8.30.06
I ignore the capacity to notice the scattered people that I
in, every manageable manner, limp and stumble past heading to…towards…I
was going to go…The pain is the not like the pain of a fit young man’s
sharply splintered bone. I am moaning off each step at, say…thirteen
per floor…at approximately one hundred feet in the concrete cluttered,
steel framed air.
The pain is more akin to a feeble deteriorating
fracture in the waxy, stain ridden ankle of a glazed-eyed elderly
woman. A pain in the weary ankle of a old woman so visibly weather
beaten that every time one come across her they can not escape pointing
out all of the horrible decisions this woman must have made throughout
her younger life. They remind themselves that they will never look that
pitiful. One feels their pulse tense as they, with nervous quickness,
check your reflection in the decaying old woman’s changing mirror. The
mirror she will never see her reflection in without the RNA standing
behind her clenching the handles of her dusty wheelchair. She will
never see her grey self in this mirror without hearing (via the little
mechanical miracle of science tucked in her ear canals) the RNA behind
her saying, “Now that we’re dressed it’s time for activities.” The
young woman, cheerful to be doing service for the elderly, still does so
smiling. She still smiles because she has not come to realize that
someday this occupation will bring her to comprehend the humiliating and
agonizing end to come for us all. Someday she will spend her every day
in an opiate induced daze trudging through a routine she has come to
consider as her own little time in hell, as she lost her faith long ago
when standing at a nice old woman’s bed comforting her in her last
hours. As the woman clenched the dying woman’s hand she consoled her
with verses from the bible that the elder use to read for hours every
night. As the woman hissed her last exhale she faintly gasped,
“it’s…it’s…really the end…nothing.”
Yep, that old woman drank to
much, way too many trans. fats. She probably ate paint chips or
something. Maybe raw meat. She definitely did not get enough iron,
calcium, melatonin, fiber, and all those other assorted daily values on
the back of organic and all-natural foods that we eat (the kind that
not-so-hygienic, tye-dyed guy always tells you about at that concert
some of us go to every year). Okay, so we break down and drink a cancer
flavored energy drink every so often…hey, even Noah would have been
tempted to slug back those nutritionless jitters while hammering away on
that arc. It is that old lady’s pain that is pounding away in my foot
as I walk, one hundred feet in the air.
On the elevator; bing, click
click click. Ninth floor. Bing, click. How am I not thinking about this
metal box. Metal frame, metal wire, metal buttons. Bing. Fifth
floor. Sixty-five feet above…probably concrete. A possible drop, not
far enough to attain terminal velocity, but enough to make me forget
about my ankle. Bing, click. Third floor. Okay, so now the fall would
not be the worst, but if a plane hit the six floor at maximum velocity,
fuel tanks full…well, yeah. Thirty-nine feet off the ground stuck in a
metal cell under the path of tons of burning, crumbling steel and
concrete... Bing. Why am I thinking about this metal box.
Should
I check my mailbox, the little metal slot framed by eleven hundred
other little metal slots? Should I chance disappointing myself by
making certain that none of the people who I communicate with, all dozen
of them over one hundred miles away has sent me greetings? Should I
even try to remember if I even took the initiative to inform them that I
could be pulled out of the deepest sorrows if any of them, if anyone
took the time to turn off the television and write me an affectionate or
even convincing letter? Should I try to hope I even gave them an
address over a hundred miles ago? Fifteen steps, no mail.
Around
the corner. I shut off the attention. I am counting the six,
seven…ten arduous steps. I am not counting the possible embarrassing
thoughts the group of students I am hobbling past may be harboring.
They watch MTV. I am not counting how many of them are mentally running
through my flaws as I pass to subconsciously raise or maintain their
self esteem. Yep, I am fine. It is MTV that is wrong as I head for a
seat in the air-conditioned lounge, eight months past being eligible to
vote; two years past losing my virginity, laughing in the face of and
leaving cold on the dirty street like an annoying high maintenance house
pet, my virginity; three months past the comfort has faded of being
assured that at least nine months of the year I would have access to the
kind, sweet, naïve reminder that it exists. “That what exists?” I am
not sure, but it has to be better tasting than the way time has been
passing these eighteen years, eight months, and thirty-some-ought days.
I
glance up for eye contact. No one is acknowledging me. Timidly,
exhaustedly, unsteadily I ask, “Anyone mind if I watch something?” The
television in the lounge is first come first serve.
Just noticing my
presence, “Yeah, no prob…hey, you’re the guy that…,” blah, blah, blah.
She refers to something that is intended as a compliment; though, as I
am sure the American life has taught her, in a derisive manner. I
smile. I nod. I act unrepulsed. Am I hiding repulsion for her
comment? Am I withholding repulsion to my own referred to behavior?
Did I do that? Do I really act like that? Do I really come off like
that in conversation? Mental note. Sticky note. Ah, or maybe even a
fresh tattoo right on the back of the hand. Apparently I hate
everything about me except the person I imagine that I am when I sit
alone dreaming of the world. Something tells me I will find a way to
forget this revelation. Something is telling me that before tomorrow…
I
turn the volume up as the satirical news show comes upon the screen.
Ha, ha. Relaxing giggle and suddenly all is well. Attention abruptly
disengages on many levels. Crisp perfect cheekbones. Flashy
transitions. Catchy music. Me, soft, chair, and moving pictures in a
electric box. Why did I have a sticky note and pen out again? Was I
not going to…oh, commercial is over!
As I sit, fixated a voice from
behind me, “Didn’t you say you hate TV the other day?”
“Yeah, but
this is…” I am not sure if I finished the sentence or not. Am I really
sitting in air-conditioned air watching television? Why do I have a
sticky note in my hand? Television on, me confused, no friends
around…oh, yeah I fucking hate myself.
8.31.06
As a child
the revelation of a chemistry lesson from a biological view is wild and
exciting while subdued. The teacher says to the class, “your body is
made out of atoms the same as everything else in the world!” To you
your ear interprets a fantastic idea. The entire world, even everything
thing in China at the other side of that whole you have been digging in
your backyard, is made of teeny, tiny dots. Me, this unique mixture of
the dots of the world forms the special chemistry that is me. The
leaves outside the classroom window suddenly hold a new awe-inspiring
secret little world of dots hidden in its leaves, hidden in its bark.
Grey, brown and green. It is all made out of the same dots as the Grand
Canyon and me. The teacher continues, “…because of intermolecular
forces between those atoms nothing really ever touches. There is always
an iddy, bitty space between everything.” The teacher’s face shines
with a friendly smile, as she’s glad to be filling you with the
wonderful knowledge of the world.
The building I am
limp-walking through makes me uneasy. It gives off a dreamy good
feeling. The entrance leads into a long echoing hall. The ceiling
three stories above meets at an angled point. The only light comes from
a row of windows at the top of either side of the wall. The red-brown
masonry bricks that compose the shell of these high walls swallow the
majority of the light as it cascades from above, leaving only soft hues
to compose the papers on the bulletin boards, the plaques next to each
door, the tired faces of the gathering students. I love this vibe the
place gives off early in the morning with eyes heavy, head light, and
imagination frolicking. The vibe you get when your not really paying
any attention to the details.
I do not enjoy, per say, the vibe
that is given off when you notice that the papers on the bulletin
boards are bland advertisements for student Christian organizations,
credit card companies, and satirical army recruitment propaganda with
smiling soldiers and their manicured nails. I am not head over heals
for the vibe propagated by realizing that the plaques next to the doors
represent fifteen hours a week these sad faced students have to
sacrifice reading pointless page after page about thesis statements,
polysaccharides, and the initial affects of the Columbian Exchange. I
can not convince myself to dig that as soon as I do notice these things
the serene wondrous vibe of magical misinterpretations of the foggy,
whimsical, early morning stoned mind disappears until I again lose a
grip by slumbering after a long anxious day.
Today the
teacher lounges on his stool straight faced with absolutely no
enthusiasm saying, “The smallest form of matter recognizable as a
certain element is the atom. Over the years you have all come to love
or hate the list of these elements. So we will not focus on talking
about them as long as you can remember that everything is made of the
same basic chemical constituents.” I think to myself, “Good, not
focusing, please move on, next subject.” Of course I am aware that I am
composed of the same particles according to the same physical laws as
all of the other nonspecial stuff in the world; the mountains, the
trees, the dirt, the rotting man in grave six thousand, one hundred,
fifty seven over at the Windy Hills cemetery. Yep, I am made out of the
bomb that is about to end the lives of sixteen innocent children in
Iraq. Yes, I know, I am in only one way different than the curdled milk
that the peasants of Bangladesh are drinking. Cognition and free
thought. But, who is even able to explain that concept? Definitively?
Dr. Phil? Sasha Shulgin? Jesus? No, no, no. Next subject please.
Let us not focus on our possible insignificance to existence. Let us
move on. I mean, I can not even technically touch my pen to take notes
on the subject. Molecular forces, fuck them. Fuck chemistry. Fuck
biology. Why can I not be made of something special? Why can I not be
important? At least I have a soul! Yeah, a soul! It is the…uh…it is
made of…well, I can prove that it is a real thing because I can…Fuck
it.
My crumbling old lady foot is being particularly
decrepit as I listen to the first verse, “…if by digging I could steal
the wind from the sails of…” I sit one hundred, forty-something feet in
the over cast sky. As a child I was terrified of big buildings. I
would always find myself picturing every inch of the fall that I would
be enduring should the floors disappear. I would tense at every hinge,
thinking about how stuck in my path to death I would be. No way out.
No bandage and a kiss from mom. Just good old fashioned one-way death.
Looking at a window sent a rush up m spine. What I would later be told
was anxiety or irrational fear. At the time was unbridled uncomfort
with touches of nausea and horror. Now, after the counselors, it would
be panic. The music is still filling the gaps in my mind that once
would have been inhabited by terrorizing nightmares of falling, “…daddy
come quick, the dreaming tree has died, the air is growing this…”
In November of 1953, oblivious to his comrades, the CIA’s Dr.
Sidney Gottlieb spiked his comrades’ cocktails with a heavy dose of
lysergic acid diethylamide-25 as they relaxed on a work retreat in the
Maryland woods. After a few weeks of deep paranoid depression
potentiated by the brew, biological warfare scientist, Frank Olsen, who
was not warned he would be slipped the chemical at the time, plunged
headlong out of a tenth story window over a hundred feet to the concrete
below. I wonder if he felt that rush in his spine before crashing
through the glass into the morning sky?
My heel is throbbing,
pulsing, and aching my attention away form the even line of the
horizon. Except for a handful of buildings that negate it, the line
where the trees meet the sky is rather straight. Where crests of tree
tops protrude at different distances than the troughs of the canopy
before them a graying haze is growing thicker. Fog? Smoke? Smog?
Burning families? I do not know. The haze settling in the distance may
be choking plants. It may be dissolving the concrete of the buildings
in the distance. It may be engulfing prancing, innocent red rover lines
on playgrounds over yonder. I do not care to know. I do know…ouch…I
know that it is not choking, dissolving, or engulfing the pain in my
failing old lady fracture.
This limping is getting
embarrassing. Each sharp jolt of pain is a chance for a burned social
bridge if anyone is watching. I can taste the stares, salty. I can
taste the pointed index fingers, bland. Embarrassing, yes. But,
embarrassing like being in the stocks, unguarded in Colonial America?
But, embarrassing like being fair game bent face-to-dirt, rear-to-sky in
the open vulnerable night? But embarrassing like being an easy target
for horn bums, drunkards, and citizens alike? Maybe, maybe not.
Somehow
the violent throbbing in my foot triggers me to think maybe I am living
my life in search of finding a handle on nostalgia. I want to live in
it. That soft comforting feeling that comes on with a good memory. The
way when you relive a memory or a moment in your mind it always has a
distinct different vibe that keeps you from forgetting that you are not
in the here and now, but rather living out a wave in the good ol’ days.
No matter how bad times may have been, when I look back on them, I
always see the highest, high point. I always remember the feeling of
having all the time in the world. Maybe, I think while trying to ignore
my foot, the point in one’s life when they lose their innocence is the
precise moment that they realize the truly short duration of that life
and the priceless quality of time. I feel, searching for a comfortable
position for my ailing extremity, that maybe I have and will try
anything to allow me at a chance to inhabit that pink cloud of nostalgic
bliss for a few moments in the here, in the now. Breathing, working,
sex, leisure. Maybe I do it all in hopes of finding a way to live
inside of a wonderful memory. Will I ever succeed? Will archeologists
ever prove whether Christopher Columbus born in Genoa or in Spain? Who
cares?
Is anyone listening? Maybe when I meet a gorgeous, soft,
light speaking, beautiful, shining girl…Maybe when I lose my breath,
lose my train of thought, lose my mind when a kind, intriguing, gentle,
dark haired girl… Maybe when my heart aches like withering foot of mine
because of a sunny eyed, masterful creation of a girl steps out of the
crowd I am waiting for her to leave, because I want to see her under the
warming light of nostalgia. Maybe I keep forgetting that I have other
memories because I can only help but focus on these few of her. Maybe.
Maybe, just maybe the lovely American girl makes me forget about the
atoms and the molecular forces. Maybe this girl does not even remember
my name.
I think it is about time to sleep.
9.1.06
One hundred and five miles lay out before me awaiting my decision. One
hundred miles separate me from the scenery of my life. The bedrooms,
the backroads, the gas stations, and classrooms that my life has played
out in until now wait at the other end of this highway. All of the
inconsiderate, hateful, small town people that caused all the pain of my
childhood are most likely driving lap after lap around the other end of
this highway. The girl who gave me my first kiss, she is there. The
bridge where I broke my wrist, the parking lot where I got my first
police car ride, even my first car is probably still being driven around
there. Me? I am here on this end of the road, alone. Me and the
supernova of pain in my foot.
9.02.06
I see myself
completely transfixed. Fixated? Dissociated? Eyes…blank. Hands…limp
or shaking. Breathing…am I? Mind violently lost. Every emotion…dump
valves engaged. People are there, but I can not respond. I do not see
the light. I can not remember the beginning. I am less than alive.
Maybe worse than dead. I see decay in my mind. Decaying world. Trees,
mountains, me, my loved ones. Decaying. Ends. The end. No more
passing moments. I see the last moment. I imagine. I try to taste. I
try to truly sense the notion, the promise of death.
I can
not sleep.
I eventually did, and now I am awake, and now I
think I hate this end of the highway. The end where the story of my
life resides. The end that is connected with my first kiss and my first
car. It makes me want to go back to sleep.
9.06.06
Close your eyes. Clear your mind. No…really clear…the only thing you
can see or think should be blackness. Let every bit of anxiety
dissipate. Every shred of physical control, let go of it. Hands in
your lap. Head hanging forward. No thoughts.
Now let a mellow
orchestration begin filtering in. Undulating tones of a disposition as
edgy as soothing can get. The sound is what you would expect the
pavement to sing on a warm night just after a light rain as a young man
sinks into the wave of his first mainline opiate. The sound that would
fill his ears as the breeze only exasperates the sticky night. The
sound he would hear only occasionally cracking open his eyelids to see
headlights float by; yellow, red, gone. The vocals of the sound are
haunting. Haunting like the feeling of coming home the day of your
college graduation to find your family dead in the gutted, charred
remains of your family home. The day you and your family (you are the
first to go to college) have been waiting for since forever. The day
you get to begin living the life you always dreamed of. And your family
is gone. Your hope…gone. Your faith…gone.
This is the music I
want to hear. This is the song I want. Based solely on the mood, the
closest thing I have found is Radiohead’s OK Computer minus tracks five
and seven.
There is a full moon shining in the darkest blue
night sky tonight.
9.08.06
The Moon told me last night
that I resemble everyone I have ever been.
“Should you have
to be so ignorant as to go on with the extravagantly pitiful saga you
are so childishly clasping to every time your mind desires to be
utilized? Does the desperate taste marinating on your palette each
morning as you awake from your subconscious’s dream to your superego’s
dream not quench your craving for self-deception? Should this
darkest-of-blue night sky descend and fashion an immaculate cloak for
you to hide your soul, then would you still be inclined to lie, even to
yourself, even when scanning a mirror in isolation?” The voice trickles
from a long glare streaking down from her silvery face. Through the
outer layers of the atmosphere the words dance in double helix rainbows
of colors of steel never seen by human eyes. Coming to the altitude of
the blinking jet-liners in the sky the elegant laces of lunar language
dissipate. Two breathes later a reflective ripple, shining with images
of the starry sky, undulates on the blacktop before me. Up through my
toes, to my ankles, to my head, through my soul the blissful waves carry
the intoxicating lexis. My ankles grow warm. My knees quiver. My
spine tingles. My head grows light and floats away towards the blanket
of clouds the moon herself was about to settle atop.
In route the
shell of my face, skull, and all therein peels away from my spirit,
which hesitates not to rest myself upon a glistening tuft of the clouds
belly as the wonderful barer of the rain crept slowly through the night
sky. Quiescent yet gleaming with life sitting next to me was the spirit
of the moon. The soft supple flesh of her every curve, and curves she
has, shimmers with the same paradoxically brilliant, pale color of her
rocky body still shining full and round in the blue, blackness of the
sky above us. Her magical black locks wave long and serene over her
shoulders and down her graceful spine. Her hands small, thick, and
flawless sit crossed upon her knees as her legs lay atop one another to
her right side. Upon her forearms, shins, calves, thighs, lightly
sprinkled on her lower back is hair so fine it is not visible from any
farther than kissing distance yet blacker than the blackest night sky
itself.
Lost in the ecstasy of the moment, one far beyond any realm
I have ever thought reality would take me, I shyly speak. “I…I’m…I am
sorry that I have led such a life as to disturb you from your peaceful
place in the sky.” My apology comes out weak and soft like a young
lover to his innocent companion.
In my chest is a robust
sensation. A waterfall. A water fall cascading over black slate into
black night flows electric blue fast and hard. As the water breeches
the slate it begins to flow, in the blank air directly underneath the
path it just took. It begins pulling back in the opposite direction of
its approach. It smoothly lips back up it begins a vertical whirlpool
flowing to a to deep cone vortexes which pulls the ever flowing water
source in towards nothingness. This amalgam of a situation is taking
place in my solar plexus.
The heavenly yet very terrestrial spirit
of the moon turns herself to face me directly, revealing between her
collarbones a geometrically perfect series of thirteen precisely round
freckles in the shape of a ring. Into my toes, up my ankles, to my
head, through my soul the intoxicating waves carry the tingle of the
lexis. “Have you any concept of how long ago it was that the first man
decided that the Moon was in the Earth’s sky? Would man’s ego ever come
to conceive that the Moon is the sibling of the Earth sharing a mutual
position in the Universe’s sky?”
I almost lose all sense of the
blissful moment when I catch myself doubting in the back of my mind, “I
am having the same delusion that leads all those piteous soul to babble
on about Wicca and new age bullshit spiritualism. Thirteen freckles,
thirteen lunar cycles. The beautiful female Goddess banished by male
god-worship, the masterpiece of a female sitting beside me. Blah, blah,
blah. Bead necklaces. Ridiculous rituals. Sexy young girls gone to
lack of hygiene…”
Suddenly, in an innocent child’s laughter, the moon
spirit begins to giggle.
I am overcome by the most colossal sense
of any emotion that I have ever experienced as my soul fills with
shame. The angelic form of the moon before me continues to burst with
hilarity focused on me, on my spirit, on my soul. The plush seat of the
cloud I am perched atop becomes unbearably hard and disconcerting to my
physical comfort. Tears trail fast and rigid over my cheeks, down my
chin, fall and soak black into the grey, white, silver tufts of cloud
beneath. My tongue grows numb. My arms fall limp in my lap as I sob.
The kindred form sitting next to me fails to waiver in her constant
streams of laughter. I feel my ego crumble in disgrace. The feeling I
have always thought of as the weight of my body pulling down towards
gravity’s outstretched palms, even after I shed my body during my trip
to the sky, dissolves. My sense of time and obligation to anything but
breathing is disseminated through the atmosphere around me.
The
giggling stops. In what must be the same sensation as when the holy men
of Shangri la first found peace the hand of the Moon spirit gently
clasps mine. Her lips part for the first time out of all the words she
has spoken as she whispers in a soft, very sisterly tone. “You may go
back to the shell of your earthly flesh now. Even without it you still
look exactly as you always have, since the Sun and the Earth sculpted
this soul for you. but, as you do you must do the worlds a favor; paint a
portrait of your newly humbled little soul."
As I begin to insinuate
she sweetly, giggling answers the question I had not spoke yet, "It
looks exactly like you silly..."
9.08.06 (part II)
Rolling
away the time stitches itself into my mind in a pattern resembling a
well done masonry job. Precise and linear. Even the filter hazing over
my eyesight begins to take on a rusty tint to remind me of the passing
redbrick wall of moments. I taste copper…that means blood if you have
ever had a busted nose or fat lip. My stomach feels non-existent, but
my shoulders ever anxious. I tilt my head down to block out the
redundant visual of all the buildings around me and their walls of
brick. I tilt my head down to block out time.
As if I had actually
expected salvation I was rendered weak with disappointment when I
realized that even the blacktop under my feet appears to be mortared
together in parallel perpendicular lines. Then the mulch and bushes in
front of me join in the mosaic of masonry tinged invasion of my visual
faculties.
I close my eyes and try to imagine what time would be if
we had no obligations. Would the passing days even need to be
Tuesdays, Thursdays, or Saturdays if there were nothing to plan for? I
can not see having a regular sleeping schedule if there were no classes
to attend, no applications for jobs that do not exist, no due dates.
Age would be determined by experience. The only increment that could be
important would be that of the Sun’s daily cycle. No calendars, no
syllabuses, no rushing.
Sounding distant like childhood memories, yet
only four blocks away the melancholy sound a locomotive creaking along a
row of tracks cutting through fields and city streets alike. Somewhere
over there, with a luster of regret and sorrowful acceptance in his
eyes, is a man. The man is sitting with the sunset to his back, chin
down, watching the box cars roll by as he scribbles aimlessly on the
sandy ground under him. Away with the train that man is imagining the
miracle of his guilt rolling away as well. The lines on his cheeks are
not carved deep from years of laughing, but more from years of
grimacing as he hauled loads too demanding for his tired frame. The
graying tangles of wavy hair are not painted by years of stressing over
taking care of three kids, but more from years of drinking away his
sorrows over not taking care of the three kids out there somewhere that
have his eyes whether they ever see him or not.
The train is
heading to St. Louis. Are his two daughters and his son there? Then it
is on to Salt Lake. Is the woman of fifteen years ago, the woman he
kissed awake every day for twelve years, is she there? Then on to
Seattle.
The man stares into the sandy earth. The random squiggles
he has been scribbling into the ground begin to take form. They cut in
quick bursts. Ninety degree angle. Ninety degree angle. The picture
begins to grow. For the first time in memory the man’s chest is feeling
light and almost cheerful. In his glaring eyes the lines of his work
reflect back unto the scene around him. In his eyes is reflected his
masterpiece, a growing system of straight line parallel and
perpendicular to one another. In his eyes is reflected the masonry of
time.
Me, I am now laying on my back on the blacktop staring.
Staring at my closed eyelids, this seems like a good point to go to
sleep. Why fuck with something you can not really fuck with, time.
Sleep is peaceful. Sleep you can fall into fast and hard and still be
caught and cradled in gentle arms. Time. Time is a brick wall.
9.10.06
Low furious distraction, vortex gasping in all
attention past three full thoughts. Oscillating in its own distant
world it submissively massages the scene. The red, white, and blue is
dancing a slow calculated jig when the hips come its way. The brilliant
jazz stylings tumbling gently across my lap, my cheekbones,
fingertips…just to be inhaled by the exhaling vortex of distraction.
The low furious distraction. Gasping in all attention past two full
thoughts. Oscillating in its… the air it leaves still grips hot and
moist, but still dry like that of a young temptress with no intent on
placing names to the faces.
All internal signs say, pink bliss
in the folds of divine linens.
Skin, says young miss with no
soul, and a likely inclination towards…low furious distraction, vortex
gasping in all attention past four full thoughts. Oscillating in its
own distant world…
I…light feeling…music hitting only on certain
rhythms…I…what was…kinda hot…head light…?...someone…someone FUCKING
DESTROY THAT FAN…I…music rolling though unconnected tempos and
tones…shoulders sort of…sort of…it’s hot…?...I…high pitch screeches
initiated in the cartilage of the ear streaking through the scalp…vortex
gasping in all attention past random incomplete thoughts. Oscillating
in its own little world it submissively massages the room.
All
internal signs say nothing comprehendible.
Mind, says “I…light
feeling…music hitting only on…”
Skin, says it must be the
altitude.
Seriously though I can not understand how that fan is
completely disrupting my whole world right now. It’s almost
like…everything past one full thought…
Hold my hands and pray for
rain…head full o ideas…no more…brother, no more…hands you a nickel…if
your having a good time…every time you slam the door…I ain’t working for
Maggie’s Pa no more…bedroom window is made out of bricks…no more…Ma, no
more…about man and God and law…says she’s fifty four…no more
It
is pretty well a mediocre day outside. (Re-reading last line!!!)
Wow…I did say that…well that is the impression I am struck with from
this small concrete room through a drab screen window from eleven
stories up. I think I remember thinking it was a joyous day when I
walked outside earlier. But, I don’t really know how much I actually
remember going outside earlier. It is always the same. Beautiful
day…sky…green trees…breeze…at least that is how I remember every day.
There was…I…the sky…yep…wow, there is this low distracting noise
aggravating me to no end. I can not even think…oh, it is the fan.
…your
mama she’s hiding inside the ice box...your father walks in…Napoleon
Bonaparte mess…honey, do you have to ask…go to pet…I get a face full of
claws…who’s been in the fireplace…tell me Santa Claus…honey, how come
you have to ask me that…hole where my stomach… honey, I’ve got to think
you’re really weird…it turns into a sword…grandma praised the
pictures…everything inside my pocket…can’t believe that you’re for
real…in the kitchen enough to make me cry…he’s got something to
prove…you ask why I don’t live here…honey, how come you don’t move?
9.11.06
I need to stay above. The sun is rising down there no more. Need to
stay above. Away again? I needn’t the charades to mask the parades
around me anymore. Damn…I must be awake again…
Echoes of
translucent blue ghosted by distorted electric red follow all human
forms as they enter my line of sight. Fluid in their motion of varying
paces behind the flesh they are shaped to imitate. No identity attached
to the flesh. No face in the best cases. Just a passing unconceivable
soul being puppy-dogged by these red and blue distortions.
The
wrists are a bit light as a tingle skips along the nerves of the
forearm into the elbow, and on to the shoulder.
Lighting is
Kubrick. Makes you white plastic. Renders your smile ceramic and your
eyes cellophane.
There is no palpable air.
There is no
discernible scent, besides maybe that of pale ivory.
Leads you
to sense yourself engulfed in a retro version of reality.
The
scene changes. Sun is now far off past many concrete walls. Lighting
is dim in an educational sense. The message conveyed by the gathering
students is apathetic. Proportionate mix of no hopes and false hopes is
the ailment. The cure? Well, the cure is not liquor, and the cure is
not studying, and the cure is sure as fuck not hope.
New scene. New faces. New agendas. At least, new in that these people
actually seem to have something planned for their days. These people
irritate. Yet, deep in your spine they make you self-loathe. Their
grasp on the required mindset to make it anywhere with some inclination
towards success reveals your immature daze. Leaves you even further
down in you dark little cave of denial. Not self denial. Not denial of
the facts. More a denial of the world. You live inside an outlook of
distraction. Only immediate desires are allocated. No sense of
obligation to the future. Thoughts happen, in force, yet only
insignificant (to anything but desire to understand) philosophical
meanderings.
Wind is picking up outside. Leafs twanging out
millions of small attempts at a group effort towards some immense
dance. They turn left. They flip right. The rain is coming. The
leaves sing as the twigs hold them in contact through some winding
connection to the dirt below, “Oh, oh…ah, ah, ah…time is blessing us
still, yet, and again…ah, oh, ah, ah, oh.”
Twenty minutes later the
rain ran its little performance. I have not seen it rain for more than
fifteen minutes since I got to this end of the highway. Why does the
sound of rain falling always sound like what I want to hear? It can
fall on grass, glass, or concrete. It can patter off of shingles, tin,
or plywood. It is never unwelcome (the sound at least).
The
clock keeps raping. The clock keeps track of our squandering. The
growing list of moments dead will never waiver until we lose our
connection with the physical world to which time pertains.
9.12.06
The rhythm has on this, long forgotten in the maze of a routine, day
again descended. Light and half heartedly. Effortless and softly.
Makes no attempt to gawk at the defeat of our routine. Just dances
across the pavement, across the flesh, across the rust, across the
clothe, across the leaves into the dark remnant of another forgotten
rainy day.
Mei tilts her chin towards the treetops. The leaves
acknowledge her appreciation by curling forward and rolling their
hips. The gyration of each leaf lets a single drop of clear rainwater
fall in an elegant downward ascent towards the dancing girl below. Mei
remains eyes-closed throughout her number. The interchange continues
for a time; Mei sings a joyous song of her soul with the words of her
movements, and the sky manifests cool wet droplets to dust her warm
cheeks.
Maybe I was lost in some fucked up delusion. It
might be that I thought, again, that every mind interpreted the same
“Me” in regards to their value of themselves (and not in the self-esteem
sense). As if there was some universal identity of self that we all
sense within. Is that a…I mean…what has become of me? How corrupted is
this abstraction in comparison to other people’s constructs? Chances
are that I somehow ignored the baulking involvement of personality in
the scenario. Fuck…was anyone within range paying attention to my
arrogance and puzzlement? Could it be that I fucked myself into
everything? Is this moment, this breakdown, something that is just part
of every personality’s developing? Why does it seem as if it has
happened enough that I should have learned the lesson by now? Or is it
that there is no fucking lesson; we are just thrown, at conception, by
another’s decision into the process and from then on we just build up a
self and when the timing is absolutely the most crucial point for things
to remain static some force out there breaks that self down to dust?
After so many times being lead astray from our own identity is the
lesson we should learn, that we should be the ones waiting for that
correct moment to burn everything to the ground?
Mario
Bros. All-stars is a pretty intensely entertaining thing if one sees it
without the mask of outdated animation. To visualize a flesh-and-blood
man leaping straight-legged into the air four times farther than his own
height. Then at the peak of his jump he thrusts forward to land on an
enormous projectile. Not just any projectile, this guy you are seeing
is landing on a motherfucking egg bigger than his pudgy Italian self
that just materialized out of some outlandish dinosaur type adversary.
What is more is that this real man would be doing this crazy shit in a
clay pot in the deserts of some Arabic land. Moreover before jumping
onto/into these vases he scores a mushroom the size of him which makes
him invincible to death on a cumulative number of occasions. Then after
he leaps back out of this vase (keep in mind that we’re picturing a
real man, real vase, real dinosaur, and real desert), he boards a
spinning magic carpet which he must use to get as high as he can
possibly get to grab onto the titanic green vine hanging from the small
solid clouds before his magic taxi disappears. This is Mario, fuck a
Dr. Seuss.
9.13.06
Does it feel different? Analyzing the
flavor of your life and personality here today do you recognize
everything? Looking at your situation two years ago, do you recognize
the experience of being that person?
I had an epiphany
yesterday. It was an amazing breakthrough that concerned the nature of
the early adult male life. I’m assuming this is what it concerned as I
was in a room full of young men. I have fully forgotten the true
contents of the revolutionary idea that struck me at the above mentioned
moment. It is sad and it hurts my stomach that I can not recall the
contents of a thought that at conception sent my heart into a spell and
my thoughts running wild. It is disheartening that I can not place what
it was that put such a twinkle in my eye.
It is cold and
wet outside, cold enough for a jacket and wet enough to lose the
sandals.
“If I’m stabbin’ a bitch, brotha, I’m stabbin’ the
baddest bitch in the place.” He leans forward changing expression; fun
exasperation to serious instruction. “I’ve been runnin’ the game. She
came to me to say ‘hi’ t’day.”
Could I consider this my
home? If I did not have a real base to go to in case of need to see my
bedroom could I convince myself that one small box on the eleventh story
of a building in a town I do not know one hundred miles from the rest
of my life is a “home?” Could I handle the reality of being homeless in
a city where I know no one? What will I do when my family is gone this
time, now that I have nothing else to hold on to but hope that I will
get my shit together and pull off a life?
“That should be yo
ringtone…” nonchalantly the words caress there way from the depths of
ivory lungs to polish the vibe of the scene. He makes no change from
his lounging demeanor but as to slightly open his right hand in a faint
swoop with the flow of the comment.
“Huh,hu…” the young man
sitting beside him bequeaths before continuing with his own line of
comment. “Right there, that’s me, that’s when I’m fuckin’ bookin’ it.
Nah, fuck that…bodies…nah…quite the shit or I’ll dust some people on to
your mothafuckin’ peanut butter sandwich.” As he tells it breaks out
the pimp step to ‘brush his shoulda’s off.’
With an era
of confidence and faint sarcasm, “Yeah, I could straight stroll up in
the cinema and speak verse to the da’amn screen. I be doin’ that shit
for my life.”
I shrug, “Yeah, that is the plan for now. Film.
Radio. Something.”
“Me too…”
The room other than our jaws
and hand gestures speaking is still. Dry. Clouded. Greek revival. A
movie plays softly from the television. The enormous windows are
blacked out with mile long hanging curtains as old as the walls. Three
percent of the window catches a gap or hole in the material sending a
crisp shaft of the outside world streaking across the room hitting the
floor and other walls all around us.
“…and philosophy as well…so
maybe I’ll hesitate to sell my soul the (m)TV Devil.” I breathe tilting
my gaze towards the ceiling.
Then the true thought of a deep
soul reaches out to forgive up of our sins. From somewhere deep in the
haze of the scene someone’s voice rolls out, smooth as fresh silk,
“…That’s a dope mind on ya shouldas righ’there, son…” His breath cuts a
plume through the cloud in front of him. No one else says anything.
Silence. Did they feel it also? Was there just an explanation, for
every question any coming-of-age youth to ever ask of existence, in his
voice?
“This is how I would expect life here to be. Like
the story in seventh grade about the world where it rained constantly
and the kids just wanted to be able to play kickball outside. There
were tunnels connecting the buildings so that no one ever went
outdoors. The people spent hours standing in front of big
fluorescent-like solar lamps and exercising. The writer’s style
conveyed a world of only tones of grey and mud. Smiles seemed doomed.
This seems to me a lot like a town that would inspire a story like
that. Even the end where the sun has finally came out and the children
run out to play in the flowers that suddenly bloom on a hill across from
the school. The end where the teachers who had went their entire lives
without having ever seen the sun shied from it only staring from behind
windows. They tried to stop the children as well, but refused to chase
them past the comfort of indoors. The end where the children smiled
their joy intoxicated grins as wide as had ever been seen. The end
where without warning the sky blackened once more and caught the
children in such a hellacious storm that not one of them made it back to
the school where the teachers watched with cowardice as they shivered,
huddling three hundred yards away. The end where the children freeze to
death clamoring under a tree scared witless of the storm.”
The
guy next to me nods twice, grins, and replies, “I know exactly what you
mean.”
So does this relate well to Socrates’ vision of
political obligation? Are you choosing to drink the hemlock while your
beloved students peril before you in dismay? Would Jacques-Louis David
have been able to do this situation justice like he did in The Death of
Socrates (my favorite painting of human subjects)?
9.14.06
Why are we not taught to live? Television, air conditioning, frozen
dinners. Why are children not taught how to live? From the earliest
point in our life they taught us not to be comfortable unless someone
was making a profit off of it. Do whatever you want as long as you have
to buy something to do it. They traded away rolling a ball for video
games, and cops and robbers with finger pistols for high-tech laser
tag. Propagate in us initiative to never be satisfied with water or
milk when for five times the cost we can have artificially flavored,
preservative filled, sugar water of a million varieties. No one teaches
us that placing a pebble under your tongue will stave off thirst for
hours. No one taught us that we really can live outside of the “real
world.” Teach us to follow the rules to exist in this machine of
society. Trash our souls by making think we will never really fit in to
this system that not one of us should every desire a place in on the
first hand. Give us no reason to believe there is another way. If we
do realize that we could exist outside we are far too weakened by being
raised to require quick entertainment and synthetic everything to do
so. No television. No pizza. No cruising in our Lincolns. No reason
to hate anything. Fuck that. At least that is how we are taught to
recoil at the thought of an organic, pure existence without war and
famine.
The first time lysergic acid diethylamide-25 was
synthesized on this side of the Atlantic the action was funded by the
CIA. That crucial first batch of American made LSD was brewed in
Indianapolis, Indiana by in the hard working chemists of Eli Lilly.
The gleam in your spirit, the glisten in your eyes, the instantaneous
crushing of your soul when a person walks into view is the most
atrocious part of the human psyche. When a body steps out of the day
that is so soft, so perfectly curved, so carved to accommodate intimacy
beyond any possible drawback. It is when this body walks by you at
least once every hour of the day. It is once this body is something
that you would steal, you would pillage, you would kill, you would trade
any aspect of yourself or your life to be able to once be able to reach
out and comfort that body. To make the mind behind that body lust for
you. It is when you have not lately known the touch of even the most
hideous form of a body. It is when you are so lonely that you wonder if
you even exist outside of passing glances that these immaculate bodies
with their solid thighs, smooth flesh, golden proportions, and gorgeous
hips begin to end your life. That you begin to cry at night. You begin
to cry upon awakening in the morning. You begin to cry in conversation
instead of explaining. You begin to feel nothing but lonely. Your
heart wreathes in literal aches every time you see a pretty smile. You
begin to exist as nothing more than your own little black cloud hanging
over yourself with every step you take.
Where did it happen?
When did you give up on trying attaining contact with those bodies? Did
you ever delve into such attempts…Ha…and what did you do then? Why do
you let yourself boil over with pain instead of trying to get a handle
on those things which would save your world from the jackals of
despair? Why do you not have any idea of how to go about such a task as
winning over a companion? I guess what I am getting at is…FUCK YOU…you
are weak, you don’t know the answers, you’re alone, no one loves you in
the manner necessary to fulfill your twisted fucking expectations of
the world, you were never right…I may just have to condemn you to suffer
these same pathetic hells the rest of your undoubtedly worthless life.
Feel that twinge in your spirit! Notice that disgrace in your heart!
Cry, cry, cry! Fall to your knees and kill yourself every time a sex
object walks by you! FUCK YOU!!!
It is quite a fine day by
most standards.
I think it is scoliosis. Every girl I have
ever had any serious sort of affection might have had back problems now
that I think about it as this gentle looking young girl walks by. Then
I notice through her posture that she must have back problems,
instantly I involuntarily think she must be fucking crazy, not crazy
schizophrenic, but crazy plotting to ruin a few lives. Could this
be…uh…a connection…damn I’m an imbecile. But, hey there is
Mrs...what…I’m…but, now that I think about it Mrs. Tower, when I think
of her, is an attitude and manner of conversating coupled with wisdom.
This could very well be Mrs. Tower. If Mrs. Tower is in my mind not the
body Mrs. Tower but the personality, wouldn’t another body with the
same personality still be Mrs. Tower. Their base of knowledge may be
different, but as long as they are equal vast and well developed with an
identical sense of humor. Maybe this is neglecting the identity as a
specific soul, oneness, and all the jazz; but fuck it we are
conceptualizing here.
9.15.06
Damn it is a rolling
good rock of a bright blue skies day…
“We’re all crazy
monkeys…?...the nagging dissension in your grip as you realized you can
not get it to go away…you are an…I mean it is hard to comprehensively
explain, but you are an animal…not a feverish or wild man, but an animal
no a beast. I am as well. We are all the same kind of beast the way a
chimpanzee or even a dog is a beast. I know ‘thought, and love, and
blah fucking blah, blah...’ I know. But fuck you I do not believe it
if you think you have it figured out, the nature of man, the true
origins of the soul and that only humans have them I you think you
understand them. But, seriously it is mind wrenching to contemplate. I
mean, do, even near, a large margin of people ever try? I could be
over it…you know it…the life, not the physical living life, but
something like what I would call the spiritual life but not in a merely
religious sense just not searching to explain anything, fuck math, fuck
understanding nature, fuck anything beyond living…okay so maybe it was
just a dream but hey, you got to have a dream…but, I am trying to
say…you are a living system of tissues and organs no differently than
any mammal, yes I know, the brain size and yadda, yadda; forget that…I
am not including the mind as it is an inconceivable explanation I refuse
to believe has ever been expressed in words. Not that many of our
species of apes has not in instances reaching back to our first taste of
the blessing of our worship of cows found in their own mind the
answers, but I insist only that none of those men were ever able to
express to others the true depth of the epiphany. So, let’s not lie to
ourselves we can not prove that we are in another existential level than
the other apes and monkeys, the other beasts.” The jazz is
interrupted.
“What was that just there?” they seem actually
concerned as their words flow with a warm tone into inquires from
somewhere the jazz remembers exists.
Surprised and with a sense
fear the jazz shyly says, “I…I am sorry I…well…hi.”
“Are you
okay? I mean should I leave?” Their voice was ashamed but hopeful.
The jazz is a little tired…maybe a bit hungry…and possibly as far from a
melody as a jazz can be...okay so the jazz could be completely
dissociating from the jazz’s jazziness. “No, it’s fine…come in…sit
down…I…would you like something to drink? Sorry…the music I mean, I’ll
turn it down.” The jazz’s voice seethes, it wreaks with lack of
confidence.
They sit down with the sweetest pure smile as they
reach out to stop the jazz’s hand from turning the volume of
the…….PERFECT MUSICAL SOUND!!! (what sound, what genre or artist of
song or symphony first appeared in your head as you seen that phrase…do
you know the one you thought of?...that is the exact sound, the exact
genre, the exact artist, the exact song that the jazz was going to turn
down). They pleasantly say, “I actually, for us, brought bountiful
black coffee in a canyon of a can, and cream; if you will willingly
share with white me your whimsical wine.”
The jazz was stricken.
Stricken with an affliction he can not quite name. It aches
considerably in the left side of the jazz’s chest and the left
shoulder. The jazz lets the tension drain from the jazz’s optical. The
jazz’s reply; “I will accept your coffee, share my wine and whisper
sweet notes to you all evening if you will take this and…” the jazz
stops mid-sentence as they softly pluck the flower from his hand, adore
it as it gently twirls bouncing off their lips as they steady it between
two fingers. The jazz begins to finish, “…and wear…” again the jazz
stops as they begin to weave the pink flower into their hair. The jazz
finishes anyway but in a euphorically exhausted tone, “…wear it in your
hair.”
They finish the weave grin and smirk, “So, I’ll humbly
adorn this perfectly precious, pink flower if you could find yourself
fit enough to fix for me that first glass of fermented wine right now as
I remove and retire my modest and meager sexy sienna brown jacket
revealing the rounds of my meek but mindful mellow toned yellow blouse.”
The jazz collects the glasses and pours two chilled servings of the
soft white wine. The perfect music is still playing at a healthy
volume. The moon is gleaming bright and pale in the black night sky
above them and the jazz at the jazz’s roofless mansion. The wine slowly
disappears from its confines within the cobalt bottle. The flower
remains perched just above their left ear along a smooth black braid.
The sienna brown jacket stays on the end of the mantle. The dancing
continues close and joyously. The moon shines forever. No one ever
wakes up…
I think most people always tend to think in high
regards of courageous people in history who pressed on past the fences
of the normal school, work, die life. The type of people who end up
referenced in history texts are the ones I think most people consider
was in the right time to make a change. They look at their current
world and say, “there is nothing now that compares to this tragedy or
that oppression in history that any hero is going to step forward and
challenge.” They are wrong, I was wrong. I may have considered that
there was nothing worth fighting for in today’s world as much as during
the 1770’s or the1850’s or the 1960’s, but there is and there are.
Everywhere there are things that need someone out there to give up their
grip and take a stand. I may have thought myself incapable of doing
anything greatly helpful to many. I was wrong. It takes the concrete
decision to take the path and nothing more. Anyone can be in the
history books if they make an attempt. Anyone can help feed the hungry;
it is just that they must take the necessary steps to get on course to
get involved…
(to be continued)
9.18.06
(continued)
…This is not just in considering undertaking a large course of change
for even yourself. You can do as you will. Yes, restrictions exist, in
a manner of speaking. For instance, should your fear of alienation or
of prison or of damnation or of general discomfort or of your own
mortality be of such root in your psyche you will not rightly be capable
of taking certain paths. Within reason you can however, attain nearly
any change in scene you could desire (given of course that you omit
desires that obviously require societal miracles). Afraid of the dark;
turn the lights off. Tired of your job; find a more fulfilling way to
survive. Want to play music; seek out a mentor. It is all really
simple, yet difficult to truly accept in your heart; you can make
something happen. Dissatisfied with your neighbor, your companion, your
home, relatives, your self, your life; hit the road.
Short
hair is all good when trying to impress or attract, but fuck a clean
cut if you are living for yourself. Short hair is easy to tend to. A
crew cut or a caesar is non-threatening in almost every manner.
Depending on the styling preference it may require tedious manipulating
for a few moments of a morning. But, short hair is practically not
there. It makes no claim to your own attention and does no great
service to the personality of your appearance. Flowing locks of all
sorts require attention from their host several times throughout the day
if the tresses are to be healthily maintained. For most any style of
long hair a large amount of time is required every morning for initial
preparation. Yet, even if the long locks are allowed to suffer
negligence they are still a large dimension of you, physically. Their
presence perpetually palpable on your shoulders and spine. Literally,
more person than someone of comparable size with a flat top.
