighing heavily on me this evening, so I let you speak. I’m just happy to be outside and alone.

You dance excited, your feet tapping rhythm across the road-- giving voice to your music, you croon and moan, drawing a quivering line to a freedom of compromise.
“They find a kind of freedom of their own”, you slide like a trombone through your idea, raging and stomping with the music of what you’ve seen. “They escape in their own small way, a small personal victory. They just don’t let it take that essential part of them”. You soar into a blaze, your rhythm pounding its beat off the walls of the houses, rattling the windows of cars as they pass us by.

Our eyes turn, adjusting to the shutter of headlights as they pass by in waves.
“Freedom can only be complete, by its nature;” now I speak, mellow, building to a fiery ember, purring and whispering with exhausted fervor. “It can’t live in compromise or limitation. Limited freedom is an oxymoron, it ceases to be ‘freedom,’” lashing the air with my fingers, I build and kick and twist, but this night had taken my power.

“You are all or nothing. You look for the path that is least safe, and you push ahead. Me, I always want to follow safety.” You speak simply, and the words whisper around us like a wind; tugging at our clothes, and hinting at the bodies beneath.

We walk on, the stillness of night absorbing our music, and wrapping us tight in her quiet arms. The cold bites through my thin sweater, but I don’t wish to be back with the others.
I’ve no place in the crowd- I’ve no place in the world. My uncompromised freedom has no place- is not valued, in today’s world. I wander voiceless the peripheries of a time made for others.
The ghosts of weakness and fear muscle my shoulders and whisper that this is stubbornness, pride, that this is the idle ranting of unproductive childishness.

We round the final corner and near our starting-place and destination; recognizing a noisy fountain, bubbling and laughing alone in the darkness.
Pushing aside the bodies crowding the door, we make our way inside, and I again felt alone. Soundlessly, I move to a quiet corner- you can disappear if you want, step into an optical worm-hole, light waves bend around you, allowing your unseen presence. It appears like rippling heat waves down a distant asphalt road in the July sun, marking the disturbance. I melt into the waves, and the world keeps turning, society keeps working, and I can just watch. The room turns, and the people turn and the world turns, so drink up because tomorrow the sun turns round the edge of the world and its back to work.

I can feel the presence of a human being in my worm-hole. Melting into the wave beside me, she takes my hand in hers, and we watch the world turn; watch the sun crawl through the sky on all fours, watch the people rise, scrape and die- always turning.
She leans into my side, and I feel her solid against me, soft and warm; her chestnut hair falls over the brightest blue eyes. A spirit of energy and life, imperfect—perfect.
She is with me in the wave of my worm-hole, a presence, a form to hold and feel, but exists without presence, without shape, outside it.
A ghost of woman.

I sometimes feel a richer, fuller presence, one without imperfection; a shapeless ideal that haunts my consciousness, sliding her slender hand across my back, resting a ghostly head on my shoulder. I smell her hair, feel her presence, feel her dissolve into ghostly wisps of pure idea. Cold, calm, dispassionate, she brushes against my side and settles against me.
Pressed tight to my side, I am enveloped by her energy.
Haunted by the spectre of absolute possibility, I am haunted by freedom.
I am left to lust after her, while I feel her dance about me like smoke playing in the wind.

I leave my quiet worm-hole, and feel the pressure of her hand still on mine, and the force of her perfect blue eyes on my heart. Glass litters the floor, shining cool and sharp in the buttery light. Glittering with the cold, quiet dispassion of freedom, daring us to test inevitability.
Slipping into my shoes, you join me by the door, and we push into the cold.

Light and shadow

Oily light hangs in the air, settling on the walls and on our skin. Running towards the floor, it bathes in bacchal repose. It saturates our clothes, and runs down bare skin, holding against gravity in shining orbs until the weight of it presses for the low-spots.
Goin’ down, down, down to the floor where I’ll lay still and calm, reflecting blurry light to blurry faces.
Butter yellow, the walls sag and flow towards the floor in the heat of our breaths, warm and wet; the room grows soft.
I push trepidation in, while others watch faces pushed in; screaming and laughing and congealing in the ring, like gory ribbons of sticky maple toffee cooling on white canvas snow.
Laugh. laugh! Stuttered breath from my nose, pulsates with shoulder-humps, smile-- that was a laugh. That feels like walking on broken glass. Electric jumps.
I’ve had this dream before and it always ends with me feeling full and being empty.
Bloated and sick it pushes me to the floor and drags me with carpet-burn through reality.

Pool cue pass-- hop-along-the-frog. Balls go where they want they’re disappearing, dropping into a bowl of soup in Tanzania.
All this is an act, but I’ve no character to play; so smile, and shrug, and feel alone and unknown and close your eyes and feel the music.
Imagination is creation make a void out of space -or a space from void- there’s no stairs or walls or door jams, so moving a couch in will be easy work.

Push the music out your feet to the center of the earth, down where the bits of left-off gods, unincorporated (they get no postal service) hurl volcanoes at your feet, shooting like a ripe strawberry through the tiny holes in a stainless collander—a mass of congealing red viscera, boiling and heaving towards the bottom of your feet.

Vision is giant little straight beams of light reflected off of every object into your eye: up-side-down. We see what is not, what is is swallowed and held down queasy by everything.
As afraid as you of losing themselves, they swallow their true selves and clench shut to keep safe.
I want to see between the lines of rejected light; to see between the colour and the shape, between form and meaning. It’s designed to look pretty, but it makes it invisible.

We slip noiselessly and sit legs crossed on the floor, hurling words at distant planets.
Flying through space at an incredible rate, ‘projection’ crashes into a distant moon, and leaves an aggressive crater stripped from the surface.
‘Breathe’, and ‘stillness’ crash simultaneously into a distant world and bore through it; with an empty, hollow sounding reverberation, the world dissolves into an impossibility of particle and light.
‘Crystal Meth’ diffuses in a thick atmosphere and drifts down particulate onto the thin skinned amnesiacs with no words of their own. Bombarded by our diction, they prattle and gesture, creating vast symphonies with the words we scatter to them, like the music the birds scratch with their claws, eating the crumbs we toss. (Contractions fall like gentle rain)

The crash of shrieking voices drifts down the stairs like a child: clumsy and loud, but careful, on all fours, crawling to your feet and looking into your eyes with gentle sadness.
There is only one desired meet, and there is no presence for them, no shape to fill.
A ghost of woman, chestnut brown- bright blue.

The door slides open dully, and I roughly slip heavy leather past my ankles and press into the cold.
A spectre of purple hangs around us, weaves itself into the void within us, holds, release, bends to our shape and tempts its way around our bodies. A whispered sound and a gentle touch flows like woman around us in the cool night air.
Rows of houses, leering huge in the ghostly blue twilight of the streetlamps, sneer me past them, leaning their bulk against mine.
Who was turned around- you forgot we could both be wrong.
We stumble in the darkness writing the script to be followed in our absence by all eternity. They may miss choice, but will know instead certainty.

24 hours before; “you can take it all apart”, “you can rip this world apart- you have the ability, it is you, you have the choice to begin”.
“Thou mayest”, I say concise, knowing the truth in it, but reluctant to personalize it, to let it attach to myself, wanting to avoid this choice.
It is like choosing death; though one knows its inevitability, even if prepared and ready, the choice, the moment you breathe out, is so difficult to time.
Shoes click on the pavement, and we find our way back; we were creatures of the night, we were comfortable and lively and folded neatly into the blue darkness.

More words crash and reverberate around the room and through the atmosphere, but go astray and swirl faster and faster into a black hole. The words crush together, become a singularity and are quiet.
Quiet becomes heavy and thick, movement slows and thought slows; until you find a character, and find comfort and speed and movement in that.
I've retreated, haunted by the ghost of chestnut and blue- and sit in front of white sheets, waiting to be coloured with black. (The spaces between the black are as essential to meaning)

I stare at the white sheet, and the black words; look at the earth and past the gun-metal sky, and hurl my words into space.

