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.