9.19.06
Cold…smile…cloud cover…one third marble, the walls…ink on flesh, the
ink forming an existence that I manifested…part of my eyes, my world, on
you…no blue in the sky through these blinds…she sought me out in
communication, she wears a pink zipping hoodie...from a small town, very
small…lips…pink
9.20.06
So maybe, I was lying when I said
I needed to figure this out. Maybe I was being rash. Or maybe, I was
just acting on the desires inside me. I could have been living up to
this goal I have laid out before myself, to try for the things I want.
It could just be that I want to know what is going on in this
situation. I understand there may seem like more room for adventure and
romance if it stays this way, undefined and undemanding. There is
quite an assortment of reasons one could give in favor of the current
standing. No definitive responsibilities or anything of the such. But,
as I look at it there would be infinitely more room for those
adventures, for that romance should I know what is on your mind.
That
is all of the knowledge I wish to gain. To simply know what is an
acceptable adventure for us, an acceptable romance in you eyes. I can
not attempt to let on like those which have been touched upon so far
were not wonderful and fulfilling in most every instance. But, there is
so much more that would already be beautiful memories and realities for
us both should I have ever known that you would be open to there
instigation. So many mornings that would see a much more intoxicating
light shining in through the blinds to awaken us. So many more days
that would have been spent prancing, dancing, strolling, giggling,
cuddling, and living. So many more nights that would have seen the
moments leading up to slumber being just as comforting as the restful
slumber itself.
Does this not make sense? Maybe I wished to rescue
you, without a word, from a random mundane afternoon and drive off into
the soothing arms of a country road. It might have been that I would
have driven you for as long as it took to find the most undeniably
perfect, soft, and heavenly in its brilliance scene off the beaten path
of town or highway. Maybe, I wished to see that I needed to say nothing
to explain as you seen all of the answers clearly when I reached out
and took you by the hand when I first arrived and held it without break
until we found this secret place. Maybe I wanted to speak to you in
only rhyme, in only reason as we sprawled out next to each other on the
soft wild grass. It may have been that I wanted to kiss you, all of
you, everything that is you until the sun crested over the horizon.
Maybe, I never needed more than a kiss from time to time to let me know
that I was real to you. Chances are, I never required more than a kiss,
but it would have been of great help to know to what I was indeed
welcome. Does this not make sense?
The questions I am asking were
never of commitment or promise as much as they are about cares and
preference. I am not demanding an answer as to the fate of anyone’s
freedom of choice to do as they please. I am not asking for ownership
of your time in any manner. I am not asking you for the next month, or
the next year, or for the rest of your life. I am only asking what I am
welcome to now, and not with the idea that this offer will extend for
any indefinite amount of time. I do not request that I be given the
privilege to be the only one who is welcome to your time, but it would
be nice to know if I was not.
I was raised in the absence of
positive male influence. This may or may not have been what has led me
to distrust my own male identity. Not distrust it in that I am
disgraced to be a man, but distrust in that I am willing to do whatever
it takes to assure that I am not knowingly hurting a woman sitting
somewhere wondering what I am doing. And as I do not understand fully
your view of what the connection between us is I may have secluded
myself from activity which would normally be gratifying as to not risk
finding out that it is too late should you ever detail to me what it is
you get from me. I do not even know if you see anything there. I
choose to be careful in assuming that it could be there so as to keep
myself in line. But, after such an interval and no answer as to the
true nature of your admiration for me it is becoming much more difficult
to assume anything of substance is in reality the case here. If it
never was the case that is just as fine as if it was and is not any
longer or if it was and still is, anyway it does not matter I just
desire to know. I never believed either way. I act optimistic in that I
behave outside of the situation as if there were a true relationship.
Yet, I feel pessimistic in that every hour since the beginning I have
doubted whether I was ever on your mind after I left the room.
I am
not asking you for your time. I am not asking you for your body. I am
not asking you for your mind. I am just trying to find out how much of
them, if any, is already in my name.
Clouds, long and flat
puffing whiffs into the blue above them, well laid out perfectly the sit
on an invisible table in the sky…cold…bright…cold…She sought me out
again…I ignored her the first time as I thought that whoever was calling
for someone’s attention surely wasn’t talking to me…the second attempt,
I notice that she was from a small town, very small…she sought me out
with a sincere smile…she wears grey or black…a little sister she looks,
on elm street…lips…soft, ready…the other…she wears black for sure…she
does not acknowledge…she gets lifted, probably because she is in
college...she commands attention by her hues and curves alone…her room,
it is pink…the clouds are shrinking away from each other…caught off
guard to see me, he came to scat a concerto of words standing ‘neath the
blue on the black graphed with yellow, and he was coming to take her
for ice cream…
What do I want out of companionship? I want to
know you care. I want you to know I care. I want be welcome to your
days. I want you to know you are welcome to at any time to my days. I
wish to be able to, if I whim, come to you in privacy from behind and
wrap my arms around you, clasping your hands in mine, pull you tight
against my chest, whisper a loving stanza through your immaculate hair
into your ear, kiss you on the cheek, and leave without my presence
having been a hitch to your day.
What is sexual desire? Why
can it without warning entirely become you? Sexual desire, that is,
referring to an innate yearning to be close to another human. To feel
the warmth of flesh on flesh, in any manner, whether it be holding
hands; sitting close together, heavy cuddling, or coitus. Is this
weakness one that everyone is stricken with? Why do they not just say
“fuck the hang ups” and make it happen?
Am I going to be
manipulated into, or will I decide on my own to sacrifice myself to an
effort at an effect on the current course of everything.
9.21.06
Is the creation, the manipulation giving me an identity in the eyes of
those near?
I am not trying to act like my everyday does not
see seemingly random upwellings of some unexplainable hope for
existence. My eyes water and I can not help but smile. It is not that I
feel everything is going to be okay, but more that I am humbled by the
thought that it is not. I can not explain it yet, really. But,
everyday it is there at some point and it is amazing. Just one
thought. Something small. Like, “we are standing on a dirty wet rock
and we are all going to unexist someday.” The chill explodes from my
spine making my every nerve attend and then the tears.
So
there is some social anxiety, huh?
They are all near or
fully naked. Agonizing are the howls and contortions of their
expressions. Beams of light in hues of stucco silhouette their dementia
and its wild poses. Whistles, whoops, hoops, and hollers echo
throughout. Grappling, two of the male nudes entertain an old fanatic
as he rocks frantically on his heels, foam permeating at the corners of
his dry grey lips. Two paces away she screeches. A woman barely
wrapped in the fading stitches of her withering stained gown grasps with
her entirety at a brother who has not hugged back for twenty years;
Greek fire when she was eight. The walls? Dusty, crumbling, slave-made
brick. Still dawning his uniform after six years the general cackles
as he lashes out with a whip that only exists in his cobwebbed old mind,
at foot soldiers long since lost in battle. The eyes, everyone’s eyes,
sink away farther than walls behind them into black pits. Every
emaciated muscle clinging to everyone’s dry bones is tight with
ferocity. Dust is the taste of every breath.
{Corral de locos,
1794
“Come collect yourself. Yeah, the tile your smile sings
with wings divine. Fine dreams of wine. You never knew now would
nudge you nightly ‘neath the blue, black tapestry taking time to tame
bland glands of gleaming poison. Plunder, son! Plagiarize and
pragmatize ‘till dawn sets on her thighs. Tend to the tender ridges and
under the trestle carry no name near the vessel. Lie or ask why if she
begins to sigh. Sunder, son! Stick to the plan…the plan for…the…what
the fuck was the plan, son?”
Flinch, but it makes her
think.
{Peter Paul Rubens, Saturn, 1686}
The game is so
everything that you have to try out just to sit the bench. This game is
choking the field. There are too many players with too many
eco-carcinogenic cleats running these bases. These bats are spitting
black smoke blotting out the security of the field lights. These base
lines are clotting the veins of this turf. The fences are too tall. No
one will win. We can not just call time out. We must forfeit the
golden trophy to appreciate the green. No one will win unless we stop
trying to bend the rules. No one will win until we lay down our mitts
and pick up our gardening gloves.
9.22.06
Not deciding
on a path will not stop time, will not stop life. An obvious question:
“why not be proactive about what directions your life will take?” This
is logical. I mean, it is probably the best way to go. There is pull
towards the apathetic back seat approach towards directly planning one’s
path. The direction this person heads each day is not plotted out the
night before or even in the morning when the awake. This person is in
effect a jellyfish; floating aimlessly in whatever direction the current
is pulling. Time is not a goal or rule to them. It serves only as a
reminder that there will be an end to the current someday; they see
clocks as only a reminder that everyday could be that day. This person,
the jellyfish, rambles on through the nighttime as well as the day with
no intention other than immediate and short term gratification. Every
morning has potential to be Friday and every night is a possible Sunday
evening. Boredom is the only worst enemy of the jellyfish and they will
chance anything to avoid it.
My experience has expanded to
levels of existence not explainable by words, at least words that I am
capable of stringing together. That may just be the most haunting,
debilitating, fucked thing I have ever had to accept; that I can not
convey the realities of the intangibles of my experience. What it would
be to live as one of the great literary geniuses or one of the masters
of creation craft to be capable of the feat! Is the idea of this
inability to convey, a frivolous affliction of only those of a
disposition towards analyzing the realities of their existence?
[assuming human is the only viable consciousness]
As soon as the
Earth takes the necessary action of destroying us before we destroy her
will it be the end of everything? The human mind, the mind of the
thinking human at least, is the only thing that really has anything to
do with the existence of reality. Without the conscious perception of
an analytical being there is nothing. With no human interpretation
there is no green, and no blue; there is no up, and no down; no time,
and no death; nothing. Animals and plants and the seasons could keep
cycling forever, yet without anyone capable of considering the nature of
the process there is not truly existence. The world is based on our
knowledge that it, whether we understand it or not, exists and that we
exist. Should we never have come along to realize that the universe may
have crested and collapsed back into itself without having ever been
known. If something is never known to exist it in essence does not.
11.4.6
There came a cry for company trickling clearly through the phone line
early in the morning, 2:16 AM early in the morning. Les answers it as
he comes through the door tired, hungry, and desperate for answers. The
voice on the other end carries with it an image of a character, a
character zealous in his drunken smile sitting at a carry out window.
The dank coldness of the heavy night weigh on everyone’s shoulders as
the man who dialed this conversation into reality, Eric, and Les both
grasp urgently at the plastic-electric tranquilizers they are holding to
their ears. “Heyyyy, how the hell ya been man!? I’m not bothering
you…am I? I was just sitting here and…” The words come on like those
from one long lost friend to another on a random lonely night in a dark
bar after much gin and many swallowed tears.
A creeping sense of
loss becomes Les as he registers the situation. Eric has dialed this
phone number but twice, both occasions having been quick, simple, and
aimed only at informing Les of stage locations and set times. This time
Eric’s first words weren’t aimed, but more cast without direction into a
lake of suggestive possibilities. “It’s all good. How’s the world
been spinning down there?” The words are reflexive. He has probably
shot them back in reply more times than anyone he knows cares to
remember.
“Yeah, man how have ya been? I was talkin’ to Tim and
there may be a tour in the spring…Seems like it has been forever…how’s
everything?”
Les feels his side ache as he continues to analyze the
scene. There is a long red scratch trailing from his elbow down his
forearm skipping along onto the back of his hand. It stings a little
still, but not like the feeling in his side. The feeling when you have
been wreathing on plastic sheets for hours and hours in a sanitized
white room. A room whose walls are as uninviting as the one large
window double bolted shut and drilled to the frame in the corners with
the heavy off white blinds that have no string or handle to open them.
But it does not matter anyway because the blinds are isolated from you
in between the locked window and the thick sheet of Plexiglas that is
screwed, between you and the window, to the wall two inches past the
window edge on all sides. The feeling when you have been wreathing on
plastic sheets for hours in this foreign room, the one with the camera
incased in a glass box above you that watches at all times. The feeling
in the crease of your arm when you finally fall asleep and fifty
minutes later the rubbery skinned night nurse barges through the door
and without hesitation sticks the needle attached to the tubing attached
to the vial into your vein. That is the feeling. That mixture of a
pinch and a small bubble of flame in the sensitive skin in the crease of
your arm, especially when it interrupts your dream of having escaped
this existential hell. That is the feeling, only on a larger scale,
that is seething in Les’s side as he listens to this man’s voice, this
man who has always seemed ignorant to or well in control of the pain of
considering one’s humanity. Les pains in thinking of this man somewhere
alone clutching a phone hoping that this long lost friend’s voice will
redeem him from the torture of knowing he is hopeless. A tear. A
wince. Because Les knows that had the phone not have been ringing as he
entered the door he would most likely have been the one dialing phone
numbers, alone, aimlessly fishing for a lost friend’s voice to save him
from his own hopelessness.
This pain has been growing for a
moment or two. Five hours ago Les’s phone had rang. Or no, maybe he
had dialed the number. It is all so blurry to him now. On the other
end of the line was a sweet young voice, well what was once sounded like
a sweet young voice. As of that last phone call her voice came off as
distraught, maybe, over months and/or years of searching for
fulfillment, deciding it was not possible or plausible, and tricking and
teasing and tempting others in to believing they had found it then
burning down their new comfortable home. He had probably called her to
ask numb his problems by hearing that sweet voice he mistakenly thought
would answer. Instead his problems were emboldened and outlined by her
every word as she spoke of her own atrocious state of affairs. She was
losing hope in life, which was even more disabling when she registered
that she had never believed she really had any. He remembers having
wished wholeheartedly that he could lift that stone from her chest. He
recalls his promise that he would call her back three hours later, when
he would be more prepared to do so. Then he realizes he never made that
call…and the pain in his side, it grows out to encompass his chest.
In a flash of hope the phone rings again. Hoping fervently that this
call may actually entail content that would raise his spirits Les jolts
for the receiver. The pain in his side and chest dulls faintly as he
recognizes a friend’s voice.
“Sup man? You’re alive!?” The
voice comes off as caring.
“Yeah, I am doing pretty well. How’s
the world spinning down there?”
Quickly the friend’s voice
ignores Les’s question and delve directly into an unmistakable tone, “So
anything kool going on up there?”
Instantaneously Les realizes
that this voice is no longer the voice of a friend. This friend was no
longer a friend. He does not care to imagine how long ago the friend
decided to not be one or if he had ever truly been a friend. He just
thinks to himself that he can not allow himself to play like he does not
recognize in the former friend’s voice that he is only a tool now. Les
replies, “Not really. I am going to let you go now.”
Confused
because he is impervious to the fact that Les has recognized his motives
the former friend says shocked, “Oh…what’s your problem man?”
“My side and chest hurts.” Les hangs up cringing.
11.6.6
The small sharpie hawk is perched above, atop a twelve foot light
pole. It does the same instinctive dance of feasting as has every
sharpie hawk has since the first diverged on the evolutionary chain from
the ranks of the other hawks. Beautiful brown over white striping her
legs and breast. Dark slate blue, her back and wings fading to
grayish-brown on the crown of her head. She dances and I watch
cross-legged from the base of a tree below her. She watches me
throughout her dance of feasting, of surviving. She stares deep into my
pupils with her fine predatory eyes. She stares to make sure I am
watching. She knows I am. She also knows that I feel the message of
the scene. Before she perched atop this light pole she flew in low to
the ground and swooped up to clasp her dancing partner mid flight. Her
partner’s clothes are now scattered about the ground around me. Her
partner is lying on his spine chest open. His innards are settling in
her stomach as she continues to dance the dance of feasting, of
surviving. I thank her and I thank her partner for this beautiful
moment, this beautiful lesson as she continues to devour him.
11.11.6
Five tiers atop the amnesty-golden, in this lighting, brick building
adjacent this nostalgia molded grey bridge. Silhouettes of deciduous
remnants frozen in their sad firing squad juxtaposition to the iron
skeletoned rusty concrete cancers of the humanitarian scrap yards that
checker the chest of this once immaculate, now emaciated co ordinance on
the cheek of this dancing blue vagina. Watch now, metastasis is
scribbling guardrails and jail cells on her jaws. A filter fiddled by
my mind unto my eyes lofts the distant funeral parlor on the hill o’er
yonder. A haze of infant innocence and Walt’s whimsical mind set. The
youthful eyes that learned the world; not recognized, named filed, and
categorized as ‘twas twice moments ago integral. Can be a pine, in its
prime, should I court it in curious wonder seasonally since ‘twas
sprouted quite in order with the first television nightmares of town
eating away at my. Parallel lines pinned on the thighs of the ridge
that the gentle doctor aside tends to harvest of a fall. Parallel
trailers laid adjacent and even, down the crippled pavement spine of
this simple town’s figure forming the ribcage protecting the heart of
these naïve or seceded people whom keep producing pretty smiling
daughters who walk, dark-haired and thick legged, toward coffee and rose
thorn shackles to imprison me to these romanticist dreams of no
questioning the golden scent of the sun as it gleams during the daylight
hours that have, themselves, fallen victim to the power trip of the
schedule oriented monkeys. Blue stars accenting amber reflections of
themselves jostling for dreamy-eyed dominion of the antiquated
neighborhoods o’er there of the sepia shadowed sleeping town across the
creek below.
Now inside, secured and safe like little league
celebrations guarded by white washed cinder blocks. Warm belly of the
nation. Warm with a fluctuated temperature timed to blame any
generation of change. Mother is still calling loudly to the beat of the
tea…H…see our mentality engage abnormality as an extension of reality
while placing your hand upon and removing the lesson that learned to us
of emotional supply and demand.
11.15.6
So I
heard/read/seen someone refer to life as a knot that people are always
trying to untie so they are comfortable and straight and smooth and
predictable. At first I was just caught up in thinking, “Why didn’t she
point out that some people have an innate tick that leads them to
constantly tug at this knot knowing it is just going to get tighter and
tighter? These people that can not help but pry at the seams of this
mess of life just to be fulfilled in having tried their damnest to at
least put the knotted laces in the shapes and curves they wanted to live
with. These people who know there is never going to be a simple path
revealed from this tangle that they can just coast along forever. Most
of these people are also the people who KNOW that there exists no
forever, at least for the human individual. These people are so
disheartened by the obvious level of naivety and wishfulness that is
entailed in seeing some “forever” in terms of self, or the soul, or
whatnot.
Why didn’t she point out that to understand how a person
likes to drive is to understand how a person likes to live? Long
straight interstates leading you into the sunset at 75 mph’s. Hilly
pavement spines crooking across the land at 55 mph’s. Stop, start,
turn, stop, start streets in bustling urban centers that never see you
topping 35 mph’s. Unmanageably twisted, pothole ridden hair pin turns
through forested rural areas that, with a mind on safety, demand no more
than 45 mph’s. Then after finding which of these roads the person
prefers one must take into account whether their mind is in the car or
wondering the plains, valleys, concrete jungles, serene woodlands that
race by.
Then I started to think about what kind of driver I am.
Then I started to think about what kind of driver she was. Then I
realized that she probably does not even know yet. Then I realized why
she had not delved into this subject. Then I realized that this girl
reminds of myself at her age. Then I realized that I am glad I do not
have a nicotine addiction. Then I realized that I miss living in the
Eskew family household. Then I realize that I have a tendency to be
wrong about everything I believe about life, which lead me to realize
why I have always wanted to make sure someone heard everything I did
think about life, which made me realize that I will probably be
regretting everything I believe about it at this point. Then I realized
that everyone I care about is going to die someday too, so I hope they
are understand that I did not ignore all of the great advice they gave
me but that I just wanted to have my own personal story to tell someday
when I am giving someone else the same great advice they gave me, as I
had realized that most of the bullshit things my elders tried to impress
upon me at age 8, at age 13, at age 16 was all pretty well founded in
the real world. Damn!
So, am I going to start taking advice when
it is give? Yes; I am going to take it, gift wrap it, store it away,
and open that shit up every time I start nearing bottom and have an
epiphany; so that I can know that all of the pain I just went through to
reach this new revelation must have been experienced by my English
teacher, my neighbor, my step-father, my doctor, that stranger at the
theater, my manager at Wendy’s, and so many others before me. Maybe I
am making their passing on of such crucial lessons futile, but this is
the kind of driving I like to do so high-beam, honk your horn, pass, or
follow; this is just the way I see it going down at this point in my own
personal knot of life.”
11.19.6
Thank you for standing there
above me looking down without a sound as these cycles rip me 'round and
'round. Thank your eyes for being a color of brown that reacts to the
soft melodies of the faint songs culling from the wall over there. A
color of brown that matches perfectly the green that is pulsating more
and more yellow over your shoulder as I lay here trying for a tear.
I
know you believe in time, but my flesh is not a part of this current
experience that is mine, so I ask, "If I tell you I do not want to be,
again, constrained to this body that you see me as; would you be okay
with me leaving and forgetting about the minutes and no longer being
contained within the grip of days and hours?" I understand that you do
not…understand that is, the idea of the mind as I, and not at all as
some construct attached to the body.
You smile in confusion as to
my whereabouts in the realm of attention and experience as you make
promises to your comfort with that lit cigarette, whose dance I giggle
at, so wide-eyed in reverence of. Let me tell you that I may have just
surmised an answer to your confused glare, "I am dying." For as these
immaculate purple, lime, pink neon amalgamations of existence jewelry
lace the scenery, eyes open as well as closed, and the cells of this
body expel untold energy into the sheets beneath, I…my mind…my spirit…my
soul is screaming. It is shattering any chance at focus with this new
and overwhelming mantra, "Die, I have to die. I cannot breath another
breathe for this body that is only laughing at me with its sickness and
its pain; keeping me docile with occasional sensory stimulation so that
it can one day claim its inevitable victory over my mind by allowing my
neurological orchestration cease. Die, I have to die."
Please mother, please sister; do not cry for me. Cry, yes you must cry
and with fervor. But, let your tears soak wet and warm into your
cheeks not for me, but for us all. Let your tears stain the skin that
contains your own red rivers of this blood that we all bare, for every
mind that has ever stood in the shoes of this friend here standing above
me looking down without a sound. Cry for all of those, who like him,
never did and never will understand the fulfillment of moments like
this. Cry for all of those who will never court death before their body
does.
(Wednesday, November 30, 2005)
When is Enough,
Enough?
I AM CONSTANTLY PONDERING, WHEN WILL ENOUGH BE ENOUGH? I
CANT GET ENOUGH SO I GUESS ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH....OR IS IT? WILL MY
DEATH OR DEMISE DECIDE THIS FOR ME? I HOPE NOT! I AM TRAVELING DOWN
THIS PATH AND I DONT KNOW WHERE IT LEADS, THE ONLY THING I KNOW IS THAT
IT FUCKING ROCKS BEING ON IT!! I WANT TO SLOW DOWN TODAY JUST SO I CAN
DO A LITTLE TOMRROW. I'LL JUST KEEP "ROLLING" ON. MAN THAT SHITS
FUN...I ONLY HOPE I REMAIN IN CONTROL! CONTROL IS ALL I HAVE! I NEVER
WANT IT TO LOSE THE MAGIC, SO FAR EVERY TIME IS JUST AS FUN AS THE
FIRST....SO WHEN WILL ENOUGH BE ENOUGH? I HOPE I NEVER KNOW BECAUSE
ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH WHEN YOU'RE IN CONTROL. "ROLL ON" THANK YOU
AGAIN #1s..MY MOST RECENT "TOOL FOR SELF EXPLORATION....THE THINGS I
REALIZE TODAY COULDN'T EVEN COMPARE TO THE THINGS I KNEW YESTERDAY!!
-Matthew
Daniels
11.26.6
"He's gone…" A faint expression of sad
confusion glazed over his perpetually peppy glance. Bing. The closing
elevator doors seal the details as I stare blankly back at my
warm-cotton friend.
Walking away, unsure of whom had
gone where, my mind tumbles back onto the scene of me on my back with my
voice in my lap and the end furiously waltzing in the cranium; tearing
at the melting sheets to soothe the ruffled sense of comfort. My mind
tumbled back to a few nights ago; sitting there in a pair of pajama
pants a friend loaned to me for the occasion with the intent energy
beaming from my throat as I discussed with it the idea that it, my
flesh, was only God's weighing of his own deck in this huge game with
whom we may never know he is wagering. There in that moment when I dug
deep with resin soaked fingernails into the trunk of my neck and
gurgled, "You are just the cheat that he is using to assure that I do
not survive. I don't know what this fucked up game is; whether we are
the players and he just the bookie; or him the grand athlete and us just
utensils in his game plan (where we would use a putter, or knee pads).
I am quite certain that I refuse to be swallowed by the end until I
have properly seasoned myself, marinated to perfection, and stuck a
knife in my own heart."
Sitting here now I can only see
the dark laughter of the scene. I can not help but become caught up in
the vibe that the idea of that night sweats with. Screaming inside with
my every energy to just cease. Sleep…death…I was not particular.
Debating breathing. Hoping for someone, anyone to just rescue me.
Swoop through the door calmly sit next to me and let me know that they
were there. Truly there. Using their upper capacities to consider my
wish. That someone could sense the intense, immaculate, indefinable,
divine house fire that had become of the four walls of my identity.
After fighting for them for hours the tears finally fell. With each
one relieved another overwhelming consideration of mortality. Why am I
stressing over things that only set the stage for more pain and stress
so that i can look back and feel that I should have done something
differently. I am going to die. I do not want to die feeling that my
actions throughout life had only been investments in the final version
of me, old crippled scared and dead. Why can my decisions not be acting
out of my love for existence and not preperations and forethought aimed
at insuring that will always have the right air conditioner to cool
this skin or the right beverage to quench this thirst? Can we not just
live until that day that our body finally crosses the finish line miles
ahead of our hearts and minds?
After hours of strange but
not necessarily uncomfortable non-communication I smile, "These pants
are amazing." I had spent countless numbers of those revelatory cycles
caressing the soft knees and thighs of the oversize Halloween-esque
pajama pants, perfect for a psychedelic journey.
Without
hitch my smile did not fade, but rather disappeared as my friend replies
to my comment, "Hessala gave them to me a month before…"
My heart suddenly pumped warm blood again after hours of shallow cold
beating. I was terrified by the words. For sure this was going to make
this next approaching cycle a hellaciously dark one as I contemplated
the lost life of the sweet young girl who gave these pants to my friend
and danced a little too close to death a month later. After a moment or
three I raised my chin and smiled. Some song deep in my lungs would
not allow me to see anything but the correlation between the trip I had
just fought my way through and the attire I was dawning for the
occasion.
Every night since (seven) I have seen myself,
from above, swimming softly across the blacktop with my best friend at
the wheel staring down at my crossed hands in my lap. The journey that
brought those pants to and from that young girl to my friend to me on
such an integral night made this the most appropriate palate I could
ever rest my weary hands upon.
Sitting here I can also
still feel the cold dirt collecting on my shins and burrowing into my
fingernails as I dug a grave two days after the night I had spent
dreaming and dying in those pants, two days ago. Four feet by five feet
by three feet; I drove the shovel with my weak shoulders until they
were as sore as my heart, over this second confusing encounter with
death this week trying with my all not to shed a tear into the grave.
The dog that I was digging the grave for was laying twenty feet away
from me in between the grave and the home adjacent me. The home that is
the last comfort to the dog's owner, a man who ,as is evident in his
own eyes, knows that his own ditch will be in order by spring at latest.
Sitting here I have forgotten what my friend said at the elevator
earlier as we were all returning to our lives.
Sitting
here at the base of this dying elm tree the warm-cotton friend from the
elevator, walking by, notices and takes a seat on the grass next to me.
He hesitantly says, "I don't know if…I think you should…Matthias died
last night."
Right here, right now my soul just fainted.
My mind just stopped mid-stride and crumbled face-first to the
pavement. Me. I. I do not want to put any of these pieces together
right now, but I would feel relieved if I knew he was wearing my hat
when he tasted it.
I am not quite sure if I am okay with being
awake right now.
11.28.6
There is pink and it giggles at
me…I hope. I attempt to stay still and to remain the model of
everyohbwww.saulwilliams.com
kmne's perfect self; them when they are
so content with themselves that being themselves is no longer only an
exercise of their dreamscapes.
The skin on my shoulder is soft, yet
wrought with tension. This seems to be the case for my entire body at
the moment as I shoo away my own faint smile as the pink glances up.
Every surface of my lovely naked human-MONKEY body is supple and
pleading for intimacy. Yet, all of these same surfaces are trembling in
dread of not being recognized for their soft susceptibly to any
romantic endeavor. Be it a silent leaf breezing down the back of my
calf. Be it a plush lounge devouring my stature into a comfortable
coma. Or could it be something so sweet at those pink lips whispering
gentle words close enough that the quixotic breath warms the ridges of
my ear. No…none such as the latter as I am no man to ask for a hand in
any waltz; hence here I wilt.
Sitting here dreaming of a nimble
pink dance on some fluffy cloud. Sitting here dreaming of a way for my
dreaming to be me. Sitting here dreaming of a way to transcend this
lovely naked human-MONKEY confinement of flesh. But would this
delightful pink flower follow me in my dance out and away from the hang
ups of having an aesthetic identity?
Please….please…my radiant
pink bloom, tell me…do you even register when I am in the room or should
I retire hope for that giggle (that I only hope for) sketching itself
into a smile…a smile for me?
11.30.6
Simple really, this
mouse scurrying alongside my Escort as I roll slowly down the pavement
scar known as Indiana State Highway 63. A light spray of polluted rain
water continues to mist the tiny brown life as he swivels side to side
keeping pace with my seven mile per hour creep. His slick tan and brown
fur seems the only real portion of the picture, looking upon the
critter scuttling down the yellow line.
My left arm hangs out the
window, slack as my jaw as I rest my ear on the window seal using the
path the small life is taking across the yellow as my only directional
guide. There must be music playing. I always try to maintain my life
within the bounds of constantly having a soundtrack. But, at this
precise moment I am not really sure.
I just said goodbye to the shell
of my only best friend, and I just said bye to the only real loving
companion I have ever known. Now I am slinking down the highway amidst
bustling traffic in a rain storm with no one left to call upon. No one
who seems like they feel my presence. No one. Where am I? I am left.
And they say left is the feminine side?
And they say
I can be something?
And they say I will be satisfied?
They
also preach the golden rule, and join me, please, in laughing; if any
of you thinks that bullshit propaganda worked.
And you can
ignore the next few lines because they’re directed at me…
Alone
Cold and alone
Cold and alone and apathetic
So I have not danced
for a while
So I have not kissed soft lips into a smile for a while
WAIT?
The only thing that allowed a smile was the Armani
Express and the Luis
Thanks for letting him wear
them
I demolished my telephone…maybe my words are not meant to
mean anything.
If you were, would you tell me you
were listening?
“Here is your
chance,
If you want to come home with
me,
Treat you like a queen,
Light you like some sort of celebrity”
Sure it would be
easier to feel if someone was walking all over me.
But we all
doubt each other when we look in the mirror
Baby-sit me, I may be
depressed
Seems proper when my insecurities are all that each night
sees being undressed
Open invitation:
I will barter
you my flesh, long as I get to remain wearing it…
…for
your…well, what would I want?
Fuck it, I never get any of it
anyway
Turn up the music, I would rather the neighbor be
surprised when he walks upon me here hiding from myself in the fetal
position on this floor that you could assuredly join me on.
But
please just do not ignore the “wet floor” sign
12.3.6
Sleep.
I mean…what of it?
12.5.6
“Gotcha…” The
pale toned young man next to me strains forwards, an audible crack
popping from his lower back, to outstretch his vein traced wrist to
point at my muzzle a brown bic.
Shoestring in hand, my jaw draws
slack as I glance down my nose at his offering. I chuckle/gasp,
“Fuckin’ brown!” The guy’s face warms into a grin. He is pleased that
anything he is doing is warranting exuberance from his friends. Maybe
he fails to recognize it in the others around him, but that is all of
us; making decisions (which shirt, what car, where, who) with our
friends’ and, in some/most instances, strangers’ smiles in mind. As I
am sitting here astonished at the first friend’s rare find my friend is
happy. In a moment when he tastes the sweet and yet quite dank
shoestring I am about to pass around to the others and himself he will
smile, and I will be happy.
“I had a yellow the other day,” the
second friend proclaims.
“Once I had a burgundy…well it was red,
but a dark-off-crimson-burgundy type of red,” the third friend rambles
from the leather sofa in the corner of this dark basement.
The
walls are wood panel, authentic in their ancient quality. Aside from
the plush black leather sofa under friend number three the other two
couches and the chaise along with the retro wood panels are reminiscent
of our fathers crowded in someone’s basement in 1976 pulling on a long
Colombian spliff and shooting the breeze. But, we are not hitting
product from some field tended to by three AK-47 armed henchmen in
Colombia. This is sticky-icky green with the bright white glare sowed,
nurtured, and harvested in a studio apartment in Buffalo, New York was
tended to by a young broad-chinned Chicago native. And, we are not
shooting the breeze.
For the most part we are silent. Each keeping
pace to the beat of Highway 61 Revisited with a different wag of his
finger or wave of his wrist or tapping of his toes on the cold tile
floor. If we were to talk it would not be like the conversations of our
fathers. At least, we all assume not. As friend one lost his father
at age three and knows little about him. Friend numbers two and three
both loathe their fathers and refuse to admit any similarities to them.
Friend four…he does not talk about his father much. My father is a
phantom.
When we speak it is about getting lifted; where, when,
how, with whom. We talk nervously quick when we are speaking of
potentials and sluggishly when speaking of actualities. Friend one
occasionally mentions something slightly derogatory about any random
female he may have seen lately. Friend two is quiet. Friend three
spends most of his sentences on the dues of dissing anyone that he
dislikes who happens to be mentioned or come to his mind. Friend four
tries to gossip often interjecting comments about people we all might
mutually know and what they have been up to. I try occasionally to
spark a revelatory conversation. Some times to some avail and sometimes
to blank nods, “yeah I know what you mean”s, and general disinterest. I
am quite sure I should not expect more from these friends in this
basement at this moment in this fucked up situation of a world.
The
television is off or muted.
The door is closed.
The phone is dead.
We
each have our petty employment that we wake up to hate and sleep to
forget about. We have faltering cars. We wear bland clothes, aside
from friend number two who dresses flamboyantly and with a keen since of
color. Three out of the five of us smoke cigarettes. We collectively
have about as much hope of grandeur in our future as does the stack of
elm cuts setting next to the wood stove. We plan our futures around how
to go about forgetting the present, whatever it may be. This is my
generation and no we will not take a stand for the world.
Does
anyone care that I am building myself this little boat in my mindscape
that will probably sink when I try to navigate out into the ocean life.
Does anyone notice that my boat does not say “optimism” or “success in
accomplishing what has been deemed admirable by society” or are you all
hoping I could be that one out of a huge fucking number of lost souls
who’s soul torture is correctly molded into a product that the public at
large will buy into out of their own deeply latent discomfort with the
comforts of the modern world? Have any of you considered where I am
going?
This little boat I am building is not meant to navigate
commercial centers, the big time, or Wall Street. If you look closely
you can plainly see on the mast an outline of the course I plan to
pilot. What does it say? Is it hunger, and depression, and regret? Is
it self-pity, and self-loathing, and self-denial?
Do you have a boat
ready to set sail when you are finally pushed out into the wake? Or
are you going to stay at port and eat your family’s food forever in
return for acting, when in their presence, as if you are the person they
want you to be. Or is your boat the boat your parents fashioned for
you out of the dream of what their’s should have been?
Can you not
see the positives of inquiring of your friends as to what sort of vessel
they are building for themselves? Or is it to scary to you that you
may not have a better answer for the question than them so you refuse to
discuss the topic?
“Let me see your brown, man.” Friend
three says softly as he lays a fresh shoestring on his lips. The room
is still other than this…and the wiggling of a few fingers to the last
couple tracks of John Wesley Harding.
I feel again, oh how many
times it has been, the lifting of sorrow lightly from my chest as I see
the offering friend three is donating to the group. Knowing that soon
my cloud will float a little farther off into the sky I stop thinking
for a moment. Seriously…I fucking stopped thinking…for at least three
seconds! But, by the first click, flash of the brown Bic I am back on
this quavering track that I steam down everyday and it always heads in
the same direction…toward sleep. The only end is passing out of the
material world for a while each night, or every other afternoon.
Three sets of lungs fill. Now it is here begging at me. Or am I the
vagabond in this scenario? Rush of air through fleshen hose into
ruffled surface of expanding human substance and I am okay to make a
phone call. What phone call to whom? I am not quite sure yet, but I
think it is about four full pairs of lungs away. Friend one has passed
the gift already to friend two…two back to three…three to four...and
four to me.
…and like Jesus would have intended the epiphany…
I
am going to call this swinging singing queen I met deep in a summer
night’s dream as I was purpling the seas of green and giggling at the
layers of rose she painted in between the stars that we seen as we
swaggered all haggard back to the den away from the cars that we had
deemed unnecessary and uninviting to our own hours of exciting soul
delighting, the ones with the tires that tread dirty over the blacktop
scabs, the ones that we…
Oh, friend four…how quick you have managed
to retrieve and pass on to me again the small remainder of this gift.
Rush of air through fleshen hose into ruffled surface of expanding human
substance and this gift is now again for you friend one. Me I am back
on those darkened streets looking through a window at me and my queen
inside. She is holding a candle. The only light in the black room.
Even in my late evening-stoned memories she is the light in our dark
room beaming like a candle, and me…worried, the vandal.
12.11.6
So I was driving…right?
…and what you need to understand is
that I wrote four letters in my head over the course of the
approximately sixty minute trip. Four entire soul filled,
heart-wrenching letters complete with tears and trembling. Slightly
more accented halo around headlights? Am I…? Oh, yeah…the tears.
These cars are all streaking past and becoming another brick in the
cathedral I am building out from every time I come within plausibly
intimate distance of, about ten feet, to another mind without any
interaction.
Every one of these cute young girls, these shady
looking guys, every one of these PEOPLE that walk right on by me
everyday without acknowledging my presence. We continue this game
everyday. We wake up and focus our attention on something external, at
least as far from our minds as our flesh, and we push and mold and hope
that these external stimuli will keep the wondering in check. “Think of
my hair, think of that oral I’m sure to get tomorrow, think of the fatty
in my desk waiting, think of anything that does not involve analyzing
me…” Then as we leave the isolation of our houses, apartments, dorms,
and trailers for the outside world and we coach ourselves toward staying
on that train of thought, whichever it is that we choose. We misstep
and catch the toe of our sandals on the edge of the curb every so often
because we are even ignoring the required effort to walk soft and
straight on crumbling walkways. Then it happens. You notice me heading
almost directly toward you, with my head tilted up toward the
enchanting sunrise. You fight to keep my proximity from drawing you out
of you cavernous soul asylum. I lower my chin when I notice you. I
wait while I walk. Waiting for my mind to give me the answer to this
fucked up question that is the predominately antisocial attitude that
seems is now leaking into the water sources everywhere I go, not just
the bigger cities. Then the crucial ten feet mark. What could I say?
Five feet!? No, no, no. She is not even going to smile in my direction
long enough for me to bid her super profundo on the early eve of her
day. Then we are literally sided by side for a split moment. Yet,
still heading in opposite directions and you still seam to be satisfied
with just letting all these faces that pass by be passing and forgotten
pixels in the big screen of your life.
I know I came seriously
close to never having been intoxicated by a certain captivating spirit
back there in the lather of those smooth summer days of 2005. I can not
quite front like it was down to the last few steps that she was going
to be a accent of the canvas of my day, but I am not quite sure on many
of the details aside from the fact that I am close to certain that my
interaction with this jewel was one of the utmost important that I ever
did get initiated by or for me. Okay, so, let us pretend that there is a
ten feet maximum into how far I could delve into whether or not it was
the or one of the most important encounters, we will just say I got
tired after about seven feet and gave her the title (at least for post
1996 encounters).
So…the first letter I wrote during my drive this
morning was composed for her.
Now…your question is, “Why waste the
energy and drain yourself so emotionally as was required for this letter
if you aren’t going to send it, or at least e-mail it?” I will not be
sending the letter for several reasons I may have, in a state
delusional, created out of my own social anxieties. I…well…um…
When
you feel and sense and taste something so clearly why is it that the
feel, sense, and taste that you perceive are, without fail, is not the
same as what anyone else in propinquity would admit to. That is the
scenario, maybe. Maybe, I am so in love with these beautiful mirages my
mind, heart, and eyes mutually play on each other that I would rather
just be all alone. Lonely without cease. Every day spent with the only
spirit I have to feed off of being what little I can recognize of my
own. Maybe, I would rather be lonely with a heart-crushing, yet still
heavenly, idea or picture in my focus than to send the letter and end
all doubt that the beautiful furniture that I am decorating the living
room in my cerebral cortex with are in fact only real in that thin layer
of folded neurological mess.
But, I guess since not a single one of
you motherfuckers can prove to me the nature of, confines, and
guidelines that maintain reality as one thing separate from every single
one of our six billion individual neurological messes…Since none of you
can give me the answers to the fundamental questions of existence I
think I will just remain, for now, in this JARON STROUD corner of it all
and keep dreaming about waking up to my dreams waking me up to invite
me to this dance I am always trying to convince myself is going on
between myself, this unexplainable existence jewelry, and any lovely
object that grows, slides, or walks into my optical.
Thank you…and
yes it is a party in here. It is just a little awkward maintaining a
perpetual celebration that you can not quite ascertain how to invite
anyone else in.
12.13.6
Where was sleep last night?
I really am sure of my own fault being behind my absence of so many
things that I have convinced myself are necessary to my own existential
contentment…okay so maybe not my existential contentment, but at least
my daily happiness…like hope, and friends (or even a friend…or at least
someone to check in on me each day to remind me I am not the only one
who remembers that I am here), and means to comfort.
Fuck…
12.24/5/6.6
December
24th & 25th & 26th: Midwastern Standard Time
"Is there
really this big contingent of our...my generation that is completely
weird inside or am I just 'sick'? And if this lameness is a mutual
situation throughout my peer group is anything different for us, as
emotional and intellectual identities, than it has ever been for our
anscestors, recent and long passed?"
The room is dark. A
palpable basement vibe. Deep burgundy-brown rotting earth tones and
luciously dark emerald greens veined with ash grey of tree branches. My
eye involunarily blinks as I replay the contents of my inquiry in my
anxious inner-theatre.
The young doctor leans forward. A monkey
who has devoted his intellect towards endeavoring to obtain
understanding and ultimately power over the human living organism. A
monkey hiding his waining smile behind a contamination mask. "Your
'generation' is outside of your ideological grasps...you ate...the
clonazepam will serve to take the edge off of your day's blade...the
psychosis that forms from certain aspects of the composition of 'your
generation' begets subtle blindspots in the perception of the stifling
details of the nearly infinite aspects and points and layers pervading
the world of material reality...tell me about girls...take one milligram
when you wake and one with lunch...so, do you have good friends..."
There are patterns on the air around his face. Not under the
influence, just a residual effect of the generation situation...I
suppose. A mandala of electrically charged energy on the air that he is
breathing to life with each word of his diagnosis.
"...you may
notice a bitter taste when you wake up, but having a glass of water on
standby will easily...cannot promise it will entirely subdue the
dispondency towards other individuals' needs, especially family, because
all intended salvation resides in overstepping comfort lines to bring
under the divine microscope of daylight the dusty bonds of kinship to
fulfill all involved parties in their respective yearnings for communal
complacency...may be healthy...so, have you any concept of why this
seems to be the case with the females that stumble, trip, step, and
slide past the blindspots to dance with you..."
I am light headed
because I am so fucking tired.
12.27.06
"It don't
makes no difference...that ain't even why I came...how did i not
move...but i would still be true...halo over me...unfortunately it is
left up to me...it's not what you're saying it's what's in your soul..."
running down broken grey concrete, moving chases me into wonder, stars
sparkle and day fades away..."the farther i go the farther back i
get..." cold night air keeps you quivering in your stare..."one cup of
coffee and then i go...judge not...road to life is rocky...as you point
your finger...road to life...while you're laughing at me someone else is
judging you..."
seem to be slipping, slipping further...gone
and away from the place we're raised to praise the center of society's
stage playing these trite games of future minus wage, a terrifying price
to pay in order to find a smile each day. i'm sorry if my facial
expressions aren't quite in line with my soul but conversation is the
only reminder of my appearance. Is is commone knowledge among my peers
that their words remind me of the contents of my cheekbones and the
outlines of my complexion? Time and again i wish i could truly
communicate these recollections. Would it be a waste to spend time
conveying these mental meanderings? Tales of trying to understand and
catching waves on the random trains of daily...daily...dinner tray
prayers. Are any of you fighting this? this decision? between the
reality of today and the reality of humanity? whether you can honestly
in your heart accept dedicating your existence to a career that will be
and mean absolutely nothing when your body wins? hating ten hours of
your everyday so that you can pay for things that do not really belong
to you? awesome. well...skipping down country roads attempting to
transcend time and boredom through the vibes of the various soundtracks
we choose. this is the scene where i wish my grandest of hopes. the
awe-inspiring colors that radiate from these hardwoods under the
daylight's glance smooth by predominately black with tracers of only
stone grey here in the night far from the inspiration of day.
television...the true stoning. render us still and silent, vulnerable
and at bay. our whims diluted. sex drives our biggest source of
disinterest in these times solely of distraction. no love for us if we
cannot make her forget she does not love herself. look at her pout. is
there a chance we may figure this out before our prime has passed and
we fall far too depressed in our accumulating of years past. cannot be
right if we cannot make her feel just right. and who is she but another
monkey stoned befor the TV just like me searching for non-boredom,
searching for serenity. She with her long soft hair and that confusing
but blatantly evil stare. Curling her lips in comfortable distress.