Sea to sky

Bathed in the icy cool, inky morning twilight, grey clouds hang onto the sides of the mountains-- gripping the rough tree tops, which hold this thick cloud cover like a warm comforter, pulled up tight to the mountains ears’, exposing only its snow frosted tip to the cold of the morning. Rough slabs of granite lay bare from the mountain; the cool smooth sheets of rock are in constant dialogue with the rough chop of the gunmetal sea, dipping a silent toe into the restless water.
This is that time when the early morning light bathes the world in grey, black and blue, the wet, misty peace broken only by bright white lights ringing the old mine, crawling up the face if the mountain, following deep veins of copper. At lower elevations, the evergreens cling to the last of the early morning fog, still thick in the dampness of the early day.
Road construction plows under the earth, ripping through felled and splintered trees.
Great rigor mortised logs are strewn carelessly along the road, uprooted and rotting.
The earth will reclaim what is hers, given time.
The collection of rock layers exposed by the road construction-- slashes through the mountain-- shine out black and white like an appaloosa pony in the approaching light of day. Deep gashes ringed by soft moss clinging to the ragged edges of the rock, and soaking in the west coast rain, thrive where soil itself is a luxury, and stand dark against the light heart of the granite.
Brash steel bulldozers rip at the mountain, and she bleeds from hidden arteries of crystalline streams, pouring into the grey sea through gates, locks and tubes; diverting the pressure and force of the water away from the foundations of the roadway.
A single tiny evergreen stands canted, peering over a precipitous ledge, holding firm with precious little soil to anchor it. A lesson in the futility of chance; as it grows larger, day-by-day its roots will find only rock and a winter storm will rip the tree from its perch, drowning it in the icy inlet.
This little tree will never pierce the morning fog, never peer past the sacramental veil of purple and crimson.
It already approaches its final days. Yet it grows on.
Feebly piercing the sky with its stunted trunk, it grows.
Vancouver hangs above the sea below the ridge, and across the inlet.
Piercing the morning softness with grey concrete, its rising light floating into the sky, lighter than air, it sits on the muddy headlands of the Fraser River.
There’s Vancouver down there. All lit up.

With Apologies to Nixon

At exactly 10:05 am my sub-conscious took over my conscious. I was staring at the carcasses of the waffles that I had for breakfast. Their syrupy juices swirling together like a raging torrent. Then it happened. I stared at the bottle of maple syrup. A Canadian maple leaf was on the bottle. I froze. What's this? Is this what it is to be Canadian? Drinking beer and maple syrup while having five o'clock shadow, chopping trees with my red checked shirt on? I pondered this for some time. I couldn't grasp it. The sub-conscious had a grip on me. I was losing it. Then tearing my eyes off the bottle I glued them to my plate. I saw him. Nixon. His face, smeared and sticky, gazing up at me. I had to get away. I couldn't allow him to get me. So I slowly backed away, trying to appear calm in front of maple Nixon. I went around the room and decided my only chance was the window. I slowly, slowly, slowly began gather the provisions I would need for such a daring, and risky endeavor. I grabbed my shoes, no sense in running out in the cold without them. Wearing my leather jacket that I had slept in the night before I moved like smoke across the room gathering my needs. Two tins of beans, a lamp, three socks (not pairs), and my red checked shirt. I scrambled away out the window onto the fire escape, looking for any Nixon agents that were trying to halt my sudden discovery of the maple goodness of Canada.
I slowly went down my feet ringing like the bells of Notre Dame against the rusted metal. Every window could be the last I see. I crept with great care down, down, down like I was descending into the bowels of hell. Maybe I was, trying to escape Nixon, going to go to the very edges of reality. Or perhaps just mine. Finally after what seemed like minutes I reached the parking garage. I leaped and slid among the parked cars. Blatant shows of opulent wealth all around me. Or the inane desire to show ones superiority to another being. I finally reached my own chariot. I got the keys out trying not to make a jangling noise alerting my pursuers that I had taken the lamb. Opening the door which creaked in groaned in protest I threw my provisions for the trip in the back. I put the key in the ignition and turned it.
"Traitor" I exclaimed as the car roared to life, like a dragon woken by a vengeful knight. I couldn't stop now. I had to get out and fast. Pressing my 10 dollar sneaker against the pedal I screeched out of the parking lot leaving only smoke and a memory behind. I was free. For now.
Driving along the road I began to question my motives and wondering why all the trouble. But my sub-conscious was in control. I had no logic, no reason. My conscious self was locked in a metaphysical cage deep within me, powerless to help me. So I drove on. White lines were shooting across the blackened sky at me. Then I adjusted my head. The blue sky was now above with the sanguine darkness below. The white lines, like white lies were being hurled at me. Shot by the agents of Nixon in an attempt to stop me. But no one could. Green, yellow, red. Colours I should have known but didn't. At least not then. Red. Communists. Nixons' communists trying to put an end to my adventure. All around me people were braking in a uniform, proletariat way. I sped through. Cars yelled at me as I flew by. I paid no heed. Nixon can't win this round. I won't allow it.
On and on I drove. I couldn't turn on the radio for fear of the Nixon communists blaring propaganda ads at me. I knew my name would be on the news. Headline news. That's just what they wanted. They wanted me to turn on the radio, lose that second of concentration and crash my freedom ride into an unthinking tree. I could see the headline, "Man loses life on road, Nixon to make winning death". No, they wouldn't get me. I kept driving. The sky turned a communist gray. As if sensing the very thing that was keeping me moving. I knew my destination now. But saying ti would ruin it all. When I got there there would be agents waiting to grab me, hold me, take me to a 6-by-4 cell. So I stayed quiet. Just so they couldn't crack me.
Finally, at exactly 6:43pm I arrived at my sanctuary. Carefully listening to the gravel that cracked like bones beneath the balding wheels of my capitalist pride. I parked not in the driveway but a ways into the woods. The woods. Safe, primal, remote. No man could ever find me at this cabin, this castle. I procured my items from the back and rolled and dived to the door of the house of refuge. Can't let them get a clean shot. Nixon communist snipers waiting in the ancient ents around my fortress. I got the key to open the door to salvation. Then a thought oozed through my frantic mind. That's just what they wanted. To go through the door. In my mind I imagined Sergei and Boris Smith, two burly Nixon communists, waiting for that handle to turn and seeing my limp lifeless form fall to the cold earth. No, I couldn't go that way. So stealthily I slithered to the back door. Always got to go through the back door. I put the key in the lock preparing myself for either sanctification or salvation. The door creaked open.
Silence. Unyielding silence. I peered through with my peepers until I saw all of the one room shack. I hit the floor. Crawling on my belly like some Darwinistic fantasy until I was in the dead centre of the room. Leaving my belongings there I did a thorough sweep of the hut. No listening devices or agents of death I could see. So I had a few moments to collect and sort my thoughts like so many stamps. Wearily, I sank down into a vintage sofa. Then my sub-conscious pulled me again. I had to make it appear as if Nixon was here. So I got up, talking to myself in a most genteel sort of way, making it appear to all the world as if not a thing was worried about. When in my ramble and babble I got to the window I began to sketch the face I saw so long ago in that mess on my plate. Nixon. I drew him as I saw him. A leader of the pack. A mover and shaker. A bright star among dead worlds. I put his visage on every pane in that room. Satisfied at my clever ruse I went to sit on that chesterfield. Chesterfield. How distinctly Canadian. Where did that word come from. For a moment I was petrified. How could that word come into being? What was I becoming? Was I becoming a being?
Then I saw him. Nixon. He was everywhere. Snarling and laughing at me. I slowly bent down to the wooden floor and popped the top of a can of beans. Drinking and eating with Nixon all around me I felt the fear of a generation. A generator of fear was in my chest. When I had finished consuming the cold, slimy meal. I realized one thing. I was too late. My sub-conscious was pumping ideas and fears through my head like a heart. I left the cabin through the front door. Never use the back door for escapes. Their expecting that. I ran, ran, ran up a hill by the cabin, fleeing the caricature of Nixon. When my body gave out. I felt like a hundred and four. Wheezing and choking on my own ineptitude. I lay upon the summit. But still I heard him. A rumble from up in the clouds alerted me to his presence.
"Damn you!" I cried towards the heavens. My fears were reality. Or at least as reality can be when ones sub-conscious controls himself. I heard his laughter up in the stratosphere. Chuckling at my failure, guffawing at my lack of will, snickering at my hopelessness. I laid, spread-eagle up that hill when the spit from his sick jest came upon me. Slowly at first, then more and more until a torrent of saliva was on me. My jacket, leathery and cracked resisted the water but my red checked shirt sucked it up like it was dying in the desert. Wet, drenched, sodden, I scrambled like eggs down the mound. I couldn't believe it. He had won. Followed me to my place of dreams and now had invaded my state of mind. My sub-conscious strove to find a breadcrumb to the problem. Like a sledgehammer to a watermelon it hit me.
My conscious self was back in control. The raging maelstrom of ideas and thoughts were silenced to a trickle. My sub-conscious was tied and bind, chained and locked back within the dormant part of myself. I realized Nixon was dead. He and his Reds couldn't do anything to me or mine. I was free. I drove back reflective upon my sub-conscious expedition into the realm of the unknown. Was it worth it? I believe it was. To unleash the torrent of mad-cap insanity one must be willing to let go of ones perceptions. Now, I had returned to where it all began, but with apologies to Nixon.

