thoughts de jure

A Poem For MTL

2011-10-11T21:48:00.000-04:00

A Poem For MTL:

She waits for someone (other than me)

... pace once to the edge...
... pace back...
... pace once to the edge...
... pace back...
- now upon yr lips dance the smile hint
- yr eyes glowing, look far down the street; past forgotten corners
- I am held by the gravity of a being physically stranded by her wandering soul; flights of doves.
ok, ok
... pace once to the edge...
... pace back...
etc.

new finger motion

2011-02-16T14:38:00.001-05:00

Moments, these moments that hold time in a way that feels like hot fine sand running through my fingers and into my picnic lunch as the waves lap at my feet and I drift to where all the water drifts, away, somewhere great and fantastic.
These goddamned moments that hold me fixed to this spot w/ no hope of turning or being any further than this expansive here & now. What matter, for it holds, I sway, and the rhythms start in ways that I cannot nor want to understand as I am farther away than these moments that want & try to hold me here. I am. And that cannot in any way beyond my fingertip thoughts be an anchor for what pushes and pulls through my most base of being. I can picture a thousand thousand thousand moments. All hanging fire, waiting for the reference point to catagorize them into some sort of library limbo. Or it’s all going in quite the opposite way, w/out the all consuming, confining point of reference it all just stays where it is, floating like diamonds, like a snowfall where each and every snowflake holds you in the palm of its hand and allows for each individual snowflake moment to stand alone and together, all in that tick of time. When the sheer volume of information input into the mind is likened to a moment, a satori moment. And even before any thought is really put to it the whole scene is ready to pack it in and become just another sensory overload, but deep down the editor who needs to catagorize and compartementalize it all is kicked in the nuts and goes down like a sack of hammers. Leaving the moment to be, to be, to be, to be, to be.
Cars drag by, chicking and chugging and moving and lugging and I watch them. Watch them move in the sweet way that inertia allows. Forces of different kinds playing out the hands Newton dealt them. And the piano tinkles in the back ground, playing to the drummer who sweeps his brushes in synchophantic melodies. I push out of my thoughts, beyond this finger motion of alphabet to the realm of notes, high notes, low notes, trilling notes and a sad moan made light in a blink of an ear.
And the world starts to interupt in a way that cannot be held back and that is not in any way unpleasant nor is it in any way pleasant. This all seems to go so far beyond the pale of the usual pace of the day. When forgetfulness is kind and befriends me I can be, just be.
And that is saying something, that is the confession, the moment, the goddamned moment that has no way of being understood or related to beyond an understanding, a pleading, a look in the eye and a hopeful nod of “Am I understood the way I think I should be?” Ha.
These moments are not to be related, not to be desired, not to be shared. They have a purity and strength that is all but destroying. And by attempting to dilute them through the actions of communication they are reduced to a mere caricature of themselves. A mean and venal reflection of what they are. Why must man reduce themselves thus? What loneliness and fear drove us from our true selves?
These are not my questions. These are questions for those who cannot and will not allow themselves the moment of the moment. Perhaps I am another breed, perhaps not.
I can see in words. I can see in music. I can see in every language known to man & to beast. For this I am blessed and similarily cursed. Sometimes the jumble of all the speaking, all the tongues, all the notes, drives me to a distraction that does not allow for my freedoms, for that lightness that holds me.

Re: Blake, Blake, Blake. (His Birthday's Coming.)