Bursting rushes of energy destroying patience, insuring our own
inferiorty. Blow the mind. Blow our mind. Blow my mind with those
pleading eyes pushing assunder the wake of failing self-image. Tell us
we are pretty. Convince us that we are the missing piece. turn your
grimacing away so as not to push me too very far.
(12.29.6)
Yes.
Long winded sagacious day of benzodreaming and smoke
screens.
1.9.7
I question myself often of my aversion
to being honest about some of the mundane pestering contents of those
regions of my mind from which I view the world at all times other than
setting with pen in hand, shoelaces tied, or tryptamine in circulation
when it comes to the contents of my writings. I fail to document
accurately or even half-fully my mind's "small talk," at least those
particulars that keep me insecure and decidedly schizoid in a manner.
Take a glance at the gaudy antiquity of the courthouse through the
telescope of a trusty chillum then pay attention to the collosal heavy
equipment straight-fucking up the remains of a three story heep of
concrete and rebar across the way. Occasionally in absense of the three
inspirations, under certain either entirely uncomfortable or blissfull
conditions, i find myself tinged in a sketchiness of grip and feel as
though i am certainly at bay of some obviously abnormal lens over my
mindset. Ha, does it seem reasonable to you the reader? Are you
concerned yet, or is it that obvious that exaggeration may come in the
wind with my words at all times?
"...is someone listening
in?" Smoothly chilling woodwind bumbling along under hypnotizing brass
as it waves the baton noncholantly about at the pulsing leather
backbeat. "That is a strange mistake to make...you should turn the
other cheek...living in a glass house..." Timing drones eyelids heavy
and head light. Tonight is right now is reality is do I keep forgetting
about tomorrow until I wake up bruised and broke, cold and all alone to
laugh at this soft and yet piercing joke? Dream me into illness, I
fear I do. "...is someone linstening?"
Could you seriously
mentally withstand exporting yourself to the coast leaving behind family
and thus completly isolating yourself from familiarity? Marry yourself
to a soul that offers that warmth and maybe work nights, love mornings,
sleep days until it is possible for us to afford the decorating for our
humble little abode and work a laid back pace in the mornings and drink
ourselves starry-eyed every day by sunset dancing alone by the sea?
Just wondering.
1.10.7
It is piercing, the cold of the
wind; but I can not forget what the kid on the elevator just said.
“Bing…click, clank…” the elevator speaks for itself. Telling us of the
aches of routine. Warning us of the fractures along the spine the
steel twine transporting us to our respective destinations.
Hands glistening with anxious sweat and tweaking thumb to index, I am
obviously a nervous wreck. So much in the way of pertinent-to-my-future
things I need to be doing…I am here…in an elevator heading back to my
cave.
“Hey…” the young man on the elevator, almost a mirror of
my stature, interrupts my internal dialogue. “You are not going to go
sulk alone for a few moments, debate twenty hopeful phone calls, give up
and sit isolated in the dark staring out your window at the beautiful
colors of the sunset and the illuminating city lights below and let
their lovely soak up your ugly…are you?” For only the twentieth through
twenty-seventh of the fifty-three words does the nonchalant character
glance in my direction, but when he does his expression is completely
forgiving in its resemblance to one of the reoccurring characters of my
childhood night terrors.
“No…”
He reaches into his pocket
to retrieve a note card with the word ‘psychosis’ scrawled on it in
purple ink and some mysterious burgundy medium. As he does so the
elevators ‘bings’ for the opening door and we both glance to see the
young African-American woman awaiting her ride to the first floor. In
the most innocently timid moment she does a three take (my hat, the
young man’s brown eyes, the word ‘psychosis’) and then decides to let
the door shut without boarding. Then he hands me the card.
“You know...maintaining the lifted state can quite easily allow a
borderline mind to fall over that line and wonder away into the ugly
forests of loneliness to a point that no hand and no hips and no eye and
no lips can make you feel accompanied…even when you find yourself high
and held tight by the most wholesome of lovers the steadiness of the
‘euphoria’ you aim to maintain will not allow the slightest of
discrepancies to go unabated.” The door opened and I stepped quickly
out of the metal box toward my room.
Now I do not know what the
fuck he was talking about but the aftertaste of this Snowcap tastes so
much sweeter than the average Indiana schwag that I do not care that
everybody else is busy, and damn the twinkle of those street lights is
getting a little hypnotizing…I think I am just going to sing to myself
for a while…”…a remedy is what I’ve been looking for…”
1.11.7
They say, “as the crow flies” and I have never seen this many crows
fly. But let me tell you, they do not fly straight, but in a forward
direction through an unending successions of zigs left rounded out by
zags right.
They say, “as the crow flies” but my mind may be
beginning to level off. I find that I may be infatuated with the manic
state, or more, my own habits while my mind pierces through the halls of
the edgy energy driven manic state. Whether it lasts thirty minutes or
forty-eight hours the time always seems to be being spent most
appropriately. Satisfaction is easily obtainable in most any scenario.
Not the ‘discovering’ eyes of the psychedelic state or the hazy ‘pink
cloud’ eyes of the sedate states of mind, but a ‘peaceful’ set of eyes.
Peaceful in that they seem capable of finding meaning in any concept
and hope in every chance. Peaceful in that their input is allowed to be
a side note along the input of the racing mind. Maybe it is all just
about the input of the overwhelmingly active thought processes and their
ability to facilitate and comprehend constant growth. But all in all,
aside from the possible listening ears of my peers present during the
manic phase, the epiphanies and well plotted decisions most usually fade
along with the energy of the adrenaline rush of the said mindset.
Could anyone please write some of this down?
? And how hard
is this idea to palate:
“If the central government is allowed to
abolish abortion it should be required to assess and, with all possible
resources, stop the precursors of those pregnancies that warrant a
consideration of abortion.”
It seems as if a huge mistake is
being made in the debate over abortion. Abortion is being labeled the
problem to be dealt with. It is being ignored that abortion is, itself,
inherently the solving of a problem. It is quite likely that very,
very few incidents of abortion were of any other nature (e.g. not many
women utilize the procedure for recreational purposes). It can not
possibly be so inconceivable that if the government holds the power to
outlaw a solution they should be held responsible to first tackle the
problem. Leaving the populace in a situation where they are equally as
likely to have the same problem, yet abolishing the most popular, and
possibly plausible, solution is a crime that in itself deserves
punishing. Establishing a negative incentive upon the precursors to
abortion (poverty, carelessness, intolerance), the negative incentive
being that the woman must carry through and find a workable ending to
her pregnancy, is not the most respectable route to take for the
leadership of an advanced nation.
1.16.7
Snow…oh…well,
so…there is most assuredly, outside, falling some snow…and so I guess it
must be oh so, very so much so, cold…back to the Haute in time from
flood to freeze from Paoli to an identical but extrapolated concrete
disease of the dirt that holds foot for the breeze. At least there is
snow and was, for the days prior, time of fulfilled tea, H…see my
desire? “Oh no…see…what your young daughter can do…,” seeps the phones
from the floor that found them in those hands that, before their after
school, found them on that table upon which they were left after
arriving from the Mormon land far away. Ever had lung pain from
power-smoking while pushing full force on a Stairmaster? “Through some
ill gotten hand…with a pretty smile…tears running down your
face…looking straight at…enough to make me cry…in more ways than one…my
time has come…fall into the sun,” says the tones as the precious mind
they taste.
That is what the picket sign that I was waving at
you earlier said in those big pink letters. So if that scenario that
we thought would never happen actually happens, beginning in Lousiville,
you now have no right to say I failed to warn you of what has befallen
you. The cigarette you ejected from your window…when it hit the asphalt
there was a stupendous swelling of red hued electricity over the
graying blacks of the road. The little girl setting next to me was
astonished by energy generated by your cigarette’s flight and landing
(later she tells me that she had never yet prior experienced the
disengaging). She danced geocentric circles around my eyes in
outpouring banes of laughter for our greenest moist mother until she got
to the first signs of nausea.
There is an enormous swimming
pool stretching out before me. I am a small child, of three or four,
sitting maybe next to someone (stepfather). I am sitting on the only
solid surface around. A sidewalk separating the massive pool before me
from the one to my back hurts the back of my legs. The waters are full
to the brim with decaying animals, sharks I believe. I am holding an
antique tennis racket when I fall in. Terrified I try to get back out
onto the sidewalk, but there is a large frog with a crocodile head
sitting in my way. I swat at him with a baseball mitt.
Tomorrow
while I was swimming laps back and forth across the deep end of
Wal-Mart’s parking lot when ran into a group of people who enchanted
me. Five guys and two girls…friends every one to the other. I lifted
my goggles and removed my swim cap so that I could be seen when I smiled
quite often at the vibes they exuded. We giggled and slimmed, nodded
and inquired. Upon my departure I was greeted and saluted by the guys
and then directed toward the two gorgeous young hippie (smiling, free
spirited, kind, ect…) girls. I offer the general salutations and am
denied. The girls embrace me. The hug…uh, well…I…apparently this group
of friends has come to the point where they collectively donate all of
their respective compassion into these two lovely daughters. It seems
strange, maybe, to assume that an unspoken bond such as this could be
palpable to an outsider, but I swear I felt it. Each of these guys
shares such an intense love for each other and these girls that it is
radiated throughout all of them equally in the form of the warmest of
vibes, but these girls are the means of expressing. The palms of both
are soft and sweet with the love of the entirety of the group. Anyway,
one of the girls was wearing a Sublime t-shirt that reminded me of these
terrifying dreams that I had as a young child. Damn.
I am in a
huge warehouse-type barn building made of roofing tin. There is a
carnival overtone, but not in a fun excitement way. I am hiding behind
the wooden toy box. There is a manlike gorilla, talking to me maybe.
Someone in doctor garb is trying to prick my finger. There is a sewing
machine involved.
1.17.7
Inform those whom you have
decided to love and those who you just do.
In a world
gone to hell, where nobody is safe...do not go quietly unto your grave"
-Morphine 'Do Not Go Quietly Unto
Your Grave'
1.20.7
The time i have spent in
the womb (wume) has been fairly fulfilling to certain desires I latently
harbor somewhere. Quite a few exceptional sketches that, that windowed
interior room has incubated...and at such interesting times in my
mid-seventeenth through early nineteenth year. Innocentesque young
girls with golden locks of the smoothest glimmering black tones
beckoning, paying their attention, then promptly bewildering their way
out of the way. Genius-fingered friends flamboyant in action but quiet
in constant contemplation.
If I do not happen to be alive
when next you run into me...
I am not was not finished, but I
did feel alone in my demise...sorry if that offends anyone.
1.25.7
so...i
am sitting there eating when i realize that i go day to day surrounded
by my peers (age group). It is obvious when it is someone's parent
sitting across the way, as opposed to the student. Then i entertain
thoughts of how all of schooling is the same way. Elementary, junior,
and senior highschool is you and your peers navigating together against
the leaders of that particular system. From there it was the thought,
"maybe, the school systems need to be adjusted as to give the students
more of an active role in the running of the school and school
policies. It was in school that i developed the 'FUCK YOU ALL' approach
to democracy, in that i developed the impression that i was not allowed
to make a change so i might as well do what i want anyway and try to
keep from getting punished somehow. If i had been given faith in the
school system, which serves as our model for the real world (a horrid
one, but hey), then i may have been more likely to try and accomplish
something for the system of society after my graduation."
Individuals inclined toward philosophy spend their time contemplating.
The range of things that their hungry minds delve into is so wide it
would be ludicris to attempt at listing, but even without the details of
what is being analyzed it is never lost upon the logical (assuming
death is the end of human contemplation) thinker that one day his
questioning of existence must end. Out of that, most every philosopher
spends a respectable amount of time brooding over the ideas of life and
death. Like rebellious young adults pissed at the novel nature of their
youth the elderly must indeed run into mixed feelings about the
inevitable end that is as close to them in there age as it had seemed
far away in their youth.
It is quite difficult to place oneself
from a vantage point of today's mentality into the sandals of Socrates
as far as understanding the personal aspects of an individual's thought
processes in the society in which he was home. This, in addition to the
fact that we cannot conclusivly outline Socrates' views of death and
its implications makes it quite difficult to ascertain why he would
prefer death. Though, it could well have been him acting out the wish
of many of those whom I have conversed with over the subject of death.
(Not comparing any of the starry-eyed people to which I am refering to
Socrates) Many times I have heard the claim that the preiminent wish of
most of these people was to, even though death weilds the most concrete
form control [inevitability], have a little bit of control over their
own demise; in that, they hope to decide when and where. Socrates may
well have been mulling over this same idea when he first received word
that he was to be tried for a crime that may well warrant his death.
That he would be able to choose to go out by means of the belladonna
concoction he put to his own lips as opposed to old age or disease
choosing for him, added to the realization that he could well make a
statement with his actions in doing so may have been his reasoning for
accepting the fate.
"float away"
dj inphinity
2.4.7
It is amazing how much different the picture that appeares in my mind
when I come to think of a "wild man" compared to the idea that I would
have had at age ten or eleven.
2.5.7
Terence
Mckenna is known to have once said, "...you are the center of the
mandala..."
I am quite in love with this expession.
Then before, and now once more I am bouncing around the room fiending
for something to do. but, what is something to do? or, what is doing
something?
Fuck it...I can not even do it anymore...I have
once again hit the wall of having lost hold on some sort of muse. I
guess I am more alone now than ever I can remember. Not to seem down or
anything, but what the fuck? How can someone let themselves creep into
a situation of feeling so entirely isolated from anything they want to
be near? Where am I going with this? I am going in exactly the same
direction as i have been the entire game. Which direction is that? Not
sure but I know it leads to here...and it leads to tomorrow...but
beyond that I am quite certain that I can not precisely plot the
direction, excepting that it will most definately be forward into
another standstill.
So, given the circumstances would it be
okay for us to go sit next to the fence post and watch the sky
disappear? You can smile that transfixing smile while we consider the
blue as it fades to orange fades to pink fades to purple fades to gone.
Once the colors of the sky have dissapated leaving us with only the
stars to save us from the black casket of night we can share your
smile. You can hold it warm in your palm to sooth the strains of late
adolescense and soften your pale cheeks. I will use it to swoon my soul
back into my chest for an uncertain duration. Flowers? I know there
are no flowers, but I promise to tickle some color into your scheme if
indeed you are open to being closed off from obligation. I am no
florist and no artist, but I do indeed love swimming in gardens and
wrestling with paintbrushes so I will see if I can not just mold our
little pad into a petal. I know we have shared a cocoon, but you were
in the backseat and I in the front and with no love for room, so will
you ever take me up on jiving in a bloom. The damage will be done as we
try to dance against our little fence post without catching ourselves
on the barb-wire that has wrangled the world into submission; without
getting spurred by the thorns of interpersonal relationships in a game
of isolationism. We were groomed to fancy fantasies of self-mutilation
starring razors across wrists playing in theatres throughout smalltown
midwasted america, but I am asking you to forget about things that made
you wear black and remember the days that left you running your fingers
through your own lovely locks and come celebrate with me by the fence
post. We can celebrate living for a few moments of trancending
loneliness for the first time in a long while, even though we have both
been running from crowded room to crowded room. Or we could just say,
"Hello"...pause for a moment...kiss our personal stranger goodbye and
walk back out the door and into the...well no one wants to be where they
are. Oh, and if ever you wish...the fence post I am refering to is the
seventh from the back corner at Fire's house or the thirteenth from the
gate on the farm.
2.6.7
Aristophanes dictated at the
symposium that we were a threat to the gods. We as individual human
intities were intimidating to the gods. This was long, long ago when we
were humans as the reader would not recognize. Out of this fear of
human potential Zeus split us in half. As then human was a a four
legged, four-armed complete identity of body and soul. Upon dividing
the human form in two Zeus recognized the pathetic nature of humanity in
such a incomplete form as the two-armed biped that he had created.
Every individual was now incomplete both of flesh and of spirit, as
each's other half was somewhere near or far but not in comprehesion with
the rest of their person. Thus, Zeus molded onto their individual
forms what we refer to as our erogenous zones, genitalia, so as to allow
us to search out and connect with our other half to, for moments, be by
sexual energy completed in our humaness.
*Feel like a person when
you are alone.
*Feel like a human when you sex half of someone
else.
*Feel like humanity when you sex the rest of yourself.
{Love is the label we assert upon the sensation of feeling like we have
re-established some state we lost long ago. So much more about a state
of being than about stating an emotion for another being.}
Dream:
Rounding a corner by room 115 I came upon D. Manual's widow. Something
was missing from her soul, judging by the haze in her eyes. I offered
her my hand. She stared and shed three tears. I elaborated, "This is
how you shake hands" as I demonstrated on her limp, warm palm. She
seemed uncomfortable. I said, "You don't have to register into your
reality that I am here if it would be easier." She promptly ran away.
Humans make the world by realizing and analyzing its existence.
Nothing would exist without a concious mind to acknowledge and consider
it. Yet, what is a human mind in isolation? If this wonderful idea
(existence) could not be expressed to another it would remain just as
insignificant. Thus, communication between humans concerning every
level of existence from petty social issues to universal philosophies
can be assumed the only most important factor of the human life other
than the considering of reality itself. So, yes, I do believe that
communication is a decently important aspect of the human relationships
and the human experience in general.
2.7.7
She was weirded
out thinking over all the different people she had been, each sharing
certain mental routines. She did not think that everyone could look
back at themselves through the years and see so many variations of
themselves that did so indeed vary from every other incarnation of her
identity. Wow...at least she can say she has walked in a few different
pairs of shoes, even if they were the same sizes. And damn, she was not
as chill as she thought she was. Damn...
No, "for serious,"
picture this one...One time I was standing in the shower looking out
the window at golden reflections of autumn leaves jiving in the breeze
just outside the screen. Infatuated with the life, love, and living of
the sunny scene outside the walls of my abode. Looking down at my own
naked body watching the cascading water change the consistency of my
skin. My mind wandered into humoring several markedly intense
realizations that my own flesh was the same flesh that contained Al
Capone's internal system that was the same fat, ligment, muscle, and
bone as were there before me under this lukewarm shower that was exactly
like the one that showered Al. I was, without segue, aware of myself
as an animal (more specifically: a odd ass hominid monkey-esque
synthetic cancer of the earth in a sense homo sapien thing). My body
metamorphosed into the wildest form of this hominid that my mind could
picture. My throat did something quite unexplainable and my
posture...well...i do not need to be thinking about it. Dave Matthews
Band was playing somewhere distant in the scene. I became aware of the
band as these new visions of the human animal. I started to get a
little edgy. I stood unmoving in my animal posture looking down at my
naked animal body for a good month.
When it was over I laid
limp on my bedroom floor in the most unexplainable state of emotion I
have ever experienced. So intense that my body was physically effected
(imagine the literal aching in your chest when you are at the most
powerful moment of despair you can conjure up, a little more weird in
presence though). This was the most powerful moment of grateful apathy I
may have weathered.
You are that woman looking back over
your life thinking about where all the news souls come from over time,
that ego thing.
2.12.7
Maybe the lifted and/or
demolished state is appealing because it leaves one ready to die, in
that they are no longer worrying about tomorrow. Ceasing to breath in a
moment of ecstacy, not incompleted in one's soul by thoughts of
sacrificing self towards the hope of a comfortable tomorrow. Not as
advocation of suicide but more a digression from dying incompleted and
by that manner in vain. Wait...now, that may be a little scary to
someone to see that someone has actually entertained thoughts in-depth
enough about their own mortality to have found the state that they feel
they would be comfortable excepting death. Being even more scary that
this state is one that is readily available. So, do not regret me if I
die. No one will have failed me should I die by such a concious
decision as mentioned.
Damn.
2.13.7
Just
crumbled upon awaking this morning after attempting at a joyful escapade
this morning. Gave up on my hope for fulfillment in sunrise. Fuck
it. I know I am going to regret this, but i regret everything i do
so...FUCK IT. I am a disgrace...to... But physically i feel orgasmic.
Why so quick to burn bridges? In all areas of the life, fuck.
Fading in and out. spitting verse with a sweetly beautiful filiment,
lax posture.
2.15.7
Here it comes oozing across the itchy,
cheap carpeting down the hall. Here it overtakes the kid in room 308.
Here it is at my door. This thick oil shining yellow like rotting
teeth, in its slow viscosity, is filling the space between my toes.
What should I do? I have no exit and I will assuredly befall a horrid
end should I let this muck creep into my throat and thus my lungs.
Where is the bus driver? Where are the friends? Where is police
officer? Where is mother to save me? They are all gone now, ever since
the tides blended into the fog. Here with my ankles now locked in
place by this roaming ooze I, like a helpless child, plea for something
to grab on to or someone to please, please take my hand. This is the
muck that we are raised to overcome, but never told of its existence.
They told me of some of the problems it would lead me to face. Yet,
never did any one tell me that this was inevitable. None of them
defeated it so how should I hope to have been raised to understand the
weaknesses and potentials of the situation. But, they still breath so
their must be a secret. A tool. Something to allow one to breath this
sludge as it renders one's hope adhesive to one's sense of defeat. It
is crawling up my thighs. With my mind racing I act without
consideration. The sensation of this heavy substance gripping its way
into every pour is excrutiation like a bad mescaline episode. I lean
toward the shelf juxtopositioned to the window. On it sits a television
remote, a cell phone, and a 44. caliber revolver. The first contact of
the invader and my gentalia is evident. I grab the phone and dial
fervently.
A young lady answers with a patchouli voice,
"Hello..."
"I need you to send her my way. I do not have much
time." Speaking rushed and with heavy breath.
She is confused,
"What?"
"She wears tight jeans sometimes but has great tastes in
comfortable vintage digs of earthy tones. I do not have much time. She
tends to do the natural thing when it comes to disguising herself, in
that she is shy about make-up. Sometimes she might wear dark eye liner
and such. Hair...her hair is dark...she does whatever she wants with
it, but loves it when I run my fingers through it just as I love it when
she plays with mine. And her hands...while she is twirling the locks
over my sullen eyes her hands are plain and with not many rings. I do
not have much time. But, she is an accessory girl. But in a more
ecclectic bracelet and necklace way...oh, and her sunglasses that hide
those precious eyes. She is excited by my random sentiment and odd
attention. But, her plain hands...I...her shoulders are so quaint..."
The muck has now filled my mouth and is slowly engulfing my airway as I
drop the phone gasping desperately for air as I accept my fate (gurgle).
The young lady interjects, "I'm sorry sir, this is not the phone number
for that type of call...(click)"
The gun is not loaded so I
fumble the remote into tuning in MTV and away I deteriorate.
I am looking for someone to say something to about something that
happened somewhere that I can not quite pin down. I am looking for
somehow, someway to express these things that we all need to say but
today just never seems to be the day when there are so many rules to
remember to this hop-scotch game that we are born to play. Players
raising more players into a game with no standard score card. Suiting
up our children for a sport that has no pro league. I am quite sorry
but hugs and flowers are not part of the winning strategy, or so they
keep telling me as they lock me away in these caves of solitude. Smiles
get you no where when you are in a crowd of frowns who yearn only for
cash register sounds. The few kind souls shedding tears to form rivers
flowing between this greed that is dominating in mounds and mounds.
Blockades of other people's bad intentions is not enough to stop our
hopeful dreams, but television is enough to make them forget about gods
so they can keep mass producing climbing equipment for those few whom
are still trying to tranverse the mountains of bad intentions to find a
fabled oasis of humble breathing. let me announce aloud from my end of
one of the kind river's tributaries; "No equipment we have to buy from
them is ever going to help us rid ourselves of them."
2.16.7
The sound of ice being shoveled into a six-gallon bucket is oddly
pleasing. This sweet new face, showing interest in my existence,
confirmed this for me earlier. Sweet, sweet precious little thing she
is, but there seems some chaotic backdrop to the story of her silent
giggles. Ah, and a hitter in the tricep pocket...yes. Piano rifting in
the dark air I recall the manic aura of the last few days (and i mean
that in a very "daze" sort of sense). A circle of friends last night
attempting my salvation through passing a cell phone like a babby
doobie. Definate psychosis. Certain of a correlation between the
cycles and getting lifted; though it seems that it is more negative when
the lifting is of the palm of another which may point to some larger
underlying problem.
3.17.7
(AM) Splash headed.
What the fuck is this girl doing? I guess the question is what the fuck
am I doing, or standing there stunned not doing? And eyes fixated on a
moving black locked sparkle. Some grungy aura about her and some
malintentions cooking in her head for sure. Why is this always the
flash I find catching my eye? And do I have an excuse for being
pathetic. Fucking disgustingly pathetic I roam pouting for something I
will never take upon myself to aquire. How did it happen to come about
back then, so long ago? Luck, with all probability. And I missed the
fucking phone call. The one chance that jumped at me, granted it seemed
too right (kind of like all those that manifested prior). So why....?
(PM)Yes, six years...well...it is hard to think that those days were
just a prefix to these. I mean it is hard to think back to junior high
as if it is just a long accumulation of yesterdays, i tend to see it
subconciously as a different time/world/life as even though things are
always going to be the same as they have always been it is hard to place
oneself into a world of six years ago without feeling some extremely
distinct disconnection. But somedays yesterday seems farther away than
birth.
Thank you so very much for your approval of the few of
my works that you have seen. My art is an integral step on my personal
staircase to the grave. Inspiration? Well, i guess certain peices
have direct inspirations: beautiful flower, beautiful girl, beautiful
mindtrip, ect... But, in general I create not out of inspiration, but
more of duty to my birth. What ends up on the canvas or in the photo or
in the paragraph is just detail. At its root it is all just about
reasserting the FACT that I AM ALIVE. To me life is the primary factor
of human existence of course, but above that is conciousness (the
ability to realize, analyze, and consider the fact of our existence). I
write, and draw, and love because my life is no longer a part of
existence at the moment of my death. I could speak forever, but in
these days of television no one listens and words disipate into the air
that they are spoken. But art, though not indestructable or infallible,
is a means for my conciousness, the thoughts that spark in my mind, to
exist. Because a thought not documented is soon not a thought at all
but nothingness...an incomprehensible flash in the history of
existence. Sorry to ramble...but, i guess i am trying to say that my
inspiration for the art i create is the personal idea that if nothing is
ever molded by my hands, when my hands wither so to will my life.
There is quite a bit more that plays in to it, but this is a Myspace
message so i am not going to go to far as i have an aversion to such
impersonal means of communication as of late.
Ah yes, and the
relationship that we were engaged in back then. So much different than
the relationship between friends, or cousins, or co-workers, or
lovers. In our innocense we developed a way to completly transcend the
hang-ups of junior high interaction...no judgement and no expectation.
It was quite an amazing thing really. In all seriousness I can recall a
year or so back humoring the idea of using our story from those days as
the premise for a novel, but it was kind of hard to accomplish with
only my side of the story. I can not speak for you, but yes i did and
to this day feel some inate connection to you out of those pages we
filled. Again, quite amazing. I sincerely hope that you took away
something valid from the odd relationship we shared, as I feel I must
thank you for having taken part in that with me as it was a very crucial
moment in time for me to have an inspiration.
and yes so
very much so i smile when i think about us on that picnic table talking
about tupac...and...umm, donnie simpson (haha)
hope the dance
is in pace with your heart,
jaron
3.18.7
Birds making
nests of me.
The kind of day you were having (latent
unexplainable guilt type of sensation weighing on your chest with no
obvious source) i know those days very well. It is plainly flattering
that you would check for my message. And no i would not consider that
bad. Even though the society we live in is on every level meant to
dictate the potentials of each individual it spawns there is one thing
that no warlord, no television, and no law will ever deny us; and that
is the inate desire for bonding with other individuals and it just so
happens that words (whether shared face to face, over the phone, or via
the internet) are the simplest medium to form and observe such a
connection. Everyone wants to communicate...usually with others...and
often with someone whom seems to hold some new epiphany that may help us
through our days (the latter being the one that always hits me first
for some reason when you make your way into the forefront of my mind).
Hope with kindest intent that my correspondence is worth the effort for
you to read.
To avoid pretension and/or embarrasment I will not
go far into how much so I remember you and why. But, i am fairly sure
that i still remember your halloween outfit in second grade. But, i
know what you mean about being surprised by who remebers what about you
and who does not.
Tupac...to this day I am thankful for the copy
of "The Rose That Grew From Concrete" as it sparked in me the initial
desire to write, which has become a very important aspect of who I have
become. Donnie...well donnie lost a lot of weight at one point (i would
assume no explanation is needed)...now I think he...well i have no
idea.
I can shoot you down on one thing though, i did not have
any idea that you harbored any admiration for me. I mean it was obvious
that there was some interest, but I never took it for adoration.
Myself, well...in junior high I put no value into acting upon my own
admiration as I could see the frail nature of relationships between
young teens. Though, honestly I can say that my feelings toward you
were most assuredly not of the average sort...something in your smile
always seemed like it was hiding that epiphany that i was yearning for.
Then you disappeared. Since then I have heard little about
you...(forgive me if any of these come off as offensive) she hangs out
with cheerleader type people?, she is kinda a bitch now, she is fucking
hot.
Myself...Well, I have come a long way. Definately a little
different than the kid you knew back then. No more darkness about my
aesthetics in that my attire has shed most of the black tones. All of
that youthful hate for...well, everything...it is fairly subdued. My
focus on entertainment which were of the violent and/or hateful
nature...gone. Antisocial...well, yes but in a differet sense. You see
at some point I go fed up with the anxiety and depression problems that
plagued me in those times up through the nearly sophomore year. This
in addition to my personal journey to attain some spiritual
understanding of my own humanity led me toward certain things in my
search for a moral and peaceful center within myself. As I was
developing an intoxicating love for any and everything beautiful I had
found buddha (personal title for cannabis) which opened up certain
neurological possibilities in my mind. Throughout this entire
experience I was going through very, VERY traumatic times. At one point
I found myself living with a girl in west washington, my mother (only
family) living in Omaha, Nebraska. A very intense situation for a young
man. Soon I was living in my car, sleeping in the Peaks parking lot.
It was around this time that I was (and in the least corny sense
possible) born. Psylocibin saved me from all of the mysteries that were
tearing me apart inside as I spent my days alone watching the sunset or
walking wooded trails. Psilocybin peeled away this aversion i must
have had for self-fulfillment, it put me at peace with my own identity,
and it allowed me to fall in love with life. Eventually my psychedelic
meanderings lead me into one of the most amazing/ecstatic/timeless
moments of my life as I found myself laying on my back at two in the
morning in one of my elementary school teacher's yard next to an
emmaculate young morman. The conversations we had (more or less me
explaining the wonders of life that her religion had never and would
never have taught her of) left me complete in my search for who I was.
Of course i still spend everyday battleing inner demons and trying to
fathom my place in this utterly fucked up world. Now I am in college
and i am all alone; my family is in Nebraska and my few friends in Paoli
while I am here single at Indiana State University.
I spend my
time now trying to enjoy at least one beautiful experience everyday and
trying to open up as many closed minds as i possibly can. Why am i in
college? I don't know but i plan on joining the peace corps for two
years when i am done. Then...well...living
Hopefully that was
not too awfully boring or dissapointing for you. Obviously I would
expect you to fill me in on the same...how, where, who have you been
since we last we met eyes.
simple-subtle-sounds of my kindest intent,
jaron
I did not mean to drop off that pity-laden story of my life over the
last few years on you, though it is kind of nice to hear that you think
the little that i did divulge to you is a lot to go through. i can not
imagine your reaction to the full story.
The whole issue of
whether or not we would be who we are without the events that we have
found ourselves in is an iffy subject with me. I do not argue that
situationaly our past has its hand on who we become, but i am also a
firm believer that i was quite doomed/blessed to be who i am today even
if the story leading up until now had been full of different names and
places. I think that it is more the aura and the vibes of the world
around you and your personal reaction to them that paints the details of
your soul much more so than the particulars that set those moods and
release those vibes. This belief in addition to the fact that the
world, especially america, is this huge spirit devouring media driven
monster leaves me to believe that i would still be in the same mindset
no matter.
Small towns...? Well, myself and small towns have a
love/hate relationship. Small towns are good in that you can not get
lost in them. The fact that most eveyone knows most everything about
you is a double edged sword. It drives me insane to be recognizable to
small town republican-conservative-vindictive christians in that I am
obviously an outsider. Yet, it is nice to know that if you start
slipping someone will notice and may well offer some salvation. In a
city when you start to slip up you are just another faceless fuck up who
everyone hesitates not to let die in your own little pit of self
loathing. AND I HATE CONCRETE. I mean I am no dirty hippie, but I do
have a unfathomably deep love for the earth beneath my feat and to see
monstrous cancer cells (cities of concrete, metal, and plastic)
metastasizing across her beautiful face hurts me, so in that sense i do
prefer a small town, but even Paoli is slowly killing every lovely
old-wizened tree that gets close to endangering their power lines (god
forbid one fall and take out their cable for a couple hours). You are
quite right...work and paoli do not go together...at all. It is sad.
Michael...yes, Michael and I are not so close as we once were but I too
feel a pain in my chest everytime I am around him and can sense how out
of himself he really is. Lately I would consider myself as having
three best friends...one is a fucking addict, addicted to being fucked
up out of his mind on whatever is there to do the job (seriously find
myself crying when i wake after having dreamed of where his life is
heading)...the second, I can not speak to, as we both have this soul
wrenching love for eachother yet, we drag each other so far down when we
are near each other leaving the only positive thing for either of us
being the love that we share, so now we have come to the decision to
stay out of each other's life for a while...the third, well he is the
only friend i had within one hundred miles, and he died over
thanksgiving break (overdose)...so in one way or another getting strung
out has become the disease that is ensuring my loneliness and seperation
from those closest to me. But, as far as friends in general I love
interacting with people, all people...new people are the best...but, i
am in essence all alone in that I have no close friends in any vicinity
to offer comfort.
Clothing...it is obvious when one sees me that I
am not out to impress, i mean yeah that would be nice but fuck getting
someone's attention with my shoes so that i can possibly get them to
listen. I am not out for interactions that are sparked on the basis
that i look hot in some tight jeans and and armani shirt. i guess i
dress like a down to earth hippie that showers, or maybe some sort of
humble artist who likes earthy tones and being comfortable. Because
being comfortable is what it is all about. I wish i never had to wear
anything i would not want to be wearing when i die. because who wants
to die in a suit and penny-loafers. I am a sandal guy...definately love
my pajama pants...hats, love my hats...and accesories (bracelets,
shades, necklaces). Most of the accesories i own were originally owned
by someone else. I love to trade accessories with interesting people
that i meet so that i can in some way hold on to the lessons i learned
from those people and never forget the changes they helped me make in my
own person. Most of the articles of clothing in my closet carry with
them certain sentimental value, as does most every belonging that i have
held onto, as i burnt most all of everything i owned when i left for
college. I am a very sentimental person. Sentimental in that i believe
that the energy that is given off in certain powerful moments of our
lives can verywell remain in the objects that were involved. But, that
is just an extension of my idealism based on the human mind as the
determining factor for all of existence.
I really wish you
could understand how much you really did mean to me when we stopped
writing each other. I am grateful that you decided to tell me now that
you did in fact care for me back then, it means a lot. I spent so much
time back then trying to manipulate the opinion that others had of me
that I do not really know if i am quite sure who i truly was. This is
something i have come to terms with ever since i had my first spiritual
experiences with psilocybin and d-lysergic acid diethylamide (i don't
know where you stand on the issue of these molecules so i am sorry if
you are put off by their mention). So now i just hope that whoever i
was i was something good and important for someone else, because even in
our lowest points we are still amazing creatures especially if we are a
cog in the big machine of someone else's happiness.
Just the
same, it is wonderful to have correspondence with you.
peacefully
we sway,
jaron
This smile, these eyes, this...this
girl. What of an infatuation spawned instantly? I have been trying
hard at illustrating the things on my mind for some time now and I have
never succeeded in getting any of them exactly right once they hit the
canvas, but then again I never once had an exactly precise picture of
what I wanted. That is, except for this precious smile I have been
pouring my every effort into recreating. It has always been clear with
the highest level of clarity in my mind, yet I have never been able to
get it onto paper. This smile that has been haunting my dreams has
appeared to me constant with its beckoning lips and these absorbingly
radiant eyes. I was never going to give up trying to recreate it
whatever medium I had to attempt with...then I came across these fucking
pictures. My hopes of someday painting a portrait of this perfect girl
that I had discovered deep in every night's dreams so that the world
could be awed by her beauty, those hopes have been fucking destroyed.
And all because I just realized that this face is not just real in my
dreams. The most sad of all of the sad parts of this story is that this
smile is real, and in that, it is real somewhere else and not real
lying next to me as I sleep each night. Fuck. I can not even wrap
ryhmes or some pretty story around this one. It is just plainly
destroying my ambitions.
2.19.7
Eleven days...!? Wake up
to this, oh and the whole bitter cold and finer fine.
I
like bold lines in my sketches. Discovered that during a winter at the
Peaks. Bold lines and streamlined pupil-iris combinations. Both I
noticed in myself while observing a koix-painted small fellow who was
the first person I can recall being struck by their very constant style
of penwork. Right around the time of my first spiritual psilocybin
experience in early two thousand, five. The lines began growing bolder
when I began to work alongside a childhood friend after moving into the
house on the corner, the one with the black iron fence, during my junior
year. June third of two thousand, five I finished up a vague self
image of purples that drew from the insight I had been reeling in since
that February. Later that night would mark my first intense lysergic
acid diethylamide experience. Abrubtly thereafter, if I am thinking
straight, my style of composition altered. I began building each piece
from one point out towards other independent points as opposed to
outlining anything or doing any detailed planning. This was all after I
honed my penning style during a heavy dextromethorphan hydrobromide
experience while sitting in my third period class sophomore year.
High School Midnights I started one night junior year fairly close to
prom season if I remember right, Earth Day two thousand, five. A friend
and I in one of the many bedrooms that I have made abode, the one
upstairs in the house on the corner were drinking Bacardi Gold from an
antique and blue Pucker he began another sketching out a basic idea of a
skull as a flower pot alongside a stylized fish (this sketch I have on
and off evolving ever since). The blunt bold lines of the yellow face
and the amanita of my work that night. The amanita drawn from the
ceramic mushroom that had originally resembled more a psilocybin variety
until I painted it and turned it into an insence burner to center piece
my room. It has shown up in a few of my compositions, if I am not
confused. (midnight transition...)
2.20.7
2.25.7
(early AM) reverting quickly to the distracted level of beasts. so, so
much important information spawned/discovered tonight/lastnight.
everyone keeps telling me to be careful when i speak of my intentions
for next friday. i hope it works out.
3.2.7
(1:09 AM)
...an opportunity has been laid forth for us on this day to choose a
direction, and doubt not that it could lead in any which way.
meditating for some tastes of the deepest revelations and meditating for
some conversations that spark the mind dilations. better believe we
have some frustrations to relieve as we rabble on down old roads on new
paths, and if you catch the vibe i am glad you have joined me for the
ride. minds are the things racing as are hearts keep the pacing...eyes
are the things darting as this new dream is starting...and the tires are
the things on the car that may contact the road...car is the thing on
the road that takes us back to our...wait this is not my abode...nor is
that...and none take that title as a matter of fact. Tip your straw hat
if you happen to be wearing it. Remind me if you remember it. This is
going to be one hypnotizing dance, do we have the moves to keep up with
it?
...of course, because as a matter of course we have the
vibrant scribbles weaving amongst the phunky base lines to ween toward
the blown minds...who is ready to alter some lives?
3.13.7
I can not at all recollect how or when she arrived or who it was that
beckoned the call. The first memory: she and a few others were there in
the area scattered in an orgiastic pile.
Friday evening
barreling down interstate-70; three young souls with wide eyes.
Schedules...obligations...lives on hold. Relaxed in the passenger seat I
glance out the window at Indianapolis passing by. Conversations are
quite scarce, which usually leaves me unnerved. A subtle vibe that
words are among the list of almost everything that is taking second
string to the trip itself, the perpetual thrust forward towards some
unfathomable new situation. No time to conversate when we are subdued
by the anxieties of a seven day wait. One backpack each and to every
his own hopes for the journey at hand. Cars are blurring by on in every
direction containing thousands of other lives with other plans and
other hopes and other demands. The interstate winds its way through
Columbus. The chest seems to vibrate more in tune to the winds as the
flat midwest begins to meld into hills that signify our forward motion.
An enormous wall of earth manifests before us in the distance. Coming
up on it quickly we enter a tunnel under the East River Mountain. On
and on we roll between the white and the yellow along the
ever-stretching asphault serpent.
Basically
wilderness......tunnel, Pittsburgh. Coming out of a concrete passage
carved into the ground driving at sixty miles per hour into the
blue-blackness of the Pittsburgh night glowing under the reflection of
the full moon above we are heading the Aerwid's home with his mother in
Fox Chapel. Quite in the back seat is Cage who we picked up in Indy and
has slept most of the journey thus far.
The night is brimming with
an anxious, yet very smooth energy. The lights on every building and
the water glistening off to the side of the turnpike...full of some
life, new I assume. But somewhere in here is a foggy memory of a little
boy who loved fixing his gaze as the nighttime world rushes by outside
so that the lights all streaked and danced and weaved together.
Something makes me want to associate this new energy with the
starry-eyed stares of my imaginitive youth. A new city...a new world to
exist for a few moments.
In my adolescence I spent a fair
amount of time underappreciating the experience in vehicles ; back and
forth to Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Omaha, Tallahasse. My earliest
memories are of wonderment looking off into the woods from the fenceline
around our yard or out of the backseat of a car. Freeform fantasy
following with the breezes that whipped across those Indiana
landscapes. I notice a calm in me since my last prolonged engagement
with Al's problem child when I am engaging new scenery, a vacant bond
with my four year old self. I discovered somewhere in the last
engagement that I hold some inner longing to keep transversing these
roads we have paved and to seek out those that have escaped being
tarred. A latent yearning to maintain a state of that joy of
discovering a new world with fresh eyes. Fortunately, I also have a
sweet spot for coming back to places I have loved after long absences,
so when I have experienced as much as I can I will be well suited to
roam in perpetually humble diddy of nostalgia sorting over all the
lessons I have learned in these places I have been from these spirits
and ghouls I surely will have met. Really wish planning out a life was
that simple.
Fox Chapel streches across the sides of these
strapping Pennsylvania hills. We park at a down hill slope in front of a
humble white house. Miles gone, yet so many more to be tread. The
inside of Aerwid's home is welcoming in its vibe. When Gunner comes
tramping through the room wagging her tail furiously at Aerwid the aura
in the room becomes even lighter. I meet the Jigga. I am tired in a
home of a friend four hundred, fifty miles from "home."
It is Saturday and we are in downtown Pittsburgh, an apartment down an
alley surrounded by city. Select art work adorns the messy pad, mainly
Dali. Our host, a stranger even to Aerwid, gives one that sketchy
feeling. Not that he seems to have bad intentions, but that he shares
many common traits seen in sketchy characters. His demeanor is
scattered, confused but soft. A heady blunt and one not so. We discuss
potentials and he lays in my mouth a week to void ten strip for nothing
more than the inquiry of, "Where is Lucy these days?" Aerwid, to help
our hosts girlfriend retrieve a painting from an art store, leaves Cage
and me here with the host and a subdued character focusing quite a
manner of energy into his guitar. He seems to be trying to ignore the
fact that two complete strangers are sitting behind him as he plucks
away on his chipped wooden stool. Behind us two strangers sits the host
curled into a corner shakily waving his cigarette to some phantom rythm
with one eye sagging further shut that the other, his other hand
nervously running fingers through his shaggily spikey short blonde
hair.
Saturday night over my right shoulder toward the
window on the other side of the room is something. That is all I know.
A presence of some sort of uncomfortable energy. Uncomfortable enough
to get me out of bed after only ten to twenty minutes. I offer Cage the
bigger comfortable bed I had just left for the small guest bed he was
huddled up on in a side room. A confused, "Really...thanks?"
Sunday morning Cage vaguely mentions hearing light and fleeting, yet
unwelcoming voices or some strangeness in the room I had traded to him
the night before. We eat. We pack our individual backpacks, two tents,
an easy-up, and a few blankets into the car. We pick up a fourth,
Steilse, a friend of Aerwid. A unflinching Trey fan. His aura is
excitement with a calm advertising package. One more backpack, one more
tent, and a canopy into the car with us. A gas station. The road
south. Time curls away softly until we stop in South Carolina. Fake
id. Motel room. Cold floor.
Monday, a new day. After
refueling and eating at a local gas station we are rolling off the next
thirty or so miles to the Georgia border then on to Florida on through
Jackson, passed a forest fire, to Sunrise. Well over a thousand miles
and we are here. This is a rich town. Markham Park activities office. "
Where are we sleeping tonight?" We pay thirty dollars to camp in the
park for the night. More than perfect, spending our first night in a
tent on the beautiful park property that is going to evolve into
Langerado festival grounds over the next few days. Set up our tent,
collect some wood. We go for a walk through the park. It is perfect.