FIN

War Mongering for Dummies

I like CNN. They make me so very happy. I mean, you have such a wide range of characters, it makes a Shakespeare play look like a 4th grade science project. Larry King, Lou Dobbs, Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer they all bring such good times to todays sorrowful world. But recently my little news addicted head almost exploded with pure raw goodness. Its a very special week for CNN. Its PLANET IN PERIL!!!! week. Oh joy. More of Sanjay Gupta yelling at me to change my light bulbs to those swillerly quasi-Star Trek ones. But I digress...
First on the list, Larry King, a man so old I'm fairly certain that his suspenders are the only things keeping him from collapsing into a pile of dust. He's interviewed thousands of the worlds most influential people. And Kid Rock. But lately he seems to be losing it. I mean, Larry King is an icon. Kinda like tri-cornered hats were when he was a child. But again, he seems to always be on the verge of yelling at "Betty" from "Arkansas" asking Paris Hilton what her dreams are. Poor Larry. If I get to ever get interviewed by him, I'll probably just be awestruck by his large head.
Lou Dobbs, the medias version of Dick Cheney. Ol' Lou has been on a bit of a tizzy these last few weeks. Hearing how now Turkey is going to invade Iraq. Now, I'm no analyst (though this one time at band camp...never mind) but it seems that since there already is a "Coalition" of the "willing". Invading Iraq is kinda like inventing the car. Been there, done that, spent 32 billion dollars. Just last night Lou Dobbs coined one of my now favorite phrases when he was arguing with some folks on his show. "bofo". Yes Bofo. He used it twice but with two different contexts. Once, when asked about how a New York governor giving licenses away to illegal immigrants the governor would feel good about himself. Lou responded with, "Well, good on you Governor, bofo!". At that point my mind blanked in sheer joy. I hadn't been this happy since the Soviets put up a wall. At another point he declared that if Turkey invaded Iraq with their coalition well then "bofo". Lou Dobbs is an isolationist. And man, I wish he was on for two hours. Then I think he'd start beating a gay, liberal, grass-roots protester with the constitution. Thats my fantasy.
As previously stated its PLANET IN PERIL!!! week on CNN. They changed the letters of CNN from red (communists) to green (happy drunken Irish?). In the series Anderson Cooper, a man I don't trust (who has two last names?), Sunjay Gupta (tell me what my children can take as cold medicine will he?), and Jeff Corwin (I'm pretty sure he has rabies), go all over the world telling us that we'se all gonna die (insert Bayou swamp witch voice). While I'm not going to watch it along with 79% of Americans, it might be interesting to note that while they were running about watching blackened earth, destroyed rain forest, dead animals they could've done it much closer to home. Just look at Georgia right now. See the similarities? Yes, our little green ball called Earth is getting destroyed by us. Now that thats outta the way who wants roasted condor?
Now, I have lost my point along this jumbled mess but make no mistake I love CNN. Wolf Blitzer frightens me, Lou Dobbs entertains me, Anderson Cooper chastises me and Larry King is the undead. Plus they have a segment called "This week in War". That just is capitalism at its best right there. So, if you feel the need to lower gas emissions, turn out lights and save pandas please do so. Me, I'm going to build a bunker big enough for 4 people. Three I've already mentioned and Larry King, along with Kieth Richards shall wander the earth stopping to interview one another. What wonderful world.
By the by, you can argue with me about anything I've written. Problem is I'll just deny your existence. Because if you're not real, how can you be arguing with me? Thats exactly what I did to Erica Hill. Not reply to my fan mail will she.

This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day; Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Bringing Sexy Back

Yesterday one of my professors compared my ideas to little bits of lace and silk. I took offense at first, although I did not let on to her how offended I was, but later I revalued the comment. What is made of lace and silk I thought? Why Lingerie of course! So, either my prof is incredibly horny and creepy, or I have the sexiest ideas on earth. That's right history department, it is I not J.T. who is bringing sexy back.

Yet, on a more somber note. This is not the first time I've been given this speech by a professor. You know, the old, "you're just an undergrad and you're confusing me therefore you must be an idiot." No bitch, I am an artist and by comparing my ideas to beautiful clothing you are just supporting that idea. I can make people with disgusting bodies feel good about themselves. Yet, everytime I try to articulate these ideas I come up against a wall. Will I continue to come up against this wall and futily destroy myself? Or, should I stand back for a time and wait and then with one great effort level the wall and all that surrounds it? I'd like to see a piece of lace do that...

roight

In the early morning-
before the sun has fully risen-
when the air is yet crisp-
and the roads not too over loud,
Do you ever- before putting on your socks on your feet-
use them as sock puppets and say goodmorning to yourself-
so that you don't feel so lonely?

Really?

Fuckin' loser!

Another Coming

To believe that the glass is half full is to limit possibility! How much more excitement is there in life when you always have the possibility of filling that glass with something new and furthermore even having the choice to do so?! You will all envy my half empty glass, for I am free to act, yet therefore damned beyond imagination.

If a pessimist sees the universe spiraling down and backwards he is relatively more hopeful than the optimist who only sees upward and forward motion, for in the moment the pessimist is always at the highest and best place that he will ever know. As that point continually slips away he clings to his blessed remembrance. The optimist, on the other hand, is always at the bottum striving to gaze up at that which he will never attain in the moment- nor in eternity.

Wiser still is the man who sees that everything is spiraling in both directions and that pessimism and optimism will loop around to meet one another, yet just at the point where they would conjoin- diverge off into the infinite.

Even though the falcon is now entirely deaf, dumb and blind at least it hasn't forgotten how to beat its wings in direct defiance of any sort of falsely imagined falconer!

I am (in) the Shit

So here's the reason that I've given up on writing for the past month...

2nd History of the Holocaust Class:
I am shocked to hear that we will be doing an elementary school timeline approach to the Holocaust even in our papers.

I strap my seatbelt tighter and refuse to eat berries lest hemeroids appear.

3rd Class:
My project group and I develop a very inovative research project. We want to research how viewing the Holocaust as the central event of WWII and the past century affects how people remember and think about the Holocaust. Our idea is rejected and we are subjected to a webliography.

I seriously consider strangling her rather than trying to communicate at the level of a chimpanzee.

4th Class:
I have a major panic attack throughout the entire duration of the class summoning up only enough sanity to ask the professor "if we would be able to engage with the issues at a slightly more sophisticated level than fitting the triangle shaped toy into the triangle shaped hole?" These are my words verbatim, delivered in a clearly manic state, to a class of 70 people-most of them checking their e-mail accounts on their laptops.

She makes snide comments about sophistication for the duration of the class.

We watch yet another film that I've seen before about a timeline that I've known about since grade 11.

I later forget all about it and pretend that I am in a world in which elves, goblins and gnomes bicker over the most ethical, equitable and environmentally-friendly distribution of dew from the grasses of the magical meadow to all of Illuvitar's blessed creatures. I dance a frenzied dance.

Disheartened

My professor said to my class today: "In this class we will be dealing with the who, what, where and how of the Holocaust and under no circumstances will we discuss the why." And this very statement, I thought to myself, is the reason...

I May Possibly Be Back

I've been feeling a great deal of tension lately. My body, mind and soul torn asunder by conflicting forces, choices that I must make, steps I must take, words I must--spake? I've been pushed and pulled, up, down and everywhichway. But tonight I felt the sky open up, it cracked in half and it all poured away, trickling down into the gutters, into chaos and disorder. It is not order from chaos that I seek. It is the fluid movement of perpetual already destruction which I must learn to watch it ecstatic glee- change my perspective on the tragic scene which I am forced to spectate. If I continually attempt to exert my meager will upon the ineffable forces of the universe I will fail. I must lose myself, forget myself, feel the breeze on my face, the rain in my hair and let it all slide away to one single point that can spiral away in a aquatic backflip, drift down the stream, glide along the current, until I feel comfortable as part of the forces which are only painful because I won't submit to their inevitablity. There is no use in fighting the benign powers of nature. I have learned how to die and thereby how to live. Sorry for this figurative redundancy, but I'm still only human. Maybe soon I'll explain where I've been all month, but as for now I'm not entirely sure whether I've actually returned at all.