2010-11-18T16:16:00.001-05:00

William Blake At The Origins Of Postmodernity
Renato Barilli

William Blake manifested his powerful talent in all his activities: poetry, philosophy, engraving, watercolor painting. To understand his enormous and incredible originality we usually follow one of two paths: we can either see it as deriving from earlier cultural achievements, or we can see him as an isolated genius. In the first case, surely we may cite Platonism, which seems to appear at regular intervals down the centuries. In the second case, we would have to acknowledge the failure of our critical tools. There is no way out, not even if we place Blake in a long list of similar personalities like Füssli and Flaxman and Goya in painting, or Goethe and Schiller in creative literature, or various post-Kantian philosophers. The same questions can be raised in all of these cases.
To address this problem, we need, from the general cultural background at the end of the eighteenth century, events to which Blake and others may be anchored. European handbooks define the period from Gutenberg to 1789 as "modern" in the proper sense of the term. For McLuhan, "modernity" is the Gutenberg Galaxy, the period of the printing press, which sends its form into every level of culture: for instance, Renaissance perspective will appear as "working" along the same patterns.
What happens at the end of the eighteenth century? According to the handbooks, 1789 marks the end of modernity and the beginning of the contemporary, post-modern, age. But the French Revolution is merely a surface event. Beneath that surface lies electromagnetism, the most revolutionary innovation of those years. At its first appearance, electromagnetism was only a bold scientific hypothesis, far from having any appreciable technological application. The conspicuous technology of the time was steam engine and other forms of thermal energy. In this way, modernity, i.e. machine culture, persisted until the moment when electromagnetism would finally surface and give birth to electronics.
Blake's manifold work follows the lines of force, the patterns of electromagnetism: both introduce into the Western culture an original set of ratios decidedly "irrational"; both depart from the established patterns of "modernity"; both will have to wait many decades before further development; both Blake and electromagnetism, at the end of the eighteenth century, enjoy only precarious status as an early form of postmodernity.
However, Blekean poetics and electromagnetism recognize the primacy of energy as characterized by unity, wholeness, and holism, while "modernity" was based on the fragmentary, atomistic nature of the point, which, when joined with other points, would produce lines, and then planes in the style of Euclidean geometry, and as reformulated by Cartesian analytical geometry. This fragmentary modern culture Blake abhors, so he substitutes for it unity, structure and Gestalt in ways that correspond to the electric field. As we know, in Blake's mythology the visual symbol of post-renaissance rationalism is Urizen, an old man with a long beard. Scholar are uncertain whether the name comes from a contemptuous "your reason" (Urizen is a god of death), or from the Greek orìzen, to limit.
Blake anticipates the bipolarity which will characterize the thought of two later (postmodern) philosophers, Bergson and Freud. "Elan vital" for the former, the Subconscious, the Pleasure principle for the latter, are the fully elaborated outcomes of the rough but powerful intuitions appearing in Blake's poems and engravings.
From old clichés, Blake summons the archetypal energy of the Epicurean natura naturans, as well as that of the Platonist condemnation of a decayed and heavy naturalism. Blake rejects unmitigatedly the detailed picture of reality so dear to modernity. Art had to offer an exact mirror of nature and to draw reproduction of it; perspective was the art of that system. The main objective, for modern, typographical man, was to measure, to define, to specify, using the mathematical trinity, height, width, and depth. But in a universe where electromagnetic waves run at the speed of light, why insist of recording distances in meters, centimeters, and so on? Such measures completely lose any value and significance. Electromagnetic reality is based on flatness, on a process which cancels the third dimension. So contemporary art discards the illusion of depth, enhancing the relevance of surface, of texture. The mingling of the two, a profound aversion to pictorial verisimilitude and the nearly total abrogation of depth, leads us to one of the main features of contemporary (postmodern) avant-garde tendencies: abstraction. Abstract art is not necessarily non-objective art. Non-objective art may follow from abstraction; however, it requires something further. "Abstract" comes from a Greek word meaning to take away. To abstract means to offer a simplified, reduced, stylized image. Precisely this flat, abstract simplicity is peculiar to shapes which appear on radar or television screens; in fact, the nature of every electronic image is conditioned by these features of abstractness and simplified shaping.
At this point we possess all the tools we need to examine Blake's particular stylistic achievements. First of all, recall Blake's worship for Michelangelo, an uncommon attitude in those years. The majority of Blake's contemporaries instead cherished Raffaello, who appeared to them to be more natural, more in tune with their sense of normality. Official Neoclassicism descends entirely from Urbinas, while the painter of the Sistine Chapel exceeded harmony and sense of measure because of his exaggerated cult of energy, of muscular evidence. But it was precisely this excess which captured and fascinated Blake. He never saw the frescoes of the great Renaissance artist; he never made the classic journey to Italy, as he always lacked the money. Had he actually seen Michelangelo's works, he might have been disappointed. Besides, Michelangelo's plastic inventions had been translated into engravings by many minor artists. This was exactly the kind of transmission he was ready to absorb, since Blake was himself an engraver. He needed to translate Michelangelo's world from three to two dimensions, to an essential flatness; the available engravings of the Renaissance master helped the English artist to achieve this effect. In short, what Blake offers us, from Michelangelo's types, is a reduced image, entirely constructed with line and surface, carefully avoiding any simulation of third dimension. Here we encounter the postmodern principle of abstraction, which indeed we also find in Flaxman's silhouettes. The lifelong friendship between the two was strong, despite the fact that Flaxman was more "official" and accepted than Blake.
In fact, it is not enough to notice the principle of reduction to surface values and of the vigorous enhancing of lines in Blake's engravings and sketches. Indeed, we observe a stronger, bolder principle of reduction of the forms, a collapsing or implosion. The process of concentration at the centre of the object is normally accompanied by an inverse process of radiance, diffusion, explosion. Every one of Blake's illustrations links these two opposites. On one hand, Blake's art is simple, of shaped forms symmetrically standing at the centre of the sheet, facing us frontally. These features, typical of any manifestation of primitivism, archaism and so on, radically contrast with the pictorial verisimilitude so cherished by "modern" art from the Renaissance onward. On the other hand, the apparent stillness of Blake's images is broken by flames, darts and arrows of energy, which thrust out from the flattened bodies. So Blake's art is static and dynamic at the same time: it marks the triumph of a formal principle linked with the opposite principle of informality. After Blake, these two poles will develop and struggle against each other throughout the course of contemporary (postmodern) art.
Even so, the two poles reject the analytical spirit of modernity, to which they oppose a synthetic approach. Sometimes they collaborate through a system of lines inspired by those with which nature rules the growth of leaves, flowers, trees. Natura naturans, unlike natura naturata, exploits every kind of curve (spiral, ellipse, parabola, hyperbole, oval). The technical term phytomorphism, from the Greek phytòn, plant, aptly describes this kind of style: i.e., forms drawn from the vegetable kingdom. We have to wait exactly one century before witnessing the diffusion of these stylistic endeavors in Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Liberty. These different labels converge substance, in terms of the formal achievements they indicate. From that moment on, the same organic principles will recur with Surrealism of the biomorphic branch (Miró) and with Informel (Abstract Expressionism in North America).
At this point we must remember that Blake's activities were all interconnected; In him, the writer was by no means distinct from the artist. When conceiving his "Song of Innocence" or his "Prophetic Books," he strongly desired to accompany and complete them with images. Words, in his view, had to be continued and integrated by visual forms, as of old, when writing consisted in grasping and visualizing ideas, before the "dangerous" phonetic alphabet arrived. For a thousand years, the same hand could still trace the signs of words as well as of figures. Our long manuscript tradition incorporated the glosses and traceries of illuminators not intrinsically different from those who had the task of writing. Perhaps the two did not belong to exactly coincident professional categories; however, there was no radical distance between them until Gutenberg. The printing press rigorously compelled people to separate words from images. Words were committed to serial reproduction, which however resulted in a sterile and impersonal reproduction. Images could maintain their vitality, but they did not take advantage of the assembly line. In fact, the process of engraving is limited to a small number and has to be considered belonging to handicraft rather than to industry.
Since typography is the main feature of modernity, the resolute anti-modern spirit tirelessly nourished by Blake finds a new confirmation in his hatred of typographical technique. Throughout his life he refused to commit his writings to establishment publishing. He chose to be his own publisher, moved to his decision by the awareness that his difficult and sophisticated books were unlikely to have a large enough public of buyers to justify a large press run. But, more importantly, he was motivated by a cultural and philosophic thought, by the profound desire to reunite the two: to write words and to sketch images. Only engraving allowed him to do so and recover the mythic wholeness which did exist before modernity. In fact our postmodern age, rooted in electronics and personal computers, enables us to practice the two simultaneously.
Not only did Blake want to merge writing and sketching, he also expected that this interior linkage be placed under the shield of organicism and its laws. So the images and decorative elements which flourish in his plates carefully respect biomorphism and phytomorphism. They are constituted of fluent curves, as if words had roots in the ground, hung like fruit from the branches of flexuous trees, and wove their nests in the foliage.
Blake's philosophy was translated into imagery. So the kingdom of energy is normally committed to the figure of a radiant young man who represents Jesus Christ, God the Son, full of Love towards all his creatures, ready to forgive their sins and to spare them Hell. Hell, in Blake's vision, is not for punishing sinners. He is well aware that it is scandalous to preach the nobility and efficiency of energy, uncontrolled impulses and physical exuberance, but these attributes he assigns to Hell. Heaven, its opposite, will consequently present values of self control, of mortuary renunciation, of respectful submission to established authority.
Let us examine one of the best known representations of Christ, Glad Days a colored engraving with some touches of gouache. Following the original Blakean mythology, the image of Christ as a young man is also designated with the names of Orc and Los (anagrams of the Latin words Cor and Sol, i.e., the earthly and the heavenly principles of energy).
In Glad Days the shape of a young man occupies the central axis of the plate, the trunk placed along the vertical, enhanced also by the left leg. The right leg describes an equally "normal" and classic line, the diagonal which bisects a right angle, linking the opposite borders of a surface, and thus impeding any penetration into depth. In other words, the diagonal is particularly practiced by artists who want to downplay any illusion of a third dimensional since it strengthens the unity of bidimensional space. In turn, the arms of the central figure define the other main dimension, width. The features of the young man are traced summarily, confirming a search for abstraction, for reduced and collapsed forms. Every protagonist of that same cultural milieu followed a similar orientation. What is normally defined as Neoclassicism favored synthetic forms, contrasting the agility and mobility of previous Western styles, from the Renaissance to the Baroque. David and Canova and Flaxman did not offer us anything substantially different from such reduced and stylized images. Goya, too, must be associated with this group.
This engraving is precious as it allows us to verify that, notwithstanding such an extreme reduction of the human figure to virtual silhouette, the effect of the picture is not one of stillness. From that fragile, delicate shape many cosmic rays are ready to explode. In astronomical terms, they correspond precisely to the amount of energy which was spared in the process of collapsing which led to the sketching of such a reduced image. The concentration of mass, body, flesh is balanced by a radiation of beams which, with their nearly invisible lines of force, determine a "field." Something similar occurs concerning the texture of the surface. The cartoon of the young man is nearly devoid of detail, in a conceptual poverty that celebrates the primacy of design. This is also one of the major tenets of Neoclassical taste: to reject highly colored "Venetian" and Baroque painting for a Florentine worship of lines. Blake much preferred the presence and relevance of the shapes by encircling them with other spaces made of formlessly distributed colors. For example, the left inferior border of our plate displays a very painterly mass of color; sometimes Blake also used chance, applying those thick layers of tint from another sheet, following a technique called monotype. He preferred to call it "fresco," as it was like taking off the first layer of color from a wall. One may consider such a device an anticipation of "frottage" which will be exploited by Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. Surely it is a significant case of coincidence of opposites: an elementary formalism relying on abstract geometric shape is made to coexist with a rich informality open to random effects.
Now let us turn the perspective around and consider the kingdom of the Father, for instance by examining "God judges Adam," a red engraving and watercolor. Here is the same abstraction principle we encountered before, but not the warm, delicate sense of living flesh. Instead, we find a cold sense of old age. The image of God the Father is reached by winter, which makes it icy, frozen, lifeless. The same fate befalls Adam the Son: he does not dare, on this occasion, to separate his responsibility from his Father's domination. In Freudian terms, this man is totally under the laws of the Ego, even more of the Superego, removing his impulsion, limiting his energies. Heaven prevails over Hell, but it is a sterile victory, leading the entire world to death. This is also the pitiful consequence of a full submission to "modern" reason. However, the physical principle of collapsing, the fact that every concentration of mass brings an outburst of energy, finds here too an unavoidable application. So, the cold image of God the Father, because of his compactness and reduction, may scatter a purple cloud of flames around itself. The two principles face each other, ready to convert reciprocally, as in fact electric current needs both poles, positive and negative. In more general terms, mass and energy are complementary principles, when the former reduces itself the latter increases, and vice versa. The pitiful figure of the son, completely submitted to his Father and thus condemned to a hibernation, is further reinforced by his leaning on a horse. This animal, in Blake's system of symbols, represents submission, fidelity, lack of personality; it finds its exact opposite in the violence and exuberance of the tiger. However, here again the contrasting principle of energy about to burst into flames makes its appearance, since the horse's tail has already been reached by the flames, perhaps announcing the transformation of the quiet animal into its burning opposite, the vehement tiger.
God the Father fully dominates his creature Adam in another well-known plate, executed with the same technique. Here the image of the poor young man does not exhibit any autonomy, since the heavy body of the Father crushes him, binds him with the coils of a snake. However, here again we may detect the point where the system is subverting its inner logic, and is developing the opposite principle of energy. The snake is the symbol of temptation which will lead mankind to an open rebellion against God. The image of the snake fittingly introduces a note of biomorphism, of spiral patterns, very much like the form of electricity and its laws. Particularly, consider that group composed of a human body and the spiral from a snake as the prefiguration of an electromagnet. In this way, God the Father could be seen as trying to reanimate his dead son, as breathing life into him, or as transmitting an electromagnetic life. Meanwhile the heavy image of God continues exploding its rays into cosmic space.
In fact, we have to confirm that Blake had a strong intuition of the main physical law which was to rule our contemporary or postmodern age, established by Einstein at the beginning of the century: the complete complementarity of mass and energy, one withdrawing when the other develops. Just as snow and ice are threatened by warm weather, we find some plates where God the Father is like an iceberg in the process of melting, sliding into an ocean too warm for it. Sometimes the massive figure of God as an Old man is reduced to only a head, where the last resistance desperately survives, even if the white beard is already caught by the cosmic wind which forces it into a kind of whirlpool. The plate Our Lord answers to Job, for instance, remarkably anticipates a process which will concern so many aspects of recent art: dematerialization.
During the modern age, matter and energy were two different substances with no possibility of interchange. Dualism was constitutive, extreme, permanent. In our postmodern age the two are but precarious, temporary aspects of the same reality. Our cosmic reality is made only of electricity, stretched by the bipolar tension of two principles, hell and heaven, the subconscious and reason, informality and formalism, eternally fighting against each other.