So much water and woods scattered about. Alligator territory if I have
ever seen it. Fake ID. Case of beer, green tea, Cinnamon Life. Spark
the last of the Buddha we have on us in the tent to consumate the
night. Chilaxing in the campsite adjacent is a young
couple...locals...taking a break from the city (two blocks away). It is
quite a situation compared to any of our group's normal lives.
Friends, strangers, strange friends standing aside a campfire happy as
children to be playing with a new addition to our night, a small fox
which comes out of the darkness to our backs. This fox looking for food
looking timidly up at the sillohettes of four young men staring with
crooked smiles into a flame as if it were somehow enchanting away their
aches and weaknesses wrought from long semesters and longer
contemplations on their place in man's mistaken social system...this
fox, is it thinking only of food...or does the food even register, could
it only know hunger and its hunt for satifaction?
Tuesday
comes on like mescaline at the one hour mark...is it ever going to
fucking get here? Sleep this morning was anxiously restless packed with
four guys in a three person tent after days in a car. A few miles away
the shots are starting back up at the gun range we had to hear well
into the night, like a uninterupted gang war of .45 caliber slingers.
The tent gets placed back in the trunk for a few days. Aerwid is
volunteering the festival so the other three of us join and casually
hang out on the grounds do a few small tasks, but generally just getting
started in meeting some of the other volunteers and the heads of the
behind-the-scenes festival experience. We label all of the fifty or so
golf carts to be used by the festival operators, workers, and talent
over the week and weekend. Because of my alleged skills with an exacto
blade I am asked to assist the sign designer for the festival in cutting
sheets of some strange plastic posterboard down to size. The sign
maker spends the time telling me about his encounters with Trey. My
favorite story he has to tell is of the time he gave Gordon his golf
cart. He soon found out that security at every festival Mike is to be
involved with is warned that he is not to be given the keys to the golf
carts that the festival crews use (something to do with "he is one crazy
bastard behind the wheel of a moving vehicle"). We meet Mike and
Caitlin from Conneticut and Billy from Rochester, each of which we will
end up joining up with in forming our campsite Friday. We move a bunch
of round table things. In doing so I come across a single opiate laying
white and 'V' pressed calling out to me from the grass beneath my bare
feet. A random middle aged man in a volunteer shirt from the year
before finds me sketching on my jeans. He likes my work and
foolheartedly asks me to do an original piece on his brand new hunter
green Chucks. When I ask if he has a design style in mind he says only
that his name is Jones. Of course I will and do.
When
we leave Markham Park we are heading toward Ocean Boulevard in Fort
Lauderdale to meet up with Brahmzen, a friend of Aerwid's and Steilse's,
at his grandfather's beach house. This is the first time I have seen
the ocean since I was only months old. Then I was on the gulf side near
Tampa. The water is cold...very cold as the five of us parade
excitedly into the waves smiles and laughs. A strange sensation,
basking in the waters that washed Ponce de Leon onto the lengths of this
great coast so long ago in 1513 searching for the fountain of youth.
Late Tuesday night walking along the beach we meander ourselves into
being split up Steilse, Brahmzen, and Cage one direction while Aerwid
and I stand on the darkened sands gazing glaze-eyed at the moon light
creeping from behind the cloud cover to enliven the distant black waters
of the horizon. The cell phone in his pocket and the female voice on
the other end steals Aerwid's attention away from this serene scene. I
walk on alone heading north dancing barefoot, sandals in hand, heels
digging deep into the night sands. I find my mind wondering through
random golden worlds of experience that I will never have the chance to
live; such as, how amazing could it have been to be looking out at the
moon enlivening the black waves of the horizon surrounding you in every
direction from port side of some grand clipper ship one thousand years
ago. After I have tredged twenty blocks upshore I realize that to my
left, city side, is a long chain of high class hotels that are fenced in
side to side preventing me from getting to the road or sidewalk to head
back in the direction my lost friends. Fences seperating poor souls
dancing along the beach at night from the unimaginable worlds hidden up
there on the thirty-fifth floor of these high life homes gawking out at
the down to earth mindset of us below. Fences, I shake my head. I am
the only person on the beach within eyeshot in either direction. When I
finally cut over onto the sidewalk on the other side of the wall of
hotels and Mercedez I head from Flamengo Avenue back south toward 16th
Street and the multi-million dollar beach house I am to be sleeping in
for the night. Breathing in the cool breeze whipping in from the waves
as I walk I come across a pair of sandaled feet jutting out from a bush
to my left. Behind them concealed in the shrubbery is a man
incoherently mumbling to himself. I contemplate what it would be to be
this man alone and free here, homeless, on this avenue of luxurious
beach house retreats and vacation homes of those so well off who pass by
him everyday trying intently to ignore his presence. Would it be more
or less for him jellyfishing his days in some impoverished midwestern
area?
Wednesday evening is creeping on calmy as we bid
farewell to our host Poppi, Brahmzen's grandfather, and drive away
leaving behind a half full case of beer and leave Fort Lauderdale for
Sunrise looking for a plain three bedroom house/apartment rented until
Sunday by some friends of Bramzhen's from Duqeusne, musicians with a
jazz focus. I am penning more colors onto the black jeans I am
designing out of inspiration of this trip with sharpie's from the black
purse hanging against my thigh. Bramzhen hands me a glass for the
shiraz that we are both holding a bottle of. His intentions...I wish I
could hear the thoughts running through this guy's head. The slight and
convincing smile as he hands me the glass. The thoughtful stare at
most all times aside from those that he switches into an infectiously
content expression to converse or comment. The wine is cold, and quite
nice in addition to the benz'dreaming that I have been working myself
into since we left his granfather's. Lounging with new and lively
individuals along to what I must compliment as a great taste in
soundtrack playing from an iPOD in the corner of the main room.
Thursday morning the small house being rented by the dozen people that
our group of five had joined for the night comes to life in such a
poetic waltz it warms my eyes into dreamy glistening like long ago
childhood Sundays, sunrays and smiles and duty and handshakes and most
of all the sunshine casting diamond explosions of piercing white stars
into yours eyes when you stared into reflections and shiny surfaces. I
open my eyes to a bare walled room lit gently by sunlight slipping
through blinds in adjoining rooms. The table has been moved out of the
living room, one corner is piled with the miscellaneous traveling
regalia of near twenty people, and the rest of the floor space aside
from the couch is literally canvassed with air matresses and sleeping
splash head youths sketchily resting away a night of celebration in
their, our, quaint little pad. I meditate on the calm of the scene as
not to grow so anxious I must move or roll over or in any way disturb my
sleeping friend directly, and I mean elbow to elbow contact close, to
my left markedly quashed himself on the small air mattress between
myself and his young lady friend, Nehve, that we retrieved from the
airport last night. Breathing in the tranquility of a dozen sleeping
strangers dreaming in unison I catch myself softly yawning.
Instantaneously a young man on the otherside of the room yawns and sits
up. Quitely he scans the room, running his fingers through his
frazzeled dark hair. He lays back down and joins me in peacefully
enjoying the calm before the long day ahead. Within moments someone
hushedly stirs in one of the bedrooms. An arm moves somewhere to my
right. My serenity in this pale yellow Florida morning is quickly
becoming another day moving like a confused jellyfish to and frow with
the changing flow toward the one unquestionable goal, a campsite
alongside thousands of other campers as someone plays drums somewhere in
the distance. The arm that moved quickly becomes a cute young woman
whom I met only a night or so ago, yet I can not quite recall her name
as she yawns away the last remnants of her dream and gently blows a
stray lock of hair, hanging over her mouth, to the side. The two
bedroom doors open simultaneously. The bathroom door opens and shuts.
In merely thirteen moments from my eyes opening up to the every single
soul in this house being awake (excluding two) this house has gone from a
nostalgic painting inspired by the idea and color scheme of some
dentist office only Burroughs would describe into a busy intersection of
brilliantly real humanity.
Rambling, discussing, and
waiting...it is off to the beach. Which beach? There is a long
discussion about which beach. Five into our car, the rest into the van
including the kid we picked up in Indianapolis, and on towards Dunkin'
Donuts and then to the beach. Wait which beach was it again. We follow
the van. They are apparently following the directions of their GPS
travel director type of equipment thing-a-ma (Jill, I think they had
named it). Myself and the the two other guys in the car who went to the
airport last night and tried to use "Jill" for assistance found out
that she was not a very astute guide. This was obviously still the case
as we turn right when we could have found a Dunkin' Donuts four blocks
left, and we end up going left miles down the road anyway. A private
beach. We are following the van along along the entrance to the
park/beach when they decide to pull a three-point turn without warning.
As we hit our breaks to allow them to complete the mananeuver a
half-ton truck behind us decides to pass. Slamming on his breaks he
barely avoids coming within two feet of seriously damaging the driver
side door of the van and the young woman on the other side of it. On
the beach my I find myself and the pacing soul that I started this trip
with shuffling a good distance off down the beach heading south randomly
picking out shells whose hues or scuplture strike our fancy. Moments
of human connection with this smiling friend. Once back with the others
I find myself having sank out of the group, or so my self-doubting,
inferiority hung-up personality, tells me. No one is acknowledging or
asking to be a part of my presence so I retire myself from the group as
to be more free of undue anxieties in solitude exploring the overgrowth
beyond the beach.
With a clear head I stroll along a beaten
path through the overgrowth until I find a rather alluring opening in
the brush revealing a cove/stream running parrellel to the sea. I opt
to keep my sandals on considering the interesting stings and pinches and
cuts and bites and puncture wounds that might await me in this stream I
have never waded. Five long strides to the center and I turn to look
back upstream towards the bridge that we had walked across to beach from
our cars. It is to far to see. Gangley roots and Florida under growth
reach out over the water from the banks...venomous or generally
dangerous creature surely looking out at me from under there. The water
is cool streaming gently around my upper shins at the surface. This
cool wet sensation is the only thing obviously the same between this
stream and those oh, so many that I played in back in Indiana as a kid.
With edgy but lightened spirits mosey along the stream taking in its
foreign nature is a surprisingly similar fashion as I had done back in
those Indiana streams as child. Perfect architecture and lines being
laid out in my head of the most perfect sketches and paintings and songs
and dances.
It is Thursday evening and three of us
have came back to Markham Park about procuring permission to camp on the
festival grounds for the night. Steilse, Aerwid, and I are carousing
amongst a group of volunteers, eager early arrivals, and
wookies...everyone is waiting. The lifestyles that are displayed
between us collectively run the gammet from chemistry major, musicians,
and lowly bohemians, with a dash of middle class searching youth. Many
of these minds are blown at the moment, many are recovering from the
night before, and many are simply gearing up for tomorrow. Conneticut,
Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Louisianna, among other far reaching
regions take the title of being the homes or lack thereof that we have
each left behind to venture here to this scene in search of something
home can not offer. Some are merely here for the music while others are
on the never ending hunt for the highest of highs. Some of us are here
because we are confused about the answers and can seemingly do no right
in the spiritual state that we have recently found ourselves; it is us
who are the ones standing with eyes wide and perpetual ready to tear
watching around every corner and over every shoulder for that person or
event that is going to initiate in us the revelation we have been
longing for.
Whatever be our collective intentions we
can not sway the undercover policemen across the way from coniving after
our freedom. Two men "working" on a bicycle for two hours and never
picking up a tool. One always with an eye on our group. The only
cyclists in the park wearing shin guards for leisure trail riding.
"Hello over there mister police man, I hope you do not mind that you can
try as you may but you will not steal my soul, not tonight," one
dreadlocked young man interupts himself as he lets us in on the 'secret'
that he loves ketamine because it is the only thing he has found that
pops his top the way he so desires. This guy showed up with no ticket
and now has a vendors camping pass and promises he will be VIP by
tomorrow night. One cat made the trip from Louisiana on his bicycle
with nothing but a backpack (which did not contain a ticket to the
event). The guy Aerwid found yesterday stumbling out of the patch of
woods he had been sleeping in for two days is nowhere to be seen. A
quaint little mama in a weathered brown zip-up hoodie, a tattered cut
off front of a Janice Joplin t-shirt. The huge white pitbull mixed with
something larger that is trailing around his leash, Allowicious, he is
this little lady's. While Aerwid attends to some business involving his
volunteering Steilse and I remain among the congregating group.
Sitting across from me at the picnic table is Hobbit with his yellow and
red Grateful Dead bear tattooed on his throat. He is telling me about
the Rainbow Gathering. A group of people coming together to form a
collective community of radical self sufficiency. The Rainbow People
that he has travelled here with did so in a painted school bus and the
ominous blue monster of a van parked behind me. Basically he is telling
me that I would show up and give all my belongings to the group as a
whole. He assures me it would be great fulfillment and joy everyday,
before he tells me about a friend of his who is now a political prisoner
because of his involvement in the last gathering where he was
apprehended transporting the communal blunt which everyone had
contributed to and weighed over a quarter of a pound. I am fairly
certain Hobbit is decently inebriated in some mysterious sense as he is
mumbling these tales to me from across the table handing me the bowl
that is being passed around by the unnamed new face in our group who
just sat down and offered his Buddha to the group long as someone had
said bowl, and of course a Bic.
The ride back to the
collective house to pick up Brahmzen, Nehve, and Cage is a relief with
the permission now to camp at the festival grounds, no waiting in line,
and of course that sticky sack of herb just obtained from the wookie
that had taken over that poor kid's hammock; but, he was not lying "it's
the dank" and now with calmed nerves and no reason to fret this whole
trip is ready to rise into a three day orgasmic crescendo with the
arrival of the melodies tomorrow. There are two early shows tonight in
Fort Lauderdale; Trey Anastatio and Sound Tribe Sector Nine. Nehve has a
ticket to the STS9 show, but has chosen not to go it alone, as tickets
are sold out and none of the rest of us have one. She mentions the
waste of her ticket. Cage, always brimming with anxious energy, is
notably excited by the idea of seeing the STS9 set. Each of us in the
room are tuned into a picture of Cage as being new to this free of an
environment, not naive per say but no other word hits the nail either.
Everyone seems to hesitate for a moment. I consider the implications of
letting him lose in Fort Lauderdale to find his way. I can not
overcome, though, the picture of Cage getting his face melted front row
for STS9 all alone one thousand miles from everything he has ever knew.
One of the musicians offers a ride to the show. Cage gos quiet with
anticipation for a moment, nods his head silently, stands up and grins
the widest beam of a smile "I am going!" He is now on his way to
downtown Fort Lauderdale while the five of us are heading to set up our
tents back at the park. I guess he is going to get a cab here or
something as I am not sure there was a plan made. With the vibes of
innocence that he gives off I giggle at the thought of the quite varied
possibilities of what overall theme this story could end up with;
ecstatic celebration of life and choice against something far from
jubilation.
After having found spot for our temporary camp
for tonight in what will be the parking lot from tomorrow until the end
of the festival I sit pondering the potential, plausible reactions of my
companions to my impulse to leave the group and venture away into the
night toward the clarity of any random stranger's lamp light. I leave
the tent with sharpie's, lifted spirits, and a sense of freedom within
some communal experience. Wandering the grass I find a humbly cute
woman probably in her twenties sitting quietly in the rays of a lantern
and approach with warm demeanor to inquire as to whether they would
welcome me to their place of rest so as to be able to continue working
on the heartfelt designs that were slowly infesting my jeans. As I
scrawl quietly seated on my American peace flag a voice carrying the
warmth of a mild Mormon librarian trickled from the lips of the lovely
next to me. With joy I accomodate her request and freestyle a quaint
sketch on the plain white cast encasing her injured ankle. With my
comfort wearing the fabled "festi feet" I sit barefoot, crosslegged
wiggling toes to the melody of a neighbor's guitar. On to another group
of strangers and their tiki torch light. They do not mind this wild
long haired young man borrowing some of their lighting to work on his
art covered pants.
It is Friday morning and we who left
as two are now many. We left Terre Haute as two Aerwid and I...left
Indianapolis as three, Cage...arrived in Pittsburgh rested...left
Pennsylvania as four, Steyells, a friend of Aerwid's...arrived in Fort
Lauderdale and took on a fifth our second day here, Bramzhen, friend
Aerwid and Steyells...stayed with at least a dozen the next night,
classmates of Bramzhen...visited the airport and took on our sixth,
Nehve, friend of Aerwid...and after days spent preparing have formed
connections with over a dozen more through the festival's voluteer
program. I have known two of these people, Aerwid and Cage, for little
more than six months and most for less than three days; yet I know when I
sleep tonight these smiling faces, no matter what their souls may look
like in the world they came here from, will be the most beautiful
spirits I could possibly dance into slumber alongside.
There is a jungle of a city blooming around us as the dozen of us who
have come to decide upon residing together fidget and adjust, assume and
erect our own leisure palace for the weekend. At least eight tents and
three canopies we have claimed for our humble abode. No order to the
borders our neighbors and ourselves are constructing between each
other. No walls to soften and hide our conversations from each other
and no showers to wash away the sins we came carrying on our shoulders
nor the ones we will assuredly commit as we omit normal laws, rules, and
morals in order to free our minds and unchain our grins for these few
short days. Within our newly formed clan we communally share our wares
and necessities. This water is mine, is yours, is his, is hers long as
you hesitate not to take my hand for the next dance should I need
partner to be fulfilled. Stranger is no longer a term that can be truly
attributed to any of the fifteen thousand faces we are and will be
passing on these crowded grass streets. Even the couple in the family
tent next to us in the early thirties with their two year old daughter
seem like they have always lived on our block. We may never have known
the others' existence, but we are now an integral part of it.
Before the constructions of our palace is complete I catch the tail end
of a short, round, bearded man's soft comment as he strolls by. He
tells us about his wares, chocolate soap from Oregon. Next for a few of
us it is on to Publix for sustinence for the experience; fruit, water,
bread, water, lunchmeat, water, chicken, and wine. Throughout the
festival the members of our large group will migrate to and frow in
smaller factions of the group and individually, randomly returning with
new faces. Before we leave the bicycle delivers Lucy to me for our
first dance of the weekend. Out the gates past the throngs of those
still arriving and on to the grocery. Before leaving existence is
already taking on that bejeweled aura which I am so much in love with.
Search, find, everyone throw in twenty, purchase and back to the camp.
A few moments of moseying under our canopies and on toward the
music. During the walk the benzodreaming begins to color the smile. I
cruise through the grooving, toking, and joking crowd toward somewhere.
I have no claim on where the particular goal of my search is; yet I
move slowly onward, and sideways, and backwards. As smooth and easily
as breathing I randomly decide that I am there and promptly sit indian
style, kick off my sandals, and take to sketching on my guillie pants. I
part the hanging manually stiched on multicolored strips of shredded
jeans, sheets, tapestries, shirts, and other randomness to bare an area
on the pant leg over my right shin. I scribble purple, brown, velvet,
black, and yellow to the tempos of the large red-shirted bassman. A few
moments of this particular psychedelic tinged celebration in this
particular spot that I had searched out in the middle of the crowd
approximately twenty yards in front right of the main stage. Then it is
up and back on the move. On and over hopping and bowing through the
colorful crowd to the second stage to trip and fall face first into the
thoroughly enticely vibes of Galactic. I can not help but stop and take
in their sonic gifts. I again sit and retrieve one of the many fine
hued sharpies from the black purse I carry dangling between my legs from
my waist. As I am transforming the aura of their sound into colors and
forms on my pant a meager and pretty young voice beckons to me. "Yes, I
would create a work for you...though, only if it is done on you," not
glancing away from her bright eyes I motion toward her soft skin. "Oh,
that is what you had in mind, huh!" After sitting alongside me the
young american girl exudes happiness as she stares forward while I,
barefooted and tuned in, compose a picture on her upper arm as I cradle
her forearm against my chest. A few small words are exchanged, yet she
never looks at me. A few stunning young ladies slide in behind us and
ask whether I we would be inconvenienced if they watched. "Not at
all." I sway my shoulders and slowly pulse to the music as I watch the
colors I am painting onto this girls arm bleed into the air and mimic my
dance as they float off into the crowd. Getting lost in focusing on
the playing of these colors I notice that there in now a group of at
least eight beautiful festival girls dancing and watching me work. One
asks if I could do the same favor for her. I reply adding my own
stipulation, "I will keep weaving colors on whoever so desires long as
you ladies keep dancing for me with those smiles." Life is great.
As life is getting along so grand here for me Aerwid is somewhere aside
a bush looking intently at a bowl he can not seem to convince himself
to hit. Steilse and Nehve are there having a ball, yet slightly worried
for their friend whom they have apparently never seen so far out as a
quarter of the Oregon soap is currently taking him. Further than you
have ever been is the only place worth striving to be if tomorrow is
going to venerated as a new link in the futile chronological chains of
time titled "your life."
The tempo of the music begins to
slow so does my attention so I decide to leave these girls behind and
go seek out that lovely lucy girl again, that I could most definately
use some more of her enchanting presence. Success. A tie-dyed
weathered wizeman leads her back into my hands. A truly interesting
character he is and I hope to conversate further with him later, after
lucy and I have turned up our pace. Back at the palace I find this
wholly beautiful young woman sitting adjacent to me across the table
surface that is covered with my travelling blanket. At first glance I
catch myself not realizing that I have been running into this same girl
for at least three days now. Before I was introduced to her I was given
reason to believe that she was going to be a very beautiful and kind
addition to our festival experience, but sitting here speechless
watching her fix a sandwich I catch a giggle escaping from my lips at
the overwhelmingly lovely, warm, and sweet individual that the lover
here before me actually is. Yet, one of the only negative feelings I
encounter over the course of the venture is scratching at my soul. I
can not shake the sense that there is something obstructing this angel's
openess/connection to me. She seems to be put off by my personality or
my presence or me in general. Is it that my lifestyle or personality
is such an outsider to her normal group that she is nervous, or
astonished, or angry at my invading of her world? I could just be
misinterpereting something, but it is still eating away at my peace as I
wish so to be a factor in this girl's smile for the rest of the
weekend.
Leaving the camp with Aerwid I head toward the
main stage to catch Trey Anastatio's performance. En route I am handed
a portion of a chocolate flavored soap that by its own admission "may
cause sexual feeling and an urge to get naked." Somehow I have a glow
stick which I happily twirl and twist as we pass the giant colorful lit
up letters by the swamp tent spelling LANGERADO. Though we are looking
to find some of our friends who we know were going to be at this
particular performance we eventually decide upon a spot from which to
enjoy the set from which I groove intently to the passionate vibes of
the music. The soap is cleansing my psyche and further enhancing Lucy's
beatific affect on my mood. The music is wonderful and the energy
given off by the performers on stage is easily perceptible even when
jiving with eyes closed chin tilted toward the sky. A perfect musical
farewell to Friday and the moment I come to grips with the idea that a
completly peaceful and free experience is actually a possibility though
television news discourages us fathoming its existence outside of
daytime dramas and Sunday morning cartoons.
As the blue
florida sky has faded into an intoxicating sunset which has now painted
itself into the comfortable blackness of nights arrival a heartbeat has
formed for those living in our tarp and tent city. A lively pounding
pulse is abounding from somewhere in the center of our humble, but oh so
rowdy city. A drum circle to keep our own hearts at pace with each to
further tune us into the amazing occurence that is this event. The
notable warmth of the days down here in Sunrise is perfectly accentuated
by the comfortable cool of its calm nights. The stars...I am glad that
Fort Lauderdale and Miami so close fail to completly fade the wonderous
diamonds of the night. The stars always made me think of my brain when
I was a child. I would lay in the grass under the post and cord
clothes lines or lightning splintered willow trees in the southern
Indiana countryside looking up at those clear stars imagining my brain
absorbing light from the stars so that I could understand all of the
things they had seen. Here tonight...tonight, I can not think about my
brain...I...I am far too hypnotized by the thumping of my heart in rythm
to the drums pacing our city. My breath grows light as I close my eyes
and fade away into those drums, into the palms of those drummers, into
the ears and bloodstreams through the beating heart of all those others
listening and living through these beats throughout our temporary
civilization.
A jolt of confusion shatters my peaceful
meditation sitting there barefooted in the grass in the plaza between
three of our tents and our screened shade canopy. A wailing cochauphony
is ripping everyone to attention. The perpetual cloud rising from the
entire encampment is flashing blue and red. Sirens...police sirens!
Many of them...close...invading our humble city. Most everyone
assuredly sees a flash in their head of swat teams decending and hauling
us all away so that a governor can get props from George W. himself on
national television. After about thirty to sixty seconds the most
amazing thing happens. Everyone's confused and bewildered expressions
turn into pure excitement as the keepers of our pulse drum louder and
louder so that the beats leave the sirens just an annoying extra
instrument in this free living orchestra. The celebration reaches its
current peak, at least in every campsite withing eyeshot. An ecstatic
crescendo of loveing and shaking away of anxieties of dancing and
laughing at the pathetically misguided chaos of the real world we have
been freed of. Toasting of wine and sharing of delights. At the point
that the helicopter spotlights and wailing sirens begin to become to
annoying it is suddenly over and the drums...the drums keep on pounding
our night onward.
Slumber.
Saturday
morning is upon me as I open my eyes to the inside of tent. The
temperature in here is rising quickly and everything is moist. I
consider nodding back off, but am abruptly interrupted by a call of
"Wake up and rage!" Life is already buzzing everywhere around. A drink
of water. A delicious plum. Out of the palace in search of loving
brownies for breakfast. "Oh, there are white chocolate one also...I
need three." Two down the hatch and with the most delight, I might
add. Back at the palace I give the third to our precious festival
neighbor who happens to have made the trip to here from a starting point
only an hour from my own, in return I ask for a bracelet which I wish
for her to fashion for me. Deal. After another trip for four more
loving brownies, two of which I eat right away, I return to camp and
give the remaining two to others sitting in our camp. The music is
starting in the background from the swamp tent. A most amazing
morning. So much purity about it...something to do with the vibe of
freedom and peace. For myself, and with all hope for most everyone
else, the ills of the media-documented cruel real world is does not
exist anymore at the moment besides a trivial nonsense hidden somewhere
beyond the overpass in on the horizon. Before I head for the music I
again slip into the benzodream and happen upon Sabina's "sacred plant
children."
A few moments of music at the second stage
and it is back to join those who have also found enough appeal in our
breathing little city to keep them away from the townies and those
others who are there strictly to stand in the sun right in front of the
stage. Upon my return one of the campsites adjacent reveals his pocket
full of opiated enchantment and, of course, I dance myself onto that
pink cloud that I have loved for so long, though maybe this time I have
danced up onto one a little too high for the circumstances. Still
beaming from the fungi that I happened upon before I left earlier I eat
another plum. The next few hours I wonder around our small city and
lounge in the palace laughing and living with those near. A passerby
catches my attention with his call. He delivers to Aerwid's wide open
and overly zealous blue eyes the fresh and clean little white lady. As
the pink cloud comforting me continues to massage my eyes and focus I
begin to struggle to keep up with my dance. I come across the tie-dyed
and tattooed wizeman again and join him for some conversation. In depth
conversating with enlightened souls has long, long been one of my
favorite activities and I yearn with my all to take in the wizdom he
offers me, yet my cloud refuses to let me give to much attention to
anyone outside of the inside of my slackened eyelids. I fight her as
she forces my eyes to close and try to shake off the weakness she
renders in my stature. As my eyes spark and fade along with my
attention as I struggle to stay here in the now with this kind elder
man. I can not help but to wonder off into swirling worlds of blurry
comatose dreamtimes. Please forgive me for being present but not so.
That little white lady surfaces again at some point to whisp me and my
friend up and attentive to the living night around us. The palace is
empty of people besides Aerwid and I sitting in our tent with a mirror
we borrowed from the neighbors. As we dance around the little circle
mirror entertaining and being entertained by that little white lady I
hear someone arriving into the palace. I stick my head out to find that
I do not recognize the couple sitting in two of the chairs yonder under
our canopy. I give salutations. They apologize for intruding, "Sorry,
do you mind if we stop here for a few lines." I look at Aerwid and
invite them to join us. The female looks directly into my wavered eyes
and says you probably should not do this kind of thing to yourself,
referring to the wide assortment of boosters for my giggling dance.
Before long our friends begin migrating back into the palace. Those
gathered and gathering here conversate and giggle, toast and share. The
pink clouds are not quite done with me as the little white lady stamps
over them trying to spell my heart up to her speed. My head is losing
my mind a little, in that my head holds my face which contains my
identity; so to say gently, ego dissolution is not quite a foreign idea
here in these current moments. As the rules slip further than the
worries the only part of my body that I can honestly claim to sense at
the present is that pit in the chest that warms with joy in the most
blissful point in ones current journeys. A state of loss of all, except
one small and very focused center that consists wholey only unspeakable
happiness. A tear. Another. A salty trail begins to carve its way
down my cheeks. I am talking to people. Not quite sure if it is my
life or some sort of sequel. I am talking to people...I am...I...oh, I
recognize me, and that is Aerwid, and Nehve, and that is... I hope they
did not lose me on that one. I hope someone here knows about that warm
little center, or at least understands the sweet taste of your own
happiness welling and running across your lips as you are so at peace
that your tear ducts flood trying to remind you that pain does exist
somewhere back down there in that body of yours. Or are they trying to
tell you that pain is an illusion?
A visitor stumbles by
our palace. It is the dreadlocked guy from Thursday that loves ket. We
call upon him to join us. He seems sincere as he speaks of his respect
for the old heads and the spirit that they lived for. He tells us of
his passion to carry on their hopes. Then interrupts himself, "Hope you
guys don't mind, I'm 'bout to go into a k-hole." His eyes take on a
different value and he hushes and offers to me. Things are blurry again
for a time as the canopy above me fades into the sheets of heavenly
fields that become my world when I slacken my eyes. Souls stitched
together by hope for communion and held apart by latent games of the
outside world. It is disconcerting to find the waves in our minds crash
onto such alien and yet common shores. Am I too far gone to go on?
Will any one ever know they are understood, as even in such free arenas
the recepticle must be openly receptive and sitting here with our eyes
closed and shoulders swaying will we ever admit our inadeqaucies of
communication? I open my eyes and again I am fighting the concept alone
in this populated scene.
There are girls in the
campsite, the neighbor and three I have yet to meet. And the little
white lady again jumps to my hip springing me back to life. I am in the
tent that I and my two original partners in travel share. Across from
me is Aerwid. Scattered throughout the three person tent are four
lovely females. No tension. No overwhelming needs. My friend and I
dancing with that little white lady as these females interact and
giggle, chat and inspire. I speak of far off whimsical theories that
are undoubtedly trivial and/or nothing at all to those whom I am
talking, yet they lend their attention. One fades into sleep. Then
another. Then another. My friend looks down realizing that the white
lady is about to dissappear as well, hence he suggests we invite that
lovely little lucy lady to join the mix. Of course. She graciously
acknowledges myself, my friend, and the one girl still awake with us.
And twice more as the night moves onward.
So
inconsiderate as to stick to his schedule in interrupting the humble
darkness that had been caressing the scene as I quarrelled with poetic
intentions of caressing the queen of the night so surreal it danced in
the footsteps of the most enchanting dreams?' The carressing of
beautiful locks hanging on honey shoulders is the most whimsical of all
fairy tale encounters of two souls adrift. As one's hair grows the
lengths absorb the energy and vibes of the experiences your body and
mind endure. The longer the hair is loved into growing the more of your
life's energy is retained over your ears across your shoulders and
down your back. Tears, sweat, and vibrations let out by your laughter
absorb into those strands. You are contained within those strands.
Laying smile to smile with the kindest of spirits leaves me awed at the
idea of being lost in those waves and curls. So sweetly intimate the
simple caressing of lovely locks while staring and sharing with the most
engaging of glances. Gentely appreciating the living existence of
another. None of these words are a word that truly represents the state
of mind that had been blessed upon me as we existed together there
under that shield of reality sometimes known as a blanket, but then
again no other word fits the bill either.
Reveling in
the escape to inner views of the most outer realities the flawless
happenstance of the queen leaves me doubting my position of the lines of
appropriate praisings. As the most intoxicating painting of my soul
bursts with the smooth sensual playings of Eddie's sacraments I am an
astounding yearning to taste the smile I have been reveling in near
worship for over the past few hours. The vibe I am getting seems to
insinuate the desire for a taste of the smile before us may be mutual,
but I refuse to trust my altered judgement and obviously disrupted motor
skills even with my smiling parched lips . The temperature under our
reality shelter is rising quickly. Intimacy lacing itself with all
aspects of existence in the occurence of my mind. A kiss!? A ray of
sunshine creeps under the shield of reality that had evolved from our
blanket over my shoulder and casts itself onto the smile of the queen
before me. Sunday morning is arriving as the scene begins to transform
under the heat of the rising sun.
"Sunday, well hello
there Sunday. I may just have been the most liberated yesterday that I
can recall ever having been. To say the least, with no sleep and so
much stock in the contents of the night I was not entirely ready for
your arrival." Out of the tent and quickly off into the tent and grass
puzzles of paths. Everything is so...well...I am...I guess
faded/frazzled/stimulated/bedazzled would be the closet paradoxical
assemblage of letters to conveying the state of my minds affairs as I
soak in this Sunday morning sun. Back at the palace Aerwid is still in
the tent. Over the next few moments he sits forward at least a couple
times to glance intently at the grass just out the open tent, breathe
out with heavy exhasperation, give the most childish yet purely unsure
smile then lay back into his pillow. It is a truly joyous thing to
see...a child locked away somewhere deep in him that he never considered
surfacing (lucy is such a special girl though) to smile at and admit
defeat to the amalgamations of swirling greens that are most assuredly
dancing into head as he tries to convince himself to join the day. I
consider anything that can trigger the look of contentment (though laced
with a sprinkle of bewilderment) on his face to be some sort of
personal conquering of the ladder that society is imposing upon ones
mind in some age related self hiearchy.
A relax
individual comes strolling gently along in tye-die, patchwork, and a
police cap plucking sweet melodies lightly on his weathered acoustic.
His smile renders me helplessly locked into a glowing grin of my own as I
watch him dissipate into the anarchic jungle maze of narrow
criss-crossing paths. The end, the soft and softer end is somehow
suddenly present. There is an entire day of music left to play, yet the
serenade of this gently plucking passerby somehow weighs my eyes down
and I find myself somewhat akin to the idea of nirvana, in so much as it
means nothingness. The new day has again destroyed the playful release
of night. The smiles around me are all showing weary with the tiresome
glow of Sunday morning free and stoned. I am content to close my eyes
and fade away from the prison of the flesh into the clouds of dreams and
fantasies untold.
3.14.7
my heart, my mind, my
soul, my hands, my words, my emotions, my everything is not mine. or am
i so me that i have lost my way. mirrors? are mirrors to check and
enhance our appearance or are they to assure us that we do appear? and
why does our appearing have such an enormous effect on how others look
at and into us. how would my life had been different had i appeared
more attractive or interesting or revolting or inviting or anything? is
this appearance all that registers to others...or how much of me is my
appearance in the eyes of others? am i just my complexion and eyes and
hair? trivial, I know, but these lines are simply flowing from my
fingertips at the moment with no planning...free writing maybe...or
maybe it is my soul speaking for itself... amazing, i feel so amazing,
am so amazing, breathe so amazing... why am i alone? females...i need
female presence...is it a mother? is it a sister? is it a lover? i do
not know i just feel a hand bursting from my chest at all moments
begging for a female to be near. the eyes and the hair are nice, but it
is more about the presence, the sensation in my soul of having feminity
near me. That caring that seems to reside in a womans soul that is
never, ever flowing forth from a man. why this urge? is there an
explanation? is it just me or is this common? where is there a female
right now that would be up for sitting next to me and fulfilling that
void. it is not a selfish thing, because as soon as she shows interest
in being a part of the moment there with me I devote my enirety. I
would and like to believe i have done in those scenarios all that i
could to reciprocate the fulfillment that these women and girls have
blessed upon me. i do not know where i am going and i do not know why
or if i am the only one, but i do know that i always feel more secure
when thinking about the road i am on and the ones i will eventually
travel when i am discussing them with a female. It always seems to be
facts and opinions when i am working with males but it becomes soul and
emotion when I am dealing with smiling females. Everything is wrong
because we have this animal body. I want so much these females around
me i want to breath their happiness and be there happiness and be
nothing of their happiness, but it is so difficult to get anywhere near
where i want to be. I am not confident in my ability to convince any
female that these are my true intentions and it is because I know that
they know that we are all trapped inside this flesh that carries with it
all the things that are the human animal. In such I am terrified that
the only thing they can believe is that I am that animal and that animal
refering mainly to the power of sexuality over all things that we do
and all decisions we make and intentions we have. I am terrified that
these females can not believe that I am not my sexual desires. How can
initiate a relationship based on soulful connections of spiritual
bonding and pure blissful exchanging of life if you are under the
impression that all you are is a hunter, a animal on the hunt for sexual
gratification. Even worse is in the situations when those beautiful
connections are happening when all walls have been dissipated and then
you have to be confronted by the fact that no matter how sincere your
soul is about its journey your body is still on the constant alert for
gratification. and most of all and preceding everything and at every
moment I must realize that I am still sitting here entirely
alone...entirely alone...that is all that is me anymore is this
loneliness...it debilitates all else. i am so sorry to everyone else
who is inconvenienced by my search and all of those who are this lost in
their own search, please stay in love and smile because no matter where
you are and how cold the people near you are I am still somewhere alone
and open and sensitive to your plight and should it ever be convenient I
am more than happy to do whatever I can to help you be comfortable in
your dance of life...any of you.
3.19.7
semitemos era eht
tseb semit nehn ruor lous semyhr htiw eht ylevol sroloc no rouy dnim,
smile into your dance as you unwind
3.22.7
sitting atop a
quaint green knoll among a few randomly dispersed evergreens I am
reading Kerouac. Always when I am reading, especially Jack's work, I am
contemplating my goals and desires for my own life. This last bit of
information being the reason I usually read books that I enjoy multiple
times, because I tend to revel more in the inspirations the paragraphs
spark in me more than the content of the book itself. Therefor, I can
reread the book anytime because I do not quite recall enough details
make it boring and I have changed as a personality since the last
reading so as to allow for new revelations in response to the book.
Since I left on the second of the month for a road trip to and down the
east coast I have felt more fulfilled than I can remember when it comes
to having a grasp on hope for myself and my plans for anytime in the
future. I have over the last couple days been trying to surmise a plan
for the summer that would see me travelling extensively and engaging new
situations that will help this path I am leaning toward. As I stand
up, put my sandals back on, and go to take my first step a small sliver
of paper catches my attention. Why I pick it up and ignore the rest of
the debris on the ground around me I am not sure. My jaw goes slack and
my heartbeat skips into a faster pace as I read the few small printed
words on the underside..."follow your intuition, the universe is guiding
your life." This is a decently amazing moment. I can not, though,
come up with a perfect word to describe the sensation in my spirit.
Thinking of this lack of a word makes me think of the Kung
indians...them and their word "tain" which is their word for orgasm, and
also is the way they refer to the inexplicably sweet taste of the wild
honey the men collect from hives in trees and rocks in the wilderness
that they inhabit.
3.25.7
hope i do not know if i know
that i ever knew me or the one that is you. i am sorry if i turned you
off, but you were just so sweet and just so what i needed to see at the
moment. rain falling down on us. down on us? what is that suppose to
mean anyway? more towards, we were being rained down upon, but i know
you do not care just as you never would care if I could treat you like
gold as my eyes see your hair. so sweet, yet saturday morning you were
so gone as I so hit the road singing my irrational song of never being
where, when, and with whom I wish. Why, do i leave? that innate sense
that the family does harbor some care that you could never facilitate
for someone such as i...someone with whom you would never take the
time. oh, and oh, i hope the ink bled in to her soul. i hope the green
weaved roots of revelry untold for the dreams that are certain to
unfold on forever as long as her smile holds on until everything comes
together. and the red...please let her remember the red with its
intristic stitch chasing along always leading to some small corner in
the heaven of my head. the black lines and the yellow, please...please,
let them have bled into her soul, because everything I want to say is
everything I hope she wished to hear, but I must always be wrong as
there is always a catch when someone is near. never trusting myself
when they seem to lend an ear. outside it is what they like to refer to
as a beautiful day, yet right here with me it has yet to become a day
and may never...until i can have a her or a you or a me to lay on that
grass down there to look back up here and see that i am not alone
wishing to peel the skin from the bone and offer it to a focus group so
that maybe, just maybe i could become a new product. one that would
leave any of the hers looking to be one of the cures...uh...to
this...well i am not sick and i am not broken, i am just apparently not
labeled flashy enough for use. {"amazed that I survived."} there was a
tree friday night that danced more smoothly than i can offer. i just
can not figure why it is offputting that i notice something such as
that. just asking for intoxicating attention once a month, the full
moon maybe. just crying for a chance occasionally to engage an
attention that comes not with a sales tax or blank stare. I could tell
you about the stars, or sing about the days you wish to come, or just
stare...just stare softly at the serene scene of accompanying someone
along for a few moments' dream. i want to start a painting, but i am
discouraged that no one will look close enough to see it. i want to do
everything, but i can not live with the idea that it will just be me
alone even if someone is there.
3.29.7
(AM) "In the next
two years...it's all about being possible as shit that it goes down."
"But, are talking about like a religous armeggedon like?"
"Well
not so much, but in a manner. It's like..." I pause to the oh,
familiar click, click, flash. Twenty seconds of odd silence. "Yeah,
like I was sayin'..." The hand I was gesturing through the air with
weakens its swoop, my eyebrows furrow, lips tighten and twist slightly
to the left. "I comepletly lossed it, go ahead with what you were
saying."
He raises his chin and starts back in. "...solid, so
fucking hot it is just a huge solid metal ball. And it's like if you
were coming into it would start out like light atmosphere fluffly,
kinda, around you and as you move in soupy, and more and more dense as
you go..."
I interupt, "I can't believe forgot what I was talking
about...oh, but is it like extremely cold or extremly hot as your
sinking through the soupiness?"
With chin lowered slightly
looking up from under his eyebrows grinning like he is holding a present
behind his back that he knows is going to leave me forever in debt to
him, "Psshhh, hot as fuck dude."
"Yeah, but even if this planet
is the most interesting to consider as far as flashy dynamics I still
want to see it. That is what I am on at the moment...finding out how I
can manage transversing the land. From place to place living. Down
through Mexico and on to the tip, the bottom of the world. Then over to
aff...no, Australia."
"Fuckin' 'A' dude."
"And then over
to the coast of Africa and through the fertile crescent over through
east Asia then back to the Balkans, but I definately have to hit Turkey
and every shore of the Mediterranean."
"Oh armegeddon."
4.1.7
the wind is ripping through, no real attention to speak
of...faint dreams that the breeze yet remains to thieve it. seems as
they quickly dissipate into the quickly lost thoughts of just moments
ago. pretty smile...oh, you know you thrill me. wish i could have.
picture of perfection. direlect prior to conception. yet, you
ThRrill. eyes tell a long and sorrowful song if you forget to bring you
heart shield along. tomorrow there will still be a smile with you, but
for me the chances are few as there will have amassed nearly one
hundred miles between us and oh so many yearnings unseen in the both of
us. Would it be a mistake to trust. pictures, pictures, pictures of
you...and my hands' ink assuredly gone, and oh so long gone. But, is
the taste? is there evidence for this case or a delusion of ramblings
with no chance at conclusion. There are flowers, and trees, and
everything blooming...do you notice? would it unease you if I invited
you along to admire the pinks, the greens, the blues and even maybe the
lack of clues for an existence of a distance between us in this
trancendant instance? I just wonder, because I just love to
wander...and upon you I may have stumbled on one of these trecks and
crumbled into something so humble that the story had to be told, etched
onto flesh as to be temporary, yet oh so forever...unsure if it happened
or whether 'twas just a dream so clever.
we have all been tied
to words, and we sink. no never deny it. we have all been tied to
words and we sink. Trying not to fall in but instict has me leaning in
for the swan dive...directly into the asphault if that is where this
leads. No time to breath if your esteem is inflated by the breath of
others. no time to breath if you are not sure of their
interperetations...their intentions. no time to breath when you live
only through pen pressed to paper or flesh or soul in a hope of passing
some unnamed test.
Taylor: 7:13pm April 1st
i read your
beautiful note just now, and to me it just reminds me so much of the
weekend/night that you and dve spent here. even if thats not what you
had in mind whilst writing it-- that is what it makes me think of. i
liked reading it
Jaron: 7:42pm April 1st
i had hoped that
romanticism is prose was not such a lost state of mind as to not be
appreciated, thank you for your attention...if you do see it as the
night we spent together i am sorry if it is offputting for you to seem
such a muse, but i find the energy i was outlining in that writing to be
very enchanting and subtlely beautiful, and please allow me to thank
you
dance sweetly on the grass so softly,
jaron
Taylor: 7:51pm April 1st
you should not worry about stepping SO
lightly with the apology about whether or not i was a muse. whether i
was or not makes no difference in how much i just truly enjoyed the
writing. dont worry so much, and dont be so timid with things like
asking to draw on me like that past night, or things of that nature. you
have yet to offend me in any way. out of curiousity, what were you
writing about in that note, might as well ask since we are talking about
it. if thats personal, then just pay no mind to me haha and continue on
and have a good night.