Purposefully Untitled

A whiskey would help this flow, the young man nearly said aloud.
Pulling the cork with two or three twists, the brash vanilla flavour rose quickly as he poured the amber booze into his waiting cup; and setting it down beside his type-writer, put his fingers to the keys.
As he wrote, the type-frame edged to the left with each stroke, pushing his topped-up glass toward the edge of his small wooden table. He calmly but impatiently grabbed the glass and moved it to the right, continuing to type. He sat.
No words come easily, and he wrenched off the dust-cover from his old machine; an orphaned 'Viking: Deluxe 10' he had picked from his streets trash.
He wrestled with the dust-cover, breaking the seal of the rubber tabs; twisting it from beneath the charging handle. The neat mechanical rows of strikers now faced him.
A bare black and red ribbon staring gaudily at the blank, white paper.
Some dirty, spoiled oil leaked from the keys; the 'j', 'g', and 'p' still often enough stuck fast to give his rhythm a dramatic balance.
He took a long pull from his glass; it was smooth, and warm, smelled of vanilla and cedar.
It didn't help very much- very little inspiration came of it.
He tried to relate the smell one March evening; when the earth was damp and sweet, and rich cedars scented the forest.
He was romanticising, he thought; the the whiskey smelled as much of turpentine as of cedar. The forest had smelled sweet from simple organic decay. Starch - sugar - fermentation.
He wondered whether he fit with the decay, or the sweetness-- the decay, he thought without much hesitation.
He took another long drink, and finished the glass. It didn't help much.

Haunted

We continue to add these petty pretty details to this house that we've been building for so long. It's almost done now. Even the last coat of paint is dry. Most of the workers have packed up their tools and have gone home. We've entirely forgotten to step back from these petty pretty details to which we devote so much time and energy and regard the entire house. If we were to step back, we'de see that this mansion is really a horrific haunted house. These details we've been adding are nothing but spattered blood and with every brush stroke, every song, poem, story, picture or film - or even every action- we make we kill ourselves more and more. We are creating spectres of ourselves, we are haunting this mansion we've made by destroying every scrap of humanity left within us by adding to its overlayden walls with our own blood. We are creating our own demise, we are creating horrific images of ourselves- phantasms. With the climax of this banshee moan our destruction will rush in like the wind through every door and window, slit and crack in the wall. Then with a great shake, a great spectacle of light and sound we will topple this mansion to the ground and nothing will be left. This is the state of our society. The horror grows daily.

More Doors Opened

I must begin this post by giving the majority of the credit for the ideas herein expressed to my introspective friend who for some reason or other decides to remain silent, yet has indeed profoundingly influenced most of the writing that I have done over the past several months.

I discovered yesterday the identity of the missed call which for some reason or other spurred me to write a post which I find brings together a lot of the thoughts that have been flying around in my head of late. It was a call from a friend who was driving down the road and was suddenly gripped with such an intense realisation that he simply had to write it down lest the moment slip away. He was entirely unable to pull over so he decided to phone me so that I could write down all that he was understanding in the moment. Of course, I failed to pick up the phone and the notion dissolved from his mind before he was able to turn it into language on a page. This is in-an-of-itself a perfect illustration of missed opportunities and thoughts that will never be remembered, yet there is a second layer to the story which makes it all the more intruiging.

From the scattered fragments that my friend was able to convey to me, those pieces of the image which remained after the moment had passed and with it the coherent thought, I was able to see that much of what he had realised was very much alike to what I written in my latest post. His thought had come to him as he saw the lights of a car flicker just as I had seen the streetlights flicker on, he had seen a shift in reality in an instant, and that shift opened up a window through which he was able to see something clearly rather than the usual obfuscated reality we find ourselves in. This is where the Irishman's thoughts are being used. As I explained this occurance to him he commented that it was almost as though the thought which had been lost by my friend had transferred to me. His idea had not been forgotten; it had merely lept through space and time to trigger a process of remembering and coherence in my mind.

There are a great many mysteries in this world, but the enigmatic connections between friends are the most interesting to me. I am moving to Tofino in a few days, something I desperately need to do, but not without regrets. Even though I have not left yet I already miss the people whom I would otherwise be able to share life with here in Surrey. I am caught by my need to leave, yet now that I am leaving I feel as if I should stay. Should I stay or should I go now...I don't think that I will ever look down on the lyrics of The Clash ever again...I've always hated that song, but I am beginning to undestand some of the subtle nuances therein. I thought that the singer should obviously choose the decision which does not cause the double trouble, yet perhaps it is not the relative level of dispair that the singer is getting at. Perhaps he is commenting that no matter what choice one makes it necessarily precludes other possibilities. This is truly part of what tragedy is, to be damned no matter what one does, not because of optimal and suboptimal options, but because of that nagging question, which lurks everywhere. Lurks from the bright lights of a stage to an empty bottle to the twisted metal of a car crash. That haunting question heard from the lips of madmen, visionaries and the wind, what if?

That last paragraph has little to do with what my introspective friend said to me, but really it is the interaction of what he said to me that allowed me to continue on with the thought. It makes more sense to me now why so many writers and musicians spend such a great deal of their time thanking the people around them who in some way or other contributed to the creation of a coherent image, their art. Just as my post was a subliminally transferred notion across a city, so the conversations I have with other people help to construct and build the ideas which I then write down. I realized this a few days ago as I was speaking with a poet friend of mine with whom I love to hold discourse with, but it is very clear that we have almost completely oppossing views, although we are similar in some very important ways as well. I can always be assured that when I speak to a poet my words will be remembered and somehow given life through another pen than my own. In the same way those who speak to me and share their perspective with me can always have the hope that at least one person has listened to, interpreted, interacted with and tried to express who they are. It is in this way that we might possibly be able to find ourselves, in the responses of those who are listening to us.

End of an Era

I am always put out of sorts when I miss a call on my cell phone. I will enter a room to find my expectant cellphone cheerfully and alarmingly informing me that I have missed a call, yet due to my technological ineptitude there is no call display to show me who had been so sorely disappointed to have missed me. Their identity is usually forever lost to me. Perhaps I am disturbed because I am entirely insecure and neurotic and am therefore emotionally devastated by the loss of a possible social excursion, or even a conversation with another human being. Yet, that indeed is it, it is the conversation! That chance communication with another being, lost by my absent mind-edness, that hope of connection with another being, that joke of a detatched engagement over a telephone signal. That missed call did not only represent a possible vacuous social enagement, but the possibility of one of those golden moments, one of those times that a friend needed to talk, and for some reason you dropped everything and went for a walk, went for a walk and talked, and together approached something which might actually be called a real experience of life.

Today as I was driving down the road in the early evening my eye caught the streetlights as they flickered on. In that split second I realised that I had just missed the flash of the dusk. I had missed that moment at which some city planners deemed the natural light to be at such a level that streetlights were necessary and that night should begin. During that flash, during that minute instance of dusk, I may have seen it, experienced it, but by the time the light had travelled to my eyes and I was able to process the stimuli in my mind it was gone. I've said it before, the dusk is something that cannot be seen nor comprehended easily. Yet, there is no point in writing, or even thinking about nostalgia because it will always come back to haunt you.

This theme of missed opportunities has been continually recurring in my mind today and for the majority of my life. A rather spontaneous friend of mine recently convinced me to move to Tofino where he has been living this summer, something I should have done 2 months ago. Instead I have been sitting around my suburb wishing that I was somewhere else, somewhere other than the blase tedium of the suburbs. I live too much in regret. I feel as if life has not yet begun because I am perpetually looking back. That is what I do, I am an historian, more to the point I am a human being, whose very existence is dependent upon the capacity to reflect and interpret the past. It is often said that he who forgets his past is doomed to repeat it, yet I have begun to see recently that the inverse is also true. The reason for looking back to the past is to learn how to forget that which we are looking at, let it recede into phantasmatic oblivion and allow oneself to drift on, unimpeded into the blazing glory of the infinite nonexistent yet eternal futures.

What was it about a missed cellphone call that made me think of this, to put together four thoughts from throughout today that I had thought I had forgotten. Irony indeed! Again, it is the possibilities incurred by the enigmatic caller. It makes me ponder what inumerable paths my life could have taken and could still take, what conversations I could have had, had and could have, people I could meet, faces that I might someday vaguely and hauntingly recognise. I will quote an introspective friend of mine to end my thoughts, "we don't know where we are, but we know HOW to get out of here." I don't know where I am going in this life, or even where I am, but I am confident that I know how to deal with that. Rather than fabricate a roadmap or religion, a purpose or a reason for any of this divine siezure that we call existence I possess the capacity to actually embrace all of it, the good and the bad, the dark and the light, the depressed and the manic... I have no need for trite answers or solutions, or even sight to see where it is that I am going, I just need to go...