How Do You Morning Your Coffee?

2010-11-14T02:53:00.001-05:00

a winter's memory

2010-11-05T16:18:00.001-04:00

These winter surprises! These goddamned perfect winter surprises. From bundled angles & shapes beyond what the human form could comprehend, 2 eyes peer, absorb & question. Then the unravelling begins. Mitts, hat, scarves… layer upon layer being removed. And w/ a giggle an all but holy smile illuminates first her face & then the whole room. O, these winter surprises! These goddamned perfect winter surprises.

...pooffff...

2010-11-01T18:30:00.001-04:00

oh filmed over rheumy eyes,
cataracted and dim,
you have only to disolve the illusion,
to let the Light back in.

...new poem...

2010-05-18T17:18:00.000-04:00

…new poem…

the bar bottles on the rack

Christmas lights lit from the back

Sparkle; (reflected) energy bounces

Back, out

A million details could draw my

Eye in another direction, a hundred

Sounds could draw & distract me

… but for you

Vee-necked tight blk teed

Double-tongues she’d

Possess me complete

Totally charming, in all yr

Actions, in all yr grace, in all

Yr rhythms … am I dreaming

You, different? What hungers, what appetites you inspire in my thinking, in my shoes. There is a beautiful line, (barrier? No-man’s land, belt, heaven field) that flashes briefly, fleetingly between the bottom of yr blk tee & the top of yr jeans. Yr skin a dream of strength & softness.

How is the dream connected to the reality? W/out damage done to other states? How to dream you & know you? The balance of the gods. Who’s yr favourite god? … and what’s yr name tonight?

quotes somewhat gathered

2010-05-18T11:56:00.001-04:00

"How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved." Sigmund Freud

"For one brief moment today I thought I was winning in the game of life. But there was a flag on the play." - Charlie Brown.

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Making a better world, makes a better world.” S.O.B.

“And we should consider everyday lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.” Nietzsche

“Against boredom even the gods must struggle.” – F. Nietzsche

Wein, Weiber und Gesang. So say the poets in their verses: Wine, women, and song!

“Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.” Nietzsche

“Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.”
Arthur Rimaud

“… in my travels through this dark, when I find something that I can love, and do love, then the darkness scales fall from my eyes and the world is illuminated to me as it appears. Let darkness melt to light’s desire.” S.O.B.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” ~Albert Einstein

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." Plato

“…whoever posseses little is possessed that much less; praised be a little poverty.” Nietzsche

“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.” Hemingway

“Beware all enterprises that require new clothes.” Thoreau

“The Eye sees more than the Heart.” Wm. Blake

“The heaventree of stars hung w/ humid nightblue fruit.” Joyce

“…and have to batter my head against the general emptiness when I want to explain something to someone.” Kerouac

"Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old." Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? … There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. … And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-Marianne Williamson (Made famous by Nelson Mandela)

"You create your own universe as you go along" Winston Churchill

"All that we are is a result of what we have thought" – Buddha

"What this power is, I cannot say. All I know is that it exists."
Alexander Graham Bell

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming
attractions." Albert Einstein

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive, it can achieve" W. Clement
Stone

practice |ˈpraktəs|: 1 the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use. 2 repeated exercise in or performance of an activity or skill so as to acquire or maintain proficiency in it

“Sleeping is no mean art: for it’s sake one must stay awake all day.” Nietzsche

“Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen.” Steven Wright

“When I was little I had a mood swing set.” Steven Wright

an old exercise in recording my immediate surroundings

2010-02-19T17:39:00.000-05:00

5 Things:
1. A bank on a tree lined st. w/ 2 giant statues standing guard over the entrance holding a balconey up like Atlas held the world.
2. People, singular & plural, walking w/ people in their Sunday relaxed, laughing gait.
3. The sun enhanced, (can it be more beautiful?), corner of the Opera House.
4. The postered window of an empty store.
5. Words falling out of the mouths of two old, cranky, women.

5Things:
1. A large tree bounded grass field full of people.
2. A particularly white (as white as me!) gurl lying on her stomach w/ her
hands behind her back tying up the strings of her bikini.
3. Water gysers (?) gushers (?) sprouting from different parts of the field at different times, and people flooding to them to cool off.
4. Old & young couples together, playing & sunning in the park together.
5. One big ole bee doing his rounds thru the clover, and a singular pigeon strutting by me like we were old friends.

5Things:
1. Vaci Utca filled w/ people.
2. Cobblestones freckled by sunlight.
3. A man wrestling w/ a chess set to get it back into a bag.
4. A set (3) of beautiful gurls in summer (mmmm) dresses.
5. Some kid (21) at an outdoor café looking a hell of a lot like Shawn Boyce.

5Things:
1. The Oktagon bustling w/ people.
2. A motorcycle doing a wheelie for about 200`. (That was a minute ago).
3. A car turning right.
4. Two ladies fighting to open a Coca-Cola bottle, not each other the bottle.
5. My pen in my hand scratching these words into this book w/ an outline from the frames of my glasses.

5Things:
1. Pen in hand w/out wristwatch.
2. Old lady bum on my left on the bench, speaking to herself. My can of beer on the right… speaking to me.
3. Four gurls w/ big beautiful breasts walking by me on the Krt.
4. The TicTac man sign in the Oktagon.
5. The sound of the tram rumbling by as my nose runs.

5Things:
1. Waiter drops glass on sidewalk on Andrassy.
2. Two big goons pass me by and laugh at the waiter.
3. An orange Lada, thru Matt’s blue sunglasses.
4. The trees holding the sunshine up off the streets.
5. & a blue bus wandering by.

5Things:
1. A most beautiful dark haired gurl w/ a bandana in her hair, w/ a smoking smile.
2. Her intelligent smile & eyes.
3. A table of disastrous Americans.
4. Gurl w/ cast.
5. Empty table of silence.

5Things:
1. My umberella. (which I left at the tram stop and came back for. It obviously is here.)
2. Mammut Centre. Big strange mall-like thing.
3. The colour yellow covering everything in the tram.
4. A neon sign flashing: “Weiner”.
5. Two drunken young skinheads talking and making fun of two drunken old guys.

5Things:
1. A cool blk & white patterned shirt on a super cute gurl.
2. 9 wooden tables in Wikmann’s, some w/ people, some w/out.
3. An origami crane on the table made out of a Dreher label.
4. A ¾’s empty jug of white wine.
5. Fruit flies.

5Things:
1. A gurl w/ a baby blue hat hanging down her back.
2. A TV PHOTO pass hanging from my neck.
3. A camera on the bench beside me.
4. 3 tables set up for a press concert in a white tent.
5. Tents between the houses.

5Things:
1. pretty gurl on balcony, overlooking the Körut combing her hair, beautifully w/ that inherent eroticism involved.
2. A man elbows deep in a garbage can, one of the relics left from the Communist Age.
3. The Big Yellow P.O. beside Nyugati Stn. which is bouncing the setting sun (back) to whence it came.
4. Teenage gurl trip over a hole in the sidewalk that another gurl tripped over 5 minutes before.
5. Ghosts of old/long dead friends singing along to the blaring sirens.

A Sonnet for the eternal her of Montréal (take eight)