Jaron: 8:06pm April 1st
I apologize
about my timid nature it may make more sense to you should we ever know
each better. as for what i was writing about you would have to read the
ending that i added to it a minute or two ago, then get back to me
4.2.7.
grey would be the color, but i am starting to scare myself...all the
hers make this all go away, make this all go away...yet, the she's are
the something that i can seemingly never have
4.4.7
(AM)
Tomorrow at two o'clock I have to be at...what kind of use is that of
the faculty of thought? planning? life would be so much easier if
formulating a plan could in some way truly fulfill one as does carrying
out a plan. And a life without plan... Tomorrow at two I have to
leave. Before leaving I will sway back a few sips of whiskey. Before
leaving I will subconsiously hope, and dream, and generally imagine what
will become of my leaving. Before leaving I will spend a few moments
meditating to the whimsical whimperings of Dylan's meloncholy works.
Tomorrow before I leave I will look into a mirror to like I expect
something horridly or heavenly new. Waisting my current moment planning
a moment expected to come. Leaving, I will forget about my day and
trancend into the day. Leaving, away will be suddenly closer to within
reach. When my surroundings shake loose that confining shade of home
and my eyes open wider under the intoxicating influence of yellow lines
stream, flash, flash, flash, streaming by will the time dilate? or will
I be trembling trying to swallow in every rapidly fleeting second,
watching the clock and dreading that...that sad, sad thing we love and
worship as home. Why a base, besides the support of familiarity? Why
not familiarity as the novelty of days spent in constant discovery? Why
not dance into new conversations with the most illiterate of strangers
just to breath that energy of the underdog before we mosey on down the
avenue to take up words clever with criminal strangers so new.
Strangers that can show us how to truly be strange by mearly divulging
the knowledge that strange is only an adjective describing those who
humor that they are but dancers on the planks of this stage. Can you
fathom tasting insanity for the sake of understanding the sidewalk from
its own underfoot view, or is yourself such an idea that it is the only
appealing enough for you?
4.5.7
(AM) her voice...so
soft, sweet...too much
4.6.7
(AM) I am creating a
colorfully recorded history of my highest bounds into the heavens and
lowest falls into the deepest of personal hells. That is what I am
doing when I sketch, or write, or paint. I am giving myself at
fifty-eight landscapes and portraits he can stand face to face with and
be relieved in his desire to know that all of those vague memories were
at one point on the grid actualities and realities. Dark lines growing
bolder will one day be the way Jaron recalls his wild adolescent self
growing more insane and/or older. Color schemes as my personality
attributes. Shade and pattern containing my most treasured
inspirations. The styles I will quiver when I someday recall. The
compositions that will bring a tear when they on some far away day again
come near. These snapshots of my mood, or idealism, or anxieties are
laying in desk drawers and sketched on forgotten walls, accumulating in
the hands of these muses. My life manifested, and traded and gifted
away to those who influence it. My ecstacy and my demise etched out and
handed to you. Like my yesterdays these pieces are falling more into
the hands of someone else. Will today eventually be one of the days I
traded away? Will I have to ask you, or her, or whoever for permission
to lay eyes on my past identity? Giving away myself and some seem to
enjoy the colors. Well, I could only try to believe that this is not my
mascara, and my foundation, and my way of being more beautiful than I
am. Is that not what an artist is doing in trying to channel their
heart into the most wonderful creation that they can...trying to
accentuate and cover up and embolden?
Lizzie: 1:17pm April
10th
hey there~ just read your note. beautiful.
my favorite: I
know when I sleep tonight these smiling faces... will be the most
beautiful spirits I could possibly dance into slumber alongside.
:)
im still wondering about a few of the myserious people you
mention... well, mysterious to me, not you....
lucy... the girl
making a sanwich... hmm
anyways..your story made me realize some
very important things... like how how little thing you do has meaning...
if not to you, then to someone else. some people can see through your
bullshit, some cant... but those that can end up knowing a lot more than
you might want them to.... i dont know.. there is much more going on in
my head right now but hard to put into words... but if someone can
understand that, it would be you.
take care love.
Jaron:
3:31pm April 10th
hello. I am so glad you find something appealing
in my words or my way of attempting to put them together in mirrors of
the beautiful pictures in my head.
the sentence you chose as your
favorite was very well chosen...love that line.
mysterious
people:
brahmzen-Eugene Zambrano
Nehve (sandwich love)- Lizzie
Parker
Lucy Girl - LSD
aerwid-Dave Shumate
Steilse-Kyle
Leister
Other people are the only validation we can have of who
we are. If honesty is not one of the top priorities of our personalities
our lives and interactions with those around us become but a game of
trying to decipher and convince ourselves of the real situation. Those
of us who have a love for human interaction and bonding spend our waking
life trying to form real connections with those around us by bypassing
the games and hangups that others put on as masks. Sorry if those of us
out there who spend their time doing this are a problem or intimidation
for you. But it is people like us who are truly going to care, respect,
and love those who let us within range. I am not sure if i can actually
see through people's bullshit, but I do hope I can see people for
something close to who they really are. I am glad I got you thinking a
little...unless of course it was uncomfortable for you.
soft
green grass 'neath your dancing feet,
jaron
Lizzie: 5:58pm
April 10th
okay i re-read it... hm.. this is interesting. i think
you picked up on something in me that even i didn't.
now, it would
only be natural for me to respond to your feeling that i was put off by
you by saying 'noo, not at all, i love you!".... but i think i was a
little.... and its hard to explain why... realllly hard to explain why. i
think i am more skeptical than i appear to be... or even than i think i
am... but maybe the reason i was 'put off' by you is that.. with people
who are so unique or eccentric or special or artistic.... i feel that
they are pretentious in some way, that they are TRYING to be
different... but then, i realized that maybe i just havent met anyone
who actually WAS unique or artistic in a novel sense and that most
people who i have met were claiming to be 'that' and really were
pretentious. but then i met you.... and i think you actually ARE that
artistic/special/etc.. and it took me a while to see it.. seee that it
was real i guess.
and i think i am .. something.. (dont really know
the word) of people who are very different from me and the people i am
surrounded by. but i dont want to be. and i dont think i will be...
i
guess this is how it goes in my subconscious...i do the things i think
are right and do them how i think they should be done. so when others
differ from that i think they are wrong. but they arent... just not the
same as me. this only applies to certain things though.. not ideas or
conversation, etc.. but like drug use for example. we have very
different styles... i feel you do it for a mental/spiritual journey, see
how far you can push it and how much you can experience. i do it
lightheartedly...for the way it makes me feel and for how i see
everything around me and just la di da da its a beautiful day!! type of
thing :) so at first i was kinda scared i think of your approach... but i
honestly do respect you and think very highly of you... and every smile
i smiled was sincere, if that means anything to you..?
okay..
woah.. you dont understand how wierd this is because i usually find
everything out about me myself.. and advise others.. and its is very
rare for someone else to bring something out of me that even i didnt
know existed... so.. touche to you my friend! haha
love love love
ps.. i am in love with this: soft green grass 'neath your
dancing feet,
smiling from ear to ear :)
Jaron:
6:34pm April 10th
Thank you very much for being honest. That
attribute is by far the most important we can display in a world where
words are weak and easily misunderstood anyway.
We all to a
certain extent tend to have a latent distaste for those who diverge from
our norms and morals. It is just that some are egocentric about it,
some try to hide it, and some are oblivious to it. In mentioning it in
my writing I was not pointing out a flaw in you, but a shortcoming in
myself by not being able to accept it when others disapprove of my
lifestyle.
As far as myself being overtly special or artistic or
unique...I do not try to stake a claim on it. I just do what I do and
try to explain myself to those who seem interested or flaberghasted by
my behavior or demeanor. Yes, I am artistic, but i see that only as an
outpouring of my spirituality and search for the answers about this life
that we all lead, or fail to lead. My uniqueness to me has never been
certain, I just love beauty and I love the fact that I am alive with
this most important of gifts, the human mind. In recognizing the
potential of it I made the decision to use my capacity for appreciating
the amazing nature of existence to the fullest extent possible where
some choose to search out a career or family or success.
I can
not lie, at the base, my substance use probably does have roots in
hedonism and escapism. Yet, I believe more fully that I utilize the
altered states of consciousness to experience new worlds and to gain a
different perspectives on the one that my body is grounded to. It is
most assuredly about a journey, but I recognize that the type of journey
taken via substance use can only take one so far, and when I get there I
have no doubts that I will not hesitate to discontinue the trip. Just
to make sure you do not have the wrong idea i must point out that the
states you seen me in at Langerado are not an everyday or weekly, or
monthly thing. They are constricted to those situations in which I feel
that I can truly learn or gain something. Langerado just happened to be
one of those situations in my mind. And I must point out that as we were
leaving and for days after leaving and even sometimes now when I look
back at it I wish I would have at least been in better shape on
Sunday...it was disrespectful to put myself in such a state that i could
not even say goodbye, hug, and thank all of you for your part in that
most amazing of experiences. I have voiced this countless times to dave.
i wish you could imagine how relieving it is to know that you
accept me for who i am and seemed to have been. I hope so fully that you
are sincere in saying I somehow attributed to your radiant smile that
weekend and hope so much more that nothing will ever dampen that smile
of yours.
a sweetly spinning home for you and me,
jaron
4.11.7
Grasping desperately at control on ambition to endeavor into not having
just fucked myself into some horrid hole with this whole college
thing. Contemplating chances of learning Spanish and traveling to South
or Central America to teach English or interpret or such for a few
years as to travel a bit. Then get back into schooling for some sort of
architectural design that utilizes my artistic bend. Or just up and
going for some sort of art attempt. I do not know. Lost. But
searching with hope, but so much discouragement.
Who am I to
dream of living beyond my apparent means by travelling and festival
hopping this summer? Who am I to assume I will perservere and make it
happen, and survive at that? I am trying to cross some paths, and
discover some paths, and be warned about some paths because I have never
been informed of these other paths because of the unfortunate fact of
my birth and childhood having occured in southern Indiana. I am trying
to hold true to this potential that I hold now in my youth and to never
regret having not followed my heart back then. I know following my
heart may lead me to regret not following my intuition and the
expectations of society, but I try to believe that I would be more
fullfilled with a satisfied heart.
you have some canvas fine and
satin
locks weaved in brilliance
time dispersed, in your gaze
4.14.7
To suddenly realize that you are living a different life than you were
just a year before...being confronted with the realities of that past
life you notice. Originally in that life your days were plagued by the
one nagging fear of living only that life, forever. Falling into that
life now you are terrified...wracked by disgusting, dark, doomed fears
of having to ever live that life again. Having to live your life
playing stealth games to avoid the eye of the republican population of
hateful socially stratified pack animals of small town Indiana. It is
so much more comfortable there, though; and you had not decided why.
The bottom. Things add up in the bottom. But this bottom is
constructed of some unfathomable magnetic force that restricts things
from added too far up or escaping in general. When I was thirteen I
asked the goth kid attending to a classy shoe store in Clarksville about
Bob Marley footware. He gave me the expression of having just gotten
out of fifty-three straight hours of in school suspension at Hell
Academy where he was forced to watch and rewatch a two part episode of
Bonanza while writing a precise screenplay for it as B. Arthur hums
offtune into a bullhorn aimed at his soul. Exhasperated he informed me,
"You better start crying now this entire place is a cultural fucking
sinkhole." There is nothing here but here and the love or hate of all
emcompassed by being a part herein.
I feel like sleeping.
Adulthood.
4.15.7
Trying hard to focus on some
aspect of the Mayan culture as to formulate and internalize a seven
minute speech for an anthropology class. Mind will not narrow enough to
complete the task. Mind will not. Mine is spacing so as to leave me
transfixed and transfixing my glazed gaze in directions the like of a
Greco-Roman garden maze. The Doors...cause people down there, they
really like to...the rythms keep a storyline for a chance at memory
coding the passing moment. Tell them not to run, we're gonna pick up
everyone...In the back of a rock 'n roll car?
4.24.7
Questions are getting you no more than more questions and more unopened
doors and so many left standing wide when you see the ladder waiting
inside. life is a set of courses to choose from. pick your club and
swing at an imaginary ball.
hcn 47-2076
Taylor
2:22am
May 3rd
hello, im hoping that your semester is closing nicely, and i
am sorry that we did not run into eachother again more recently. i
really want to wish you the best time this summer and i hope you share
amazing things and your art spreads (hopefully through festivals)....
tomorrow
is a busy day for me as im throwing belongings together and pretending
as if im not last minute before i leave friday morning. ive been waiting
for weeeks now on the allgood work exchange but i think i am going to
cave in and pay for a ticket once i make the money so that i do not miss
out-
i look forward to seeing you there, and i am extremely anxious
for my next chance to spend time with you and recieve more sharpie work
(and maybe one from me to you?). i really am very thankful that i met
you and i know it may be difficult to reach you this summer so lets plan
on meeting again in the fall sometime, small chance i may be elsewhere,
because i am feeling another itch in me whispering "move... lets pick a
new place.." ..but we will see. i dont plan on continuing classes in
the fall here for many reasons but i do plan to graduate from IU or
school eventually, and there IS a lease signed in my name beginning
august.. again, who knows. its more of an exaggerated whisper you see..
take
care of david this summer, and ill remind him to do the same for you
while you two travel. and please remember all of the tours you make when
you accompany the music. see you sooner than later
Jaron
2:55pm
May 5th
Taylor, please forgive me for my contortions of social
norms and language rules, but I must say a few things. Thank you so very
much for your well wishes, assuming they come in sincerity it really
means a lot. Thank you, as well, for advocating my "art." I only create
as to forget about the images of me that people create in their own
mind. I may be seen by some as an artist, but more than anything I am
the same human mind that has been so many others; a startling discovery
of mortality, and the futility of looking for answers, an epiphany, a
long painful inner battle, and a throwing away of societal values in
order to seek out those moments that truly satisfiy my thirst for
emotion, sensation, contemplation, and generally not ignoring the fact
that I am alive. Sorry, this may all be coming out in a very confusing
manner. What I think I am getting at is thank you for expressing care
towards my journey, but i just hope that you see that for me that is
what EVERYTHING is, the journey. I am so grateful that the world spinned
in the right direction long enough for me to get to spend away some
breath with you. You say you may be keep moving on. DO IT! the vibe you
put in my dance is intoxicating. take yourself wherever you may whim,
but take that beautiful world inside your eyes along with you. the only
course i see for my life is travelling and learning and
loving...basically taking full advantage of the idea that i am in fact
living. and i am sure there are many more out there just like me who
would do very well to come across your spirit wherever it is that you
see yourself roaming to. follow that itch in yourself, but do not forget
that life is not static, but dynamic in the most amazing sense of the
term so always welcome change. boredom is not a burden anyone should
bare.
Allgood, I hope so much to see you there. Do not be
anxious to see me. If you are sincere about wanting to weave some words
with me again sometime or even just sit in sweet silence, just smile in
comfort of knowing that I would gladly spend any amount of time with you
any where.
^
<jaron>
5.4.7
(AM) A subtle
place pinned away in the valleys and over the fielded hills between
deciduous forests skirting every scene hither. This place disengages
hope. Something here, or not here. Faces all seep with desire to
release expression, but the cheeks can not contort the outline of a true
smile here under this hazy cloud of apathy that serves as the breeze
cooling off the uncomfortable evenings. A beakon grabs the attention
with immediacy upon arriving or awakening to the days here. A reminder
of the earthy, in a decaying forest floor sense, value of your days.
Waste seems to become you, or at least try to convince you so.
Animals analyzing and considering their organic nature seems to leave me
feeling a little borderline on neurotic. But, is that not the basis of
the process? Question, question, and maybe just one more. Is that not
what this whole dynamic of control over thought links is about? Why
then does it lead me to feel like I am a dissention of the species? It
seems more that I am a deserter of the status. An unfortunate decision
for my self-esteem in an image based system, I do not fail to see this.
I just tend to die a little inside at the thought of giving up my idea
of the soul that I harbor somewhere in here to piddle away my attentions
at pleasing the attentions of a society of people giving me the same
eye as one gives their last pawn in a rapidly dwindling chess match.
I guess I will keep thinking and continue sinking further into this
world that is so much so mine, and mine alone, so it seems. If you
happen to be there when at last I finally dissipate into a void reach
not in to retrieve me, but toss in a flower to follow. It would be nice
to have some color to keep company when the days begin to dim down
there in the depths of myself, your world having been left far behind.
Manuvering through the birth canal of social insanity a daisy just may
save the day. Some jaded symbol of a friend that may exist or a soft
midnight kiss.
Sad, though, that no matter how far I fall and
how away I may slip this place will still be a ball and chain
restraining me somewhere in a corner far from hope for my confidence.
No, this vacuum can not be overcome outside of a long and ambitious get
away run. So search forever for a severance from the temperance of
time because someday, somewhere you may just find a door to outside this
universally downtrodden mind.
Drive country roads to forget
about small town people with locked up spirits in midwestern homes.
Walk blindly into a treeline to escape for a moment. Yet, no matter
what I escape I always find myself out of breath and confonted with
nothing more than more of me. Not a problem if I was an idea that
necessarily warmed the chest, and peaked the interest of the mind at
rest. We come tramping along whistling faint lines to outdated hymns in
hopes of finding each other. Tramping along in parallel directions,
but on perpindicular paths looking for the new right somewhere to reveal
the new math. One that will explain this new human state.
Descartes where could you be? Is there anyone among us with an idea.
Put it forth, fore I wish nothing more than for even a misguided answer
from someone who shares this generational handicap. The millinials they
may call us, but who are we? Stagnant.
Tomorrow is
twenty-five minutes already here and I had yet to notice. Tomorrow
please bring more when you come knocking on this creaking door.
Tomorrow...are you real or are you like every other friend of mine?
Will you come only to tell me more tales of family members dying and
beloved pets crying from beneath sullen basset eyes? Will you wake me
with shouts, giggles, or whimpering? Will you wake me at all?
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow...is there anyone near with a better choice
that I could possibly borrow?
Taking photographs of today to
remind me down the road. Is the memory in and of itself a purpose to
serve? Play frantically to release enough adrenaline as to ensure a
recollection. Material possesion outweighing emotional completion. It
is a crippling concern for those who choose not to amass that which can
not escape with the life's energy there in that last emmaculate release
at one's passing. Will a mountain of silk and twenty-dollar bills serve
as a ladder in assisting the spirits up out of the mental landscape
into the hereafter? Memories, please do not let me down.
Point
out the correlation between the apparent lack of self confidence and the
choice of the lower road, easily transversed without fully potentiating
oneself in societal standards. It does seem to exist, yes; but, could
we be so blatantly blinded by bold urges, spiritual in nature, toward
the humble material style and autobaun mind in highest gear.
Questioning is the only thing to do in such situations when one is
inclined away from placing of faith in such. Apparently such we may
be. Tearing us apart, we are, with our own indifference; yet too
integrally enamored of it to unattach ourselves from its lull. Is this
us, or we, or our generation, or could it possibly be just you and me?
Forget it if it makes sense. Ignore it if it seems clear. Similarity.
It just may be the key to this link between every life and you and me.
I. "Just because you feel it does not mean it is there." We all see
ourselves as 'I' and we all share the point of view of 'Me.' So, could
there not be some latent sort of liberating link between one and every?
Roaming mind on the small town grind. A lost cause in so much
as it is an unfit an undenied confusing sort of nest in which to raise a
bird who wishes only, under the sun, to sing. This place. This
place...or could it just be me? When I think "comitted" should I not
think 'ambition?'
Now my voice trails off into indistinct
hums and whispers, whines and wails...oh, and the most hauting violin
piece that any ear ever did conceive.
5.17.7
(am)
"Could you hit that light, man?" Finally the question mark slacks into
the layers of folds and shadows cotton and silk of the sheets and
blankets that have been tossed onto the floor for him to sleep on,
under, and among tonight. Uncover the darkness of the room down here so
that he can heal wounds aquired so often facing the day light once
again hidden somewhere beyond the horizon up the stairs and out the back
door in the scene of the grass-tree-soil arrangement that is the
hyphen's 'home.' That day light that penetrates the blinds each morning
to soak into the question mark's sleeping shoulders to slowly
disillusion and warm his dreaming mind back into the completeness of
reality. Lately his head has been laying to rest in a new house, the
same bed. The window faces east. Of all the houses and trailers he has
ever fluffed into 'home,' of all the windows, none can he recall that
faced east. The sun waking him directly with its heat, not just the
presence of the light itself, is a novel new reason to welcome tomorrow
as today.
The hyphen softly plucks downward the small chain
light switch.
Cross-legged on the floor twelve feet away a
man with sparsley distributed stringy white hairs flowing from his scalp
looks at the picture posted on the waiting room's bulletin board.
Letting out a muted giggle he motions toward it commenting on the
perfortated edges of the sheet of paper that the two-toned portrait of
the new doctor in the clinic. "Hope the doc's techniques are as
outdated as that ancient ass printer that pushed that out probably
weighs more than the tumor they are cutting out of my sister up there."
How does one respond to that? Sarcastically, "Does the tumor get its
own seat at dinner?" Ouch, that makes one feel ashamed; to joke about
someone's encounter with mortality and the extremely concrete nature of
it.
He must have seen it in my eyes, the uneasiness at the
subject. "Don't fret about it, her body finished her off a few years
back. She decided to quit being alive when the she could not control
herself enough to carry out her daily tasks. She's still responsive.
She wrote her poem on a canvas that she knew would carry her essence on
at least twenty-four hours longer than her heart continues to beat.
Then her eyes faded. She had left, died, then. Now they just keep her
body going so the canvas can not bare to let itself fail to live up to
her intention." The man is fidgeting a dollar bill and a ten dollar
bill in between his fingers as he speaks. He inspects them intently.
Then he leans closer and asks for verification that he is holding eleven
dollars.
"Yeah, there is a one and a ten there, man."
"Thanks buddy, my sight is not much anymore...and the hearing is
puttin' out fast." Is he crazy, one asks? Delirious?
Reserved
and contemplative the doctor in the picture comes around the corner
into the waiting room. He leans in toward the strange man whispering
into his ear. The man nods and the doctor lowers his head walking out
of the room. The man stands up with the the most blank and yet content
expression ever dawned. He half-laughs, "Finally some a sense of
assurance...no confusion." One edges away in their seat as the man,
facing them, tugs his shirt over his head and tosses it aside. He turns
and struts out the door. As he exits one makes out a stanza tattooed,
very unprofessionally, on his back.
Here, brother,
is your chance
to not have to question or plan
one day my spirit,
through this, can live on past my enemy; my fleshen self
One day, you
have, once it is gone to live ecstatically in the moment
then
release my spirit through weilding the control you exert over yours
and
feel not sorry; for you could be so free
Curse the sytem
of society for setting life up as such that to be accepted by one's own
family they must follow some grand and unfulfilling guideline.
Talking, talking, expelling words to you (everything to me). Why do
you not stop me in dumping of thoughts, confessions, opinions, and empty
wisdoms? If you can not care and attend to what I just said please do
not allow me to continue with what I am about to say. Why do I question
what I impulsively do? Is that not denying what is, closest to the
surface, me?
Intense poles at which I spend my life,
emotionally. Sometimes something hits a note that aligns my spirits to a
higher tune so that I may dance along for a day or a few weeks
overzealous with acceptance and love for life, for living. Without
warning or warrant; often without any discernable trigger everything
that I recognize as my conscious "me" pangs with the frantic pains of
resisting, on the verge of futily, complete submersion into a confusing
dissastifaction with life. A deep and overcoming resentment of my
existence in a situation that does not allow me to fathom my own
nature. Not hatred. Not anger, per say. It is always controlled in
that it is focused on me and existence itself. It does not blind me in
such a rage that I misdirect any of the emotion toward people, places,
or things. When it comes on my body revolts by screaming, painfully, at
me to discharge the bad energy or whatever word could describe the
intruder into my minds seemingly rational baseline. All that I can
think in the moment is that I must get away from people; as not to make
them uneasy. That, and swarming dissappointment in my own self control,
but confusion over where I have gone wrong. It is an actual physical
occurence in my body, a very uncomfortable one. It also causes a chaos
in orderly thought processes that seems to trigger some electrical
sensation in my muscles. It sometimes passes in moments, and it
sometimes lingers, fades, resurfaces, and generally plagues me for
days. In those moments that its onset catches me offguard, looking
back, it seems that I always unconciously locate the most immediate
material object of importance to myself and slam my fist violently
toward the center of the object's essence in order to affirm for myself
that I am seperate from the material world that wields control of human
actions, yet so much at bay to its reared fangs. I have gotten to a
point that I can consistently restrain myself from lashing out at
in-animate objects, yet this leaves me only to crumble into pathetic
sobs out of the pain of the unwanted anger. Days spent wincing
perpetually struggeling in a straight jacket of despair wrought by my
inability to just shut off the hopelessness for comfort. Forgive me for
the apparent admission of my disposition, I am just trying to pin down
and understand the coordinates of that hell.
(after sleep)
The sun's shadow has already passed up my pillow this morning as I walk
into this new "my room." So many of these I have went through.
Trailer on the farm. Small half brick house near the golf course.
Trailer on the hill behind The Ritz. House high on the hill behing
Springs Valley Elementary School. Grandmother's basement. Trailer with
a house built around it on the farm. Two story house in the bend of
150 East. Trailer down a long driveway past Kyle's home. House on
Thornton Street looking at the town over the funeral home's shoulders.
Trailer off highway 37 by Lick Creek. Overlook Apartments in Bellevue,
Nebraska. Trailer on the water tower hill. Farm house on Keller Road
in West Washington. The trailer from the water tower hill, but moved
twelve miles out 37 South. A friend's barn in the country toward
English. Cedar cabin on Maud street. Two story house across the street
from the one in the bend of 150 East. Half brick house on A Street.
High up in 1110 Cromwell Hall on Indiana State University's campus. Now
here, 322 S. Sycamore Street where the sun finally rises across my
pillow...and I missed it this morning. Are these homes part of my
identity when others consider me?
Ticking away the last few
moments before putting myself on hold so to go to work. A handful of
jobs I have worked. Construction laborer for Paragus Construction in
Nebraska. Laborer for the family cable laying company in Nebraska and
Florida. Cashier and drive thru at Hardee's. Lift operator at Ski
Paoli Peaks. Cashier and such for Wendy's. Board operator, voice
talent, and casual laborer for Mix 95.3 WUME and 96.9 WKLO radio
stations. Cashier and drive thru at Hardee's in Terre Haute. Cashier
at Taco Bell / KFC. Is this employment history me?
Me as a
cartoon, he says, is the green light that glows from the hood of my '94
Ford Escort swirving along the road with Bob Dylan lyrics streaming out
of the window in quote bubbles.
5.20.7
Watching ahead
for roads perpindicular to the one I am driving down through the trees
and yards as I approach intersections; keeping an eye peeled, making
sure it there does not seem to be a family vehicle approaching...long as
there does not seem to be children approaching the same corner I hook
it fast and wide ignoring stop signs. Throwing the fear of death out
the window over the overwheling fear of life. It is not that I do not
completely respect and love being alive, but I become weak and nauseous
at the facts of the system that has been constructed to contain life.
Maybe I am a pathetic failure of a human being, but I can not convince
myself that sacrificing spiritual instincts in order to fall in line
with a consumerist system is a valid application of this life that I
am. Tires screeching as I break the corner the faint sense of relief
compares not whatsoever to the grief that pangs in my gut realizing that
there is no semitruck heading directly at me to deliver an end.
Hell, as in a post mortem realm of eternal condemnation, is not a part
of my existential picture. Though, should it exist, and I whither away
for all eternity, at least I will not be doing so with the looming cloud
of a different choice over my head. This is why life is much more
scary than a fabled "hell." In life there exists free will to get away
from the pain. The only sure way of eluding it being to turn your body
off. But, that is hoping that the mind does not escape death, for the
pain felt by the mind is so by and gone more painful than that of the
body. This must be the rationalization swimming around in the halls of
the minds of those who self inflict bodily harm in order to ease that of
the mental and emotional bend.
Not that I want to die, but I
do not necessarily know if I can handle being uncomfortable, sad, and
mad as I live for life goals that I do not harbor a cradle for in my
soul. I love my mother, but she has made it thus far in living. If she
can handle the pains and losses that most certainly have befallen her
untill this current juncture I am quite sure she could handle losing me
to something she does not agree with or understand. As I compose this I
understand that should anyone ever read this entry it will be
interpreted as some sort of suicide note. It is not such. Everything I
have ever written, sketched, painted, or otherwise created is my
suicide masterpiece (not that I am so arrogant as to suppose my death
will be a notable event to many). It is unquestioned in my mind that,
barring an unforseen accident, I will be the one to orchestrate my own
death, but at the moment it is not planned for the immediate future.
5.30.7
We have arrived in Chillicothe for the 2007 Summer Camp Music
Festival. I decide upon a campsite atop a knowl covered by cedar and
hard woods trimmed well above twelve feet high. Unfolding the tent and
tossing the stakes on rods to the side a man in his mid-twenties drops
his two tents and a box of supplies just down the hill from me saying,
"I'll give you a hand for a hand." The task of setting up my five to
six person tent was quite a bit more of a focused process than was his
small three person tents. Once we finish setting up his tents I step
into the tent that Aerwid and I will share until Monday. To the left of
the tent approximately one or two hundred yards is the Sunshine Stage.
Seventy five yards forward and slightly right down off the slope of the
hill is the Camp Stage. The last time this tent was used was Earth Day
2006 for Napier's annual Four Twenty Fest. There is still a little dry
dirt speckled across the bottom. Probably dirt tracked in by my
stumbling feet last April when I was floating around the hill.
Aerwid removes his brand new hexagonal shade tent from its box. We set
it up and tie it off to trees to support it against the moderate wind.
Pinned onto the shade tent for privacy and aesthetics are several
tapestries. An enormous portrait of Bob Marley playing guitar. A
graffiti piece of my own; a green butterfly fluttering out of a patch of
red mushrooms atop the word "Belong." A tye-died background behind a
big black lined smiley face. A graffiti piece of my own with a weeping
face and the words "Times Spent." Another graffiti piece across one
side of the opening between the tent and shade area with a large blue
and red representation of my tag sign. Inside the door entrance of the
shade tent is my American peace flag. The inside of the shade tent is
well obstructed from outside view. Inside is an wooden end table with a
long blue psychedelic paisley-esque tapestry. We have swept away all
the ground cover to reveal a floor of soft dry soil, that of a pine
forest.
The pink cloud is holding me steady for now as Thursday
evening comes on. Music begins to pulse non-stop from the Camp and
Sunshine stages. Next to us is a large campsite of people from New York
and Colorado. Behind us are two or our neighbors from Buffalo; Jorset
and Ragaelise. As the night fades dark Aerwid falls asleep as I lay
starring at my eyelids listening to the amazing guitar lines blazing
from the the tent of Jorset and Regaelise. Somewhere further off into
the woods are scattered drum circles that compliment the guitar lines
well enough to pardon me into slumber as the rain falls throughout the
night.
Friday morning wakes me early. Two young mamas in sun
dresses with a basket of sugary magical treats, one playing with a
visine bottle between her fingers stroll along and into the shade tent.
Keller Williams and the W.M.D.'s are on when I arrive at the
Moonshine stage and sit down among the crowd on the hill. Wearing my
guillies I begin pulling sharpies from the black purse that hangs from
my waist. I begin filling in the unfinished piece over my right shin
that I began during Galactic's set at Langerado 2007 and furthered at
the Umphrey's Mcgee show at the Murat on April 7th. A girl setting to
my left gently asks me if she could possibly use one of my markers. I
agree so long as she draws on the left shin of my guillies. It is warm
and quite sunny.
Jorset, Ragaelise, Aerwid, and I are
conversating over a partaking of the dragon's breath. Ragaelise and I
are sketching on each others' pants. For her I draw a flowering piece
of existence jewelry. For me she draws a simple but intricate mandala.
Suddenly we all turn our attention to a man face down to the left of
the shade tent. Aerwid sarcastically comments, "Is that guy eating
dirt?". The man jumps up and muffled by debris in the mouth grumbles,
"Yeah, I'm fuckin' eatin' dirt!"
The night is coming on
swiftly. Jorset offers to me a hit as we conversate in the shade tent.
Two young girls sprawled to my left on the bean-bag lounge chairs that
Aerwid brought with the smiley face to their backs opposite Jorset on
the right side of the table with an American flag behind him a peace
flag in place of the fifty stars . The girls, Alesh and Ash, were my
neighbors earlier this year in Sunrise, Florida at the Langerado Music
& Arts Festival. They are discussing the idea of trying to court
the lovely lucy for the first time. No one objects. They both begin
their immaculate first lysergic dance. I again take her by two hands
into a faster diddy myself. Sequences begin to jostle for mental
clarity and some fail miserably. People come and go. I ask Jorset
about the funky guitar playing from his tent last night. He smiles, "I
play a little." The night pushes on and the dark grows darker.
Sometime here the dirt guy stumbles into another guy sleeping in a
hammock and a confusing scuffle breaks out ending with five of our
neighbors holding the dirt guy down.
Leaving the campsite the
unmistakably volotile aura that was bursting, sweating, and generally
pervading the ecstatic and chaotic tent society inhabiting these
Illinois woods. Up and down the dark pathways small galaxies of
flourescent trails flow behind the locks of a young dread locked mamas
and the glowsticks weaved into her hair, flashlights aimed at open palms
between huddled strangers, and all sorts of faint illuminations of the
energy bounding all around. All varieties of activities which would
warrant wicked flabberghasted gawks in the normal world are happening
around every corner here. Freakers loosely gathered around their
speakers so enamored with the liveliness of the scene that they seem
lost from any reality of dispair or exhaustion. Zombies shuffle from
dark nothingness directly into the crowd never seeming to acknowledge
the precence of another person. A mysteriously silent couple step into
my path and take my hands into a strange baboon hypnotized by an
accordian type of dance then disappear.
Back at the campsite I
sit with my back to the door or the tent facing the front door of the
shade tent. To my left sit Alesh and Ash giggling uncontrollably. To
my right is Jorset and Aerwid. Across the table are three or five other
faces. One is seated with a djembe. We are all mad with lucy and
intent in our attention to Jorset plucking and strumming wonderfully
energizing melodies in the candle light. I interupt to ask the young
man with the djembe why he is not playing. He fisheyed and glowing with
innocent joy speaks softly, "Oh, does anybody mind if I play?"
My flesh instantly transforms into a cold canvas of goosebumps while my
blood fluctuates to a boil under the skin. The faces around me all
change. Some jaws go slack. Some eyes go wide and some close in
disbelief. A overwhelming explosion of auditory excellence. Jorset
stops playing his guitar. The drummer's eyes roll back into his head as
it bobs from lap to sky, left to right. His hands...there are not
words in my repetoire which explain the beautiful thing going on with
his fingers and palms here before us, gathered in awe. At some point I
realize that another drummer has posted up with bongos just outside the
shade tent. I beckon him in to join.
Back on the path I run
into a outlandish cart covered in plexi glass and glow sticks blairing
music from the middle of one of the dirt intersections. On all sides of
it are scattered dancers jiving in all manners to apparently different
beats within the same tune. At the wood's edge Aerwid, Alesh, and I
pause without hesitation to take in the light of a couple of performers
with flames on sticks and fireballs on chains. With complete reign over
the focus of our attention the fire dancers bask in their ephemeral
glory here before the gathered festival folk. Just aside the spectacle
is a group of at least twenty drummers pounding away a soundtrack to the
scene. So much energy and life is contained in the firelight before me
that I must turn my head away. Looking over my shoulder I take in the
strangely relaxing realization that us three with so much happenstance
to our front have a wide blank black night covered field to our backs.
Looking back my reason fails as my wonderment seems to suggest this
elustrious and yet so mundane light display with these eyes on lock is
the only life in the field.
Up the hill and around the far
corner of the woods we come upon a scene that boggles me for a moment.
On the Campfire Stage is a bluegrass band jamming away with the life of
the brightest noon hour for a crowd of people looking like they just
woke up for the bluegrass party here 'neath the stage lights at probably
three or four A.M. Saturday morning, sunlight hours far away in either
direction. I am wide awake, but I can not fathom being as lively as
those here at the Campfire Stage. Hillbilly or country, whatever label
is chosen, know that these people are on a whole other level. The look
in Aerwid's eye seems to say the exact same thing, and away from the
stage lights back into the darkness.
Alone back in at the camp
I hear a hullabuloo down on the trail as several people start growling
and rumbling as if they were doing sound effects for a bad motor bike
race. After that dies down I hear Micheal Jackson songs blasting from a
moving source down on one of the trails. Aerwid joins me. It is about
an hour or so from daylight. Michael Jackson music seems to play until
close to daybreak. We retire to the tent to attempt at some shut
eye.
Somehow as the daylight is making itself known Aerwid
actually drifts off into sleep.
Laying under three blankets
staring, with one eye half cocked and the other wide, at the
crisscrossing lines of the tent's seems and poles and the rain cover
above them things begin to shift and intensify. I feel my point of view
sinking away from my body. My mental processes continue in a manner,
yet they seem to be proceeding from somewhere far behind and below the
head that normally contains them. My eyes still sending the picture of
the intersections of the various lines of the tent above my body. I can
only slightly command my limbs to move. A moment of panick. 'Should I
awaken Aerwid to keep me alive...and...or...sane?' From what I always
consider past psychedelic breakthroughs I surmise to ride it out. If I
am going, why make more of a ruckus out of it. It is my passing after
all. Not Aerwid's. Not the medic's. Or sad family members on the
other end of cell phone. Besides I cannot control my funtions enough to
talk anyway. This is all happening in the span of minutes. Somewhere
between five and thirty of them. Suddenly my body does not exist
anymore. I am where ever it is that my mind sank away to when this
began. The last thing to go is the eyes.
The lines and the
geometrical shapes formed by their meeting points give way to the
grandest picture that has ever been revealed to me. The lines become
black nothingness. The spaces between them transform into seperate
scenes of existence. There are an unimaginable number of these scenes.
No longer are they above\in front of me. They stretch out in every
direction around me. Three hundred and sixty degrees. Without the
constraints of the body and its simple eyes my disembodied mind
perceives them all at once. Floating there amidst these scenes I begin
to decipher the images. They contain all of existence. A single panel
for each component contained within history and everything beyond. One
is a wooden barracade protecting a wooden castle, early dark ages.
Another is a strange animal I have never seen in a field of a grass
species that I have never beheld, prehistoric seemingly. One is a
gaseous cosmic scene, like on the cover of a science magazine. Yet
another is some building that could not belong anywhere beside the
distant future. Suddenly the awe of the situation is overcome as I
realize my "spirit" has escaped into some timeless limbo of sorts. The
realization begets an emotion the english language fails to convey. I
forget who my spirit belongs in. I am searching these endless scenes
for one that seems to fit. If I pay too much attention to any certain
one I begin to slip into it. 'What if choose the wrong one?' Then one
stands out to me and I give in. As I feel myself being vacumed into the
grips of a single moment and facet of existence relief sets in as I
realize that I am again within the physical structure that is recognized
as Jaron. I fight to exhaustion trying to gain control of this body. A
movement. A breath. And then there it is, a tear. A giggle. A
sigh. I am once again me. All I want is to sleep.
I roll over
and eat seven milligrams of clonazepam and three milligrams of
alprolazam. No sleep. After the benzodreams have cut the edge off of
my nerves I stand and leave Aerwid sleeping at the campsite to stumble
around in the fresh Saturday morning for a few moments.
Saturday is all about wish washing around in the rain waiting for Les
Claypool to take the stage. I set far out on the hill in across the
Moonshine stage listening to Cornmeal play drawing on my white shorts as
the cool rain falls. When the techs begin bringing out Les' equipment I
make my way to the stage. His all black suit matches perfectly his
tall black glasses and sleek black midget top hat. Les blows the mind
with that bass. The performance is funky as can be, slightly dark, and
perfect for the rain. All that could have been asked for as far as more
goes is a nighttime set.
6.2.7
Marengo town store so
quaint and dark and country. So not any other place. The diner on
Tremors.
6.8.7
(AM)
Dancing, literally, under the
stars and streetlights on the elementary school playground that my
childhood recesses played out upon. Feeling great. Warm pink cloud
pampering all joints and muscles. I stretch often; trying for some time
to make it a habit. Ritual on a personal level seems to hold some
secret toward desensitizing oneself to the overwhelmingly uncontrollable
nature of personal existence. Ritual. I guess I have always leaned in
that direction in some way or another. The only thing under grasps is
the idea that the necessary actions and courses are not being taken.
Some latent psychosis assaulting at any attempt or even thought of
giving in to the mold of the normal systems. Not in rebellion, or so it
seems; but, more out of spiritual intuition. Hard to live with because
the mold of the normal systems holds that this "spiritual intuition" is
hethenism, heresy, or schizophrenia. All of which may fit my
desciption, but realizing and analyzing the views of normalcy for
decisions and paths fails to ease any of it. Lost I may be, but lonely I
am definately more so. Therein lays the greatest source of the
discomfort and indecision.
(PM)
The frontman of a
bluegrass-gospel group asked me four questions. Name? Age?
Christian? Single? Showed me a picture of his daughter and asked for
my phone number. I was just trying to thank him for playing "Supper
Time." The fondest memory I have of my great grandfather is his soul
filled singing and wailing of that hymn every so often back in my
childhood on Sunday mornings in the confines of the Little Mission
Church.
6.10.7
Well....this was not suppose to happen. I
calculated wrong. Art to those who will proliferate it. ian. my
mother. sea wave painting to C. math. Sketchpad to R. math.
love
6.17.7
The moon is crescented in the eastern sky,
opened toward the south at an upward angle of about thirty-five
degrees. Directly out from it at that angle are a series of four
stars...the only bright stars showing in the eastern sky tonight.
7.10.7
These things, these days, these thoughts, and this "i" are fumble
tumbling along somehow. To where and what ends and of what means? No
certainty is available any longer for an answer. Yet, there is a
comfortable solitude in that helpless, or is it hopeless, notion.
Our parental unit serves as the measuring utensil of our dues
to and within reality. Mothers, fathers, and any other who may take
charge in guiding and restricting the wonderings of our youth; they cut
away the umbilical cord at birth yet we are oh so attached to them for
some time afterwards. When that restricting role dissipates or in some
cases is so violently dashed is the first moment that, that guiding role
becomes clearly and unmistakably apparent. Sitting away from that
parental comfort radiated by the roof held up by the labors of the
parents it begins to sink into one's psyche. Whether long have been the
feelings of love or deep have been the chains of hate the influence and
affects are undeniable, even if one can remain blind or resistant to
recognization of them.
Is the vast potential of the human
psyche and mental meanderings itself so unfathomable and wild that all
who exhibit the character of a human mind are inherently cursed with the
pains of yearning for an understanding of their own self? In more
simple terms, does everyone have a epic battle with the knowledge of who
and what they are and are to be?
7.28.7
(AM)
timefuckwhatisthisanymoreihelditinforsolongbecauseofmyhonorandrespectforfriendshipandnowitjustsohappensthatthatfriendshipisbeingdecayedbyvilesprayedfromtheothersidejustasthatthathasbeenchaineddeepbehindmytearfilledgleamingeyesisbeingreachedoutforbythespiritthatmyeyeshadbeenconsumingandmydreamsbecomingandmyloveohmylovemyintentionsmorethantheverybestbuttherelaysanimpossibilityifIcannotsidestepmyferventgriptohonorasfarasfriendshipevenwhenthefriendshipseemsdeterioratedlovelovelonelinesstricksusintoitbutdoesthatcheapenitandiguessthislovewasthereevenintimeswhenlonelinesswasnotallofmeamicompletelyinthewrongoristherejustnorightanswerineedoneineedsomeconsolenceinthesetimesofcompletelossofallpastandrecentfriendstheonlyoneremainingbeingthecontingentuponwhichallofthisconfusionanddespairrevolvesbutshehasalwaysstoodasexactlywhatihaddubbedhersolongago"mywonderfulwonderingwoman"andthatistheonlyroutethatcouldatthisjunctureleadmebackfromthebottomthehopelessdesperatehorridbottomwhereshitaddsupinthebottomshitaddsupinthebottomsowhyisitsofuckinghardformetotakeherhandoutofthisholeiloveLOVEmyfriendbutheisjustasneuroticasmeandsohardtojudgeasfarashisownloyaltyihadneverdoubtedituntilhenevervisitedonceihadleftanythingANYTHINGiwoulddotobeabletoworkthisoutbutidonotknowhoworwheretobegin
-----> am i just going to remain here in the bottom?
todenymyselftheendofmylonelinesscoulddrivemetoanatrociouspositionyettodosowillassuredlylandmeinmuchanimositywiththefriendwhomisodearlyloveandnoonewouldevenbelievemeifitriedtoexplainwhatireallywantfrommywonderfulwonderingwomananywaypleasesomethingsomeonesavemefromthishellaciousstalemateinthebottombecauseidonotknowhowmuchhighericanhandletheshitaddingup
7.29.7
Something I can not help but ponder. So those elegant highrises stood
there yonder as you, my eyes tried to read through. Did your find
anything fancy enough in there to fandangle your angle farther away or
is for me that your fire burned so brightly for there yesterday.