Birthday Precious

A strange thing indeed it is to have something new in one's possession. This thing, this machination of inumerable complexities that even to look at the outer shell of its being is entirely incomprehensible to me. To not be and then suddenly to be is truly terrifying, like being born, as I was 21 years ago today. That is in and of itself a mystery to me. The other mystery being this me fellow who seems to think that he is worth while enough to type on this fringe of a typing implement. Where this being goes is more interesting than who he is. Who cares what colour an object is, an arrow is boring, I would rather witness it hit the target. Impact is interesting, not the detailed rigormaroo which superfluates the literary world. This is why I am unable to write narrative, or perhaps I am creating a new idea of what narrative is. I am not interested in the process, I care about what it will accomplish and where it came from. I have a tendency to cut off the beginnings and ends of my sentances, I know the middle, so I care precious little for it. I want to see the beginning and end. Those two moments which we are robbed of by reality. Since it is impossible to be conscious at one's birth, since even an old soul is unable to understand the new stimuli of a newly born child. The end is where we must seek the truth, that moment of death. "This is the end" spoke the wise prophet...I or we rather, are looking for the end. The problem with our physical reality is that we forget that we are not looking for the end, but rather the beginning, that experience we are excluded from remembering. We are looking for a birth that we can never have again, and since the momory is lost we never really experienced in the first place. We spend our lives looking for the end goal, but all we really find is our continual yet elusive beginning. And so I type on my birthday, that I am growing older, today I am 21 and my liver just turned 40. I must become a child again and truly smirk the smile which would allow me to jump off the edge as if my hands were always being held by come ineffable force beyond anything I could ever imagine.

Some Wandering Thoughts

It is not the wilderness that I desire, but the safety of hidden oases in the obscure corners of our steel and concrete prison. Those spots that no one notices because they are scuttling along too busy to see. Those spots where tree and grass and water and bird and flower thrive despite the pollution which surrounds them. To be in the system , yet melting its innards, eating it apart from the inside out, like ants carving a new kingdom out of a long dead tree.

I cannot wander, unheimlichen, without a goal or a home.
Even an arrow has a target.
There can be no peace or purpose without an end.
The mortal cannot hope to experience immortality.
Yet, in that is the answer, a mortal cannot hope,
but a mortal can merely do it.
Stop worrying about the future and live in the moment.

I don't think that it is possible for me to wander alone. For all the impossibilities of complete communication the mere presense of what may or may not be another person is enough to give my wandering a different element. There is a deeper texture to wandering with another; a texture which fades when I am alone. To wander slowly, saying little, focused on the rocks below your feet, yet forgetting them all as you move on, with a person of a like wander-prone soul gives more satisfaction than a vaste store of meaningless aquaintances.

A Dream in May

The music grew louder and faster than ever before. The three musicians wrote and played in a dark ecstatic fury; they were acting out all of the pain and anguish, beauty and joy in the universe. Colours swirled, blended into darkness; and then they were gone.

Suddenly I noticed my gradual awareness of the musicians' absence. Yet, those who had surrounded them were left with their song as it's elegaic resonance echoed on. At first the people played the song of the musicians, but then they began to add their own songs to the song. They captured the music, it endured, it was frozen for a moment...

(This part of the dream has been omitted)

I wish that I could work this out; I wish that I had the courage to sing this song. The musicians never returned; the song endured only for a short time, but its lingering affect, a change in the air could be felt, something had changed in the process, but the people know not what. The people began to speak of themselves and their own songs. They forgot the melody and the harmony, focusing only on their single refrain. The song grew dim and crept into the darkness of a heart that could not understand its sounds and thereby come to believe that it was his song. The song was able to reside and survive in that humid and dark sanctuary; alive in the ignorance of its host.

It may just be bullshit, but it was the moment that I realised that truth was hidden, something to be dreamt, that I was able to appear as if I were playing the game well, appear intelligent. I am really more of a lazy dunce. I see through things rather, notice ripples in dark corners. I used to think that I was merely observant, but now see that it is that I have different eyes; I've seen my eyes now, they are strange. True joy comes to those who realise that they have eyes, yet then chose to close them, being more content in their imagination. To revel in blindness, complete ignorance. The world becomes more vibrant to me, more pronounced hues of colour caused by the impending darkness. To see this beauty one must see and dwell on the absolute transience of everything. Everything is forever breaking down (or up?) into oblivion, but once it reaches its end it will have become everything again and thereby repeat the process. The spirals continually become larger and smaller?

(This was all a dream)

Clarvoyance

I try to run, outrun this flood, this torrential river, pursuing me, engulfing me, drowning me- Life! I claw myself out, make progress, see ahead- clarvoyance.

To do this I must decend to the depths, so that I can run on a solid surface. To elevate myself I must fall; I must drown to escape the crushing waters.

And I see, that glimmer, that shining hope beyond the myst and darkness, that something beyond the infinite which is our inner illumination. That is my sight.

Then, a gust from behind; I feel it coming before it hits, an echo of pain, a feeling that something dreadful is coming, like that static feeling before lightning, like contractions before a birth. I know that reality is about to take my feet from under me, undermine my progress. The river catches up. Did I slow down, did my sense of dread at the impending river cause me to falter, or did the river just gain speed? I am undone. I am again swamped in its confusion, mundanity, animalistic frivolity- meaninglessness. I have to start all over again, I must find my feet again and ramble on.

To do this I must decend to the depths, so that I can run on a solid surface. To elevate myself I must fall; I must drown to escape the crushing waters.

And so I escape to dark abstraction, a time of complete oblivion, but once I have passed through this night, a night more confusing than even the meaningless river, then I can move on once again. In the time that it takes me to decend life has moved on without me, I gain nothing, no understanding because the river is crippling my every attempt at peace and unity. I am caught in a perpetual cycle, futility. No matter how I struggle I can go nowhere. Perhaps I would do better to take the opposite, yet equally obstinantly defiant stance in refusing to join the river. What would happen if I were to decend and then plant my feet; let the river pass me by entirely. Could I stand long enough while the glacier melts, while a world of water flows past me? Perhaps I am not drowning thoroughly enough! So I have two choices:

I can remain in my cycle of defeat in which I try to outrun the river, or I can lie on the river bed and let the water move on while I dream of someday reaching that inner illumination, the light at the end of the tunnel which is actually myself...

Anchoured

I've been languishing here where I sit, this grim repose, wasting time.
Pretending to wait, false anticipation for something that doesn't exist.
I lie about understanding, fooling myself into believing that I am standing under something.
under what?
life?
perhaps I am above it?
born dead, waiting to live, maybe once I've died?
So I fill my time with trivialities, leisure, luxury- destractions from boredom-
the alternative being industrious labour- which I revile.

It dawned on me today that I was not in my body yesterday, and have just recently returned.
I am a captive once again to this listless ship-
suffering in the dulldrums of mortal existence-
unable to raise anchour-
smiling gashes in my sails-
longing for a rough stong breeze-
to blow into me, through me, beyond me, to carry me away.

If I could but laugh about this more often than I weep, then I would have the answer,
but my lungs have been weak of late, and I cannot allow the first peal of laughter to ring from this cold stone monastery...

Force

There's nothin' left to writ; it's all bin rot - ten away for so long that it would be scratchin' a stick in the dirt to make shapes of this shit.

Words count pecious little,
in the process of change, history.
Brute force continues to play,
the role of the dominatrix.
Thoughts count for even less,
vanishing even while they form.
Even if the pen be mightier than the sword,
and people remember words longer,
still...
a sword's a sword,
and a pen is just a stick full of ink,
and a thought,
unarticulated
is nothing...

Voices

What does my reading voice sound like? I have many voices that mimic out the world around me, yet this internalized voice facinates me more than any. I remember the day that I learned to read " in my head"; I just chose to switch worlds. Perhaps it is its similarity to my dream voice, that voice which I am barely able to hear, mostly in muffled sputters, that makes it so desirable to me. It is a comforting voice, a deep voice, yet higher, somewhere out in the world of the text. It has traveled through the words of the writer, to his life, and then back to me, through my life. I si a sort of interface; perhaps then it is not "mine" at all. Perhaps it is an autonomous spirit, a guide who comes to me when I wish to understand another being. A spirit of empathy; MY spirit of empathy. A sprite, a ghost, a geist, a spirit of me- could it be my soul? Maybe it is me and I am an outside observer? The outer eye, beholding my inner me as it travels to other places, through the words of others. Maybe it is this outer eye of never gets high or even drunk, this "rational" being which eludes external affectation. Perhaps I have been approaching real experience, but I have never realized who I am yet? I have been looking at the wrong me! I am the elusive one; this spectator, who is even writing this, the one who is writing this is not me, it is a journalist of my being- an observer of genuine life- it is my spirit- just as real- but not as potently ME- as I AM- the ONE that can be in communion- unity...I am a coward...I cannot finish this thought, maybe I will someday...