2010-02-12T11:17:00.005-05:00

False Muse by name of Siren I call you

Through the burning night they’re drinking

My soul, my self, my spirit’s talent true

Ah Muse, to the Siren’s song I’m sinking

And yet, cooly, you stand apart from this

On my behalf you will not interevene

Your sway and powers, for me, run amiss

I wonder how you did cut me so clean

With your sweet touch I rose above the rest

Now in my woe blackness plunged you delight

Filled with your energy you loved me best

In dark solitudes you showed me your light

Was nothing more than a wet match burning

Confusion; no more than a trick of yearning

pocket paper moments: thoughts on the move

2010-02-03T14:30:00.001-05:00

-Kisses are as unique as the language they are from.
- Rollcals: locals that smoke.
- “Don’t pander to mediocrity.”
- Looking the young woman’s eyelashes from one seat behind, and one over, all I can think is wow they are so long; could it be a trompe d’oeil? Hahaha.
- “…because it’s mine.” “Do you know why the Chinese don’t use this finger?” He asked showing her his pinkie. “No. Why?” she replied.
…
- Fringe Play: Nugless performed like a radio play.
- The Lily
The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat’ning horn:
While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.
Wm. Blake
- Cold. And what I mean by that is… not warm… and what I mean by that is…
- Chateau I’mrich
- B. talking about how books when they 1st appeared were like movies, (Avatar), that they took, possesed, transported people to places outside of themselves. They had POWER. I am transported for exactly the same reasons.
- Loping, the server here lopes. I think at one pt. she was BIG and she still carries the weight in her mind/body motion.
- there is a fitness of mind & being here that allows for the possibility of balance. O how everything builds.
- O, to be among the humans again. I am happy… to be the pt. of trepidation.
_ These winter surprises! These goddamned perfect winter surprises. From bundled angles & shapes beyond what the human form could comprehend 2 eyes peer, absorb & question. Then the unravelling begins. Mitts, gloves, scarves… layer upon layer being removed. And w/ a giggle and an all but holy smile, illuminates first her face, & then the room. O, these winter surprises! These goddamned perfect winter surprises.
- Words move, prepare and finally concrete the moment; well or not.
- a typewriter, O Erika, how can I balance life with the word? Hmm.
- “Here’s a tidbit of information to add to yr infinite knowledge bank.
“You’re an Ass!”
- Free, free, free. As light as a ray of sunshine. The great mother of light; the source. The Original. Blessed am I. Blessed am I.
- the uniform of the hip is never more creative than the lowest common denomintor ever. (ZING!)
- Another damn winter surprise! W/ a 1 million candle smile. I am warm warmed.
- Irony should be thrown like a left jab, smack, smack, smack… as a set up for the right hook.
- J.M.,
Yr Beauty is, and always has been, pure Klimt. (Actually better ‘cos of the dance you continuously do w/ yr humanity.) Man, you are the beautiful.
- Peeking into, peeping into, the smile of another. Well, that fills me w/ such a feeling of trespassing but trespassing w/ a purpose. O, how I love being a human being. (Piercing, always piercing, the sleep of reason!)
- Humour to the humourless is, well… I can’t even imagine.
- Flip Art poems & Haikus: YES! Technology-like.

excerpt from: "Bullets For Babylon"

2009-12-29T11:05:00.001-05:00

Part l

Why? That’s the big question. How to answer it?
Am I going to start this with some confession about how unfair this world has been to me? How I’ve been hard done by? That Lady Luck is a bitch? I could. And maybe I should. But I don’t want to begin on some down note. ‘Cos that’s not who I am. I’m a realist. I deal in reality.
I’m suppose to turn 19 next month. What a thought! I wonder what the ratio is of people who have turned 19 to those who have not made it that far? I plan on changing the numbers.
My kid brother’s a cripple. No reason really. Just a bad roll of the dice. We were all running, jumping, diving, off of Red Rock into the quarry pond. Free falling feet, head, ass and belly first. Thrills & kicks, y’know. Nothing out of the ordinary. We must have all done it at least a couple of hundred times each over the years. And out of all of it, Robbie was the one to do it... well wrong.
It was the sound that tipped us off. And it was sorta strange ‘cos somehow instinctively, collectively, we all knew. In different stages we went and looked over the edge. No thought of the circumstances. Just a curiosity, really.
Now, when you jump and hit the water you go down about 20-25 feet and it’s 4-5 seconds before you re-surface. But not with Robbie. He sank. And maybe, just maybe, if I had of known then what the outcome was going to be I would have left him. Left him to be whole.
* * *

...and fuck it. Really & in an absolute way. ‘Cos I’m not wrong in these thoughts. There has to be a cleansing of sorts. A washing away of the shit & scum. A cull of sorts... a human cull. To remove the rotten, the turning, the venal. And someway or other I realize I am the light. I am the way.
* * *

internecine love... the only kind I ever lived. And to what end? The fruition of all my desires. How much better could it be? Rosaly, o you lovely bitch, my heart is yours but I get to keep my puritan brain. These bullets are like a love letter, sweet, pure and deadly to its cause. O, Rosaly, you are all that I will miss. How could one so fucked up be so beautiful?
* * *
These days feel so confining. Everything pushing down on me. And I wonder why? I am not in need of much. Sure a car would be nice. But in the same moment I haven’t worked for a car so it’s kinda moot to think that I should have one really. I have this feeling of not being able to move, to do anything that it would not be the same, perhaps w/ a different view but still the same gnawing feeling. The gnawing of nothingness. I have an idea, a plan that I want to put into effect. It is grand. It will be earth moving. I think I may be a little afraid or it might just be indigestion. There are things that will unfold as this journal goes on. It won’t take long. Maybe a week or two. I’ll do my best to get it done right and in a way that is both efficient & expedient. I’ve been in the army cadets for years now. They taught me about discipline, planning and achieving the objective. “My men didn’t cheat. They adapted, they improvised and they overcame.” Hamburger Hill and the Clinter, or somthing like that.
* * *

... a moment in conversation...

2009-11-25T08:36:00.000-05:00

“How do people meet? Really meet? Is it a sturdy handshake and a hearty ‘How do you do?’ Or is it with an eye to eye glance? A thunderclap? A dull roar like the morning surf? How?
“What great G-d machinations are in effect? What underlying energies are in play? What toe tingling mysteries flow?
“Are sensations below the waistline the true north? Or the pilot heart, steering by the north star? How does one know? And how when the power of attraction has blinded all senses do we still decipher the maps of our human… destinies? Nay, desires. Biblical deceptions, biblical truths.
“And can we meet anyone without love? At some level? Some degree? A lust love? A mind love? An absolute beauty love like… say January Jones, Marlon Brando? A fill the void in love? All love? Moment love? Death & Birth love? Sour candy love? Brother love? Sister love? All love? Lists by the dozen love? Dirt & blood love? Holy saint love? Broken down eyes full of tears love? Sunshine flooding through broken world love? Desperately abandon all to gain the whole world love?
“Has the line of questioning drifted? Have the dream-lines redefined the horizon? Can heartbeats truly fade the frontline emotions?
“Breathe deeply in, breathe deeply out. Now, tell me truly, how do people meet?”
“That’s one of those… ah… rhetorical questions, right?”
“Rhetorically speaking…yeah.”

more excerpts:

2009-09-30T23:09:00.001-04:00

"...
Drowsing in the late afternoon heat, he started awake suddenly. He hovered in that moment between dreamland and reality. Louis felt a wave of panic crash over him. He didn’t know where or who he was for a moment.
The long lone sound of a truck rolling by on the highway was soothing. It’s familiarity calmed him. It was a reminder of sorts that the world outside was still there, going by. That he was still part of that world.
Country music wafted up from the radio downstairs in the motel’s office. It reminded Louis of the barn dances he had been taken to as a child. Staying up way past his bedtime. Watching the old men pouring what he thought was dust onto the floor so that the shoes would slide easier.
He remembered how the band would come on, country-checked shirts all matching, and everybody would get up to dance. Sometimes they wore kerchiefs tied around their necks just so. It always seemed to be the same band, the same songs, they were so familiar.
He told his mama one time he wanted to be a guitar player in a country band. She had grabbed him by the mouth, making his mouth look like a scrunched O and looked him right in the eye and told him: “You ain’t going to be no honky-tonking guitar playing cowboy, y’hear!?!” “Yes, m’m.” He’d dutifully replied, not quite understanding.
Now he lay back on the bed with a lukewarm beer in his hand. The sun slanting. The music far off filling his ears.
“Damn, these beautiful Country songs about love, about heartbreak.
“Damn, why can’t I once be the guy? Why can’t I have been loved so well that the loss would be so great? What’s wrong with me? Am I not song worthy? Will I never be song worthy?”
Waking up fully Louis laughed and jumped up to get a cold beer and a glass of whiskey to chase it on back.
..."

excerpt:

2009-09-28T15:37:00.002-04:00

“…and the echoing, faintly, of the one binding word. The simple word that has started wars, blood feuds and has helped to re-generate our population. O, lusty hymns sung in your praise. O, guiding light.
“When I look at the stars, especially on a cold winter’s night when they vibrate like diamonds, I am filled with harmonies upon harmonies singing out. Singing out as one. Singing out: LOVE.”