Because let me tell you as tellingly as possible a tale of my
temperature when you have always been, were, and ever are near enough to
touch; even if of such I have only last night been lucky enough. My
tense flesh flushes soft. My painfully black painted heart pumped neon
pink in a start. The tears tuck out and down my tenderly warmed cheeks,
but do not fret for if their origin you ever find comprehensible it is a
relief i can not imagine you would ever forget.
Met a crazy
ass cat in a crazy ass black and white striped hat and carrying a
matching cane wearing a zorro mask. He is an artist. Designs, prints,
and sells t-shirts with amazing designs...and he has an explanation for
every facet of each design...and they are intriguing and thoughtful
though maybe a little outlandish. He joined us in marking each other
and the random girls in the crowd that stepped up and asked. One of
them try to hand me two dollars. I told her I would not except it
unless she wrote her name on it. She did...and her phone number? We
rocked out for Particle. Girl talk went on and right on stage in the
front was our my in the crazy ass hat. Damn, I never climbed the rock
wall with her, and I had promised. The city looming in the background
was nice...AND THE RIVER (oh my!!!).
7.31.7
peeling the
night in two. One streaming side to our left. One to the right. On
we continue this slow ride. Though the speed differs at moments just let
me know. Turning and weaving and rambling along things inside are
quiet and outside is one beautiful song. Crickets, the whir of forests
rushing by, dogs, nature, and even the frogs are serenading us as we
skip on down these rough concrete seams of our local world. If we come
to a turn either of you has never taken just give word. For no road
within range should not have, at least tonight, be yours. On forward.
On toward anything but the pain behind. I hope this trip is taking us
far enough for the pain to have skipped your mind. Peeling the night in
two. Have you thought about it? Do you have an idea of which side is
the right side for you? There...right there...there is where I would
want to be if I were a part of you...the corner of you soft mouth when
you smile. So, so...so have you anything I should know. So powerful,
you, that you can just poke me for a bit of the honesty. Look, look up
at the grey moon shining for us to fill full every possible cranny every
possible nook. Shining down a wonderful shimmering gleam for
everything on the ground. Ask me "So, you like her," and I giggle. I
giggle because it feels strange to love more than the earth's own
immaculate daily dance a fragile human's accepting glance. So much of
me in all that is so vast, yet all the moments spent pondering them are
by the thoughts of smiling little her, so much so, surpassed. Love as
you prance across the grass' soft wet sheet with you sweet bare feet.
Love, love, love. I am not speaking of anything else so put any doubts
on the shelf.
8.6.7
Not recognizing the gate I have
stumbled into. Not sure 'tis one to turn me around or take me on
through. Look at me seething and tell me truthfully is it worth
whatever it is that you pay to receive. Look at me and tell me
something...something sly...something poignant...something to remind of
how to open such a gate. Lie to me you surely will and even more
assuredly have. Lie to me, but what is a lie when all that is ever
heard is lip service sadness such as, "life ain't that bad." Do not
forget your smile. I mean do not forget that I am serious about my
smile and I am serious about the warmth; and in all orders I am serious
about the the sting. The sting in the mind. The mind that is around
too much, far too much, wrapped. You are a beautiful thing.
Beautiful. Contrast, a quite stark one, to my misconstrued
happenstance. I do not mean it as a rhyme or a reason or any other
excuse to cheer you, for it just might not be that time of season. I
fiddle with fickle words to facinate or alleviate, but in your situation
I just try to convey myself. Never hiding. Never lying. Never
disguising the uglies that you should not be privy to. So take my words
and forget them if you must for they will never be as real as the me
that is soon to become the earth, the most grandiose of dust. A person
decayed and becoming a tree and a breeze is me when I am relieved. A
person smiling and seething to please is the happy version of the person
you see as me. But, a person...a person, that is all that is truly
me. A person lost, and maybe alone, just wishing for...well just
wishing. So leave my key at the hearts front door if you wish not to be
a howl in that wind, or a crease in that smile. I promise it is a key I
wish was never molded, but I promise just as concrete in that if 'twas
anyone should, you should hold it. That is all I can offer and all that
I am; all that I ever, ever, hoped never to be as a man. I took you
for a ride to show you the horizon. Not sure if you were paying
attention, but that is not a factor if you never intended to see it. So
please, please look me in the eye while soft in my palm and tell me
your truth of this whirling reality.
8.9.7
Temptious vibes
lead us on these late night rides down the middle line and far into
both sides. The high we dance...well only oh, so high. The low we
frown and grumble; try to be stubborn until one of us stumbles...back to
the center then on to another high. So could you plot our course along
the line last night? Let me divulge it wished this way and washed
that, fumbled this way and tumbled that. So can you recall the shiver
or even the smile that sprang from that?
8.22.7
A moment
of silence.
A moment of silence, please.
A moment for
fucked up friendships, kinships, and all...the places that we have been
and may ever call...home.
A moment for tensions long stood and
monolithic as ever could be withstood. Tensions that wrap up the mind to
points across the way, across the line. Leave one withdrawn to the
level of "The gleam in your spirit, the glisten in your eyes, the
instantaneous crushing of your soul when a person walks into view is the
most atrocious part of the human psyche. When a body steps out of the
day that is so soft, so perfectly curved, so carved to accommodate
intimacy beyond any possible drawback" and worse. A smile as a toast to
the pensive stretches of nothingness in the chest and the new face, the
one that is not necessarily so, on these new days that are just
everyday evolving and playing along and out.
Suicide is the tie
that we all share. A glass we all fill. I heard somewhere that the
single important philosophical question is whether or not to kill
oneself. I contemplate it every single day...have for two years without
question.
Then I caught myself being caught by something
beautiful. A daughter that like every is the seed of the mother.
Caught from wake through slumber and then again into conciousness in a
bloom of a grip. Eternity is not a wish my pains have, but 't must have
been an expectation. The shedding of grey into green. Green that
makes her dance. She dances when she smiles. Somehow, now, she smiles
for all the hours and all the given miles. She use to call one in a
while and I would weave some words to comfort wounds of hers from him
for him. Recently she granted me the gift, with her grinning eyes and
lips, of not waxing philisophical for far pass twenty four hours. She
can not save me perpetually, but she is hope.
Here amidst these
same days a good friend wrestles a bit heavily with the inquiry. He
wears a piece of my life story, a hat. His spirit is hidden in a dark
dungeon; a dark dungeon whose outside walls are painted bright,
interesting, fast. On his hat is being detailed the painting of his
spirit's dungeon, a snapshot if you would.
Here in American
midwest our youth equiped with needles, sharpies, and plenty of apathy
addicted to anything. Consumers and pissed off, yet far too soft to
save themselves. Playing any game where the deal involves the way they
feel without tuning in to the rules. Care only enough about the world
on a large scale to anger them that they will never have anything to do
with it.
8.23.7
8:18 AM the tears are on hault again for,
well...we do not really know how long. Long enough to dry tight and
salty all about. Long enough to...how long for tears to cease? This is
what has taken precedent of the moment? What am I thinking about? Oh,
well there is...well...which speed do you want? There are most
commonly three speeds, with expected repetition there is five, and
on...well...occassion such, well I guess I could try counting the trains
chugging along with an origin, destination, and/or junction in my
mental meanderings.
8:37 AM
...that candle is not
working.
...the music is just threshold at intolerably low in
volume.
...is sanity relative to the mental capacity of the
subject?
...my hands seem as two indepentent animals working
before me at bay of the collar and chain that is my mind.
...that
woman is really of a nature to do some things.
...I have never
witnessed a justifiable act of physical violence with my own eyes.
..."...try now we could only lose and our love become a funeral
pyre..."
...music catches me back to only a few trains if it is
perfectly the moment.
8:37 AM the list is not anywhere near
complete. With all attempts at seriousnous my hands are incapable of
documenting the flashing, draining, smearing clip art film montage of
thoughts occuring simultaneously and/or fluidly without transition or
relation. It can never be claimed that it was not voiced that,
"honestly I might be crazy, if you can handle that." Even insane with
impatient autobaun mind a promise is recalled. Yet, I could not warn
strongly enough against attempting and concept or conception
because...oh, look...there they still go...
8:38 AM
...eight hundred miles; that is not even heavy.
...call me, call
me, call me, call me, call me, please just call
8.24.7
(PM) Dark like the dark when you awoke from those nightmares as a child,
sweating and sopping the tears from your cheeks, that is the dark that
creeps in when you want to trancend society. The darkness that leaves
you wishing you could just fall asleep and not have another nightmare,
fall asleep and never awaken again so that you could never again be
afronted with the darkness. When you are alone in your wish that is
when the darkness really tinges your soul. Kill yourself to escape
having to cope with the fact that you must cope. Kill yourself. Kill
you. You. You killing you. You are what is truly killing you.
Society is just ignoring your plight as it laughs at our species.
It is one away minute until it is another Saturday I am going to
attempt some sleep.
9.13.7
"......forty
eight...fifty...fifty two. Hey that is perfect." A grin with the
slight nod. "But then again that was counting today and I have yet to
eat them today, but then again I did feed one earlier...and
yesterday...and, well fuck it; everything is good"
It
was finally cold the night before last. Such heat had been all that was
as of late. This morning brought such joy when one felt that familiar
feeling of standing in the cold morning dodging shadows following the
heat of the sun's rays; reminescent of a playful puppy. Today is now
warm and the sun plentiful. Perfect breeze.
Thinking
is a hassle that can place a hang up over an entire life. We do it and
it is special, so we have to exhaunerate it towards potential. Imagine
looking fifteen years back to realized the beginning of a fifteen year
obsession with thought...thinking...think. Imagine being terrified of
the moments that the mind succeeds in freeing itself from any defined
attention point. Being haunted by simple clear-headed unfocused
thoughtlessness. Blank with eyes lazily fixated on a whirl of smoke
rolling through a single shaft of sunlight entering the room. Attention
being paid to nothing. In a nod, to say. Scared because those moments
may be a little insanity seeping through. The moment when the fly
buzzing on the shoulder is the only thing, and it only draws hazy
attention. That moment being repulsive and uncomfortable beyond
belief. Afraid of not thinking. Tormented to the only common end by
the thoughts available.
A small soft stone house would be
such of sweet home. Somewhere far from cement and streelitghts would
be nice. Just enough to love and to be warm and safe from the cool
winter shiver. Something for us. Somewhere quiet down by the river,
with green shades to tweak her smile and a big tree to calm and chill,
once in a while. One bedroom...maybe two. A small homely kitchen open
to the small but never plain living area. One luxury in the enormous
basin tub, lion paws steadied, in the bathroom. Neighbors not near, but
neighborly at least. A couple old trees if not a forest. A log fence
if not a stone wall.
9.14.7
Jealousy...it has been a
long, but mostly unoticed, while..."Let's put it to bed. Let's put it
down. I can't talk about it. Not right now......you know, I finally see
things all your way...I was raised to be strong and hard but if you
touch me wrong I might fall apart. Found a woman who is soft but she's
also hard and while I slept nearling downed my heart...I done good but
I'm hard to start and my breaks are bad so I'm hard to stop..."
Involuntary and annoying it ramps upon the mindset.
Debating consuming one's last sliver of another sanity leaves one
slightly insane. Vault into whirling swirls of miniscule as well as
monolithic aspects of one's and foreign worlds. Basically, on occasion
it is none less than salvation and on another
condemnation...condemnation to neurotic existential purgatory. Chance
at resolution. Probability for emotional and spiritual turbulence. And
how far thus is one willing, currently, to go? How long until again a
sliver of the aurora and inner lights will be in possesion. Debating
the possibility that one is profaning the divine delights therein
offered by trying to stay so in touch with the flesh of her wonderous
wonder.
"...These damn blue collared tweakers they're the
backbone of this town..."
Country accent, they would call
him a redneck, babbleing play by play to high school sporting events.
Slipping in, wherever possible, inside jokes and whatnot. It works
though as there are only a few listeners, probably listening only to
hear those quips from their old buddy on the radio.
The up
and down with no interruption...A long time it had been. Out of an
early July night it parts the bewildering smoke and rejuvinates long
forgotten levels within the psyche. Reminders or road blocks; no,
brickwall hang ups haul back into the empty spaces of contemplation and
stomps on those of any possible peace in solitude. Physical status
empowered. Emotional playground laid out in a radiation zone...low,
high, or neutral; just an inevitability in malignant decay. But the up
and the down; the giggles and exhasperated groans are the means and
lovely as it seems, they are not always toward the grandest of means.
Time intervals sometimes lost and sometimes the only idea of attention.
Soundtrack goes mute as the not nesessarily verbal exclamations blow
the mind so subtley. Always picturing the two old together. Would they
make a good old couple strolling along the perimeter of their garden
(they would have a garden or the scenario would never be on the table)?
9.21.7
"I'll grab my handies." Out the door and toward
the car to grab them. Behind comes the group of strangers and a
friend. An arm is grabbed. A jaw jacked. A gun pulled, taken away,
then choked to the ground.
"What is going on? What the fuck!"
She groans from the steps.
"Here's your clip." In through the
commotion the truck rumbles to life; headlights revealing the stumbling
and the scattering, one to the wall and the others to the growling
pickup. Is this really...this? What should I do, where, and with
what?
"Where's my gun?" Mumble and stumble to find it on the
floor, grab it, the scope is gone, where is the clip?
"I just
got robbed!" Confuzed and enraged.
"What the fuck happened?"
Holding gun in one hand and scope in the other.
"Fuck!"
A change of intuition. An interuption of mental obstruction.
Enlighten is a word often, past, in the past used; yet all that is up in
that thing is still quite dark. One would be naive to intend on figure
it all out; so is it not entirely disheartening and crushing to assume
small attempts to understand this life? Nilhistic and/or sceptic but
the mindset definately incurable by any religious antiseptic.
Perpetually perplexing the lines and undressing the underlying vines
that entertwine the philosophy of an alleged debt to my birth.
Existential searching seeming to be corroding and fading into a bland
anticipating of the end. Uncertain about the likelihood that I will be
involved.
A spine decrepit. Reality, long ago left it.
Stand here crouched to cradle a crumbled young lady. Blank, black, and
faded. I wonder if this is fate or just a decision of destiny. Forget
myself to nurse at wounds I fail to comprehend as a cub nurses in its
first hours blind of the mother fox's invisible, yet life giving,
nipple. Pains in the currency currently evading. Pains in the stomach
that tend to, moment random, cripple. Staring through cob webs in
corners of burnt out doors toward a new decision for a new direction for
not just the self, but the one who holds the heart on the shelf. Is
there a life out there to build that for us may wield a bountiful yeild
of smiles and appreciated conversational miles?
Money is kind
of funny, especially when it is never in front of me. Just the other
day a dollar jumped up and shed down a great sheet of grey over me. One
hundreds soiled replications of Lincoln's poised profile, copper, and
jangleing there dangling within the guise of a black inked bust of
George Washington on some specially ordered government paper. Down
dropped my jaw as the single greenback dissipated into the pot going
towards a green bag. Stomach is empty. Electricity still costing. The
new testament opens to page four hundred, twenty. The Gideon's are
life savers in a sober situation such as this paperless night was.
9.27.7
Medicaid does not pay for my medication any longer, yet medicated I
remain. Traded my mental health for an electricity bill today. Sick, I
guess, I remain here with no answers for the cold nature of this
mornings rain.
10.18.7
"My eyes can not conceive why I
could not grow."
On..tw...three flashes quick and away and
all along and back to the invisible cover of black. Scared puppy dogs
play not where there lingers no light of day. Yet, darkness is to what
our hearts lead though humble be what we need. Days passing in no
manner of speed. Tomorrow will still contain the lack of love for my
friends and my family. Big bag of excuses I claim. Simmer as the hope
for the "if" in life grows dimmer. Childhood memories we note when they
glimmer into the picture. Speak them aloud so that they are allowed
to, for at least a drunken moment, again ring true and alive.
10.19.7
"They're behavior is akin to that of wild dogs, man. I'm not kiddin'.
I grew up in the city and spent eight years in jail with them. I'm
telling you they are pack animals. Don't get me wrong...I am not trying
to say we ain't animals too, but we are different than any of the
animals in the wild." The content of his conversation is a bit edgy to
me. I can tell that he senses it by the slight grin he casts during his
pauses. The pit bull pup that my companion brought into my life is a
cute example of the organelles and metabolic systems that compose the
animal structure. Her slick white fur is still light and thin enough
that the patches of black pigment pocked across her frame. When the sun
hits her back as she jostles with the adult pit between the tattooed
man and myself. She is fully brown with a slagging smile that might
fool a stanger into underestimating the destructive power of those two
fistfulls of jaw muscle. "But, one thing about those niggers is they're
good to practice your tatting techniques on, because if you fuck up it
isn't that apparent." Every time he uses the word I have to focus on
not looking down from his eyes to the swaztika inked into his shin or
the Pillsbury dough boy, right arm thrusted out, toting 'WHITE FLOUR' on
his solar plexus. My interaction with him puts me in a constant
contemplative state.
The personal vibe he gives off is
charismatic and entertaining though I know full and well that his
behavior is far from acceptable by even liberal moral standards.
Conversation with him pulls my mind into tangles about necessity and
morality and the absence of each other in one another. It is a bitch of
a situation though, because the extent of his malintended behavior and
the recognition of that by most everyone in this gossip driven town
leaves me branded as a liability if I am caught socializing with him.
I understand why the labeling and biases form. It is just ridiculous
for someone to be expected to learn to live and survive in a ravenous
world but put caution tape around and stigmatize those who seek answers
on how to get by from those who have been the most held back and
downtrodden. If I am to be steered away from robbing a liquor store at
gun point who am I to be better instilled with the true emplications by;
a police officer, someone who was a customer in a store that was
robbed, or someone who robbed a liquor store shot the cashier in the
wrist when they went for the alarm then did fifteen years of hard time
for it. The police officer will give me nothing but a biased hollow
warning. The shocked customer can tell me how scary and real the
situation is and maybe interject a few morality tips. The man who has
actually been the holder of the gun can tell me with no bias and no
hesitation the good side (the rush, the possible months worth of food
money for your family, etc...) and the downsides (the soul wrenching
regret of having hurt the cashier and stealing yourself away from your
family, the reality of years wasting away in a concrete animal pound,
etc...).
Living on a dead end road in a three bedroom
trailer with two girls; one who madly loves me and one wonderful
wondering woman who happens to be my lover. The three of us and a pit
bull pup named Delyluh live fairly peacefully together.
10.22.7
Morning at noon. She is cooking, sweet home cooking for the thought.
The smoke detector went off for the first time. Yes, savory buttered
home meals for her and for us and for friends. Drum set center stage
obstructing all kitchen endeavors. The heads only rat-atat-tatted on
every so often, maybe a couple nights a week when friends or strangers
jump in on the jam sessions Dyl
10.28.7
"He's gonna fuck
your carcass..." in a sarcastic sing along voice. "...fuck your
carcass! Jisue, joy for man. Everybody touch him if you can" Del.
Fitz jumps on him verbally, "Shut up! Stop it with the Eskew voice."
"Slap 'em down with my spagetti. Put on 'em red even if they won't let
me. Fucked his carcass up and down, all around...spreadin' my man love
all across the town" He rambles joyfully.
"...a guy proceeding
in shaving his head, sludgin' on a heap of lube and proceding to..."
Clutter and a drumset and half washed dishes and replaying debut
musical performances hissing faint yet harsh from across the kitchen
table. "Whoo! Lawdly!"
With a slightly regretful grimace he
quails, "I don't know if I'll ever get that voice back for 'Reefers in
The Morning.' Too bad that ain't on film." The one straight-edge
individual of the ceremonies he hits on conversational points that would
always and otherwise ellude our socialization. A wild and wonderous
point of view that our simple chill world so lacks. We gather, cook,
conversate, eat, contemplate, and try to rationalize and unrealize the
reality of the "real" world outside of our apathetic eyes. Computers
and memory cards with holding the key to our own memory. It smells like
hippie in hell.
"I stop at the panty line." (shaving is a bitch
for girls compared to guys)
"Don't you remember Brim dieing?!
Yeah his heart stopped and his dad made him go to school."
"She
has a clitoris!? Don't touch it, but point it out...damn, it's on the
inside. That sucks! Oh...shit..."
11.15.7
Integral
components of each other's existence; we are. For lack of meaning in
any word we use "love," but it is all good if you do not think too awful
deeply into it.
11.26.7
One of the last nights I spent
with Daniels we were lounging in his small one bedroom apartment on the
couch conversating of the seemingly worthy topics on our hearts. He
gave me this relieved look and said, "I know you wright...would you like
to read something?" He seemed unsure whether he would regret the
proposition. He came back to the living room with a small box.
Contained within were a variety of writings he had done since his early
adolescense to farely recent, but with the bulk being from earlier
years. The words were of frustration. The words were of rebellious
youthfulness in todays over-developed society. Some were heart
wrenching. Some ludicrous. Some full of passionate opinion. So very
similar to the writings of mine through out those years of my life. At
some point he nodded and did his signature lip push sarcasticly, but
with a hint of fulfillment, "Hey...this shit is like we're bonding." It
made me warm, I will not deny it; but I did not put to much into at the
time.
I wish I could have and still could take on some of the
smooth breathed outlooks he exuded. Many that I had long before decided
that I desired to display and hold true to my heart. A lot dealing
with dropping out of the game. Nothing so far as to condemn
materialism, but only because some can be a part of certain comforts. I
guess that was what we really dreamed on together was light hearted
eat, drink, be marry, relax, and love; without stressing to rise above
or care at all about our place in the social hierarchy.
My heart
literally and severely aches everytime I humor the idea that I will
never get to kick it with that too wild to live and too rare to die
lovely kat ever once more.
I LOVE YOU MATTHEW DANIELS
THANK
YOU FOR LIVING ALONGSIDE ME
I am caught trying to
finally make a comittment to a plan for life. Working a factory or
construction company for a few months to a half year then use the money I
saved to transfer my life to some other area of the country...Virginia,
Colorado, New Mexico, or East like Pennsylvania. Experiencing all the
new hellacious life situations that place has to offer then abrubtly
save up the money and move on again. I have a companion at this point
in my story that is such a venture of romanticsm and challenge that if
life allows I would love for her to accompany and weave herself
throughout this story. She has been a facet in my inspirations for last
two and one half years. A wild spirit she is. Yet, only since late
July has our relationship been any thing intimate or any such of the
sorts. We share so many more negative traits than positive that it is a
beautiful thing really. We undoubtedly enjoy each other, but we hate
that we can not admit that we love that we to push each other; or so it
seems. The most fulfilling, yet stressful and important to my future
relationship I have entered.
I have finally accepted that I
do in fact have a father. The man who been trying so hard for eight or
so years has finally some how clicked something in my head. I love
him. He is one of the greatest men I have ever known. It hurts me so
immensely to think of the rejection I must have put off towards him for
so long, just out of habit. He is wize, kind, lovely, and
respectable...I could never ask for more. Never have I came across a
better influence as to what I have been searching for all of these
years, a role model for what I have always wanted someone to teach me to
be a man. He has done so much, not just for me, but for my entire
family. I am forever endebted to him for his contribution to my
maturation and life in general.
And yet, I find myself
suicidal on a weekly basis. Not attempting, but very in depth in
comtemplation of the escape. I can only hope for salvation from my
enslavement to my own self destruction.
12.5.7
Fire is
eighteen, uncle is thirty, mother is fourty, and along the engine keeps
chugging towards twenty for this identity.
12.15.7
A
couple days ago...
He hears a tone in her voice he that dredges
from the deepest crag in his anger an energy that fills the body, every
joint and muscle. Nothing more than slight annoyance at the unfortunate
nuances of his everyday had been a bother to then. Not a breath passes
before the energy overwhelms him. He walks down the hallway.
Pondering for seconds any chance at calming...nothing. Nothing ever
works. Nothing beyond destroying something that means something to me
or represents an asset of my life. He tries to keep an even keil. He
pours a cold glass of water, slowly gulping it with a intense yet
unfocused expression. There is a movie playing on the television that
he had just put in the VHS player. A movie that he had purchased long
before, more for the genre and the stigma of the title than for the
content of the film itself. This thought devours his train of
reasoning. After attempting for a moment to resist he turns to her and
says, "I apologize...I know this is irrational!" After ripping the tape
from the VCR he turns and with form left over from the last junior high
baseball games launches the tape down the hallway turning around quick
enough that he is facing the television again before The Night Of The
Living Dead explodes against the bedroom wall. In an instant he is
standing amongst the shattered remnants of the 90's remake of the horror
classic. Angry that he is angry and that the energy has only faintly
subsided. He demolishes a small round mirror on the shelf before him.
Without debating the deep seeded roots and implications of or even
recognizing conciously that the problem exists he comes to a
conclusion...destroy his beloved art works. As he is slashing and
burning his precious pieces of himself he must at least humor some
slight rationale; these are pieces of me and no one loves them so it
would be easier to destroy these unloved pieces of me than to actually
injure myself for being unloved and worthless.
Gone with a
chunk of his personal art collection he drives away. He arrives to a
scene where every individual has some traumatic occurence in their
current life. To an empty room he is beckoned stressing to the point of
disorientation. A ghostly friend founders with concern while wallowing
in personal turmoils and suicidal nightmares. A sketchy scene occurs
then the fading friend and himself are leaving. Leaving an uneasy
situation. The weather is highly emotional. They are carrying a pair
of felonies for them to split and driving with a brake light and a turn
signal out. The friend has as of recent times transformed into a
distorted desperatly painted apparition of himself. The apparition
hands towards his friend in the driver's seat's mouth a stem and cap.
He nimbles and washes with orange juice they bought when he just spent
the contents of his wallet on gasoline. He chews another cap as he
waits outside a random house for the apparition thinking on the
realities and cynic humors on the possibilities of the impossibilities
of it. The weight of the plight upon all of those around him clears his
focus on his own load for long enough that his shaky anxieties begin to
line out and reside from the chaos they had been since the movie was
playing. The drive is on again and sedative hypnotics are traded as
they cruise as quickly out of town as possible. The country roads begin
to dance with him as the magic begins to twinkle his experience. In
the duration of the few moments driving the long back road way home he
come to a sort of conjection concerning all the sources of his
anxieties...responsibilities and money and dignity and the fallibility
of every explanation of reality and he realizes he must get home to
apologize to her for his outburst earlier. The road rapidly waver
deeper into more fully extrapolated dances but the driving is still
managable for him.
Arriving home he calls her to the bedroom
and apologizes with all sincerity as his heart fluctuated with the
glorious pangs of the magical experience.
The night decays into
a swirling circus of self loathing and sympathy and disgust and latent
hatred and remorse and love and exasperation. The ghostly friend is in
debt and at a low. He threatens and grumbles and cries out suicide. All
sorts of demons and long buried heathenist skeletons in closets swim
out into the distortions of the senses. Scattered about the house we
weep and sulk, giggle and gab in our isolated little spotlights. Him,
her, the friend, and the laughing lover that lives there on Fullenlove.
There was this little kid looking up at this man. She
keeps saying, "Is he really Jesus?" And this little girl is freaking me
straight out. She looks...it's...it is all so incredibly intense.
"Giving gifts is great to see the expression. Oh, damn...that is like
you are just prying...like you are...it is so selfish. Damn, why did I
have to figure it out!?" A conversation over an inscense burner.
The three...four, DeLyluh...five, Luna, of us have this humble bond
about us and our affairs. Ashley cutting potatoes for soup. Lyluh
sleeping next to me. Fire giggling adjacent to me in front of the
nintey-some year old painting of an Indian chief on a beautiful stallion
done on a felt type material, it covers half the window behing the
couch. The window that the cold winter is seeping through. We do our
meager best at protecting ourselves from the bitter new breath of the
coming winter.
"Could you draw on a piece of my fabric?" she
asks.
"With what...yes"
Sarcastically, "Like I'm gonna
wash 'em..." Panjama pants and cotton t-shirts, sometimes bathrobes, we
lounge in our quaint little abode. We speak of our hopes of the coming
spring and dreams of Langerado 2008. What a time we believe we would
have.
"The man on the tv tellin' me I got so much love I
could stand to lose some...So I change the channel"
Luna, the
small Beagle mixed with Jack Russell, is a rambuctious and loud little
puppy nipping at playful yet wisely gentle Delyluh, the growing pit
bull. Delyluh is so much a factor in the relationship between Fire and I
and even Ashley. With her expressive eyes she wrangles emotion out of
us. On days rainy she plays...with herself if she has to in order to
entertain and lighten the mood in the room. She has her melancholy
days, though. Days when she slouches around sadly looking for the
warmest place available for her to lay or nuzzle. She is a great friend
and child. She loves us. As I type this she jumped to my side and
licked me without warning swiftly on the mouth to remind me that she is
mine and I am hers and we are family. It is funny or sad or remptive or
a bit insane. The dogs are ajdusting just as well as us to our newly
arranged living room. It gives a new life to the room, the entire vibe
of the home truly.
We listen to a soundtrack of varied
distinction...currently: A few Keller Williams albums on shuffle.
Before that a long randomness of Primus and anything with the mad genius
Les Claypool. As "Above The Thunder" plays softly Fire slaps around
with Lyluh as June writes in her yellow book. Lyluh nips and ducks and
struts. She is so beautifully carved, so playful, and rather obedient.
The music selection moves on to Phil Lesh & Friends Live at The
Warfield. Potatoe soup freely concocted by June is simmering on the
stove. That 70's Show season five goes into the Sanyo and Fire's
birthday present is rounding us in ceremony.
12.16.7
The
wind roars with vigor today along the frail exoskeleton of the trailer.
Cold. From inside it would seem as if the sun has fought its way free
through the grasp of the grey blanket that has held sway over the tones
of the last few days. Twenty-seven mushrooms adorning the smokey scene,
that is including the seventeen on the one inscense burner. The few
paintings. The Beatles tapestry. An oriental silver and green
decorative fan. The peace flag. The green golden weaved mandala and
all of this of wood panel. Home is easily conjured in the aromas of
patchouli and sandalwood clouds dancing. A clip of blue sky flashed
into the picture. Well framed white pitbull tan patches over each ear
covering the eye on the right, a single dot of tan between the ears that
straightens when she is perplexed, a round patch in mid center of her
back, and a dot of tan at the base of the tail. Thick black eyeliner
and shadow adorn her eyes giving a meloncholy element to her glance.
12.19.7
(am) Soft piano of Beethoven being masterfully gently woven by Mitsuko
Uchida.
people are the scariest factor of existence.
jesus was quite possibly, if conveyed correctly in the
scriptures, one of the most honorable philosophers of all time, yet I
can not do such as believe concretly that he was the actual begotten son
of "God". He was the son of God in that he was the son of existence
through his sermons. If you replace a deity with an unfathomable idea
that is existence; yes, Jesus was the son of God in that he understood,
to a certain extent, the answers beyond human faculties and the
importance of creating harmony out of that which was blessed to exist.
Life is starting to hit and make a little more sense, in a
sensless fashion. The problem stands in that the real life roles and
responsibilities therein are a ridiculous flaw of societal evolution.
Trying hard as of late to make things comfortable and to contemplate
reasonably and maturly about some issuses involving my present and
immediate future. There stands a hurdle though, as I am not getting the
vibe that the object of my love does not seem to level out with me on
the ideas that seem obviously necessary for the possibility of any of
these dreams being fulfilled. I see the ins, mostly, and some of the
outs of this "real world" situation and understand what is involved to
comply to them, yet I feel that the pain of trying to follow the line is
more wrenching than the strain of keeping a low profile about one's
swaying about that line. It is just undoubted that without this lover
holding my spirit at bay it would probably wonder far to astray.
1.1.8
Wicked rythm wigglin' on down through my toes
turn after turn,
ending always nowhere with no new direction to go
shadows of
friends leaning away
shadows of fiends feeding on me
turn
after turn, truth always trembles in the face of today
one
person in a room with no reason to move
one me stuck with no room
to grow
alone I don't feel I need anything at all
sun
rises to remind us of the weight of the ball
night falls to
remind us of the length of the chain
obligated to obligations
breathing debts with each breath
burdened to survive
burdened if ever you were alive
Wicked rythm wigglin' on
down through my toes
turn after turn, ending always nowhere with
no new direction to go
shadows of friends leaning away
shadows of fiends feeding on me
turn after turn, truth always
trembles in the face of today
ache in the finger, unnessasary
job
ache in the heart, love for friends gone
ache in the
spirit, hope for salvation long ago trampled upon
need a
weekend once in a while
even when the week never began
need a break this time
even though all you ever do is break down
rest for moments at a time to escape the living sounds
listening to stories from the mouths of old men
dream of the
days of which they speak
never realizing it was just as certain
then
we feel pain because we can
forget about those
bedtime stories
toss aside that hopeful plan
living is not
living anymore
living is not living anymore
Wicked
rythm wigglin' on down through my toes
turn after turn, ending
always nowhere with no new direction to go
shadows of friends
leaning away
shadows of fiends feeding on me
turn after
turn, truth always trembles in the face of today
listening to
stories from the mouths of old men
dream of the days of which
they speak
never realizing it was just as certain then
we
feel pain because we can
forget about those bedtime stories
toss aside that hopeful plan
living is not living anymore
living is not living anymore
long as we keep suffocating our
mother concrete floor after concrete floor
Mother, is it
true of what them old men speak?
greed and neglected souls to
feed
Mother, could it ever be true
Mother, is your breath
growing weak
1.2.8
(AM)
On a beaten path she
slumps. Head nodded to read words long ago written by some tortured
soul. Shuffling through the first winter snow day dreaming of the
stories in her head being comitted to press. Dreaming of the means by
which she most deeply delves into those fantastic worlds, comedies,
tragedies, and abstracts. Her feel for the pen is weak. The brush
forgotten. She wallows in depths of desire for the things that
inspire. A prisoner to of artistic ambition and a fiend for
industriousness. Lost in between dreams and chemical shackles. She is
stopping beneath a over hang in the alley between the strange corner
building with the secretive Masonic ritual rich old white guy gatherings
and the chamber of commerce. One of those old fire escape-type stair
cases that you have to pull down; then as you reach the top it comes
hauling back up spitting rust into the air. The iron door that is the
only thing at the top of the staircase to lean against is frigid cold
through her worn hoody and a Doors shirt. Cigarette lit she flickers
her eyebrows shooing away the falling snow. Her slighty rosey cheeks
rest slack and her expression generally void.
She gazes to the
right towards the decrepid old court house that is the center piece of
the insignificant town she currently resides in, yet the she does not
really see the building and lights, cars and occasional pedestrians.
Her imagination and thought obsession superscedes her sight. In her
head is a novel with the most crucial development chapters missing. She
has the set up where her roots are revealed, the enemies, the desires,
the few triumphs, then there is this huge drought of emotion and/or
anything really, then the last chapter where she withering in the most
painful woes passes away.
A siren sounds just below and behind
her as the ambulance blows a red light. Her vacation is abrubtly ended
with a reality check.
She heads on toward the funeral home atop
the hill overlooking the town. Two cigarettes and fifteen minutes
later the light snow accumulating is covering her tracks at about twenty
steps behind her. She stops for a coffee to go. With the first gulp
she ingests six milligrams of clonazepam, one milligram of alprolazom,
and fifty milligrams of diazepam. Arriving at the gaurd rail along the
funeral home parking lot she sits and stares blankly out over the poor
town. The sickly elders selling their prescriptions so that they can
buy groceries and the one thing that actually subdues their ailments,
cannabis. Middle age divorcies popping nerve pills to cope with dead
jobs and kids they never intended to have. Ramen noodles in the cupards
of at least eighty percent of the homes. Credit card debt as common as
teenage pregnancy.
She is unsatisfied with the medicinal
affects of the medications she consumed earlier, so she downs another
five milligrams of alprazolam and ten milligrams of oxycodone. The
looking back up from her coffee she gives up hope as she realizes that
no amount of medicine can cure lack of ambition to actually get on and
away from the lack luster lifestyle that she lives. In her head she
rationalizes it somehow that not even she really knows all the details
of.
The fuzziness starts to settle in as she starts the trek
back to the gas station where she has to call her companion for a ride.
She got off work early and decided to waste the extra time getting
demolished before she had to go "home" to the house she was invited into
to live with a few friends. On the way to Dairy Land she passes the
house where an old friend passed away while partying one night.
Methadone and beer, hmm? That only brings thoughts of another old
friend with quite a sickness of the spirit. A sickness that pollutes
the soul and devours the heart. That only leads to another flash in her
head of all the pain he caused for everyone who cared for him;
especially his mother, his best friend, and her (as she had once been
his). Which leads to thoughts of how rough the transition was from him
to the young man that would be picking her up at the gas station. Her
head is warming up as her knees are weakening from the pharmeceuticals
and the excercise.
The sick one is thieving from his friends
and family nowadays. He proudly got hooked on the needle for a while,
may still be, and that is when everything for him was obviously a basket
case. He deserted the good friends for the ones with good hook ups or
low enough morals to help the supply. Driving his mother's car he was
in at least four accidents, three of which being his fault, all probably
involving his heavy intoxication. He bragged about his ability to not
leave track marks. He cheated on her. She foolishly let it go. He did
it again. Sadly her companion heading toward the Dairy Land had to
watch this all happen with a flame burning in his chest for this
mistreated young lady, which he held at bay at all times.
My life is saddening and dark. I endeavor in moments of joy but the
life itself is so melancholy I sometimes can not help but forcefully
lull myself into a trance of non attention and passive gazing.
I hoped for most of today that I would come across an excuse to kill
someone. It was not a good day. Though the majority of the day was
horridly stressful I did create a beautiful watercolor of a marsh land
reflecting an emmaculate sky. I completed it with a good women I know.
She is sweet and has been through so much it is heart wrenching, yet
she is the sweetest lady around. She is the mother of a friend. She
sometimes walks with a colorfully decorated metal cane that she bought
in her younger, wilder years. She hugged me when she received it.
Everyone I know is in some sort of social or personal peril.
The forefront for everybody is that my aunt lost her children. A
tragedy that a two child mother expecting another would put herself into
any situation in which they would pass methamphetamine on into the
umbilicals and on to the fetus. Then to... well it is just another
chapter in the family drama. She had taken me in at one time when I was
drifting in high school. I think I may have somehow accidentally left
an incense to catch the curtains aflame and smoke out the entire
trailer. It was nice living twelve miles from town. New country roads
to explore and cruise. One time I risked an overgrown logging road
looking path with hints of old gravel in places. Up a hill a half mile
then flat and down into a gulley where I almost hit a family of deer.
Then three trailers with no glass in the windows, wood flaps pinned open
by burlap straps, scarce plain wooden and fiftees aluminum chairs with
ripped padded seats longs molded, and no sign of life. None of this had
any affect on the aura. The only thing that put a pang in my gut was
the assorted childrens play things scattered about the rugged yard.
While not working or country breezing I helped tend to her son; watched
many, many reruns of Elmo's World. I love the kid. His presence in my
days brightened up every one of those days, which were decisively
rough. Leaving him was the only thing that bothered me whatsoever when I
left over issues involving habits of her's and/or her husband'. I
moved out of her trailer which was once on the hill near the water tower
and was my family's and into my car in the Peaks parking lot for a
couple weeks. After days of getting lifted with a friend his father
asked me a question which led to my admitting to living out of my car.
He told me to talk to him about it as he walked me up the stairs and out
onto the stoop. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Seems
to me like it's too cold for that shit...YOU grab all that shit out of
your backseat and put it in the spare bedroom. I'll call your mom and
tell her your safe and we'll work something out." That was a fun part
of this little life story of mine living with them in their sweet loft
cabin. His son was became a good friend in some overwhelming times it
my seventeenth year throughout 2005...first spiritual encounter with
psilocybin, first epic on Albert's divine oops, great romantically
intellectual relationship with a fineley eye pleasing mormon that I
became involved with under such preciously lovely circumstances, first
realization that Fire's emotions affected me as my daughter's would,
first sexual encounter with my closest childhood
bestfriend/crush/sister, first ingestion of cocaine, first xanax binge,
growth in actual music appretiation, shedding of black wardrobe, heavy
habit with opiates. Yep, quite a year, but I had a great time at school
and even think I did decently.
1.6.8
The temperature is
a little warmer today; expected up to the sixties. It had been frosted
heavily in the mornings and windy frozen in the evenings. Winter is
stressfully depressing. I associate it with cold, grey tales of
childhood nightmares of Tim Burton color palates.
1.10.8
A
friend of mine, a truly kind soul, returned recently from him little
over a year of deployment in South Korea. I have been looking forward
to his return for some time. He has come back in good shape
physically. Though, in his eyes it seems something is weighing heavily
upon his spirit. Of course there was the normal catching up chit chat
when we first seen each other again, at the new bowling alley in town.
He filled me in on the constant drinking games and the binges and the
flat out alcoholism that seem to be the main night life for him and his
comrades back on that peninsula over there on the other side of the
globe. Second only to the drinking he explained to me the red light
districts. Then the vaccinations and experimental injections the army
has loaded him with. He spent the last two nights on our couch getting
the only good sleep he has had in quite some time. After a dispute
between Fire and myself we went for a long cruise through the country
side last night. I broke down in tears explaining to him the situations
and such that have been and are tearing me apart; touching on
everything from my bastard status, my lack of faith in my siblings, my
health problems, the loss of Daniels, and my overpowering and
conflicting love for Fire.
Delyluh was attacked a few days
back by the mut neighbor dog. One of the wounds, one to her mouth and
jowls, became infected leading me to take her to the vet for and a
injection and some antibiotics.
1.19.8
(AM)
I just
speed formulated, freestyled, and polished a pen work. I refer to it
as "Coming Into Bloom." My artistic drive has been coming in spells
lately. I figure it is out of a need for attention, but back to the
subject. The sketch started as a flower blooming from a front view.
Something lead me to add a tied bow around the stem. Then two
disembodied rough, dark looking hands are reaching down to untie the
bow. Next, from the open ended flower grows a grotesque mishapen and
defined male torso to connect to the arms forearms. Then a face is
placed on the lowered neck. I look at it as if it is near ready to be
called a wrap. Something drove me to add long locks of hair sprawling
over his shoulders contouring to the curves of his exaggerated
physique. Before long I realize that these strands of hair are to curl
and creep down the man, flower, and coil around the base of the stem
becoming the soil, or life sorce of this most outlandish flower.
The ribbon on the stem is the gift of one's life. The flower is the
life itself, and it's journeys and contents. The man sprouting from the
flower is what the life makes of itself. He is reaching down to undo
the knot holding him to his birth and origin. His hair that has grown
down to fuse him to the flower from which he bloomed are the subconcious
mental meanderings of his that will never allow him to escape him place
in the Sun's great garden. His expression is hopelessly confused and
his grip and intent, on untying the bow the represents the miracle of
his birth, are wavering.
All of this analyzis, of course, came
after the finishing of the sketch. I tend to do it that way. I get a
feel or spark and go with it never considering what the goal of the work
is. Yet, somehow when I sit them down on the other side of the room
they begin to speak to me...about things I do not always recall ever
considering conciouslly.
8:31 AM
Over the last
ten hours or so I have finished a sharpie piece inspired by Aldous
Huxley that I have had in the works for at least three years. I began
and finished the "Coming Into Bloom" sketch evolving it into a ink
drawing with a pencil background and sharpie border now dubbed He Not
Busy Being Born is Busy Dying. I also finished a piece I started
shortly after my very first psilocybin experience at least three, maybe
four, years ago. The latter one has retained its original name Fungal
Optical D-Lysergic Epiphany-25.
Fire continues to press me
beyond my comfortable anger level. She will not forgive me for spending
the entire night working on my art, which is very important to me yet
hard to find such wonderful focus for as I have last night and this
morning, and not laying in bed with her all night with eyes wide and
mind racing. It hurts, disturbs, annoys the fuck out of me to squander
industriousness when it happens to come upon me. How often I work on my
art is depressing; yet, when I do work on it I have found that I am
more and more happy with my output in the last while. I feel bad,
putting myself in her position, for not joining her in bed; but I wish
she could grasp how much these hours of productive output have calmed my
plagued emotions and attitude in general. Though, it must be pointed
out that when she announced she was going to bed I asked if I should
join her. She instructed me to keep drawing. I joined her in bed as
she first went anyway. As I was deciding to get back to my work I asked
once again if it would be a problem for me to leave her in the bedroom
by herself, and of course she directed me back to my sharpie's and
paper. I really do not want to let myself put up with the pain she
instills in my chest at least every other day. It is a serious internal
debate every time she becomes uncooperative whether I should let that
be the last. Though, I do bask in some grand attachment to her. She
keeps me sane and even happy when she is not being irrational.
1.28.8
The days seethes in drab lack of all things hopeful as tomorrow assures
the same. Failures to afford any slack, any ambition, any attempt at
climbing up from the trenches of apathy that leave one empty of pocket,
empty of stomach, and empty of any pleasantry. Though when she tires
of snarling a whimsical summer smile becomes of my darling. Inside I
feel the warmth of spring sunrises. Atop I feel the support of some
sorrowfully sweet raft. 'Neath is nothing less than the comfort of a
childs quilt. Bangs dangling down to sweep away tears that may well.
Swell are a few moments. Overwhelming are the majority.
I hate myself.
At junctures never planned or foreseen I have
epiphanies concerning the betterment of my life. These ideas I do have
faith in, though never do I seem to be capable of the true ambition.