Acceleration

Fools with their sprinklers- I can feel the impending storm deep within my bones.
They can wash their cars- I can see the black clouds forming.
(tell me, do clouds no longer contain pictures, or have my eyes grown blurry)
They sit in their houses- the climate remains uncontrolled.
I hear the rolling thunder- they hear only the television.
I can feel the crackle in the air, I see the lightning stike
hot as the sun- perhaps?
as brief as joy- certainly!
The rain begins to fall, first in a dry sputter,
then it pours,
heaven opened up,
my downgoing,
is my exhaltation!
I can feel the storm, taste its power,
smell its lingering scent- O-zone?
I stand enraptured,
in its overwhelming strength.
I am in the storm, and it is me.
Together we will roll along the sky,
I- accelerated by its rampant degeneration- the storm killing itself,
raw power being acted out in an exquisite dance of-
light, sound, smell, taste and texture.

Within Cynicism's Grip

On the very edge of substance
near humanity
miles away from awe
stands the dull conversation
of those who do not see at all.

If I were a swine
I'd grunt with the rest

I'd swill in my slop
and roll in the muck

then I would truly know
what happiness is!

Namaste

It is impossible to see the dusk. It is an equivocal state of luminocity, in between day and night. As a child I would sit in a field and wait to capture a glimpse of the dusk. I was attempting to pinpoint the single instance, the flash, however brief, in which light turned into dark. When the restless illumination calmed to a peaceful and soft darkness. But, I could never find it. Try as I might my mind and eyes would either see day or night and then if I sat for too long then night would overwhelm, I would miss the dusk, the chance of finding the elusive, the chance to see the equivocal transition in which knowledge becomes understanding.

As I sat in the field people would walk past me. Some didn't give me a second thought; others were interested as to why I would sit in a field staring at "nothing"(nothing = not tv etc). I would tell my task to those who asked me, some laughed and walked away, others came and sat beside me. Some of those who stayed would claim to have seen the dusk and then leave, a select few would sit in longing frustration along with me. I have always been thankful for those who would sit and stare with me. It was more important that they be there than I knew at the time.

I think though, that I have seen the dusk now. I did not pinpoint it, it is not a flash, it is a becoming. In order to find the dusk I slowed myself down and stretched myself out. This can only be done by looking forwards and back and examining the process, the transition, the dialiectic, the image, art, an utterance of sight, of genuine experience. In the flashes of ecstatic sunlight and smooth dark understanding we see, but we cannot see the transition, the point where THAT WHICH IS, becomes real, when oblivion becomes eternity, in us, the fragmented pieces, the lens which gives existence to the luminescent/infinite infinity of spirals. In this drawn out moment, there is only holy laughter, intense laughter that is also weeping, pain and loss at having gained everything.

If only I could learn to reside in those drawnout moments of dusk, to experience the rending joy of equivocal/internally illuminated existence! To experience the connections of everything! Oh, it is certainly a good thing to sit with another, to share that moment, to be suspended together, twisted, inextricable linked in reality.

To sit in a field in the blazing hot sun- to be filled, dried and made incoherent and pregnant by knowledge.
To remain in the field while the elusive dusk passes by undetected- knowledge transforming into understanding.
To remain in that now-dark field, the stars and moon above, darkness enveloping life, a sea of contentment, a deep understanding, yet longing, a restless stirring, more satisfying than satisfaction, glutted appetitive satisfaction.
To pass through these three stages, especially with another person, that is hiros gamos, holy union with ALL THAT WHICH IS. This is what gives being to the infinite spirals of infinity. This is how the flint strikes the tinder. If we can reside with another within this process of becoming we can see and experience our role in creating, in being, in the infinite. WE ARE!

slip't away

I am looking for a language,
not taught to me,
not adopted by me.
I need a language,
but they all seem to slip away.

If I could outshout myself; silence the chorus of other voices muddying the stream; I'd truly be able to communicate clearly. It may be brilliant and interesting to refer to a thousand different things at once, but for real coherent image to form with language it must be honed to a needle-point. Those of many voices shall touch many faintly, but none intensely.

I have never been able to ignore my surroundings, yet at the same time I am completely oblivious of them. I am jarred out of contemplation by countless distractions, yet they are the only things which stop me from disappearing into the air. I am caught, in a limbo, called life. I need to be born, I need to die, I need to do both at the same time. Perhaps my quest to be a master of language is impeding me, perhaps I must let go of my need for communication.

Is not the greatest wisdom to sit in the wild repose of understanding, touching the air, tasting the sun, hearing the colours, smelling the grass and seeing all of it at the same time? I'm going to slip away quietly, but my body might continue to go through the routines of life. This is my down-going...

Biographical Thought Process

A number of people have commented concerning this blog, in the past few months, that it is a blog of some substance; in some way different than most of the shlock which fills cyberspace. I have taken great pride in those comments, yet...I do spend a great deal of time browsing other blogspot locations and at first I do agree with those who compliment my writing. For some reason though I have come across a thought which is rather uplifting to others and downgrading of myself. I must admit I do look with contempt on people of the most appitative constitution; those for whom everything is about satisfaction. Yet, when it comes to the cyberworld I do not think that the same can be said. It may very well be incredibly boring to read about what a person had for breakfast and what they think George Bush should do, but is my writing any different; that is, is it any less biographical. Instead of (what I consider) mundane trivialities I document the abstract development of my life of thoughts. I live in a world of thoughts, I am terribly detached from what most people consider to be the "real world", so I write them out. Instead of "toast" I might write "existential crisis". I therefore get bored and oftentimes angered at the inanities and insanities of life...

I've been writing a lot to myself lately. I kind of like that; to write on a piece of paper that no one else will see unless I chose. Anyways, once I figure out whether I actually want to communicate anything to other humans, then I will probably post more often or just stop...

Drop of Water

A thought concieved in silence-

a poem written with invisible ink,
an image captured in the eye alone,
a melody hummed with the inner vibrations of the body,
a dance found in the misplaced shuffle of a foot-

These are the clear and obfuscated somethings that we seek.

tURN phOEnIx turN

This thought comes from a poem that I was almost able to write back in January which entirely defeats the statement made by the poem. It was about how in the different seasons of the year I was either able to produce coherent and insightful thoughts and communicate them to other people and in other seasons I was not. Winter and Spring are my seasons of production whereas Fall and especially Summer seem to be marked by incredible silence. I should have been able to finish that poem in January. There is something about the scorching sun and aridity which leaves my mind empty. I have been heat stroked 3 times this week, oh how I hate earning money! All this to say that I most likely won't be writing online much this summer as I will need to use this season to retreat to my ignorant cogitation, my dark brooding, my complete mental anahiliation...

Listening

I grew up listening to classical music. That isn't entirely true. I also spent a lot of time listening to my dad's Beatles, Moody Blues, jazz...to list would be boring. The point being is that I grew up listening to relatively "old" music, i.e. classical and jazz. In fact, I was often bothered by anything with a loud bass and/or drum. I really don't know why; maybe it was my supersonic hearing that was offended by the extremes of the audiowaves. I also spent a great deal of my life playing the trumpet, classical, jazz, the same as I listened to. By the time I was in senior highschool I was listening to some alternative and more contemporary music, but I was also beginning to really understand sound. I remember playing my trumpet alone, just listening to a note. Playing with another person, listening to where the two notes met. Playing with a group, hearing the interplay between the different sounds. It wasn't always good music; it wasn't always interesting; I just liked listening to the sounds; I found harmony in the music. I also began to listen intently to progressive jazz and found a music that I could float in as if it were a river of sound, dragged down stream (or up) by flying fingers on ivory. It wasn't until after highschool that I got more serious about listening to and chosing more contemporary music. I have not moved away from my live for classical (mainly romantic era) and jazz music though. I have found that the great musicians of the 20th century have all understood the past of music. They see and understand the music that has come before them and have added on their own sound which does not contradict, but rather harmonizes with the past. The progress of music in the world mirrors the progress of notes in a song.