100 THINGS I WILL MISS: (and not in any particular order.)

2009-09-02T06:25:00.000-04:00

1. I will miss the sounds of horses pulling their wagons.
2. I will miss the inherent beauty (and smell) of the out-house.
3. I will miss the church bells ringing out their daily reminders.
4. I will miss the shadow from the line of a woman’s hip-bone.
5 I will miss the way women can make their ponytails sway back & forth, just so.
6. I will miss the taste of the fresh spring-fed well water at The Farm.
7. I will miss lying in bed watching the sunrise at The Farm, then rolling over and going back to sleep.
8. I will miss Orion in the Fall & Winter sky.
9. I will miss the sound of river water spilling over rocks, singing.
10. I will miss the scent of a good bonfire on my clothes the next morning.
11. I will miss the smell of fresh cut pine.
12. I will miss the streets of Paris.
13. I will miss the writings of Dostoevsky.
14. I will miss the paintings, poetry & artistry of Wm. Blake.
15. I will miss the smoked meat sandwiches from Schwartz’s.
16. I will miss the Autumn in Ontario when it seems all of Nature is burning, singing out the colours of life.
17. I will miss the smell of fresh falling snow.
18. I will miss the feel of cold beer on a hot summer’s day.
19. I will miss the briefness & brilliance of falling stars.
20. I will miss Henderson the Rain King.
21. I will miss the pain of loss.
22. I will miss caring about something so much I forget to sleep for days.
23. I will miss first kisses.
24. I will miss riding motorcycles.
25. I will miss fishing.
26. I will miss Grandma Lambe’s apple pie, hot with a slice of old cheddar cheese.
27. I will miss the sound, smell & feel of Erika; my typewriter.
28. I will miss driving, all day & all night, across the Prairies.
29. I will miss moose.
30. I will miss the Moon, in all its phases.
31. I will miss black on white.
32. I will miss Székelyföld. (Transylvania.)
33. I will miss my motorcycle jacket.
34. I will miss oak trees.
35. I will miss skating, ice & board.
36. I will miss the wind.
37. I will miss the whine of chainsaws.
38. I will miss the last & first ice cream of the summer.
39. I will miss the memories of holding O.’s hand.
40. I will miss criss-crossing the continent in old V.W. vans.
41. I will miss the Banff of the 80’s.
42. I will miss kissing my love’s eyes.
43. I will miss Al Jaffee’s Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions and the empty talk balloons you got to fill in.
44. I will miss the jungle heat.
45. I will miss snowmobiles.
46. I will miss maple syrup.
47. I will miss the smell of lilacs in bloom.
48. I will miss Renoir’s paintings.
49. I will miss listening to foreign languages and making up my own dialogues.
50. I will miss the memories of my dog, Casey.
51. I will miss hearing laughter.
52. I will miss sailing boats.
53. I will miss waltzing with my Green Bitch Mistress.
54. I will miss the poems of Rimbaud.
55. I will miss daydreaming.
56. I will miss earth shaking thunder & lightning storms.
57. I will miss the terror of my nightmares.
58. I will miss Nana’s butterscotch pie.
59. I will miss swimming in lakes & rivers.
60. I will miss Gramma’s lemon meringue pie.
61. I will miss Beethoven’s IXth Symphony.
62. I will miss human conflict.
63. I will miss the first day of Fall.
64. I will miss crows.
65. I will miss polar bears.
66. I will miss cheating at Solitaire.
67. I will miss fine red wine.
68. I will miss Guinness.
69. I will miss my holy communion.
70. I will miss the I Ching.
71. I will miss John Coltrane.
72. I will miss Csilla’s cooking.
73. I will miss chess.
74. I will miss the sound of drunkards, in all languages, singing.
75. I will miss falling asleep to the sound of the surf crashing onto a beach.
76. I will miss laughing with my brothers.
77. I will miss my Mother’s smile.
78. I will miss Leonard Cohen’s poetry... & music.
79. I will miss the Thrill of The Flyer.
80. I will miss my own romanticism.
81. I will miss Mordecai Richler’s words.
82. I will miss The Fear.
83. I will miss the madness at Mrs. Tweedle’s house.
84. I will miss all the dreams I forgot to chase.
85. I will miss skiing powder.
86. I will miss saying “86 it.”
87. I will miss Beauty in all its unqualified forms.
88. I will miss the Danube.
89. I will miss having no regrets.
90. I will miss the kicks I’ve had with my friends.
91. I will miss the sorrow this life has often afforded me.
92. I will miss the pure joy vibrations of harmony.
93. I will miss the constant singing of “holy, holy, holy” in my visions.
94. I will miss Big Sur.
95. I will miss the desire to peek into the “other” world.
96. I will miss singing along to Gordon Lightfoot.
97. I will miss all my dreams I made come true.
98. I will miss the balances.
99. I will miss the conversations I’ve had with myself.
100. I will miss my memories of trying to lasso the moon.

excerpt from work in progress titled: "novel".

2009-08-18T11:40:00.001-04:00

“Christ! You look like hell, Robbie.”
Louis turned towards the voice with his good eye.
“Henry.” Shit, shit, shit. Louis thought. This is going to complicate things. What the hell is he doing here?
“You look like the last time I kicked your ass.”
“Dream on, Henry. I’m still 3-0 with you.”
“C’mon, Robbie, that’s creative memory for sure.”
Henry stared at him for a sec. “Christ, with your left and you look like this? Can only mean one thing.”
“Yeah.”
“There must have been more than one guy.”
“I tripped while doing the Tango.”
“Yeah, sure Robbie.”
“Robbie?” Nat broke in.
Henry turned and looked at Nat. Hmm, pretty woman, he thought.
“Yeah…,” Louis hesitated, “ah… Robbie. An old nickname. From an old friend.” He quickly silenced Henry with a look.
“Henry, can I have a minute with you?”
“Sure.”
“Nat, we’ll be right back, ok?”
“Uh-huh. No problem, Louis.”
“Order a couple of whiskeys and an extra glass of ice.”
Louis pointed to his all but closed eye, shrugged and grinned.
He then swept Henry off to the parking lot.
“Louis? Robbie’s a nickname? What the hell you got going on here?”
“Well, I can explain…I…o shit. Bottom line, Henry, I’ve escaped out of my old life. I got a new name, new bank account, new identity, new everything.”
Henry stared, with a gravity, a sense that he had all the time necessary to understand whatever it was Robbie was talking about. Louis stared back as if his explanation should suffice to clear everything up. He shrugged and gave him his best confidence smile.
There was a beat.
“I know the look, Henry.” He sighed, resigned. “There just isn’t the time right now.” He turned to go back inside. Hoping Henry would follow.
Henry remained rooted.
He spoke first. “I don’t give a fuck if you’re cheating on Suze. She was always a bitch to me anyways.”

thinking about other's words

2009-08-13T14:18:00.000-04:00

“The dreamers dream from the neck up, their bodies securely strapped to the electric chair. To imagine a new world is to live it daily, each thought, each glance, each step, each gesture killing and recreating, death always a step in advance. To spit on the past is not enough. To proclaim the future is not enough. One must act as if the next step were the last, which it is. Each step forward is the last, and with it a world dies, one’s self included. We are here of the earth never to end, the past never ceasing, the future never beginning, the present never ending. The never-never world which is never concluded, never shaped to be recognized, all there is and yet not the whole, the parts so much greater than the whole that only God the mathematician can figure it out.” – Henry Miller

Love Is A Virus... or beginning notes for that idea.

2009-08-03T13:33:00.001-04:00

“They say that breaking up is hard to do”, they weren’t kidding.

Love is a virus that is often described as an illness. “H/she is lovesick”. You must look to curing the illness in as complete and clinical way as possible.

There are numerous ways to break-up with people. You can call them. Send them an email. Do it in a public place or at home noisily. No matter the method.

It is what you do after the split that makes all the difference. Honesty is the key to the whole mess. And not some faux-honesty to the other person. No, honesty to yourself.

Firstly, sterilization of the physical and mental situation. The areas you live in must be de-contaminated. This way you do not perpetuate the illness. Photographs, letters, clothing, furniture, all physical traces must be removed.

What do you think you’ll be thinking about if you have a framed photo of your broken heart’s desire beside your bed? Not clear thoughts or thoughts that aren’t wasting your time. You must clean up your area so that you don’t keep on re-infecting yourself.

Out of sight, out of mind. Not denial of their existence but a healthy cleaning of the slate is in order to allow you to see a world untainted by them.

Make a definitive cut. Demand that a period of grace is set-up where you agree not see one another in private. Also, try to avoid seeing them in public as much as possible as well.

This prevents you from embarassing back-sliding break-up sex. Sex is an action full of shifts in status and power. A seductive option. Don’t get back into bed with your ex; ever. Don’t go back into that arena. (exception to the rule is: invited into bed with your ex and their twin)

Like any physical or mental addiction if you stop cold turkey, then have tastes of your desire, you will return to square one in the process of the break-up square dance.

You must take back what is yours from before the relationship. A city, books, movies, if shared they are tainted and should be de-contaminated.

Beware of negative and dishonest thought patterns that tell you how the pleasures of life no longer seem to have the same flavours and excitements now that they are gone…hogswash. This is the tired, lonely mind speaking. Get rid of these thoughts. Now.

The illogical bit of missing someone is that you don’t usually miss what you had, you miss what you could have had!

Be careful of the media - therein lie traps. The movies and songs perpetuating the myths of love are deadly to believe in. They have taught generations nothing but unrealistic fairytale love; and they have left us with our mediocre emotions. All of them learned reactions.

These knotted emotions, real and otherwise, entwined and raging… well, it’s no wonder we’re all confused. The fairytale love is sweet and pretty but it is not realistic. “Love is a bitch for the blues”

O, how right. But that is not a reason to quit love. No, not at all. Love is the greatest emotion of them all, also the most dangerous. We must not take it lightly. So, unlike when we rush into love we must be careful not to rush out of it, and cause ourselves undue troubles.

Before you start to talk again about the relationship, take the time alone to try to understand what you are going through and why. It is important to be honest with yourself

At this time there is nothing wrong with being on your own. The population of the world is not at stake.