I do not know when my family gave up hope for me. Myself, it
definately started with the passing of Daniels. Though I would say the
defining moment in the demise of my chance at any hope or actualization
ended when I came back to Paoli from that first year of college. Being
here cripples my emotions. I need some salvation soon for I fear I may
lose hold and give up with a capitol "FUCK IT ALL." I struggle most as
much as with anything else with this fear. The fear of my apathy,
hopelessness, pention for rash explosive tantrums. This devilish
mixture of the three added to the fact that a very competitive amount of
my time sees me on the suicidal side of the life's value swing. I am
truly lost. I also fear my infatuation with such connotations contained
in some of the ideas that I find value and allure in; such as lyrics
like Bob Dylan's rebel line "I may look like Robert Ford, but I feel
just like Jesse James." Through out my youth my interests were pulled
toward the darker caution-taped-off areas of human existence. This
scares me when I connect those things that I learned while delving,
through literature and such, into the dark worlds of the occult,
depraved acts of all sorts, anything outlandish and sure to cause an
uproar, etc... I just so deeply fear that I will not succeed in the one
hope I have held onto since childhood...to never slip into a lower
level of dispicable humanity as I had always held my phantom father.
1.31.8
Lavender is the concsription of letters given as a name unto the scent
abounding this small bedroom; wafting from an oil burner atop the
stereo sytem afront an approximately 12" square canvas, still showing
through with much of its white surface, with a green peace sign painted
among some orange hodge podge. The walls are all tapestry draped, my
fold up pack along mannerism for keeping some stabilitiy in all of the
moving I have done throughout my life. The futon mattress that was
strewn in one corner is laying out in the cold winter storm; the futon
mattress that had laid beneath me on "A" Street, eleven stories up
looking down over the Haute, 322 S. Sycamore on a frame, in the corner
here at 3576 Fullenlove Drive where my lady Fire joined me upon it, and
now dying in the front yard. My first car was a 1989 Pontiac 6000 LE,
"The Google." A beast wailing with some deep rumble and a few rattles
but not those of a stallion in his prime but an old bull weeklegged yet
still strong chested. Then, and still now, a 1994 Ford Focus. Tied
together by the smell of patchouli, a baseball bat, and two stickers
both saying "When Clinton Lied Nobody Died." I think strangely when I
am in cars, especially driving. A little under an hour ago I drove Fire
to school, high school (Paoli Jr. Sr. Highschool). That facility is
none but a cesspool of gossip and social prejudice, yet somehow a easy
place to be compared to the world when that school is done with you.
Driving sends to send my thought process into a wildly woven loose
clothe of several simultaneously unguided threads. It must be that my
body tries to do that automatron "routine" thing like watching
television or tying your shoes while having a conversation in a hurry to
be somewhere you are already late of arrival. The thoughts intsect and
tie together but in a very nonsmooth fashion quite unlike Nikki
Giovanni ryhmes in her spoken poem Ego Trip. I try to ground my
scattering of my mind by taking in the surroundings but not as words; I
do not think tree when I pass the ragged old giant of a Sycamore in a
certain turn out on one of my old country cruise routes, instead I
experience the emotion that the tree exuded in that light on that
particular day with the particular life situation.
I
would like to apologize for my explosion on an old man a couple days
ago. In doing so I would say something like:
Sir I would
feel obliged to apologize for going over the top. I was in a volatile
mood as my new and only baby cousin was in the hospital in a tent with a
respertory infection and my grandfather of eight to ten years his
funeral was the day before, I had been feeling rejected from my family
for some reason, and I was in the process of losing my job. That is not
to mention that I do love that dog and would have reacted in any
situation to you macing her unless her teeth were bared and within five
feet of you. I apologize my reaction was not warranted to yours. If I
had not been under such stress I do believe that we never would have had
words. Though, at most I would have pulled my car in front of yours
and lectured you with my well educated literature filled mind about how
much of an ass you were making of yourself by my question as to whether
you really threatened to mase my dog, and how weak you bigheaded
superiority possessed attitude showed you truly are at heart.
Delyluh is one great facet to my life these recent months. She is
growing up so wonderfully. She is becoming more obedient, not that she
ever had a huge problem. It is just that I started then Fire helped me
to teach her to sit, then, lay. Then later on we began teaching her
restraint from begging. In order to help her pick up what we were
expecting of her I would hold a treat at chin level and tell her to
"Sit" quick and solid then as she, with big whimpering while excited
eyes, "Down" in a lower voice with two raps on the floor with my heel.
When she has laid down with her paws out and chin rested on them I would
lay down the treat some distance in front of her and tell her to "Stay"
in a stern but convincingly sweeter tone. I walk past her and sit down
or do whatever the task at hand is; pausing to reassert myself with a
"Sit" if she begins to lift her head up and start considering the
temptation. She has become consistently good at behaving throughout
this. She will stay in her pose only looking back at me everyonce in a
while until I touch her on the back of the neck or the spot mid-spine,
upon which signal she will look at me one last time with the happiest
hopeful glance and go to retrieve her treat. Sweetest little thing she
is. She barks now. When someone unusual comes near or when a few
people she chooses to warn us about no matter how much time she spends
around them but mostly with people she is very, very loving. She is a
lap dog most every moment of the day. Funny how her breed alone evokes
some much reverence and fear in almost everyone we come across then her
childish playfulness lulls them a bit, but with most people you can see
in their eyes fairly instantly whether or not they realize she will not
yet so very easily could do all the horrible damage that most people
assosiate with her boxed jawcomposed head and ripped front end.
2.20.8
Lunar eclispe tonight was cloudy, yet perfect and infectious. The
rusty tones that pervaded the Earth's shodow on the moon's surface. The
connections to unknown ammounts of our ancestors and the source and
nature of their lives.
2.22.8
Valproic acid nightly
alters me at two hundred fifty milligrams prescribed week or two ago. A
change could be the placebo effect in action or serious improvement.
More level my emotions, yet not too a zombie extreme.
Waiting on medical results from Fire's last CT, EEG, and EKG scans. It
is a pit in my chest that I have bypassed documenting as I feel
entirely incompetent to convey a truely accurate dipiction of my state
of mind and personal connections to the implications of any such
results. The tests were spurred by another seizure episode that accured
in bed as she finished her sexually ceromonial cigarette. A true
afrontal assualt on any chance at complacency that night or many since.
I have been taken on as a flooring assistant and apprentice.
It is an oppurtunity to learn a trade. I am always open to that,
especially if it has to do with construction of any sort. It has helped
in raising my spirits. My boss, an independent contractor working out
of Lowe's in Lousiville, is my land lord as well and has treated me with
such generosity and kindness along with the whole of his family. It is
nice to be on good terms with one's neighbor and landlord, especially
when they seem as kind-hearted people. His daughter is my roomate here
on Fulllenlove Drive. She is the sweetest and has recently made the
aquaintance of a boyfriend whom visits from Indianapolis often; his Utah
license plate reminds me every weekend of mind desire to roam. Her
room is at the other end of the trailer from mine and Fire's.
A friend was snatched from the home she had been living in for quite a
piece of time, a home that treated her like a member of a family. The
police have a problem with her because her friend dissappeared and
apparently has a warrant or something. Child services have sent her
home to the home she was better off away from; a home where she was
surrounded by abusive vulgar alcoholism and most certainly worse. A
horrible state of affairs for an innocent young girl.
Dalyluh is at nearly sixty pounds now and ever so beautiful. The slick
waves of her coat reflect and compose brilliant landscapes of contrast
across her entire coat. She is such a wonderful being. She really is.
3.4.8
I spent my first check from my flooring gig on buying the parts needed
in fixing my car up a little. New spark plugs and wires along with a
new coil pack. Then I changed my oil with a little help from an old
friend.
4.12.8
The moon is waning over toward the full
side and the embers and crackling out back from the fire and work of
earlier today. The evening has come upon and we have taken to
stationary posts to wind down and relax for our nightly slumber.
Biscuits and blackberry jam 'neath wobbling ceiling fan light. A flock
of blue eyed American women, from everywhere yet claiming the south as
the homeland, stammered earlier. Four vixens from eighteen to
fifty-four postering and lounging gabbing about the tensions of the new
living situation of all of those present. Fire smiling as they refer to
me as a respectable male in the long line of males that have been
brought into their family tree. A tree so wide and entangled in its
roots one is left confused about where excactly all of the branches
connect. Of me they spoke while I toiled in the wood clearing this
beautiful hilled land of the fallen trees; removed to accomadate the
home moved in here to offer refuge to the family. Beers gone; five now,
at least. The evening is fluid and soft as my head floats in this
ongoing web.
4.16.8
"Dry your eyes my little
friend. Let me take you by the hand...Freddy get ready. Rock steady,
and Johnny strikes up the band..." Zevon given upon the mood to lighten
the head just a light bit more than the beer and the benzodreaming.
Then on the Rowland The Headless Thomas Gunner. A friend of mine once
durning a "hippie jam fest" in the basement told me that this song was
his inspiration for his enlistment with intent to deploy to Iraq to
kill. "Roland aimed and blew off Robbin's head...the eternal thompson
gunner...he still keeps fighting." My bodily structures ache as I melt
into the relaxation of the chemical combination. Then Exicatable Boy.
"Well, he's just an excitable boy. Took little Suzie Q to the junior
prom. He raped her and killed then he took her home. Exictable boy
they all said, 'He's just and excitable boy.' After ten long years they
let him out of the hole. He dug up her grave and built a cage with her
bones. Well, he's just an excitable boy..." Strenuous work chopping
and manipulating brush piles, shirtless and being scraped to shreds,
burning the scrap and piling the substantiantial logs. "...He'd rip
your throat out Jim...Well, I'd like to meet his taylor. Ah Hooooooo,
werewolves of London..." Quite a bit accomplished really. The sqauw
respects, loves, and appreciates my effort. It is so amazing to be in
the presence of true hospitality, that they fervantly hold to be true to
the southern roots that hold them deep in their sentiments. My hair is
growing luscious and righteously to the expectiations of my yearning
for the purity of my spirit caught in those lengthening locks. "See
that train. The Mid-Night Train...it runs both ways...listen to train
whistle whine." The Fire is matched to me in the level of the plyable
benzo clouds/fogs. One of the aunts, the middle, is a great interest of
a personality...quite lively, and with some deep tributaries running
into the roots of herself as she is today. A hard and gripping story
behind everyone of their blonde hair, blue eyed front. Fire and I walk
lightly into each day with not much promise of anything aside from the
support in one way or another from ourselves and our families. It is
coming up on Bicycle Day on Saturday followed by Four:Twenty on Sunday.
Then comes Earth Day on Tuesday. One of my favorite times of year is
this potentially spiritually enriching string of days celebrating three
very organic and peacefully organized ideas. Sore. I am so sore. The
aching begs me to indulge in pink little puffy cloud of an answer.
Stresses persist over the absence of employment after losing two good
jobs at once.
4.20.8
nine oh four on the AM...fifteen
on the AM music lacing the morn' with a jump start of the essential
Doors on vinyl, followed by Bob Dylan, then on to the stockpile of music
on my hard drive. A compilation of fourty five hours of music on
random. The birds are singing through the thick salty grey fog creeping
and clouding through the woods around this hillside perch. Two bowls,
one beer, and half a square. A chill in the air. A wood stove in the
home again. I have been stoking it all morning.
Seems that my
dreams have been meshing at the seams of reality and somewhere in
between as I slumber away all humbly at night next to Fire. She is the
song that time would now sing for me . I do not know the nil answers,
but I will tell you one thing. We are better together.
I trance
away into the funky beat and rythm of Come Down by Red Astaire as mixed
to the downbeat tempos of Mark Farina, as showcased on his wonderful
Mushroom Jazz series. Then waft off into the dreamy trounce of Bob
Dylan's "When The Deal Goes Down." Angelical choir breezes brush
lightly on the shoulders of the tender guitar as its weeps accent his
ageing croon. The strange tingle is running amock in my shoulders and
spine. The Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds' rendition live from Luther
College of the beautiful song "Cry Freedom" calling out with such hope
and wholehearted contentment 'the future is no place, to place your
better days' is making my skin crawl, hitting me deeper than ever before
as often I find myself experience.
5.13.8
Working in a
factory again. The walls of the interior croon in antiquity. Cracked
masonry work 'neath peeling layers of ageing paint rise in stern
dissonance to steel raftors. The plant has been a staple of the small
town of French Lick for a great many years. The Pluto Corporation
started long ago bottling the famous mineral water from the springs of
the surrounding hills. The working hours pass with much indifference
really. The atmosphere is fairly laid back and carefree; as the workers
are underpaid, non-insured, and generally underappreciated. After a
ninety day employment each is laid off for a week so as to save the
company from obligations of benifits and raises. It is all quite
depressing, yet the only course of action working out for the hopes of
surviving in this current economy and possibly getting ahead on the
track of securing a plot of land and a house for myself, and
circumstances permitting Fire as well, to live out a few chapters of
life. Life...uh, hmm!? Working Sue's land here for the last six weeks
or so has rendered my muscles down to tight sinew.
Aside from
the evolution of my muscular frame, in the mirror I see the ways that
time is etching away at my facial structure. The cheek bones growing
more pronounced and the eyebrows furrowed; somewhere in there I am now
seeing my mother, and in that my grandmother. Two strong women who over
the years set such an example as to lead myself through the path of
life that has thrown so many and so intimidating and overwhelming of
obstacles...I everyday re-realize how much so that I owe them for there
quiet efforts to mold a significant man out of a young boy begat of very
unpalatable beginnings for such an endeavor (given that there was no
father and very little positive male influence on hand for them to point
out along the way).
I miss working at the radio station. I
miss Jerry's amiable attitude and Jason's positive role modeling. The
vibe of working in that studio was so great. I beat myself to a pulp
inside when I think of how it was in not a few ways the fault of my own
that I was expelled from employment there.
The world is so
fucked up. War. Greed. Famine and so many other maladies affecting
the world abroad (that the people of this American nation are left
ignorant to as the media focuses only on the "threats" to the American
people). Television is a slow arsenic for the soul of every man whom
falls prey to its lure. I would rather see my offspring fall into
spiritual dissarray at the hands of heroin than a horrid spiritual void
at the grip of mass media's deceptive entrapment.
I have
been reading William H. Prescott's The Conquest of Mexico and just today
started into The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Prescott's
accumulation of accounts detailing Cortez and his conquistadors lives up
to my life long dreaming of the glorious aura surrounding the Aztec
mysteries and culture.
My mother just called to tell me that
she is proud of me and the progress I am making in my journey towards
manhood. Tears are streaming down the creases of my smile. A truly
fulfilling moment.
5.17.8
"we only receive what we
demand, and we want hell then hell's what we'll have..."
Up
in the sky I am feeling some feelings you would never conceive. I
decided I would never, ever come down...and about then a tiny little dot
caught my eye, and it was just about to small to see. I might watched
it way too long and it drew me down some wonderous way and routine. I
was up above it; yet now here I am down in it, or so that is how I
remember it. I built a fire with Kay Lynn earlier today, though we
never ignited it. Discussing a yarn of various American musical artists
in the evening domestic fog drinking American brewed beer with a
weathered intrigue of a softened steel visage of her youthful iron clad
chapters of life, the aging woman nods in synch with the rythm or the
flowing soundtrack recounting memories of "Jay Jay" (Janis Joplin) and
Jim Morrison who "was another one way ahead his time and was definately
in touch with the spirit world."
5.27.8
The sun is shining
warm today on all the green of the land. Yellow and white freckling in
flower outcrops along the hot pavement of country routes. A light
breexe that it seen but not felt as the relief which is usually carried
anlong with these friendly visitors to the day. Ahh, there it finally
caught the tail end of one...cool and relaxing. Tumultuous twists in
the story lines as of late. Needing a new home, and wanting towards a
slip of land with a tree or three. A visit to our old room mate
Begley. Tears seem her only company recently, since the leaving of her
marine man. An overwhelming memory her home is!
As the
ladder clacks against the side of Mr. Beavis's garage the sky begins to
darken over the beautiful property. One hour of work today, out of the
average thirteen as recently has been normal. Rain melting and dulling
the surroundings alters the passing horizon of towering hills and the
snaking Lick Creek as it begins to raise. Jesus is laying on the table
aside me; between Fire, Eleanor and I with the lamp casting soft stained
yellow light over the kneeling messiah atop mount olive. Eleanor is
currently dawning four of my bracelets and a thin tapestry of a scarf;
each with its own individual significance. Fire, wearing a long
primitive Eastern/African design hanging loose from her shoulders. The
bull whip was long ago refered to as the Black Snake.
Crack...snap...listen to it moan. Colors of green stand out in the
interpretation of the days passing in the memory and mindset.
The personality quandaring dreams that have been tinging the exhausted
nights after work and the day. Considering the outlook of the summer.
Keller Williams and Yonder Mountain String Band are playing the Murat
Egyptian room in Indianapolis; later on G. Love & The Special Sauce
will be on the same stage. While watching an abnormally large number of
barges pass behind our fire on a long dropping set of conrete stairs
that normally dead end in the water of the Ohio River which the night
before last was ten to fifteen feet high. Larrimore decided to join us
on the trip to see Keller. The night was long, starry, and soft in song
with the fast flowing river passing swiftly by dancing to the song of
Larimore's guitar. The epic prose of his fingers' twinkling tango spill
out the soundtrack of my life every time he praises life with every
time he swoops into my presence. A tack board of moments weaved to the
tune of those melodic melodies that metastisize wonderful weddings of
color and hue in formation of fantastic portraits of my life to be
gripped to until the memory quivers or is cut short. The
bluegrass-Americana string ballads he plucks.
Been told
that the long hair will reveal itself someday to me as wrong and that I
will be compelled to shear it off. One is not to allow his natural
person grow long hair on his scalp nor any facial hair.
Constant bitching by those around me about things that seem
insignificant to me. Am I wrong to detest incescent rants about
insolent bull shit that relates to about nothing.
"Sweet
lightning struck and the Earth opened us, like spring buds."
6.8.8
Back to the real world that the green flower extrapolates into the
beautiful world that every individual human lives their lives every
day. The trees are so beautiful it is breathtaking. The land in which I
live is so presciously shapen, colored, and alive. The days end in a
camper that we are painting our own. Medications popped every so often
leaving me a little dull.
"When you gonna wake up...strenght
in the things that remain..."
Answering, "Jesus..." to an
inquisitive child listening to Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming one of the
seven Dylan vinyls that I have come across. Been attending to a small
camper Fire, Delyluh, and I have come to inhabit. Some cabinets. A
short fold out flannel couch/bed. Another fold down flannel
lounge/bed. A fullsize refrigerator. Broken stove. Bathroom full up
as storage. Yet, the record player spins on at thirty-three, one third
revolutions a minute; speakers laid sideways across the small sink and
stove with incense burning atop. Beautiful landscape adorns the every
horizon. They stand in glory like a masterful hand's greatest paintings
that you can actually walk out into and along down to the centerpoints
of the vast earthworks of the last ice age mixied with the rivers that
run through and along. Every angle has a glowing emminence that one can
literally fall in love with the land. Yet, for the worse, life must go
on as ugly as she can be never being able to truly balance and belong
to those wonderous landscapes that we call our neighborhoods.
Deep in my ear there is an aching; and begining in my throat. Head is
drowsy from the mixture of Lithium, Red Stripe, sun, cannabis, heat
exhaustion. Stomach full. Listening now to the blues, the soundtrack
to the wounderful movie Black Snake Moan featuring Samual L. Jackson
acting with soul and singing the blues with much vigor and candor. The
soundtrack outside of Jackson's work is spectacularly down to earth
blues with some delta vibes. Mothers are helping at the best to get us
"on track." Mother is trying hard to get my "head on straight."
Apparently I always have been right when I felt that my view was a
little different than the average set of lenses or something. "Some
pretty mama better get this black snake soon...black snake is
evil...black snake is all I see...black snake is evil...woke up this
morning, black snake moved in on me..." The blind blues singer
bellowing about the things that scared him in the small darkness of his
isolated world. Kay Lyn is a precious little girl who resembles Fire
uncannily. She speaks with a cute four year old quiet tenacity. She
hugs me when I come around especially when I came home from the fifth
floor. Back to work tomorrow. Now it is the White Stripes. Fire is
trying to stitch together a skirt of various colorful materials. She
works the engines of my dreams so well, especially with Kay Fawn looking
on whispering observations. "Yeah, I been thinking about my doorbell,
when you gonna ring it?" I just want to be all different kinds when i
grow up i am gonna be a mail man and i am gonna make barbies and be a
super hero." Kay Fawn replies a simple question. Then she tickles me
and asks what the knob to the window is. Keller Williams setting a
proper tune for the scene now. We conversate about taking her to a
concert. She is all for it as long as she can wear her green sandals.
Looking at the world with a crooked fish eye lense. Dreading every
day forward because it represents the sense of false security among us
humans as a community. Music has been critical to me since I can
remember; all the way back to my first tape player and Aron Tippin's
Call of The Wild. Now I am tied to it through an affection for vinyl
and live music. At least one goal for every day...a song, a melody, a
rythm.
My hair is growing so long now. Oh, so long it is
hanging in dark curls. My body no long small and round like the child I
was in my earliest years. To consider to time and the nature of its
dispensing in a limited fashion is painfull like the head ache of being
over loaded and addicted to caffeine, sex scenes, and lack of self
denial. Addiction, now that is a fuckin' conundrum there. Fuzzing and
obscuring the experience we have been given with these lives into smoke
clouds of alteration. And that alone is the allure, differing from the
normal plateau of experiencing the passing moments. Doing so in a great
many fashions we fade away our nuzzle with the dream of being alive
hear in this particular juncture in history. Leaves one strange and
mistaken if expected confidence from a generation of disenfranchisement
and mind-numbing overstimulation obligations in an average day. So sad
to be alive today.
6.10.8
A psychosis of sorts does so
beset me as has long been evident in the chaotic flaring rollercoaster
of emotions, opinions, and urges that has for such a long time been a
constant plague of mine. It is now concrete in my understanding. Neil
Young wailing and crooning over the speakers through the wires leading
to needle running along the grooves of disc one of the Live Rust vinyl
LP. Delyluh's first birthday was on the third, it was also Begley's
twenty-first birthday, and the third anniversary of the first time I
truly experienced LSD. Now one week later Lyluh Honai is going into her
first heat. Been drinking various lagers lately. Michelobe Amberbock,
Red Stripe Jamaican Lager, Bush Light, and Rolling Rock have been gone
through just since I got out of the hospital. An old friend's sad trail
is brought to mind by "The Needle and the Damage Done."
6.17.8
Dess had another seizure the other night. This one involved an
ambulance. I had blood drawn for testing of the Lithium levels in my
bloodstream. It is a beautiful day with intermittent white clouds
puffing across the blue, and a swift breeze chilling away the heat of
the day. Missed work again, for doctors, and hating myself for it.
Fire and I planning on going to Bloomington this weekend to pick up some
vinyl, material, and beads. Just finished a draught keg of Heineken
and working on a twelve pack of George Killian's Irish Red Premium
Lager.
6.18.8
Crumbling again upon waking. Failing to
handle. Failing. Tipping back and forth on a line that seems to be the
brink of full fledged lust for my own death. It is fairly unnerving.
Pills and new pills and more pills prescribed for my ailments yet the
pills seemed to just be adding weight to my sinking situation. At least
there is a good view out the windows of the small camper we are living
in. I am fucking myself by missing so much work. I wake up crying
because I have to go or having an emotional breakdown because I am
late. I is rediculous and is creating trouble for Fire and I. Need
some escape. Liquor nor cannabis seems to be the answer, nor benzos or
opiates. Hallucinogens are a different story, because they actually can
be the answer yet are so overwhelming it is usually far to difficult to
put any of their advice and answers in play. If I do die soon I just
want to be buried barefooted with my festival guillies and my "hip"
shirt on.
6.20.8
Played some catch with Mason,
Destiney's oldest younger sibling, yet the day seems to still be
dragging on with cumbersome tones. I see the disadvantage and outright
misconceptions of my point of view. Greyer am I than the thought of
myself. Horrid the situation really is. Disregard. Apathy mixed with
overwhelming yearning and idealism for the future. Yet, it is all up in
the air when connected so closely to the suicidal imagery and ideology
of my recent moods. Considered lightly the proposition of dropping out
one of my boss' knees when he, in all probability, fires me in the near
future. Been reading more into The Conquest of Mexico, which is with
every page a progressively more and more impressive account of Cortez's
and his cavaliers' exploits in the new world. The story is more awe
inspiring than any work of fiction that I have ever come across.
7.2.8
Flesh of the gods consumede over the past few days. Landscapes have
been emmaculate through drunken lenses. And the lungs expelling clouds
of cannabis smoke as the clouds float tall and puffy above us as we
ramble down coutry roads. Fretting about gas price, yet roaming further
still.
Lager and lager and little food and pills after
pills.
7.11.8
Been leaving a lot of the picture unoutlined
as of late.
Week or so back I was invited to a party down
the road to join a booze swooned older head on their stage, a pull along
trailer, to mingle some musical groove and atmosphere. We play a
stapled together bluesy classic rock vibe with some psychedelic
overtones from my bass and later Larrimore's fingers as he shredded the
drunkard's guitar as the man himself blew his harp in a manner so sexual
I can not even compare it to anything other than Hendrix and his axe.
It was a hectic night with some Fire family drama boiling under the
surface and the pinch of hostility the is stitched somewhere in to every
heavily drunk man whose tends to maintain as certain perpetual demeanor
to it. I say this about alcohol as I sip and a frosty Summer Ale with
honey and orange peel from the Blue Moon Brewing Company.
Times are grinding deeper into hard days and the fences seem to beeing
growing with the corn and soybeans. Paranoia about the daily
obligations I panick over when I truly do not give any mind other than
my not meet their demand I will be letting someone or another down.
Economy is waivering to say the least. I am a long hair, further
complicating existence in this small plot of southern Indiana.
Considering a proposition to cut the roots and full steem it to
Michigan. It, in the head, seems like an exciting yet scary
oppurtunity; and in all honesty I am tired of regreting passing such
oppurtunities up. Working on preparing my head for the change and
challenges. (another sip of ale). A fine brew among the variety I have
tasted, though I am quite partial to Rolling Rock. Listening to Al
Martino's Guess I will Just Go Find Somewhere to Cry that I pulled for
twenty-five cents out of the extremely small stack of records that were
at the salvation army. Also picked up some Andy Williams and Dan
Fogellberg.
7.15.8
Sunburn on my shoulders is keeping me
from relaxation. A low budget film about a pack of bloodthirsty nude
white women in the woods of some area is not necessarily good; yet a
certain scene strikes a deep etherel shord in my bosom depicting a man
lying on his back pinned down by five sexual vixens with their pasty
outlines filling the screen and the area around him they seduce then
consume him.
7.20.8
Beheld the most awe-inspiring scene I
have ever before enjoyed while looking down one hundred feet above the
bend in the Ohio between Peckinpaugh Cemetery and The Overlook
Restaraunt in Levenworth, Indiana; along side me was standing Fire and
Larrimore ringing hypnotizing melodies from The Baby. Left Fire in the
last week on a emotional excursion that has been pulling us along.
While doing a little work for my grandfather out on the farm a bit of a
connection has been forged through conversation, very concise in their
duration.
7.21.8
Sunrises and sets have seemed a little
deeper in hue as of late. And the waving of the grain in the wind as
harvest time approaches seems a bit delayed and vivid. Saturday is the
anniversary of the evening Fire first wrote that cute little note on the
underside of the top of a Goldfish crackers box, hence a year since we
have been spending everyday together. We plan on going to Forecastle
Music, Arts, & Activism Festival in Louisville that day and the
following. Took her to court today. Things seem to be working out in
an acceptable manner on that front. Fire's brother gets released from
the penitentery tomorrow. Looks as if we may be leaving for Michigan in
a couple weeks. Spoke with G Beck today over the phone; might meet up
with him sometime soon. Christopher Haley, my stepfather, has finally
moved home for good it seems. I spend day and night contimplating
leaving this place one way or another. Went on a seven miles hike with
an old friend a few days back. Working on a new car, a 1995 Chevy
Corsica, a lot of working that I am actually doing myself.
7.22.8
Sitting amongst lawn furniture outside of the local organic market and
deli I sink more and more sad into this little spiral of suicidal
ideation. Considering the different methods. The loose ends I might
want to tie up. The effect on the person whom finds me. Whether or not
all of this writing will have been in vain or whether it should
properly convey the yearnings and dictations of my heart and soul. So
much I have omitted. So much of import that was left out because I felt
not so inspired to write. It all stands bold when considering that all
of that unconveyed information will pass out of existence along with my
livelyhood. Can not comprehend what is really going on in this recent
chapter of my life. Overwhelming love for Destiny Fire Hannigan seeps
from my eyes as I consider the implication of my enraged decesion. Do
not even vaguely understand my basis for acting and reacting to her the
way I have as of late. Sitting staring her in her teary eyes ranting on
about various bullshit with no idea as to why the particular sentiments
are being dispelled. Emotions seem void, hollow, and unrequired
leaving me to seem heartless and unaffected while really I am
crumbling. I wish her tears could be pouring from my ducts, yet I sit
staring coldly at nothing picturing only escape and the inherent fear
therein. It is not just an angry or sad momentary desire for death, but
a serious inner discussion dominated mostly by the pro-suicide ideas. I
am afraid to go anywhere. If I go to the river I fear I will walk in
out of shear spite. If I go to the farm I am certain I will torment
myself with the proximity of firearms and ammunition. If I get in my
car I fear that I will lose respect for the power of oncoming traffic.
In my mind the imagination keeps relaying an image of the front door to
the Amber Inn in downtown Chicago. I am riding around with Matt
Daniels' pillow in my lap, the one he gave to me before he passed on at
such a young age in one of the rooms in that very hotel two years back.
No faith in myself. Or no faith in others. Maybe just no faith at
all. I love so many people, yet do not feel welcome in communicating
that love. Just the same it would seem that a few people genuinely love
me, yet I never can quite grip that notion. Just kind of hoping
someone takes a liking to the main character in some action movie and
plainly kills me without reason or rhyme. Quite a bit of worry would
thus be avoided. If these were my last words let me end it with
this...sing not the song of those things which fulfill your heart but
that of your heart itself; let your dance wind to the rythm of you own
steady pulse.
7.24.8
Bob croons, "Time will tell just who
has fell, and who has been left behind," I was sitting in an old folding
metal chair off in the field passed the camper, the fence, and the
people. Sitting with my head down raising it occasionally to swig from
the quart of Miller High Life hanging loosely in my grip. "I was so
much older then, I am younger than that now." Even the music of
Larrimore's guitar and the wail of Ian's new keyboard, not even the
soulful heart beat of the bongos could bring my spirit free from the
heavy anchor thrown down upon it when Fire and I became a memory. Right
now it stands as such a painful, painful memory; yes, it does. Wishing
again right now that I had another couple quarts of lager to tip back.
Worked with her stepfather and great uncle today. Working with them
and my grandfather tomorrow moving his trailer. Then Mike is going to
give me two weeks of work with Freeman Mobile Homes. Hopefully I will
make enough to take off to Bloomington or something. Fighting my mind
trying to puncture the areas of my brain that contain her deep enough
that she will drain out and lighten the load on my soul. It all had to
happen right before the one year anniversary of that first night; and
now I do not know what to do with the top from that goldfish box with
her shy handwriting on it, 'I think I may have strong feelings for
you.' Everything carries a scent or vision of her smile or grimace.
Day to day I assume is now the way in which I must face life. As I fall
into dissarray it leads me to ponder the current circumstances of old
friends like Samantha Atkins, Jimmie McManis, and Peter Grider.
Samantha was/is one of the more powerful characters in this little
ineffectual story of my days. She may never step into sight again, yet I
will never forget what she looks, smells, and tastes like. I feel that
should I have stuck close along side of her and followed the wind with
her that we may have wound up in some wonderous and exciting situation
of life. Yet, the seasons have come, gone, and come again and still I
am here crying into my own palms telling my heart's confessions to no
one and to no end. I feel like the subject and vibe of 'Queen Jane
Approximately' off of Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. Some strange
meloncholy laced with hints of nostalgia and heart ache.
"Mother nature is quite a lady, but your the one I need," Johnny sings
as the night kneels dark in between day's light, "All you young fellows
seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mines. It form as a habit and
seep in your soul, till a stream of your blood runs as black as
coal...where the rain never falls, the sun never shines. It is dark as a
dungeon way down in the mines." Late in the evening the hours are
tugging at all minds begging for slumber and renewal on the morrow. The
land where the family line has lived out for some time. The fences all
new. The homes all new. The old ones are still evident. "A cardinal
sang just for me and I thanked him for the song. Then the sun went
slowly down the west and I had to move along. "These are some of the
things on which my mind did feed, but flesh and blood needs flesh and
blood and you're the one I need." I have no expectations of my
tomorrows any more. I have no love and no diamonds nor any highs to
breath for. No expectations. It is not necesarrily a free feeling. If
only I had no expectations to ever pass this way again. John R. Cash
can speak for about anything.
7.27.8
Uncontainable
confusion. Behind the wheel heading how many ever miles I can make it
to close the curtains somewhere that I have never seen. Trying to
hope. Further and further from any method with which to cope. Went
swimming with the children. Smiled.
7.28.8
Put
insulation underneath a mobile home today. Arrived at Jackie's home and
proceded to down a quart of High Life while chatting with an old friend
and Allen. Conceived my funeral pyre, manner of retiring to there, and
a method of getting it lit post mordemly without knowledgably faulting
anyone else, yet still leaving them fairly helpless to save my body from
the flame.
8.9.8
Just one thing before the story begins.
Woman is the devil sent to subdue and construe, walk smoothly in
circles uncouthly. Woman is the devil here to unravel you. The story
is a grippin tale of a faded and jaded point of view; head back eyes
open wide. The devil incarnate come for your soul. The eyes might be
hazy from hard work like hot chile peppers in the blistering sun.
8.21.8
Frank the bunny is the inner turmoil that forms instinct and
postulates impulse. The worm holes are the paths that Frank's urges
tilt us unto. Socrates on the left is wisdom. He is the morally
righteous ends. Cortez on the right is might and courageous ambitious
ends. He fights under banner of valour. TANGLED UP IN BLUE is the
means.
Jewelz. What memories there are to be stirred up in
this messy little hole of a head of mine. Things get stranger when the
faces finally come clear. Time drags never when one is looking back.
When is there a line to draw on what should be looked back upon. All of
the awe-inspiring views at the top of the knolls were followed by
abrubt and abusive falls. Childhood bicycle wrecks are some of my
lighter memories. Some sort of jovial release in those dances with the
pavement. Picking gravel from the pink flesh of the elbow. Wondering
whether the chip off of the tooth was swallowed or not. Waiting for the
mother's reaction. Tendecies towards pyro-involving activities that
seemed to be shared by every young male among my peers. Then THERE WAS
ALWAYS MUSIC of course. Oh, the soundtrack of my life. If only. Ah,
and girls...weren't there always girls as well? It can not be denied
girls were always near me, yet shy I thought I was. Turns out I was
just too reverent of them to disrespect friendship by turning it into a
"relationship" or such. Like Dylan said "We always did feel the same we
just chose to look from a different point of view..."
8.25.8
{AM}
Larrimore has outdone any other aquantance I have had at
the level of meeting criteria required for the title "friend." He turns
twenty-one on Tuesday; celebrated tonight with a clay pigeon shoot. He
made the comment, "This is how you gauge who your true friends are,"
referring to the attendance. The handful of souls that turned out
proving to Larrimore's friends were a varied lot. A guitarist friend
with a quite demeanor. Two good 'ol boys, one at both ends of the
financial scale. Ian, a fun loving tormented soul. Then myself,
well...
Thinking a bit latley of the significance of each of
my passed companions and the affect on where I stand currently.
Really, just kind of twisted up about the realities of everything with
Fire. I just wanted to take care of her and for her to love me
regardless. Silly me I guess. Was contacted by my first significant
ex. Updated me that the house I lived in with her and her family has
been demolishioned, her father (great man, Mack Gay), and that she is
now dating Chris Volz, a nu metal singer in a successful national band,
Flaw. I have been working a lot to keep my mind off of it; laying
conduit in Evansville and working on the family farm. Jealousy is
disgustingly painful.
-a glance into a headspace-
(in the last two hours)
two and one half milligrams
of Lorazepam
two milligrams of Clonazepam
large
quantities of Caffeine
nine hundred milligrams of Lithium
three bottles of Rolling Rock
one and one half fluid
ounces of Jim Beam
half gram of cannabis smoked
Just
to make things clear. I could see where one reader my wonder sometimes
the specifics of my psychanautics. There is no way to give an average
guestimate. So many factors limit and spurn on consumption. Been
limiting as much as possible through avoidance so as to clear the head
up a bit hoping to get my feet on the ground and maybe even a home.
Confidence at a low. Hope lower. Hating on myself for staying at my
uncle's home.
9.1.8
day to day it is decided
what is real and pertinent to the upcoming hours and such. what if
anything to eat? pills? Go see any frineds or family? whether Fire
is to keep singeing my thoughts . just need to get out of my uncle's
house. I am not interested in being in a postion to encumber some one I
care about.
"Don't you know what this place is? Your
future. Make it a reality, all you've got to do is find a way."
9.4.8
For the first time in over a month felt the rain on the neck this
afternoon. For the first time in memory finding some compelling reason
to watch the presidential race on television. Hoping intently that
Obama is the antichrist and finds himself being elected. Hoping suicide
does not seem like the answer to avoiding the tribulations that are
sure to become of every lower class American life. Praying for more
rain followed by successive tidal waves. Praying to see the ground give
way. Praying to have a warm woman in my grip should it actually go
crumbling right in, down. Mother, please flush it all away.
Long time facet of my days, Samantha Atkins, was a dominant factor in
my dreams last night. In one scene I was looking down on a newspaper or
yearbook of sorts; pictured therein was Samantha in a basketball jersey
leaping into the air before a crowd. I was upset for some reason over
the photo so I left the room and ran into my uncle looking for a new
water witch. He chose one that looked just like the tooter off of the
final scenes in the film Scarface. There was also a turtle somewhere in
there. Woke up having trouble breathing.
Feeling slightly
homicidal as of late. Yeah, I know.
9.9.8
Thunder,
lighting, and rain pouring down upon the leaves, trees, and every blades
of grass long before the sun came up into the sky. Set foot in the one
room in Paoli where I would like to write my memoirs.
9.12.8
Procured an apartment on the town square today. It gives off a calm
nostalgic aura. Wood panel. Late 1970's carpet. Second story of the
old brick building. Long black iron stairs running up to the entrance.
9.14.8
Walls of red brick serve as the flesh of this tall two story
building. They have stood tall against the rough winds today. Went for
a cruise today and ran into more downed trees than police, which was
markedly a feat this afternoon. With perfect timing at one point in the
day a glance was given out the ten foot window upon opening it. Like
clockwork as soon as eyes were turned toward the worksite mid-center of
the square it was noticed that the workers had left in the last five
minutes; before the thought was even finished an enormous limb fell from
high in the air down upon the office trailer that centers for the daily
work there. The aura was very alive with the wind whipping the trees
sideways and pushing the vehicles around thankfully each person felt the
"the tires are things on the car that may contact the road."
9.21.8
The streets are lifeless below the quaint window. Street lamps glow
yellow. Sunday morning coming down. Sadness pervades every whim upon
the realization that all this world is currently offering is a desire to
escape it; not only in myself, but in the eyes and lives of my peers as
well. It is going on five AM. Cannabis, benzodiazipines, liquor, and
still fully awake considering the upcoming day; Bob Dylan jamming in the
background. Dreaming off into the arms of the dreamgirls. Trying to
ignore the fuming emotions related to the one whom so much effort has
been put forth into.
10.3.8
Pushing myself furher towards
that ultimate goal of self annhilation. And lonely. Whoo!
10.6.8
first strikingly nice fall night of the season. jaws ailing.
10.10.8
But wheels keep on spinning round, spinning round, spinning round. In
out of self awareness as far as the reality of the real world and
family and responsibility is concerned. I am just not concious of them
at all times. Sink, I do, far down into circuits of weird and
unappealing thought and existence. Self loathing is what it is at the
surface. Yet, from down there in the dungeon it takes on more of an all
encompassing sort of loathing. No hope for the rest of humanity or the
dogs running free or the breeze whistling through the trees. No hope.
Pharmacies form the corners on this enormous grid of insanse people
bounding across the earth's flesh or hiding away in old delapidated cars
or apartments. Friendships are based on access to pharmeceutical and
herbal wares. What are my brothers and sisters of this small town life
coming to. An entire generation having children before they have
reached adulthood. What then can be expected of the next generations.
Please forgive us. Or do not, because truth be said we probably are not
worthy.
10.11.8
Elvis Costello creates nostolgia so
fluidly through music that it can not be denied. A classic. I wake up
to his My Aim Is True this saturday morning at 9:30 AM. My system got
use to that timing once again after Des joined me for a few nights.
That was her schedule. It is interesting how quick the body's internal
system adapts sleeping patterns based on expectation of relief to the
side of a warm human flesh canvas. Last night a rare encounter with an
acceptional locally grown Afghan indica strain was enjoyed.
10.14.8
Dreams were quite in depth through out the darkness of last night.
Though, all was intense, all that I can recall clearly is the ending. I
was with a female companion. We were rushing "back" to an apartment,
one of us lived there with our mother, but I am not sure if it was her
or myself. We are trying to beat the mother in question and her man
there. When we pile through the door I pull a twenty-five caliber
pistol from my person somewhere. I fumble around trying to take the
empty shells out and reload the revolver. I can not get the fresh
shells into the cylinder. I am agitated. My lady points out a jacket
on the couch. It is the mother's old man's pistol. I grab it, check it
over, and realize it is a loaded nine millimeter Glock. They are
coming up the stairs and I am trying to figure out how to work his gun
so that I can shoot him. I wake up.
I think when I am dreaming
is the only time I not thinking about pointing the barrel at myself.
4:46 PM open that hatch and down slide nine round green
tablets
5:20 PM gulp or two a Nyquil cough
-bit
light headed
-nothing on
the mind aside from any further possibilities of inebreating chemicals
6:10
PM two oblong white tablets enscribed M357
8:24 PM five more of the
sweet green discs
At one time nine milligrams of clonazepam
would have left me slobbering on a couch somewhere. Now I just consider
eating more.
10.19.8
(AM) Sped to Louisville tonight with
Larrimore coniving behind the wheel, madness with no destanation other
than somewhere else, and Ian in the passenger seat. Made a couple dozen
random phone calls. Seen Choke after having read the book a few
times. Seen the moonligt on the river.
Everyone else fell
into the realms of slumber and dreaming fantasies. Wide eyed and wired
awake I sat in silence so long as I could possibly take. Tried to
sleep. That ended with taking the batteries out of the clock in the
kitchen to stop it from ticking. Dressed for cold and took to the
outside where the night assured me that no matter how well dressed for
the frosty air I may have been there was no way to stop the thieving
cold from creeping in. Walked 'round the town square examining the
olden brick buildings and their various dates and insignia that have
withstood the hundred years or so that most of them have stood. Ran
fingers 'tween red bricks across the mortar grid. Sat outside the pub
to take in the sounds of four cars worth of nightlife that is this small
town. Remained there long enough to listen to "She Talks To Angels"
then walked on reading the names engraved on the rim of red bricks
lacing the pavement 'neath. On down towards the creek and the old iron
bridge. Admired through the black iron gridding trickling waters'
version of the half moon shining ghostly white from high above. Paused a
moment removed my hat and acknowledged the faith of the Penecostal
church standing behind a trailer park that I once lived in. Tried for a
moment to remember what the inside of that trailer was like. Then on
to the cross bridge over the dam of the creek. Pondered for a moment on
all of the memories I have on and under that iron and wood bridge;
catching snakes, not catching fish, breaking my arm, etc... Back on
toward the town square. Stopped and inspected the indian statue on the
south side. Rested and thought for a bit at the bottom of a younger
tree on the courthouse lawn. Trying to ignore all of the renovation and
scaffolding (which Larrimore climbed a few hours prior) to see the
building itself.
Might just have a case of love insomnia.
(PM) Everyone else woke up this morning with the sun as I finished my
shower and such. Two cold Pabst Blue Ribbon tins down and it was off to
The Ritz for a breakfast of biscuits and gravy with coffee, Larimore
abstaining for water. Watched the racers buzz around the top of a
distant hill in their comically frantic motocross event. Picked up Edie
and southward to Carefree for a church survice under pastor Morris,
Larimore's grandfather, who preached alongside my greatgrandfather Nolan
and also shot clays pigeons with Ian's grandfather. Good service. He
made a subtle reference to Revalation twenty-twelve. Further souther
again down to that secret ol' hippie place where we sometimes hide. The
Ohio River bend. Some splendid adventures traverseing towering rock
outcropping jutting up from, literally, the edge of the road. Great
adventures they were. Then down and over to the fallen monoliths below
that have fallen over the years. Climbed a grapevine. Sat upon one of
the most beautiful perches of stone in the wish-washing shore of the
emmaculate river flowing on by to the Mississipi River then on to the
Gulf of Mexico and the world via the vast oceans and their innumerable
miles of shoreline that other wonders and wanders may be perched on.