Done Capitulating

So I am finally done third year. I can finally read, write and think what I want entirely. I think that our entire social structure is ordered rather insanely. Childhood should be about joy and laughter. Adolescence about exploration and learning. Teenages about coping. Young adulthood about selfknowledge and shooting the breeze. Why do we torture ourselves with so much pointless work? We will have our whole adulthood to work hard and be unhappy. Why not enjoy exploring the universe while we are still young enough to want to? I guess the introspective irishman has been right all this time. Let's go climb another mountain. I love Simon and Garfunkel! The beats will ramble on again, and the road goes ever on...

More Firebranding

The following is an article that I found on the web on how to avoid burnout. Is it just me or is this whole world insane. My favorite silly line is where it suggests to empty ones mind by reading a book, this just goes to show what kind of shlock people are reading if I book can empty a person's mind. Anyways, enjoy and hopefully be disgusted by humanities desperate attempt to avoid insanity. We will never find a way to alleviate the madness caused by our society; we must rather find an outlet from society, not imaginary, but real. I'll be in the forest if anyone needs me...

Strategy of Imagery:
Examine whether or not your burnout is a result of doing something you don’t like to do, yet you have to face. For example, if there is one aspect of your job you don’t like, but you are required to do, you could be facing burnout quite frequently. In such case, imagery could be a great solution. Picture in your mind an image that you like (i.e. a tropical destination, a loved one, etc.,) and substitute this image in place of the thing you don’t like to do. Somehow, the strategy of imagery helps to lessen the tiring weight of the thing you despise doing. In the process, your task gets done with less resistance on your part. It might even reach the point where you enjoy doing it.

Health Foods:
There is truth to the theory that eating well helps you physically and mentally. And there are certain health foods that are known to ease your mind.Most health food stores sell Ginseng, which is an energy food. You can either drink it as a tea or mixed in with your cooking for a wholesome meal. Ginseng comes in a variety of strengths. The more potent it is, the better your physical (and mental) performance will be. If you’re not very familiar with it, just ask someone at your health food store and they will help you out.

Let it Run its Course:
This may seem like a simple solution, but many people attempt to fight burnout as though it were a competition – them verses their mind. In reality, taking a timeout is the best solution. Take time out to regain your composure. A burnout can be equated to an individual who could use a timeout from the hustles of life. This is similar to a coach of a basketball team asking for a time out to come up with a winning game plan when his team is not playing at its peak. Take advantage of this timeout to meditate and relax those frenzied nerves.

Empty your Mind:
Take time out to empty your mind. Go play a round of golf or read a book. Or try something more therapeutic like writing in a journal. Start detailing your thoughts, your ideas, and your daily victories. You’ll soon wonder where the stress has gone!

Hobbies:
Adding on to the single timeout, you don’t need to wait until you achieve burnout to take a timeout. Find a new hobby that frees you from emotional drain. Go on a picnic with the family, a camping trip out in the woods, or a weekend excursion to a totally different environment. Play with your children or somebody else’s. Kids know how to bust burnout.

Relax and Indulge:
Soak in a tub or visit a spa. Listen to relaxing music, which lifts you up emotionally. You may want to choose specific sounds that can relieve you from burnout like soft, Classical melodies.If this kind of relaxation is up your ally, you might also enjoy scent therapy. Savor the fresh scent of nature, especially flowers. The sight and the fragrance that flowers bring can be great relief to a tired or irritated feeling. If you love nature, nothing is more invigorating than flowers and plants._________________stay cool

Brooding

I've got this axe to grind
I must admit it's been quite some time
that I've been running its edge
on the hard cold surface of this stone.

Whetting it, sharpening it, getting it ready to chop,
you all want me to get on with it,
but once I get going it will be impossible to stop.

Oh this blade is getting sharp
I can feel the heat from the sparks.
It's almost ready now.
The idea will come, but no one knows how,

it

will

end...

That Old Firebrand You Used to Love

I read this today...

"We are a progressive, innovative company offering activist opportunities in various Vancouver communities. We offer a flexible schedule, fantasticco-workers, rapid promotion potential, travel opportunities, and the chance towork with a group of like-minded individuals who want to make a difference. Ask us about our brand new scholarship program!No deadline: Expanding company with ongoing recruitment.

Activist Opportunities? They've corporatized the fringe. The centre cannot hold?...the damn edges canna even hold! I'm going to sleep.

Know Thyself?

I used to have an intense urge to tatoo the word paradoxos on my lower left arm. I found that all of my beliefs and perceptions could be found within the word paradox, and I still do to a great extent. However, I have come to see the folly involved in such an action. To think that any word, even a word which admits ignorance and implies a disbelief in dogmatism, should be set perminantly in stone, or skin in this case, is folly. It is folly because it does not allow for progress in different directions. What if I come to disbelieve my prevailing assumptions? What if I no longer want to identify with a set of beliefs? Of course you can always add to a tatoo and draw it out all over your body, but at some point that developing picture would have to be completed because you are only working with a finite amount of flesh.

I do not need to encode my understanding on my skin, I do not need to express myself visably, or even through language, it is a mere bagatelle as compared to the secret understanding that I could be chiseling. Chiseling into the flesh of some infinite part of me. Carving with deft ability the shapes, textures, aromas, sounds or flavours that cannot be seen, felt, smelt, heard or tasted. I must allow them to be written in a secret chamber, carved on the walls of an out of the way ruin, splashed on the shores of an empty beach and echoed through the hallways of an abandoned prison. There is nothing in the finite world that can do justice to true understanding, all there is to do, is sit and stare at the clouds.

I will not put any constraints on my development. I will be a hypocrite, I will re-neg, I will contradict myself and I will not convince anyone of anything.

A truth will be written on my intangible skin in the dead of night, when neither me nor anyone else will be able to see the words. In that dark night I will hear my secret name, but comprehend it not, I shall have attained understanding, in the cool darkness of night, consumed in flames that will burn both hot and cold, and I will lose myself amongst the ever increasingly complex mosaic of my skin, which will be drawn for eternity, as I lay on the grass and dream...

Image

Imagine-
A series of lenses - suspended - illuminated by an inner light which pervades the spaces between. Holding it, held by it, crafted by it, poured through it. Each of us, each autonomous cross-section of infinite, we are those lenses, reflecting and seeing eternity in a different way. We are but a layer in the strand of the infinite black star of infinity. -this is dialectics- We are the smallest part of the infinite because we are no longer a unified whole. We physical beasts are the only incomplete part of creation. We are imperfect. When the perfect and the imperfect connect there is life, there is existence. We are the cause and it is the cause. WE do not exist apart from one another. Our shattered fragment is the flint to the tinder of perfection. When we strike against one another there is life, there is existence. I AM is caused by this striking. We are all connected and this infinity is but a lens on the infinite spiral of a more infinite infinity.

Our Spare Time

Of Snowmen and Ice Sculptures

There are two methods of writing. One is to begin with nothing and add words until an idea has been expressed. The other is to take all that could be said and whittle away all but one idea that you want to express. One is like a snowman the other is like an ice sculpture. One is prose, the other is poetry. I don't know which method I employ in my writing. Is a combination possible? More to the point, when the sun comes out isn't all of it going to melt anyways? Can a metaphor reverse itself on the writer and destroy him; does it gain power and get out of hand? What are these hands that we talk about while writing? It is as if ideas reside in the palms of our hands. Is this why fortune-tellers look at palms in order to tell the future? Is there much difference then between a rational analytic philosopher and a mystical fortune-teller? I think not.

And we see what has happened here. I allowed my idea to progress. I did not begin with anything, but came out with a conclusion. This means that my writing is prose. On the other hand though, perhaps I did start with everything and through my process of asking seemingly unrelated questions I did carve away and come up with a conclusion, an ice sculpture. And here again I find myself talking about hands. This is certainly something I am going to ponder some more. You decide what this post is about...

Finger on the Button

Anarchists don't want chaos-
They want control.

No insane explosions-
They want a focused blast.

Huge, poignant and destructive-
but harnessed nontheless.

They are all fucking megalomaniacs-
They don't want freedom-
They want to put their finger on the button.

To light the fuse is truly and honour-
- the greatest kick possible.

I still havn't figured out how to use FUCk deliciously...

Symptomatic

I read a quote from an Irish author; I forget who it was. He said, "I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, but a drinker with a writing problem." It occurred to me that this sardonic admission of substance abuse could very well be said for most writers if not most artists in general. I will reserve my comments for writers. It seems that those who feel the need to write are a tortured lot. We are seeking to forget some horrendous wound, or perhaps just existence, we are trying to forget, so we leave our memories on paper. We leave them there so that we don't have to carry them around anymore. We leave them so that we can move on.