Name calling, revenge, all that is truly just against your own wounded pride and ego. Let it slide. Don’t get into that arena. Hey, if it’s over then why bother?

Keep conscious and listen to the things you are saying to yourself. Then judge whether or not they are honest. Imagine the little angel and the little devil, like in The Flintstones, on your shoulder. Listen. Whichever one is looking forward with open eyes and heart. Listen to them.

The other path leads to loss of energy and self-respect.You cannot fool yourself. The sooner you admit to yourself you made an error in judgement - the quicker you’re free from it all.

poem words of my other lost self

2009-07-31T06:44:00.000-04:00

Jazz Prose

Water the flowers! Let the
sun shine warm. The breeze cool.
For today I am wont to wander.

A picture of you tripped the
floodgate. A picture of you
set the pace. A picture of
you freed me from
my daily existence.

Time traversed. Time eased into
a lull that removes the tick
tick tick. Time acting civil, like a
lady. Time open and accommodating.

An almost forgotten room.
The smell faint in my mind. The
colour faded in my eye. The street
sounds trapped in my memory’s echo.

You were the Queen of my
world, my mind, my soul. Ruling
unconsciously, beautifully, sublimely. I
don’t think you knew. I never
told you, properly.

That room. Of our conspired
pleasures. Us, hidden behind
thick curtains. Us, hiding from the phone’s
intrusions. From the outside’s bogeyman.

Hearts beating to our drummer’s
tune. Close and touching with no
anxiety of expectation. Talking w/out
words. Like a sister to a brother.

Your eyes of blue, shimmered.
Our skin was young then, elastic,
strong. Our stomachs flat upon
one another’s. Our kisses eternal.

How can ink and paper
possibly do justice to yr
spoken lips? To yr slight
muscled neck? To yr raven hair?
To you?

I found a picture of you.
Distant glance. Brief glimpse.
The past’s glare. My senses
rattled by who we were.

What cares have I of lost or
misplaced love? Chances
missed, opportunity’s last call.
Once we were on fire. Unstoppable
& unprecedented in our union’s desire.

I saw a picture of you
today. The onslaught of my
emotions overwhelmed me before
I could act. W/ you I don’t
mind. I never did.

Let my nerves sing, my heart
swell and inertia hold my
body. For today I want to
remember you. I want the
pain among the pleasure.

I can see you,
holding the room’s attention, down
to the minutest particle. Queen of
yr Universe. Essence connected to
Essence; direct line.

I can feel you, close like a
summer heatwave. Around me
and w/in me. As much me as
I could allow anything else to be.
Permanent like bedrock.

The conscious memory of you
comes and goes on its own
schedule. Fleeting and elusive
w/ a bottom end like teeth.
Sharp, strong, and potentially
dangerous. How appropriate.

Your form: Classic. Your
heart: Colossal. I am drowned
in yr remembered presence like a rainy day.
Safe and warm in the fold.

I am swimming in the warmth
of your memory. Every point
I want to make is
floating pin-like in the dark.
A galaxy of inspired wonder.

Monuments beyond syllables
should be erected to you.
Flesh offerings and sacrifices
beyond pedestal love. New
orders. I could tear down
the old.

I am living the memory
of you and I like it was
today. W/ all the raging
melodramatics that love demands.
I feel like tomorrow corrected.

Your slightly crooked teeth
w/ their fuuuh sound when you
breathed in while thinking. Or yr
calm composure while yr eyes darted
taking everything in. These
are the subtleties I did not overlook.

Your hands soft as they seemed
to melt w/ mine. Your fingers
w/ mine a spider’s web of flesh.
Catching, holding, containing us. A
realm unto themselves.

A picture is worth a thousand
words. And each picture the
first invokes is another
thousand words. Thousands of thousands.
A staggering exponential.

I’m thinking of you as I’m scribbling
these lines. The rain is drumming
the beats of my heart. I’m
thinking of you. All because of
a picture I saw.

more quotes, more thought food

2009-06-04T11:55:00.000-04:00

“For the Universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear, under different names, in every system of thought, whether they be called cause, operation, and effect; or more poetically, Jove, Pluto, Neptune; or theologically, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son; but which we will call, here, the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty. These three are equal. Each is that which he is essentially, so that he cannot be surmounted or analyzed, each of these three has the power of the others latent in him, and his own potent.” –R.W. Emerson (from: The Poet)

something to ponder

2009-06-01T04:21:00.001-04:00

practice |ˈpraktəs|: 1 the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use. 2 repeated exercise in or performance of an activity or skill so as to acquire or maintain proficiency in it.

moments

2009-05-29T04:18:00.000-04:00

A million notes in order to remember the day to day. The moments, that yes, make up the moments. And to someway or other organize, memorize, to understand the hows, whys, the meanings. 'Cos right now I'm floundering. I'm not on solid ground and I'm all but falling apart. Huge weights of 'known' pressures barrelling down on me. The unknown spooky as fuck on one hand and knowable on the other. I am alone. I am the one and only achiever and planner for my destiny. I must focus all thought on getting it right. How do I expand my thoughts to books? To stories. And how do I de-woodify my writing? I want it to be wooden and I can't. I don't want it to be wooden and it's mahogany rush. Discipline is the message whispered on the wind to me. But whose? Mine? I have next to none. Except to pursuing my false pleasures. So long ago the feeling and meaning of the actions were forgotten. Mere mechanics... tick tick tick. And I have to find a way to look people in the eyes? Let them know I’m ok? I’m on the run. I always have been. I said somewhere that I am never truly comfortable. That I have only been comfortable a couple of times in the last years. And that was in a canoe, floating on a lake fishing, drinkng beer. My straw hat shading my head as my feet got hot in the sun. Thinking of nothing. Mostly because I was so many miles away from any sort of civilization or place to do anything other than what I was doing. Fishing. I pulled some nice bass out of that lake, too. As a matter of fact I pulled the champeen bass out of that lake and was told so by the other two guides who had been fishing it all summer. Man, that was a beautiful day. Drifting around the lake, trying out hunches, coming up with nothing. Smoking my pipe. (I still think I’m too young for a pipe!) Then I was heading back to the cabin, the sun low but not quite setting behind me. I paddled hard, got some good speed then put my paddle in the canoe. It was coming around a point that had a rock shore that dropped and a big old log stump. I picked up my rod as I glided through the water and let fly my lure. BOFF! As my lure hit the water’s surface the bass hit my lure. As if they were both jumping, one from the sky and one from the bottom of the lake, to meet one another. Like long lost cousins running up a train platform to meet and hug and kiss one another. I fought him. And he fought me. In the end I won. I pulled him into my canoe after what seemed an eternity of him waltzing on the lake’s dance-floor surface. The sun slanting in a way that made the water’s reflection fire. The bass just kept dancing on his tail. Beautiful. I wrapped him in newspaper and took him back over to where the group was having their campfire cook out and showed him to the people. They were all foreigners. From a long way off. Come to see Canada’s great outdoors. I’d delivered. I was glad that supper was over because then I didn’t feel obligated to kill this watery prince. I slowly lowered him into the water, he floated dazed, shook himself once, twice and he was gone. I cut the blade of my paddle into the water and made for the cabin at the other end of the lake. Absorbed in the outward graces of the day.

ant WAR

2009-05-26T09:03:00.001-04:00

The Ant War
by
Henry D. Thoreau
(an excerpt from “Walden”)

“I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the red one, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two reds ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noon-day prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary’s front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. In the mean while there came along a single red ant on the hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar, - for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red, - he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not a fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriot’s side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick, - “Fire! for God’s sake fire!” – and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those of whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.
I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer’s eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavouring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; which at length, after half an hour more, he accomplished. I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door.
Kirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been celebrated and the date of them recorded, though they say that Huber is the only modern author who appears to have witnessed them. “AEneas Sylvius,” say they, “after giving a very circumstantial account of one contested with great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk of a pear tree.” adds that “’This action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle with the greatest fidelity.’ A similar engagement between great and small ants is recorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, but left those of their giant enemies a prey to birds. This event happened previous to the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden.” The battle which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five years before the passage of Webster’s Fugitive-Slave Bill.”

rambles are ok... today.