Then naked time at Peckinpaugh. Well for me anyway. Nearly Ian. Yet,
the sweetest moment on the shore: the stunning angel of Ms. Uyesugi
dawning my dry jeans and t-shirt upon her wet sculpture. Then the ride
home with her cuddling up against my lap as she tried to get comfortable
to rest through the trip home. So sweet I reach not, one hand to touch
her; and that being only to caress a single lock of hair as she
grimaced, with eyes closed, during one of Larimore's signature
sixty-five mile per hour pace through sharp turns. Got home directly
into an exceptional jam sesch. Still, oddly, energized after no sleep
last night had rambling conversation with the downstair neighbors.
Still no signs of sleep. Staring off in to space. Thinking in short
yet rapid form intemittently. Wish the mind was not in such toils so a
more in depth picture could be depicted of the wonderful day I had on
this nineteenth of October.
10.22.8
Terrified I am going
to murder someone.
Sick of the same 'ol things so I dig a
hole. Can you not feel this (indecipherable screams)?
10.26.8
we do what we do for reasons we are not individually capable of
grasping. life might make sense if we ever figured something like that
out, and god or time or biology will not let that occur until we lay
tasting our last few moments and that being only if we are entirely
lucky. I would say lovers, dreamers, pessimists like the two of us will
never reach that satisfaction for we will not find our demise at the
end of some long fulfilling life with any sort of closure. but, then
again who am I to assume I could understand something so intangible.
I
finally fell a sleep last night after five days. As my exhausted body
shut down there was nothing to hault my mind from skipping down that
stream of subconsciousness we call dreaming. Sorry if it seems strange,
but the following are bits of the dreams I had.
I was in a
trailer. Enraged over something that never was obvious. I was
destroying everything I could pick up, even things that did not belong
to me. As I was doing this i made my way from one end of the trailer to
the other. Once I reached the opposite end i was at a bathroom. I
could smell you. I looked in and there you were hiding crouched behind
the wet shower curtain. you were still dripping from the water and
behind was the girl whom you were cleansing and likewise. When I seen
this I was already so pissed that there was no more room for anger. I
became embarrassed. I ran the length of the shower curtain rod through
the wall out of the trailer leaving you and your lover exposed then
turned and started to run to get away from it all. I collapsed before I
made it out. After what seemed like hours of laying face first at the
base of a couch you came down the hall. Your lover close behind. You
began to cry with me and leaned down to hold me. I could not believe
you were showing compassion when we had both apparently just fucked up
horribly. You were talking to me like I have always talked to you when
things were getting rough. Your lover said something that I did not
understand, but you got quite and held me so tight I could have stopped
breathing. And it was then I felt, actually felt not like a dream, the
same sensations that rushed over me when I first realized how deeply you
felt for me back when we were first dabbling in our love.
Then
we were in this big building, i am guessing it was a school because it
there were only young people that i could see. An announcement came
over the intercom saying that every one in the building was going to be
protesting something by not eating or drinking anything until they got
whatever it was they wanted. I tried to leave, but could not find the
door. So I just hid. While I was ducked under a counter someone came
through the door and I was so scared I started shaking. They walked
straight to me and knelt down to see me. It was you and you told me not
to worry. You had smuggled me a sub and a fuze flavor that does not
exist. I was so happy that you risked it for me that I did not care if I
ever ate again and died right there in that building.
Then we
were climbing this tower next to a stream with a bunch of other people.
A loud siren, like the big ones a town sets of when there is a storm or
something, started wailing in the distance and everyone started hauling
down the tower scared except for us. We came down but only because we
could be alone and dance on the ground. As we were dancing you turned
and leaped into the stream. I was worried because I did not know how
deep it was or what was in it. The you came back to the surface
glistening and beautiful. You smiled and suddenly all of these
underwater birds came hopping out of the water to play with me. I could
not believe it. I just sat down amidst these strangely beautiful birds
as they danced and dove in and out of the water, which apparently they
never came out of usually. I just smiled and you smiled back. Then you
got out of the water and sat next to me. You put your arm around me
and it made me cry for some reason.
I woke up then as I was
sobbing in your arms.
Thank you for making me smile. Thank you
for making me happy. Thank you for making me cry. And thank you for
being for me when the tears began to fall. I hope you are okay wherever
you are.
I love you.
11.5.8
The world has finally
come to a point that I can truly feel I lived in a time that will go
down in history as a note worthy era. I am so thankful for this, my,
generation that I have dubbed as the generation of apath did stand up in
mass and push the nation towards something they felt was appropriate. I
feel like dancing in the streets. Seeing young people at midknight
dancing and celebrating at the gates of the whitehouse and not being
told to leave. The secret service men actually seemed impressed by the
crowd as apposed to launching tear gas into the crowd they watched on
with smiles. Such a wonderful evening seeing history play out. For the
first time in even my mother's life time Hoosier's rose up and chose a
Democrat as opposed to a Republican. Though I must commend John McCain
on his concession speech. It was comepletely respectable. Had he spoke
with those sentiments throughout the campaign I may have leaned more
toward him as being a more appropriate leader for our nation.
12.5.8
Now in the cold with snow falling daily and temperatures dipping
perpetually low I find that the days are a strange new kind of life.
Josh Watkins came out of a long hiatus of obscurity on his feet with a
good job, a wife, a house, and a baby on the way. Even knowing how
intensly fucked up of a person I am he swooped in one night with no
beckoning to take me up out of a dire situation of self destruction and
has taken me into his home. It has been the best I could ever ask for
and not even expect. I hope so much that I do not let him down by
falling back to my common states of dissarray. I do have a job now and
my bipolar problems are overall doing well, though there are still many
issues that creep in daily. I am fighting harder than I have ever
before to keep my head on straight. Dess...we happen to be engaged at
present. I am trying so hard to make this all work. I love the girl
and am willing to do every possible thing to take care of her to the
point that she should be willing to make the sacrifices I need from
her. She has wronged me much, and I can not claim to be uneffected by
the trespasses. Yet, I love her far to much to not give her the
chance. It is hard being away from home, but I know that it is very
likely that I would fall back into the depths of my former lows if I am
in that place. My mother will be married next saturday and I will be
giving her away. I can not wait; so very happy for her.
12.9.8
Candle light, Genesis, and now Eric Clapton pervade the beginning of
this new night as the rain falls just on the other side of these walls,
just out of sight. Emotions strung out from chemical imbalances and
harsh life situations. For example, the call I missed the other day
that came to inform me that again in a jail cell my baby does lay. In
my loving arms she belongs yet she sleeps so far away. Just like my
sore heart the antique bed I sprawl out upon at night creeks and weeps.
The love between us I can not help but doubt yet I can not bring myself
to deny them in even the slightest. I doubt not that she was, is, and
will remain unfaithful; yet by some unknown source I will not waiver in
my undying affection. Aside from all of this I have once again uprooted
myself and diluted my sense of self to look for a new place on life's
grand shelf. Alcohol the only intoxicant besides lust that has gripped
me in nearly two months. It leaves my mindset much altered from
anything I have known for such a long time. The paranoia has been
replaced with dread as has the apathy which has somewhat grown to pure
nihilism. The suicidal tendecies have not dissipated, but have in a
manner been overshadowed by a desire to accomplish something first. I
believe that is life's big illusion. You must accomplish something
before you die so you keep going. Then we all die knowing we have
accomplished nothing. Maybe that is why so many turn to religion for
assurence that life counts for something.
(12.29.8)
At
twelve AM I pull the cork and pour myself a shot of Jack Daniel's Single
Shot and down a cubensis cap fifteen milligrams of diazepam and three
milligrams of clonazepam. Sit down and listen to a compilation of great
songs I put together for myself. The fifth of Single Barrel that I
mentioned is my birthday present for myself. I bought it at 21st
Amendment liquors in Carmel. Fire and I sleep for a while. I wake up
again and continue to drink on the Jack. At some point Jackie takes me
to the Big Red Liquors in French Lick where I pick up a craft pack of
various Dundee beers. Jackie and Destiney go in together to get me a
fifth of Crown Royal Special Reserve. At some point I picked up a 100
mL bottle of Jack Daniel's Ol' No. 7.
1.4.9
What ever
happened to that new face to face the new day? Surely I was there and
aware when myself slipped away!? Cold and rain drenched the scene past
the still flashing christmas tree, on outside through the sliding glass
window runs like green and grey paints splashed sullenly on the
world...on I stare. Days and days in a strange haze left drained, dead,
and dull.
1.11.9
Sweat dried and reaccumulated stands out
as one of the many definitive characterististics on the gentleman's
face on this Eleventh of January in the year of two thousand and nine.
Three jugs of blackberry-lime wine to bottle and label tonight: January
11th, Two Thousand and Nine. This is the is the first time three
batches have matured on the same day. His days were at one time
consumed one or two hours an evening during the week growing or
acquiring and then mixing ingredients sugar, yeast, and the fruits and
spices of season and choice and then waiting on the sweet climax to the
life of the nectar. Saturdays were spent making the rounds to sale the
excess of passed days' batches. Sundays were spent relaxing. Drinking
no more than one bottle of wine. Doing no work aside from bidding
conversation with passing neighbors. Lately, at least four hours of
attention go into the wines each night. Saturdays are now a tipsy
carnival show of speaking manically about the different significances of
life and the world it plays out within. Sunday now seems unreal. He
bottles at least six bottles per day now...everyday. The fine contents
of each days harvest. Neurotically he puts every effort into the wine
and the words and sketches on the labels so that each day is on record
through the bottles. He misses not a day so that the day he stops
breathing his closest friends will be able to sip away the taste of his
last moments.
This evening a couple of teenage girls
were in my situation. I am a bit weirded out by the girl with dark
hair. Her demeanor reminds me of myself. Then, at some point in the
evening I hear something that catches me off gaurd and jerks me by the
chin to see the source of the talking at the moment. I ask her what she
had just said. "My dad's name is Greg Spencer." I just laugh and look
at the ground.
2.17.9
A coin minted in 1964 Colombia has
remained dangling in my possesion. I choose it on this day to be placed
on my being for daily reference. Life runs wild and wild runs stranger
than ever, yet in some mundane sort of melodramatic manner. I find
myself engaged and promised toward fathering a child and still I am yet
to meet the father to be called my own. Everyday I tend to toddlers and
an eight year old boy with no father to be seen and an iffy
stepfather. A child in need of a lead. Seems as if I have fallen into
stagnation in this family scene tending to the daily life of a family,
only by love, my own. My family blood obscured in the background
becoming more alien by the day. And the days becoming less and less
cycles of time rather than titles to vague memories. A binge? Or am I
honestly working on being a progressive alcoholic. It inspires me not
in my emotions or art; yet I cling tightly to it expecting relief at
some junction. The dogs have become close companions in a good sense. I
find myself less inhibited by the presence of Delyluh and Lady or even
Duke. Music...
3.20.9
Ten stiches cause the itches
that irritate his hand as the stress causes the twitches. Walking the
streets of the sad home town of Paoli has been the errand, action, and
only option for the recent weeks. Drama in constant eruption with the
lady's mama.
We were sleeping when they returned from the
bar. They were already drunk at home when we went to bed. They came in
fighting. Michael Freeman Jr. apparently attacked Jacki Percy as there
was a loud commotion followed by Jacki screaming for him to take his
hands off of her. Dess went to console her mother. I heard a commotion
and Dess' voice so I bounded out of the room. Mick was pinning her to
the ground with both fists gripped around her throat. I pulled at him
to no avail. The first hard object I could find was an empty half
gallon bottle of Jack Daniels. I hit him hoping he would stop. The
bottle broke and he was still choking her while her mom stood and
watched. He would not stop so I gripped him by his long hair and held
the broken neck bottle to his throat. He immediately released and began
screaming at me to leave. I said repeatedly, "We will both leave as
soon as you promise we can do so safely." He kept yelling and Jacki
grabbed me by the throat which jerked me backward jabbing the bottle
shards into Mick's neck. After Dess got her mother off of me Micky
growled, "Jaron, let's go outside." I lead him out of the kitchen and
once I was comfortably close to the door I removed my hand and the
bottle from his throat. There was blood everywhere. I did not know who
all was bleeding and from where. I was just trying to protect myself
and Destiney Fire Hannigan. After Dess grabbed my backpack we were
heading out the door when he punched my in the back of the skull causing
a chipped tooth.
Now we have been sleeping here and there
for a while and today find ourselves in room number three at the Ritz
Motel across from the Paoli Peaks and the new town park.
Trying to confuze my mind into the courage to cut off my locks. It is
so emotionally and spiritually painful to consider. Thus I feel I need
extreme innebriation in order to handle the act of severing these energy
laden strands of dark brown hair.
May very well be found
dead some day soon. Fuck it. Forget it. Bury me with Daniels'
pillow. Play Bob Dylan at the ceremony. Please Larrimore play "Ode to
Moonlight Emma" as they lower me into the ground.
3.21.9
The winding begins the binding of view to one anew and the strands
dance round and round to complete the wonderous braids they were born
to have wound. Many times the tear, fear, laugh, and life soaked locks
that have adorned my crown. Sun shines warm like the finest wines to
tender to the palate.
"I was raised to be strong and hard,
but if you touch me wrong I might fall apart. Found a woman who's soft
but she's also hard. While I slept she nailed down my heart." It is
grand how songs can speak for us. "Shoot Mexico down" the lead singer
of Morphine and the DEA sing at the same time as we dull away the dread
of the situation. "I got the whiskey baby, well I got the
gigarettes...electric supex sex. love baby." Looking at going to
Meadows Psychiatric facility or to Flint, Michigan to try to work up an
existence from nothing near Fire's father and childhood friends who know
only what her biased mother has told Kevin Percy. The first braid has
been sheared. I love to smile. Music creates almost as sincere of a
smile as pure love. "Let's put it to bed. Let's put it down. I can't
talk about it, not right now. On my dying day I might be able to say
where my every word explodes in my face."
The world is
twisted up in getting itself seen on television and the internet. Far
too preoccupied with media coverage to tend to the endangered lives of
my childhood friends now fighting in Irag and Afghanistan and those of
the starving, homeless, hopeless youth of America such as myself.
5.18.9
Trees wave in millions of soothing tones of green. Clouds clipping by
like Colombus' dreams of India. Nostalgia permeates around the two
toned 1985 Ford F-150 rusted and laced with could be dreams of regaining
a touch of control. Humorings of romantic rendevues on the river
shore, for her tender blue eyed soul, adorning her in smiles then
promising ouselves to the life to come and ourselves sharing it. Summer
is rolling out her gentle dress once again for us all to dance and make
love upon. The rains have fallen so heavy and in such rythym as to
atune us sweetly to the waltz of pseudo-dreary melting reflections
through the mirror of spring precipitation
7.28.9
"I am
gonna sit here on this bank of sand...and watch the river flow," Bob
Dylan and I belt out together as Destiney, Larrimore, Kade, and I dance
in the the front row of the stands behind center field at Louisville
Slugger Stadium while Bob plucks his guitar on stage wearing all black
in the hot sun. On July 8th The Bob Dylan Show had brought John
Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, and Bob himself to town. With one day's
notice Dess and I along with our new friend Kade left Wickliffe, our new
home, and hooked up with Larrimore to try our hands at making it to
this spectacular concert. The show started with "Watching The River
Flow." The set also included a "A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall," the classic
"Like A Rolling Stone," and was finished out with a great version of
"All Along the Watchtower." As the sun went down we decided easily that
we were going to try to jump the centerfield fence and bolt past the
guards into the front of the crowd. I watched All Along The Watchtower
from close enough that I could count the wrinkles on Bob's face.
Three days later on July 11th Dess, Kade, and I went back to
Louisville to attend the 8th Annual Forcastle Festival. This year we
were going to see the Black Crowes and Widespread Panic. I spent ten
hours without moving from front row center. I was ecstatic with the
amazing set by The New Mastersounds, and not disappointed by Dead
Confederate. Ran into Napier whom kept Dess' anniversary gift to me,
Avalon, loaded. The Crowes performed so well that I was in disbelief.
They played most all new music and every song was played with high
energy and such soul. A lady from 91.9 WFPK was there filming and doing
a live radio remote during their set. They even had two American peace
flags on stage and two African-American women singing back up vocals.
Widespread Panic was almost to good to believe. While chilling under
the blue skies in the front of the Forecastle crowd I met quite a few
interesting folks. Dess also watched a glass blower blow a sherlock
piece from beginning to end the purchased it. She has since then been
named Scarlett. We sat on 5th & Main Street in downtown Louisville
until nearly five AM when the show had ended at midnight.
Been shuffling with the sharpies again putting ink to Destiney Fire's
flesh occassionly and on a favorite pair of patched pants of hers. The
pink clouds have decsended thick in the past few weeks in the epidemic
form. On July 25th at approximately ten o'clock in the evening
Hoffman's birthday batch came on a colorful paper artwork to rearrange
our perceptions and forever mold our memories to never forget being
uncomfortable with Pink Floyd's album The Wall, being confused by Jimi
Hendrix, and silenced by The Stones' album Tattoo You. We listened to
all of the Rolling Stones vinyls I had as Saturday morning was Mick
Jagger's 66th birthday. This all occurring as Fire and My second
anniversary came up at midnight on the 26th. The sound of the air
conditioner permeated throughout my brain driving me more insane than
the sound of the bongo's back on that fateful "fluff night." Outside
quite a lighting storm passed us in the distance lighting up the black
sky down from which every beautiful blanket of stars. Watching
lightning flash when there are no clouds above you in the night sky is
such a mystical sight to behold. Santa even visited and threw us a
glare like he had come across an automatic door for the very first time.
7.29.9
Papa Ox shocks all dullness from the room as he
enters. A kind character of wit and wizdom has came along as a new
friend to the Fire and I. He is Kade's father. He exudes wordly advice
in the form of tales of old. A character straight from Keroauc's
typewriter. He inspires me to believe in life and my chances at working
her the right way. He also inspires a bit of the altered perception
contemplations that spark the artistic voyager hiding in me somewhere.
Dess has taken quite an eye toward him which makes me smile as much as
her.
Clearing hiking trails, fire lanes, utility
corridors for farm equipment, and tractor lanes has been enjoyable as I
have been working in wildlife management and forestry for the Indiana
Department of Natural Recourses at Patoka lake resavoir. Got paid to
play with the rocks in a creek one day, and was highly commended for the
work.
7.30.9
The colors form the picture. The hands
but work as a crutch for the movement of the sharpie's attitude. They
do not create what I aim for. Thus, I guess I am a horrible excuse for a
visual artist falling more in the con-artist. Vodka and
benzodiazepines. Maybe, that combination and the lack of opiates gives a
bit of an explanation for the lack of heart in my art sometimes.
8.13.9
I pointed my .22 caliber rifle at myself and held it tightly against
my belly. A bullet, twirling and whirling, slipped through the left
side of my abdomen yesterday morning. I underwent surgery to search for
serious damage.
8.17.9
Things have swooped down and
bounded up and have again landed me in that peculiar position of trying
abide by my moral ties and yet live up to the yearnings of my heart and
fears of my mind. I stand on the precipice of understanding my own
journey and burning myself to the ground let alone the bridges I need
along that journey. The job I aquired working for the Indiana
Department of Natural Resources is about to run out. I am proud to say
this will be one job I held up through from beginning to end. It has
been a tough fight, yet fight I have. I have busted my ass to retain
this job and the respect of my supervisor and my boss. I am still
nurturing the wounds I encured after I shot myself in the abdomen last
week. That whole situation is a bit blurry in general; yet, I am quite
certain I was just assuring myself that I was real by instilling quick
and assured pain. I pulled the trigger four times before the gun
finally fired. Quite nerve wracking. The aftermath has left me
doubting my family bonds; espesially with my mother who refuses to help
me with the pain. I now linger here in this dark twilight wondering
whether I should ask my very reserved family for one last chance at
helping me or whether it would be better for me to dissappear
completely, thus making my likely suicide less of a completion for these
people whom are the catylyst for such dark thoughts of
self-worthlessness that leave me lusting for my own demise. I have
considered asking the Papa Ox to help me locate my biological father so
that I can at least add that chapter to this book before I pen its
premature end. I picked up a mouth harp a few days ago and have been
playing to the point that I am certain my lips may begin to bleed. I
shot myself. I just do not know what to do. I had been building up to
an emotional break for quite some time. A few days before I pulled the
trigger I rampaged through our apartment in reaction to Destiney's
pandering me. I destroyed my record player as it spun out its last tune
"House of The Rising Sun" by The Animals. I can admit that I am scared
that mine will soon be a soul drifting with no eyes, no ears, and no
form through this desolate existence until that imminate judgement day
does come. Should happenstance lead me gone and away from this, the
strangest life I have ever known, I hope only that these words find
meaning or reason in the heart of someone somewhere.
9.18.9
Turn left onto Spillway Road and follow it off and down the way to
some concrete picnic tables. Beyond the concrete is an immaculate
staircase at least seventy five yards deep and thirty yards high. Water
cascades down and over these beautiful stones outcroppings as Fire and I
scale them searching for smiles and laughter trying so intently to
ignore the immenence of the bitter sweet hereafter. The sunshine
glistens off of Fire's pale skin leaving me breathless in throws of love
for this young gorgeous angel. Even with her scabbed wings she pulls
me up, up and beyond the tallest leaves on the greenest trees to leave
me looking back down upon the reality of the world knowing for once that
there is a door I can open that will reveal some release toward peace;
it lays within her smile.
We have travled to the land of
Popeye and friends. Slept, we have, before the trains tracks and just a
stone's throw from the mighty Mississippi River beneath the bridge
connecting Illinois State Highway 51 and the great state of Missouri. I
have spent time the man she refers to as "Grampaw." I have met many
new strangers whom have affected her life, mainly her childhood. Fire
has done all that she can, within her own personal reason, to please my
mind's petty desires over the past couple years and now I stand next to
her quaint self hoping only that she realizes that I have done the same.
I walked from Hillham to our apartment in Wickliffe last
night. I would imagine it is around fifteen miles. After the ten mile
mark I was in such pain that I can honestly say I would rather be shot
again than ever walk that far without any chemical or physical
assistance. How many times will I leave a situation angry and set off
walking so far that my anger is likely to be redirected at myself for
such self-punishment.
9.20.9
Dewar's Black Label twelve
year aged Scotch Whisky and Kamchatka Votka from Ketucky twist in some
gorgeous Crawford County greenery then follows an unbalanced stumbling
scenes of pure dionysisistic outbursts. Daytime dreamery fluffs the
spirit in hopeful intentions.
9.21.9
Dim lighting
faining to illuminate the cool darkness of a gentle four twenty AM. "I
am dreaming of you, that is all I do...I wish your hand was in mine by
now. We could go to where the moon shines wide. Just keep dreaming of
you. That is all that I do... Feel like a ghost in love... Further
away than I ever were before... And I keep dreaming of you. It is all I
do, and I think it is driving me insane..." Dylan bounds through a
wanderful poem threading itself through a hypnotizing song that
ruminates through the air of the evening as smooth as Fire's breath as
she slumbers so lovely wrapped in soft green sheets like a sunburst
yellow morning glory bloom resting closed in the moonlight waiting to
burst like sunrays into the morning as it approachs. Streetlights have
made the dim impact on the mood of much of my life walking the nights
that this path has lead me through. There is something serene about
living life at night. Especially when done so in rural southern
Indiana. Something cool, smooth, and yet brimming with some energy that
may well be the night itself lit by all the possibilities of a dull
scenario. The populations are likely getting into the first stages of
morning at this early hour on a Monday.
9.24.9
If
anything in this life is to prevent me from becoming a horrid monster of
a person it will be meeting my "father." Should I not meet him I will
go on feeling like he may just deserve to have his eye balls extracted
with an oversized syringe and his genitals removed with a sodering
iron. Should I meet him there are infinite possibilities of what could
and could not be.
9.27.9
The cold has crept in this late
September morn' as the clouds has greyed over for last the last few days
dousing everything with warm rain water. Trying hard as of late to
convince myself that things will pull together before winter. Yet,
there remains THC in my system; no money in the bank; and too many
problems with my of Ford "Bonnie." Fire and I still manage to eat each
day and we do still share much love and careing; so hope is not lost. I
have impressed my supervisor at the DNR with some sketches and ideas
for various pieces of furniture and such. He owns a wood shop and needs
someone with ability and ambition to work it and help around the farm.
This coming weekend Fire and I are to be helping him, Nick Clutinger,
and his wife with their sorgham harvest. He will be teaching us how to
boil the pressed juices of the sorgham into mollasses over a firepit.
Sorted through some old written compositions earlier. Some of
the things I read immediately sent my heart into a flare as the words
evoked vivid memories of watching the ink pour from my pen as originally
tried to document the desires and pains of my young heart. Some of the
things I read made me laugh at myself, and yet some of them left me
fighting off tears. Poems about lovers I never had or wished that I
could not have. Poems about opiates...lots of them. It hurts me a
little that the one stimulus that once wrenched the most amazing art
from my spirit no longer seems to hold its magical grasp on me. It all
started when I broke my wrist in junior high. At the emergency room
they shot me up with Demerol and within minutes I was reciting song
appropriate song lyrics to my nurse who happened to be my girlfriend's
mother whom I had yet to meet formally. Many evenings I would pop a
twenty milligrams of hydrocodone and take off walking toward the sunset,
and by the time the streetlights flickered on I would be mumbling quips
of poetry and ryhme to myself or setting under one of those
streetlights writing it down on a small piece of paper. I could be
sitting in my darkened bedroom bored and with only a few tabs go into a
frenzy of sketching that would last until I fell asleep and leave my
notepad with three pages full of drawings. I would sit in class
drooling over myself waiting until third period when I would down a
couple Vicodin and spend the rest of the day philosophizing with my
teachers. On occasions where I would be planning on enjoying the
company of a beautiful young girl, with the help of a couple Percocet, I
would spit loving words in such lovely patterns that the both of us
would be in awe of the love I seemed to harbor. When I first discovered
Methadone I would wake up early and eat just one pill then go back to
sleep; and when I would wake up an hour later I would have an entire day
of inspiration and loving amusement. Nowadays I insuffalate fifty
milligrams of oxycodone and feel no more artistic than a third grader at
a spelling bee. Hoping to find a muse I down a fourty milligram
Oxycontin and pick up a pen and a pad...four hours later all I have is a
case of the nods. I drink constantly. I smoke cannabis on a regular
basis. I ingest benzodiazapines in enormous quantities. Nothing seems
to do the trick anymore. That little pink cloud of inspiration seems
just a little to far out of my reach anymore. Looking at it from aside
myself it seems that all of my art and the inspiration that begat it
came out of sexual desire and the desperation of not being able to
fulfill it. So, could it be that since I now have a gorgeous young
lover to attend to my needs and desires that I am no longer an artist?
If she ever exits the picture will I again find my muse; or have I been
forever ruined?
9.30.9
Yes...yes...yes. Things are about
to get back to normal. We are losing our apartment. In all seriousness
our landlord is a meth-freak, and quite a bit quacked out. He is not
allowed on the property we are renting because I am not sure he legally
owns it which would explain why our rent has been so low and we have not
had a hot water heater for three months or so. This fuck is telling
us if we want to live here we must by a new hot water heater for
ourselves or he will evict us. He is also claiming we have not paid
last months rent. So needless to say we are about to be back on the
street or in someone else's fucked up home. Dess' great-grandmother
passed away a few days ago. Bonnie lost all oil pressure this morning
when we were preparing to go visit Dess' grandmother to attempt at
consoling her. In our cabinets remains approximately ten packs of
Ramen Noodles and a can or cream corn. There is no money in my pocket
and little in the bank. Yep, looks like homelessness is coming on
again. I am not scared this time around, but it is weighing on my soul;
as I lost my temper for no reason and went off of Fire this earlier
today.
Now I sit killing a bottle of scotch, Clan
MacGregor, that I found cheap in a liquor store in Birdseye. I am not
sure whether or not I am terrified of becoming an alcoholic. All this
time of toying with the idea of ending my existence has left me fairly
vulnerable to acts that might end therein. So with no worry about the
future I know that no matter how bad things get there is always an ace
up my sleeve; yes, it may leave me burning in some sort of spiritual
holocaust for eternity, but I will never be sure of that possibility
until I get there. I guess I just want to feel like someone that I care
about cares about me; at least enough to convince me that they care
that my life has been perpetually falling apart since I left my mother's
home. I am so hopefull these days about what I can see and accomplish
and be, yet I am so scared of my lack of disdain towards cutting all of
those possibilities short. Thus, I assume, are the quandaries of living
as a human on this Earth. Surely my plight is a miniscule trepadation
in the scheme of human pain.
10.7.9
Looking at those of
my peers that I can connect my current affairs with it would appear that
this period in life is one in which we find one thing we feel is solid
and then retract from everything else to protect it. I feel as if I am a
recluse whom is hiding only to assure that I do not fall apart at the
proving, by society, that I am inept. I took ahold of Fire and dove
behind the trees and up Fullenlove Drive into the back bedroom to hide
our bond's weeknesses from the world. That attempt has gone through
some odd changes and seen us lying in the darkness of many different
dead end roads. Our love has been tested. My agrressive nature has
been challenged. Both battles have seen a number of wins and losses.
Yet, on this chilly October morning I still smile as I awaken to see her
curled up next to me. Every day the two of us, together, continue to
let our situation grow more hopeless by not taking to finding new jobs,
or a new place to live, or anything constuctive really. Here we sit
trying to convince ourselves that we are enough to sustain ourselves.
You slipped into my dreams again last night. It was such a joyous
moment. We danced softly in sweet silence for what seemed like days.
With regret in my heart I finally told you that I had nothing to offer
you other than company on a walk. With that gentle smile you told me
that this was all that you had come seeking. We took to the sidewalk
and to the grass and leaves crumbling 'neath our toes. Much
conversation was shared I am sure, yet I feel that it was but a subtext
to the fulfillment of having each other at arms length. A cool autumn
pool splashed as we sat upon a rock to rest our weary feet within its
healing waters. Tears of joy trickled down my cheeks to watch your hair
grow longer and longer as we traversed this dreamscape. Mine, too, was
growing longer and wavy over my shoulders as we walked, and you could
not restrain yourself from running your hands through it now and then.
As I felt myself waking I placed a single kiss upon each of your palms
and promised you that I would see you again one day. Holding a lock of
my hair between your fingers you reminded me that you will always be
just one dream away.
My younger brother was discharged from
the military recently. The heart murmur I remember my mother exlaining
to us after he got home from a doctor visit once when we were children
was their reasoning. The gorgeous little bundle of joy that is his
first daughter, Jacelyn Jade Hess, turned two years old today. He will
not be home from the post for a few weeks.
10.13.9
"A
day can not be escaped without snagging a thought or so on whether or
not, of my affections, she still knows. Songs spin out melodies so
sweet as we dance so lightly on the pads of these soft feet. Seems as
though every chorus swings a lasso upon the heart and wrangles it into
submission to connect every rythym with a memory of her. Even desire
fawned over another young lady is seen only as a prelude to the love to
be lavished on her. Surely she is the same "her" that it has always
been. The perfect competition and the only friend. No matter which way
the waves toss this ship the horizon is always in her direction. This
is not a declaration of love or obsession, but only faith in
companionship no matter the extent. Walls built up for these feelings
have been crushed countless times, yet still they protect the fragile
heart from tactless and cold breeze of loneliness." I crooned these
lines sullenly as I plucked at a wooden banjo in my dream last night as
my reflection in the mirror laughed back at me.
Everything I
lay my gaze upon these days seems to remind me of something else; every
face is a mirror image of another I have seen somewhere. It is
becoming annoying and a slight bit depressing that everything just
harkens back to something better.
Dess left earlier
today for Chester, Illinois with her grandmother Sue. She is taking the
trip to visit her grandfather in what seems like they could be his last
days. I pray for the best, yet I am only glad that she has gotten the
chance to go so that she can never feel like she was wrong not to have
been there. He is a kind man, Gary Wayne Throop, as least so he has
treated me. Though, I can not disillusion myself by trying to believe
he will overcome his current ails. The life he has sown to lead comes
with certain concequences which he is now reaping. It is a sad truth,
but a truth none the less. It gives me perspective on where I may find
myself someday. I just hope that I can face it with the dignity that he
has shown in my presence.
Five milligrams of diazepam
coat one milligram of clonazepam complimented by ten milligrams of
hydrocodone and three hundred & twenty five milligrams of
acetimophen awash under thirty-two ounces of American pilsner beer
mixing in alongside one hundred & twenty milligrams of
dextromethorphan hydrobromide soon to be joined by a ounce of 12 year
old scotch whisky in the tired stomach (not to mention six hundred
milligrams of lithium). Still, I feel nothing but
boredom...loneliness...serious worry and some crippling fear of the
future (all things which were surely the stimulus for such ingestions).
Papa Oxley told me a few days back of a tradition he
thought I might find intiguing. He spoke of a culture that spends a
period of morning upon the birth of a new soul. Crying for all of the
tribulations that child will face in their lifetime. Then upon the
death of the person there is a large celebration in honor of the end of
those tribulations and the person's life long struggles to overcome
them. He was right. I do find this to be a most romantic way of
viewing the human life. I can only hope that those around me can be
open minded enough to look past there loss and celebrate the grand parts
of my journey by reading the words I had wrote and adoring the art that
I created and thanking the people that helped me along the way.
Bonnie is gone. Christopher Haley, my father as I come more and more
to consider him, sold her for me. He apparently has already purchased
and older Honda that he intends to give to me. I do, very much,
appreciate what he does for me. Though, I do feel that everytime he
knocks away one of my bigger problems he is further preventing me from
maturing. Yes, a new vehicle will help me get through winter, but when
it is ran to death I will again be in the same position I have faced all
of these times.
10.14.9
Oh, to contemplate the day when
there will be no days left other than those long passed. Even at twenty
one years of age I feel exasperated at when thinking back to years gone
by. Though, I do love the idea that life is a gamble. The wager being
time not money. Ha, is that not sort of funny to consider anything
before money. Damn every capitalist for building this system of self
fulfillment that deny those with morals and principles. I hope only
that I will be able to muster a smile for the good times over a
nauseated grimaced for my misdeeds on the day I accept my fate. May
those whom I have trespassed upon forgive me; not so I can get to
heaven, but to understand that I meant harm nor put fault on anyone.
For, it does seem that those I hurt are those that are closest to me.
How could I have come to be so exhausted at such a young age on such a
short journey.
10.16.9
My lover is hundreds of miles
away, so lately I have been sleeping all alone. Over one hundred
milligrams of oxycodone, fourty milligrams of hydrocodone, several
milligrams and clonazepam, and a few milligrams of tamazepam washed down
with much whiskey along with the loneliness and harshness of my
situation leave the demeanor at a slightly uneasy yet comfortable
slackness. Losing equilibrium quite quickly in these new surroundings.
All of the company does seem to be most agreeable. Cold rain fell
lightly here and there through-out the morning and afternoon. No sleep
last night. Nod on and off the flush clouds as each moment passes. The
spiritual significance connected with such times in the past is long
lost, and very saddly so. Oh, what I would give to find every breath as
significant as I did but a few years ago.
10.20.9
Unwavering overwhelming torrents of self-destructive impulses peel the
flesh from the bone revealing the blistering war of innerdialogue as the
soul slowly evacuates. Wrenching tears out of the spirit with painful
fervor remenicent of screaming awake from the earliest night terrors.
Inncurr physical harm to the body to distract the focus on the hells of
thought eating away at my guts. The blackness from the void between the
stars dripped down to splash and drown me in my insolence. Ambitions
blind by the black slops of the night sky, the tar one would imagine
scraping out of Satan's lungs.
10.22.9
The first spike
was driven deep in me last night. Right, yeah...no, left. The sadly
pathetic end of my days is now in motion if I have not mistaken. The
explanation will be evident when they find me.
10.24.9
A
praying mantis is crawling across the floor before me here at 2:00 AM.
My mind meandors through shambles of shards of the broken mirror of the
soul. Maybe something is saving up all these negative energies that
have pervaded my spirit throughout all of these years to construct some
macabre etheral pyre upon my eventual demise.
I was
contacted by Katrina recently. Apparently she has been trying for
months to see whether I might want my pet snake back that she took when
we split. I am not even sure what I feel about the thoughts of her. I
was at such a hectic, young, ignorant state when she was around that I
feel it never would have gotten a fair shake anyway. I guess I was
really enjoying my life while she was around. She was complacent with
whatever I seen fit for fun, yet she was not afraid to assert her own
opinion over the situation. She was the type of girl that one could not
decide whether to grab her by the hair and hang her up by heavens or
drag her off by the hair and sell her to the devil. We remained
perpetually stoned which was never unpleasant. She stayed by my side
while I tried sobriety for the duration of my probation. My sleeping
patterns held fairly steady as I was always fed and sexually sated.
Though, like every great choice I make things fell apart. At some point
it was revealed that she was wicked, dirty, and mean; yet, that whole
thing where she kept me sane enough to sleep and breath without shaking
with anxiety came in to play and I could not force myself away for some
time. Katrina is most certainly the most concrete reason I have to
validate my distrust for love in general. I eventually ended up living
in my Pontiac 6000 LE in the frosty parking lot of Ski Paoli Peaks.
One of those cold nights I was spotted by another female predator.
Sarah could smell vulnerability like a shark smells blood in the water.
There may be a reason I do not remember if I let her kidnap me as she
was trying. Sarah was very pretty and a few years older coming with
this motherly vibe. I had flirted around and had some fun with Sarah
and her friends before Katrina. Sarah had an amazing sense of humor
that, I think, only fringe characters such as I could appreciate. We
spent most of our time conversating in each other's arms, for she was
fairly intellectual which is what I believe brought us together. I
mean, she was a sexual predator, but I was obviously not open to her
particular sexual hunger. It has been a long time since I thought of
her. Surely she is a mother by now, and hopefully effectively so.
In contrast to these vultures I did spend a little time during the
summer of senior year with a perfect gourgeous young woman. Physically
she was immaculate; the perfect example of conventional beauty. Her
morals were intact, she was a practicing mormon from Livonia. She was
quite intelligent, yet usually quite reserved. She was going to be
leaving for her second year of college, so she was a few years older.
We developed a mutual crush on one another during the run of stage play
that I was designing the set of and she was starring in. On the night
of the cast party she beckoned me to her. We ended up laying in fervant
and rapturous conversation. I was in a deep state of opiation and
psychedelia so of course the content of the talks were revelatory. I
gained her fascination that night and ended up spending the rest of the
summer drinking in her and the soft lips. It never would have worked,
come on, she was a mormon.
I am not necesarrily sure that
there is a medium between the various girls I have chosen or be lured
into spending some of my time with. Surely, there is a archetype for
the perfect girl to keep me satisfied with leaving me feeling guilty for
not being able to live up to her needs. I am still currently with Fire
and I do hope that we can get past our hang ups and turn this
relationship into something that will be worthy of reminescing on as
worthwhile and fruitful.
10.25.9
Girl, if I could be
just one thing
may seem funny but I'd be your steering wheel
there morningly for you to steer me
grip me so tightly heading
to work
in your sweet hands on your way home
that's
where I want to be
Girl, if I could be anything
I
would be your bath robe
the soft blue one with the gold
stitching
let your hair air dry on me
Mr. Taxi driver
please show some pity
take me far from the city
not sure
about tomorrow but today I need 'scape the sorrow
11.12.9
The sun rises and sets over the hills surrounding this valley that
contains my earliest childhood memories. Time has seen me come back to
grind my bones and rest my head here on the piece of land that was home
to my great grandfather and my great-great grandfather. Now Fire and I
are staying on the farm with my grandfather. Harvesting corn and
attending to cattle has been my way of spending the past weeks. The
WUME has welcomed me back.
11.16.9
My heart tells me
he's pullin' and pluckin' those strings again
rough left hand
aiming and right hand ticklein' tunes
dirty heel just tappin'
right through the floor boards again
and the bridge it is comin'
up smooth soon
Long stained nails on supple fingers
scruffy dark beard framing a crooked smile
all turns to
something special once in a while
....once in a while
....once in a while
He picks up that baby
and play
melodies that will still the breeze
and pluck tunes that fill the
rooms
but when he hits those notes that make you pull your
girl/man close
it's a thing i just can not explain
but,
the guitar man, he knows
He'll help you remember
and
he'll make you feel
and he'll let you imagine
and when
your on the brink he may give you a shove
oh, but when he allows
you to love
the guitar man he knows
the guitar man he
knows
so sorry to tell you that this is not gonna work
I just can't look into those eyes today
turn and walk away
just turn and walk away
stomach started churnin' when you first
walked in
something is different today
explain it...I'm
not sure how to begin
you took my life in my dream last night
slipped in aside me in my slumber
clasped your hand o'er my
mouth, said he called my number
baby, baby, baby
knew your
evil would break free eventually
but not last night and not on
me
split the darkness and slit my throat last night
11.19.9
Yesterday was a good day
laughing with the lady and a friend
where and why do not factor
especially when the means justify
the end
let loose your spirit, smile, let the vinyl spin
1.10.10
Oh, look at how she listens...
Cold creeps through the
crags and crevices of every board. Time pulls with a harsh grip on the
rest of the planks. They insulate him not, from the frosty wind
outside. Hard the thoughts pulse on the idea of "Some Devil," a
painting he has came up with whilst sitting on the vibes of the melody.
An internal battle putting tension on the skin that jerks and twitches
as the mental meanders 'neath the soft reflection of her supple flesh
and beastly feathers bubbleing there under the moonrise over the Ohio.
The bluest of greys ever to bless this young angel washing hers spirit
at the river's edge.
1.14.10
The warm exhaustion of
sexual frustration in the oppurtune moment released leaves a strange
presence in the muscular system. jesse capelli autumn bliss charlie
laine
1.18.10
At the crest of the bank on the opposite
side of the field the fog holds up its point of emptiness in the form of
a towering haze of a grey wall. In the foreground this grey wraps
itself around every hue of brown that forms the thawing muddy pasture
long away from the greens of spring or summer caught here in the middle
of the winter on a day not so wintry at all. From the east the cattle
are slowly filtering back across the field as they finish off the
morning's feed. Stomping with each step the muscular black bohemeths
retain some level of grace as the tread the ground plowed for
generations by this family. Just beyond that grey wall of fog squaks a
group of over one hundred crows hopping around fluttering their black
wings and pecking with their black beaks as somewhere distant in the
reflection of the little black eyes is myself standing in dull tones of
Carhart brown.
Dazing off into this scene I contemplate the
possibilities and conundrums of the new year that has came upon us.
Waking up here on the farm allows me to start off the day with a sense
of freshness that is not quite understood. A near giggle escapes every
so often at the thought that I have even made it to stand here on this
day among the male elders of my family with my girl back there still
shrouded in slumber in the bed we share. There throbs a fairly
perpetual ache in the head from stress and alcohol or lack thereof.
The misty curtain blanketing all around me seems to be slowly lifting
as new silohettes begin to come into view faintly in the distance. A
span of fencing streching from right to left begins to clear in the
haze. Each post shrinking a fraction as the fence goes off and away.
Now I can see the ditch line straight across where the creek winds an
bit before dissappearing into the darkness of a sinkhole where the
stream stays for a couple miles. As I sit there atop a roundbell
dreaming on the abyss that those waters traverse moment by moment as
they flow on south toward the national landmark of Marengo Cave. What
mysterious revaltions await down there for he who finds the courage to
decend into those depths.
Suddenly as the mind revels in
thought of the hidden world of the underground river and what mysteries
therein another sillohette emerges from the curtain of mist. Undulating
and writhing like a gypsy dancer a shadow slowly creeps through the
fog. The cattle pay not one glance at this approaching form. The
strange apparition approaches a bend in the creek. With one elegant
leap, what seems now to be a lost young lady, bounds into the frigid
waters. With a splash whe busts into the most provocativly charming
outpouring of laughter. The icy waters begin to pour up more and more
steam up from her ankles as she seems to abound with more and more
cheer. Even now I can make nothing about this mysterious vixen making
her way toward me other than that she has a lovely head of emmaculately
long black locks of soft hair and pale white skin. There is no
explanation of the pulpitations in the chest as this scene plays out.
Who could this woman...wait, a young red fox just crept out from behind
this inigma of a visitor. The young fox trots to the left, and then to
the right. It pauses and sends sharp pain into the depths of my soul as
it turns to stare deep into my eyes as if scanning my soul for some
unexplainable criteria. I feel that void that comes about when I
consider the nature of my bastardization. A suffocating and terrifying
question of mine self. As the first tears well up in my eyes the fox
bolts into the blanket of the fog as if satisfied by my pain. As I wipe
away the first few streams of salty tears the lady of the cold waters
steps up upon the bank where now seeing her fairly clearly I notice she
is barely dressed. A shaw and a thin wrap-around skirt contain the
supple and defined curves of her otherwordly body. Yet, her face
contains a vibe that I cannot grasp. It seems at first as lustful and
that of some sex goddess. Yet, it is obvious that she is not
approaching me for copulation or sexual fullfillment. She is coming for
me to remind me that a woman will walk through blind darkness,
blistering deserts, or a void of any kind to acertain that which she
seeks. She happens to be seeking the most peaceful sunrise she may
find. For her the sunrise is the epitome of the human experience. To
observe the clockwork of something so vastly larger than our petty
lives, yet the one thing that makes our living such a special endeavor,
as we can truly comprehend the oranges, pinks, and violets of that
special moment each day.