But what about those things that we cannot pen? Those wounds that will not go away. Those truths that we are too terrified to utter, even to ourselves, even in the solitude of our minds. To even think these things, to allow these maddening thoughts loose even within our own skulls would leave us with nothing but ashes. So we try to leave those memories in different places. We try to leave them in other people, we give them so many words, so many false words that merely skirt around the real issue. words words words. We scream them into pillows or underwater where the sounds is muffled. We try to leave them in paintings, but even the thinnest water colour obscures the true meaning. We try to play them out of instruments, but they are altered by the bending of notes. We try to leave them in jokes, ironic twists of the truth which show more than even we are aware of. We finally turn to substances. We try to leave our scars in them. We try to escape everything, ourselves, others, past, present, future...

This is why most writers are the type who can sardonically say that they are drinkers with writing problems. The drinking isn't the problem, it is only a sympotom of being someone who is compelled to write, who needs to forget, but is incapable of doing so, someone whose very being is torture, whose very life is painful.

I wish that these words were what I wanted to say, but they cannot be, they are a lie, a facade of what is really going on...

Memories in the Wind

My entire neighborhood is filled with the scent of woodsmoke this evening. As I walked along I breathed the heavy air in through my mouth and nostrils. It smelled like contentment and nostalgia. With every breath I took I recalled my other memories around woodfires.

Camping trips of my childhood, monumental bonfires, fires started in the snow, fires started in the sun, tiny dwindling pires, the fireplace in my home during a power outage or cold winter night, camp -fire songs at camp, the great Kelowna fires a few years back- the red glare of the Okanagan as the sweet yet bitter air blew towards us, camping trips of my later years, adventures, happiness, sadness, undescribable moments, wine, whisky, beer, song, tree fights, leaping over the fire, dancing around the fire, dancing in the fire, meeting a weasel in the wee hours of the morning, climbing mountains off the beaten path, dark and furtive conversations, brooding over a fire-cooked meal- that's not dirt you whiney bastard that's seasoning, battles with indubiatable squirrels, cigars, harmonicas, guitars, terrible terrible burns, weepy eyes from a friendly smoke stream, the red glow on the tent as the fire makes a final attempt at life although it knows that it has been extinguished, ghosts, stories, true, false, our own, someone elses, beaches, law enforcing park rangers, all imagined? perhaps, maybe not...

These are the memories that came to me this evening as I breathed in that sweet wood smoke scent. My memories carried in the air unlocked by a fire that I have never seen, flames which I have not warmed my hands on and smoke that has not stung my eyes. My life suspended in the wind, waiting to come back to me...

An Experiment

Manic-Depressive--- a vague description. Bipolar--- a misnomer. To be a person who swings to such staggering oppositions, rises and falls between incoherent contradictory extremes, is truly a terrifying thing. Imagine understanding everything and then knowing nothing. I have said it before and I will say it again. The field of psychology is the second most futile attempt at understand that which cannot be known--the first being theology. I resent the labels that are placed on people to describe their "abnormal" behavior. I was thinking today of bipolar, a "disease" which I have been accused of. I believe that the name of this "abnormality" is misleading. It was chosen by people with very little understanding of the nature of the experience of being someone who is labelled bipolar. The main problem is that within the flluxtuating soul, there are no poles. There is a definite movement from one extreme to another, but there is no end. There is no mountain peak upon which a person is manic, and there is no end to the void down which you plummet in depression. Depression and mania are also not that different from one another. When you "go up" you think that you know everything, you see everything, you simply are, but then right at the edge of that understanding you find yourself at the bottum of dispair, you realize that you know abosolutely nothing and their is nothing, you are in the void. The pinnacle of the mountain is the same as the bottumless nothing of the void. The top is the bottum and the top is the bottum. But, all this talk of up and down is misleading as well. I might as well describe this as a horizontal movement or perhaps even a dementional movement that we cannot understand unless we are in that state.

You think too much, you are taking things too far, you are so fucking insane. You are a heretic, a sinner, an enemy of the truth. A flake!

Gotta write, gotta eewwzzzz out these words, gotta think, no hesitation, free my words, let my thoughts out, unfettered from the language they are masked by. Gotta get me out of the equation, gotta let true free though slide around on the screen, gotta believe that what is coming out isn't tripe, no editing, there I just did it, noo noo noo just thoughts, thoughts on a page. Write enough to fill up a novel, sell sell sell, justify your existence, don't be a drag on society, get a good job in city, dog in the suburbs, and all that goes along with that. Don't forget to have fun, storm the wall, be involved, be happy, don't swear around children they might be influenced, and never never never talk to strangers on the bus or you might start to realize that things are a lot more complicated than you thought they were.

I am thinking ahead of my writing, I have to stop this, I am causing it to go in a direction. I am writing a word with the intent of having another series of words after it. Words that I have not even typed yet are causing words that will exist after it before it is even written on the page.

I am not actually crazy. I am just experimenting with some modes of writing. I think that I can force my mind to experience things that it is not experiencing. I have always done this; now I am going to do it deliberately...

Implosion

In description we often turns to comparison. In fact, we always do. Things do not possess characteristics in themselves, but merely exhibit what we perceive to be their content in that we are comparing them to other things. These do not have to be comparisons of things to things, but even things to qualities. We also describe things in relation to what they are not. Re: An Example of My Logic (the equation, A does not equal B, gives both A and B their substance). This task of describing is therefore futile since we do nothing but compare infinite numbers of substanceless things to one another. Every individual things in empty of meaning apart from contrast, they are all nothing. So, if we describe things in comparison to other things then all we are saying is: nothing is like nothing. nothing is nothing is nothing is nothing ad infinitum. Comparison is empty, definition is empty, everything is empty.

What then is the point of language if it continually empties things of their meaning? If language is dwelling of being then where does that leave us? Can I attain a state of understanding in which I no longer cling to defining myself by the universe I percieve around me and just accept that I am? I am...

Sylogistic

We cannot have faith in fact, faith concerns that which cannot be known. Fact concerns that which cannot be known. Nothing can be known, therefore faith is concerned with everything and fact is concerned with nothing. Facts are meaningless, faith is fullness, but only when it is emptied. Only in complete ignorance can real faith come. Why then do those who profess to live by faith feel so certain that they have a grasp on things? I'm not talking about admitting that we don't know everything, I am saying that we know nothing. Most people who claim that they live by faith are desperately clinging to facts, drowning at that, and doing so with little style.

Wracked by physical pain by your absence. I know that this will last for an eternity, but I am saved in that I do not know that this will last for eternity. This is hope, this is what I have faith in, that the suffering will end. But, I don't have this hope because I know that it will end, but because I don't know that it won't. Ignorance, darkness, blindness and dispair are the only things that can truly bring release from this...mess?...

Fragments

I've been writing a lot for school and other non-blog related ventures, so here are some scraps of my thoughts.

Human development is a process of learning how to throw progressively more sophisticated temper tantrums.

You can tell the worth of a poet by his use of the word FUCK!

When I was a child and my ear began to ring I would be gripped with the fear that the ringing would never stop. You've been ringing in my ear since before I was hearing, and your ringing will never stop, but my hearing will.

Peace

I'm gunna flip out if these people don't stop starin' at me!

What?

These people, I can't stand them starin' at me...

Why? What people?

Their eyes!

Their eyes?

Yes, damn it, their eyes, they're bornig holes into my head!

No kiddin'.

What's that mean?

Nothin'

I've had just about enough of your skepticism; you think I'm crazy don't you?

Nooo...

Come on, admit it, sometimes you think that I am nuts!

Well...

Why do you think I'm crazy?

'Cause you're always talkin' to yourself.

'Cause I talk to myself? Everybody talks to themselves!

Not like you do.

How so?

Well, you're more tense, more physical.

Physical like how?

Violent...

Ya! Violent? I'll show you violent!

--a little ways off---

See, he does this all the time, just stands there as if he is having a candid conversation with another person, then bam, he just punches the wall or throws a chair. We've got to get him some help...

Why do we need to help him, who hasn't kicked a chair when they are anrgy?

Look, look he is choking the air, cho-king the air!

Maybe he is working out some frustration, maybe he just got dumped..or a speeding ticket...

Whatever, crazy fuck...

---back---

Finally they're gone. And you for that matter. Now for some peace!

---the body was found the next day---