2009-05-12T06:16:00.001-04:00

if it was a sunrise sort of idea, if it was first light, from the darkest hour, if it was Venus rising to be faded by the light, if it was all dew soaked well then I’d realize that perhaps all was well, that the plumbing was working, that the drain drained, that the things in this world that mattered were all in some kind of proper order. O how the list could go on: people walking on green lights, the wheat becoming golden, the surf breaking perfectly, the holiness of being screaming thru it all, in such perfected harmonies that nothing not even the broken teeth, the rusted machines, the faked abortions, the human offal, the discarded, could change the pitch, the tone, the perfect buzzing harmony, and out of all this, the only thing beyond a gnawing mosquito sound is the blue blue sky, full w/ one, & the odd human bug travelling to space, also exalted by a few other human bugs. O, O, O, & in it all there are the moments when there is an extra-conscious, a boost of energy, a shift in the being, that comes from being, destitute, pampered, no matter, ignored or white knuckled eyes wide peeking into to it all, a whole, a complete landscape of being presents itself, from Adam to Atom, and some that look never return, some remain transfixed in a Totality, completing it somehow, others take to complete, and others are humbled, and sometimes, again & again thru Time you find the corner of the veneer peeled back, and peeking is the only path, the only choice, and whether it is strong periods of being or times of weakness, no matter as it is a pre-determined action, the only parallel I can draw is the excitement & trepidation’s after dropping acid, the first 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, before the take off, before the world opens and the trip really begins, that wondering of ‘Wow…did I really do it this time?, am I coming back?, will I remember any of what I knew before?’. There is a beautiful old woodcut that is on the cover of a book, I believe it is called ‘The Discovers’, where a man is half in the world and half in the other ‘unseen’ world, the fascination that it exists, that we peek into it, that in our spines the human being, the human race is, at least, in understanding of this pt., a pt. that has no language to explain it, truly we are the race of Babel.

… and really what thoughts? What differences? I sit in the near summertime streets & I dream, I read, I listen to the cars & the murmurs of the passerby’s, I am throbbing w/ the rhythm of an ancient type, deep down blood flow, deep down lost connection, but what matter? really the sun is hot, the air humid and full of sounds that help transport me to other places & times.

Haikus from days gone by.

2009-03-21T00:56:00.003-04:00

still night whispering
shatters the early dawn mist
like migrating geese

hot water boiling
awaiting the green tea leaves
with Spring almost gone

train platform hauntings
with steel wheels slipping goodbye
as past meets future

melting kisses bloom
for the new season’s coming
wet snow on my boot

humming car engines
like one hundred white horses
move Time without Space

with flat feet slapping
Love ran up the small rough hill
And dreamed of old friends

The Minus 2 Sonnets

2009-03-16T23:29:00.002-04:00

Awhile ago I decided to write some sonnets. Give it a go and all that. But I got the basics wrong. I wrote 8 syllables lines instead of 10; thus The Minus 2 Sonnets. Here they are:

I

I stole away and cried for you
In corners dark and sunless rooms.
Our last goodbye, the morning dews
disturbed by the gun’s echoes Boom!
The chase was on, and we were split;
I to the Moon and you the Sun.
Spent in the woods; a world unlit.
I, in darkness, still on the run.
Round Heaven and Stars I did roam.
To find you out; alive or dead.
My image of you almost gone.
My heart filled with blackness; dread.

So Sun come out and sing your song
For Darkness has reigned far too long.

II

Odysseus, to Ithika
Your home and kin, long left behind.
The paths you take are mythical
The obstacles so well defined.
A Goddess, favours you, so bright,
With loving guidance holds you true
Through your perils and sorry plight
With wind filled sails and star night blue.
To Ithika you come unknown.
Wreaking bow vengeance; right restored.
Your identity revealed, shown.
A harmony, life’s perfect chord.

Telemachus, Penelope
Have you back from Posiedon’s Sea.

III

The open road of Kerouac.
Exhilerating cars and gurls.
Across the continent and back.
Jazz and tea, motion twirls and swirls.
Holy mornings, sunsets, back beat.
Epiphanies, all visions clear.
Exploding drug mad, mad minds meet.
Angels singing for them to hear.
Bill, Neal, and Allen bop dealings.
Travelling their similar paths,
To the outer limits of things.
Jazz and words mixed with life and laughs.
And so that time has come and gone,
Good night sweet princes of that dawn.

IV

A quilted blanket of all Time
That organizer of pattern.
I wish that it could be all mine
My mood would not be (quite) so saturn.
Think of a Time and then be there.
The fabric shifts and all dreams come.
Shall I be brave and think to dare
And to all dangers appear as numb?
Adventurer through Time & Space
A bold and mighty man alone.
I might even peek at God’s face
To see if I would turn to stone.

Late night train wheels clickety-click
Lulled by my study clock …tick tick.

from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

2009-03-12T22:34:00.001-04:00

‘The Voice of the Devil’:

“All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors:

That Man has two real existing principles: Viz: a Body & a Soul.
That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone from the Body; & that Reason, call’d Good, is alone from the Soul.
That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True:

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

2. Energy is only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

3. Energy is Eternal Delight.”

- Wm. Blake

hiccough...

2009-03-12T01:08:00.000-04:00

I’m probably dreaming some fantastic fantasy existence where the people I care for & love live w/in a proximity that each & everyday the love & energy that is being put out by everyone by the sheer fact of the energy being is returned 10 fold to everyone so that they may be filled w/ that good knowledge that they are not alone, that they are part of a strong group of individuals who by chance are creating this situation, I am alone here, as I am alone in most places, except now I am not so numb to the fact, my bitch green Mistress is here to ‘soothe’ my solitudes, they are brazen & sitting bold faced in front of me, I fear that I have spent too much Time on my own, that certain aspects of my social being remain but they are not connected, the wires are cut, Do you ever feel as though you may know too much? That what you have been thinking about & the things that you have applied yr inner energies to have taken you out of the realm of the regular, and now it seems that the world is adhering to the bland concept of the lowest common denominator so that no one is left out, I’m crazy, I think somehow or other I am socially insane, a bad citizen, I have no reference pt. at all to my own society.

breezing for a moment

2009-03-10T15:02:00.000-04:00

Love, a sustainable state of insanity?

Tossing and turning throughout the night, not in a restless way but as part of the whole - and the whole was good.

In my dreams I would be answering questions. Then I’d rollover and start another phase of the same dream, not anxious or conscious, but knowing. Physically I was relaxed and never woke in a bad position or sore. Spectacular.

I feel as though I am breezing, flying through this life without knowledge of the present. I’m wondering how I’m going to do all this. I haven’t got a clue.

Forward eyes and forward motion. This is my idea of right now. Onward and …well, onward!

The long, last rays of sunshine slanting through the green new grass. In the distance, carried on a still cool Spring breeze, “Money for nothing…Iwant my… I want my… I want my MTV…” can be faintly but distinctly heard.

Thoughts of love and companionship. Cart before the horse thoughts.

To break this dreamscape life. To see what is through my eyes. To translate these actions, these growths and their inherent pains and jubiliations. But most importantly to do it.

Voices carry over from past times. Neil Young keeps popping up. Neil’s music reminds me of a good friend. No longer among the living in the flesh. Although he is in many hearts, living in love. Remembered.

Motorcycle days are ahead of me. The excitement builds.

Enforcement of ideas and plans.

Intellect and education often only alienates and confuses.

Social patterns, real and imagined, are cow trails through the wilderness. Full of shit and pricks.

Doubt is the plague of modern man.

Youth begets Youth/Age begets Beauty

The fear, and therein the power, of being ostracized in our society is much stronger (greater) than a physical beating.

Rules are made to be exceptions to.

In the lightning flash, silhouettes are revealed.

A series of sketches, like the artist sketches his models-short poses and long- but of people, things, moments, and sunbeams. This is what I want to do? I don’t know. It seems on one hand frivolous and w/out reason. On the other it will create a series of moments perpetuated by themselves into their own eternities.

These greats truths that I know are nothing more than mere reflections of what they are understood as. How does one respect and honour reflections?

Without pain Life is dull.

Dieters like the religious when true to their calling rarely speak to preach about their calling. It is the ones who doubt that speak incessantly about it.

All I ever do is wait. Life is a series of waiting. Sometimes the pay-off is fantastic. Sometimes it’s simply a set-up for the next session of waiting. Perhaps it’s what you do while yr waiting that counts.

Piazza Michaelangelo at Sunset

2009-03-10T00:11:00.000-04:00

The sun begins to set to the applause of distant churchbells ringing, calling the devout to worship and the watchless to dinner. The city below is praised in languages foreign to me but not the view. German, Japanese, Italian, and yet they must speak the same words that have been spoken for ages. The final dip behind the Tuscan hills sends the sunlight pink and flaming to the bottom of the clouds reaching through to the grey outer limits. A jet splits the city sky in two.

Lovers, old and young, holding hands, arms around one another, touching. Renewing themselves with a view most complete. The birds have now begun to sing their evening song from trees nearby.

I try not to look back at the parking lot, although even that has a certain beauty in this light. O what an illustrious city! Centuries upon centuries of work, defining work, held within its broken walls. Gates calling out to weary travellers of old.

The cool night breeze has picked up as the lights of Fiesole begin to dot the far hillside. But the chill refreshes, reminds me only of comforts later to be afforded. To my left is a perfect little valley replete with vineyards, olive groves, villas and blossoms. Straight ahead the remains of today’s sunlight with a churches duomo and the Arno flowing under Ponte Vecchio. The tower in Piazza della Signoria stands proud against the background smoked grey hills.

Civic to Spiritual my eye swings as Chiesa de Maria de Fiore fills the view of the citied skyline. Brunelleschi’s grand Duomo standing out like the Queen of the Valley. The jet’s stream is pure pink against a fading blue sky.

A natural line up from the buildinged street-like fields to the Duomo to the heavens and back to the piazzalle in time to watch a beautiful redhead walk up the stairs. O Beauty absorbing.

Darkness is now descending to alleviate the overwhelming sense of grandeur. And yet Santa Croce stands to my right with a silent (and not visible from here) Dante and I watching over it. Magnificent the accomplishments, human accomplishments that were realized in this city.

The old waiter removes the settings from his patio tables that overlook the city. His trade, with the Sun, are gone till tomorrow.

I look around in the fading light to see a radiance, similar, in all the faces. An inherent glory of sorts. The wind has now chilled me to the point of departure. And the feeling I get as I prepare to leave is that the people up here and the city are now as one: lit up as a reward for being here.

Fellini said:

2009-02-23T01:14:00.001-05:00

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

“…and everyone’s in love and flowers pick themselves.” ee cummings

2009-02-17T23:07:00.001-05:00

Where are the poets today? No, pardon me let me re-phrase this question? Where are the love poets of today? It is quite possible that I am looking in the wrong places but as of late the poetry I have heard and seen is all about stage posturing and cute flip flop word plays. Now, that this is not my cup of tea in no way negates the power or refutes the authenticity of these poets. No, but I just want to know where the love poems of today are. Does all poetry have to have an agenda? Race related, poverty related, I got the society blues related?

I ask again: Where are the poets of today? The love poets? Are we so hardened and cynical that we no longer need or desire to hear the words of love spoken? Do we present such an unlovable presence that the world no longer has a want to hear tender words spoken? Has Hallmark and the other corporations who have made things like Valentines a money making fiasco also jaded us to the point where we wouldn’t know good love verse if it jumped up and bit us in the ass?

Is it that poetry doesn’t pay? And our poets have now become lyricists? Writing and fronting music bands? Did Leonard Cohen set the pace when he crossed over from poet to singer?

And what if none of it really mattered at all? What if this is all some kind of randomness that we can’t see through anyways? What if there is nothing? Truly nothing to live for except life? Would we be able to recognize such a mediocre idea as this?

I Ching wisdom in the flash of a coin toss

2009-02-12T11:43:00.002-05:00

#29 K'an/The abysmal (Water)
___ ___
_______
___ ___
___ ___
_______
___x___

From 6 in the 1st line:
"By growing used to what is dangerous, a man can easily allow it to become part of him. He is familiar with it and grows used to evil. With this he has lost the right way, and misfortune is the natural result."

a joke

2009-02-11T23:48:00.002-05:00

I read this joke in a book a couple of months ago and was in one of those situations where before I could do anything I was the guy on the subway laughing uncontrollably. Now I have had a couple of different reactions to it. I wasn't sure whether or not a written joke would be funny said out loud. Some people laughed as hard as I did, some guffawed, some smiled enjoying the joke, and one person said "I don't get it." And after explaining the joke they said "Yeah, I understand it but I just don't get what's funny." Which stunned the room and got quite a few laughs. Ok, ok, the joke:

One day up in heaven St. Peter has to go and run some errands so he asks Jesus if he would mind watching the gate for the afternoon. Jesus says no problem. Jesus is sitting there and an old man approaches. Jesus says hello, what good things have you done on earth to make you think that you should enter the gates of heaven? The old man says well, it's not so much what I have done. I am but a humble carpenter. But my son, my son brought much happiness and joy to the world and was known and loved by many. At hearing this Jesus throws his arms around the old man and cries out Father! Father! The old man replies Pinocchio?

Letting the thieves into my own mouth to steal my brains!

2009-02-10T23:11:00.003-05:00

These days without hearing or feeling these keys beneath my fingers... makes me wonder what have I been doing? On what travels of fancy or dread have I been? Time appears quite static and space has a heaviness weighing upon me that Sisyphus would have envied. And yet the closer I draw to the grand negative, the sleep of the damned, death, the more I fight. The brighter my inner flame burns, burns for life. To live. To die on fire. To never stop until it is over.

The non-stop bombardment of image and sound that repeats and echoes itself ad nauseum. We are a society of sameness and sound-clip communication. I am not beyond this is any better than or hoiler than thou way. I am in it. I am of it.

What is the fascination, no, obsession of being lost in others' worlds? How does the writing of another hold me so fascinated, so stuck in a moment, so absolutely beyond my being? It is staggering. I reel. I rock.

How can I believe in others' words so completely? To think that I have had some similiar thing happen to me? Objective subjectivity. It's all about almosting. Almosting the feeling, almosting the emotion, almosting the scene... then we are one, one humanity. How can pain, like love, be felt in harmony? What does it matter? Is it about the fear of realizing we are alone, that communion, brother and sisterhoods are mere band-aids to the truth? What veil has been drawn that we have collectively allowed ourselves to believe in this? Happier times, childhood eyes filled with the fiction of living. How to live in this world? How not to? Mere muscle reflex is all that truly keeps me going.

Is there a term for life that is in the realm of alone that does not incur the idea of loneliness? Solitude? But with a positive light?

These are my 'day' thoughts. The ones that see the light of outside. Outside my cracked and dusty cranium.

hodge-podge

2009-02-10T17:28:00.005-05:00

This life has been an ongoing series of "realityizing" my image of it. I imagined it all as a child and since I have been going out and exploring all of it, it has been illusion of sorts. The cold reality sometimes standing up, sometimes even more impressive but never does the world template of my mind "fit" over the other world. My eyes are slowly opening.

I don’t feel as though I am on the earth. No feeling of connection; no binding factor. I can smell the cold in the wind; but it is an abstract. The sound of my crunching boots in the snow fills my ears; but I am beyond a relation to my own forlorn steps. I can see the miles of country, roads, and sky; but they do nothing for my senses. The metallic taste of blood when I suck on my teeth reminds me of little.

What gravity-less moments. I’d say floating-like if the weight of knowledge wasn’t pressing down on me.

Realizing the minutest particles of my being’s day to day routine. Understanding the tick tick machinations of my soul; and body. Excluding myself from an outward self, a social self. Seeing the futility in such pursuits. O, damn. The conclusions, foreseen, are without future. I wish they were without merit.

The beep beep of the computer chess game brings me back to the excitement of the day. A rather devious bishop of mine has breached the wall, so to speak.

Looking for a binding factor. A point of reference that can hold this mess of consciousness together. And a Rosetta Stone in order to understand it all. These are some of things I will put on my list for Santa Claus this year.

One day I will want to live in a poppy dream, somewhere pretty.

2009-02-06T23:39:00.006-05:00

I have fears about how words sound. Too simple. Too dull. Too slow. Too habitual. When is the magical time of words going to dawn? A revolution of alphabets? The marching of letters?
I live in an inverted future; really my past.
I was broke, lonesome and my shoes were full of blood as I walked the cold streets of Paris. I walked miles and miles each day in order to save a few coins in order to gain entrance into another museum. To see masterpiece upon masterpiece until I thought no more tears could run down my face. No more pure joy could be transmitted into me without my becoming two people, there, then and permanently, to boot. It was a re-birth in the midst of one more light going out.
A trick to save money at the museums: go to the gift shop and look at the postcards of the collection. If there is a painting that you have to see live, well then you pay. If not you might buy a p.c. or two still coming out ahead from the admission price. Often the equivalent of a rewarding beer in a smoky and warm cafe nearby.
It's all about realizing that money and how it's saved and how it's spent is a very fluid motion. It must always be moving in order for more to come along. Logic that is.
Anyways, one of my days I arrived at the Musee de Picasso. I was enjoying it very much. Learning about and seeing a lot of his work in one place at one time. It wasn't until I came face to face with the painting "Man Eating an Ice Cream Cone" that I realized how very playful the masters, the true masters, the geniuses, truly are. Leading us along, showing us the way, or a way, and the power of their shared visions pulling us along like back-drafting a semi in a V.W. bus across the praries. Poetry. Belief. Harmony.
Some works are very much like a theatrical wink given so that nobody misses the irony or humour of the situation. What moxy! What chutzpah! What balls! Bravo! I cry out again Bravo!
For in all things I see 'it' in a flash. I also see the cheap imitations in a flash, a heartbeat. Transported to the heaven inspired heights and just as suddenly to fall to the depths of bad taste, mainfested misguided inspiration. (Bullocks!)
God, the mad deaf Ludwig knew it.
Sweet, beatitudinal Blake knew it.
Montreal's own Mordecai Richler knew it.
There is a long and worthy list of those that exalted in it.
I'll tell ya a secret. It could have only come from one thing, simply: LOVE.

there's a first for everything; once.

2009-02-05T23:41:00.004-05:00

Um, well thinking about starting this off w/ some kind of a great bang. Y'know like taking on all the evil in the world, inviting it to a Ball of some kind and then playing accordian music all night.
So, instead of a great big bang it would seem this beginning is going to be a slow one. My fingers are a bit itchy and the thoughts are knocking on the door to be let out but something is holding me back.
I'm going to think on it. I will return.