but no suitcase.
31.12.09
27.12.09
evidence
december 27th, 2009: 12:47am
victoria is colder than montreal.
(computer is on montreal time)
victoria is colder than montreal.
(computer is on montreal time)
21.12.09
sookephile:
a person who has lived in sooke for an extended period of time, such that they have become a sooke-ite or extreme representation of the town we all pretend not to reside in.
people are weird here.
..like the man we met on the galloping goose trail who told us a story about how he threw a rock out to sea in the middle of winter and his dog went to fetch it. the rock caught on a floating crab trap (or sunk nearby), his dog grabbed the styrofoam marker on the trap in his mouth and started toward shore. unfortunately the styrofoam became lodged in the dog's mouth and the dog began to sink along with the trap. the man watched his dog as it disappeared from view amidst the encroaching waves, then tore off his clothes and dove into the cold sea...
..or the man who shared a story with my mother in a coffee shop that ended with:
santa went to make himself a rum and coke, but someone had finished the rum. suddenly, there was a knock at the door--santa was in a terrible mood--it was an angel. the angel said, "hello santa, i thought you would like this tree for christmas" and santa said, "i'll tell you where you can shove that," and that's how the angel ended up on top of the christmas tree...
...gala and i phoned stephen harper from her cell phone last night while walking along the inner harbour. we asked him to stop logging vancouver island's old growth forests for lumber and stick to second and third growth forests. seemed reasonable.
we also asked him to consider us as he makes decisions that will impact our future. to not forget that it is us and our children, not him, who have to live with the consequences of his rash, momentarily profitable choices in ruling our country. we asked him to call us back when he had a minute. it seemed like a good idea at the time.*
..finally, the first night i arrived back in sooke coincided with the annual fire department's *treat*. every year they decorate the fire engine with christmas lights and drive down the roads in sooke accompanied by santa clause and handing out candy canes. this year, they had an escort truck. it arrived before hand with what looked like santa clause in a body bag stuck to the roof. dad and i were initially disappointed until the rest of the brigade showed up. mum made this video:
*later, he prorogued parliament so i guess we got to him. coward.
people are weird here.
..like the man we met on the galloping goose trail who told us a story about how he threw a rock out to sea in the middle of winter and his dog went to fetch it. the rock caught on a floating crab trap (or sunk nearby), his dog grabbed the styrofoam marker on the trap in his mouth and started toward shore. unfortunately the styrofoam became lodged in the dog's mouth and the dog began to sink along with the trap. the man watched his dog as it disappeared from view amidst the encroaching waves, then tore off his clothes and dove into the cold sea...
..or the man who shared a story with my mother in a coffee shop that ended with:
santa went to make himself a rum and coke, but someone had finished the rum. suddenly, there was a knock at the door--santa was in a terrible mood--it was an angel. the angel said, "hello santa, i thought you would like this tree for christmas" and santa said, "i'll tell you where you can shove that," and that's how the angel ended up on top of the christmas tree...
...gala and i phoned stephen harper from her cell phone last night while walking along the inner harbour. we asked him to stop logging vancouver island's old growth forests for lumber and stick to second and third growth forests. seemed reasonable.
we also asked him to consider us as he makes decisions that will impact our future. to not forget that it is us and our children, not him, who have to live with the consequences of his rash, momentarily profitable choices in ruling our country. we asked him to call us back when he had a minute. it seemed like a good idea at the time.*
..finally, the first night i arrived back in sooke coincided with the annual fire department's *treat*. every year they decorate the fire engine with christmas lights and drive down the roads in sooke accompanied by santa clause and handing out candy canes. this year, they had an escort truck. it arrived before hand with what looked like santa clause in a body bag stuck to the roof. dad and i were initially disappointed until the rest of the brigade showed up. mum made this video:
*later, he prorogued parliament so i guess we got to him. coward.
3.12.09
rfb
rain falls around your shape, cutting patterns in the darkness to keep you dry.
the stars stare as you walk beneath them--
the path you wander, even they can't make light of...
and daisies paint your picture when they dance in the wind,
amid grass tendrils that reach over our heads.
we are the best, at our worst--
making collages from nothing but skin,
and even that we shed, eventually.
xo
the stars stare as you walk beneath them--
the path you wander, even they can't make light of...
and daisies paint your picture when they dance in the wind,
amid grass tendrils that reach over our heads.
we are the best, at our worst--
making collages from nothing but skin,
and even that we shed, eventually.
xo
25.11.09
i'm just killing time until i die.
all of this is a ruse.
use me/ i'll use you too--
in fact, let's all use each other until
we're all used up and nobody has anything left to give.
the menial doodles that take up this life/
words working side jobs to pay for the night.
{none of us has money--
but poor is cool these days,
it means you don't give a fuck.}
i'm hallucinating a stereotype.
it moves slowly past my arm on the edge of the precipice i call my desk--
nothing gets done here.
just shadows pretending to be shadows,
following a darkness of thought that moves freely around the abyss.
all of this is a ruse.
use me/ i'll use you too--
in fact, let's all use each other until
we're all used up and nobody has anything left to give.
the menial doodles that take up this life/
words working side jobs to pay for the night.
{none of us has money--
but poor is cool these days,
it means you don't give a fuck.}
i'm hallucinating a stereotype.
it moves slowly past my arm on the edge of the precipice i call my desk--
nothing gets done here.
just shadows pretending to be shadows,
following a darkness of thought that moves freely around the abyss.
22.11.09
16.11.09
it lingers behind you, round clouded corners, brandishing your dreams...carrying the weight of your worries and following your shadow through the day..
you pretend it isn't there, isn't following you from dusk, but you know it won't leave anytime soon. and even as you deny its presence, and ignore its attempts to grasp your attention, you tingle when it's near; you know that eventually, you'll have to give in.
you hold out for weeks and months, you think even perhaps a year... but no, love's sneaky like that. it jumps you when you think you're done and turns you on your head.
you pretend it isn't there, isn't following you from dusk, but you know it won't leave anytime soon. and even as you deny its presence, and ignore its attempts to grasp your attention, you tingle when it's near; you know that eventually, you'll have to give in.
you hold out for weeks and months, you think even perhaps a year... but no, love's sneaky like that. it jumps you when you think you're done and turns you on your head.
8.11.09
scars...
little lessons to carry with and remind you along the way...
...like the new, purple-ish one i earned on my leg (about the size of a dime) from hot oil last week. reminding me not to drop things into the pan, but rather to place them gently. or like the small shiny one on my left knee cap that tells me, still, that practicing long jump in a gravel courtyard is a risky endeavor... and the faint blip on my eyelid that taught me that ex racehorses don't get reprimanded like the rest--because they will react quickly and knock you out with their nose bone somewhere in to a tree... and lastly, one deep one nestled in my eyebrow, reminding me not to try climbing up japanese innertubing waterslides (i'm sure other ones are okay), because japanese hospitals are scary, so disinfected.. and because it hurt.. there are other scars, too, but these ones i will never forget..
...like the new, purple-ish one i earned on my leg (about the size of a dime) from hot oil last week. reminding me not to drop things into the pan, but rather to place them gently. or like the small shiny one on my left knee cap that tells me, still, that practicing long jump in a gravel courtyard is a risky endeavor... and the faint blip on my eyelid that taught me that ex racehorses don't get reprimanded like the rest--because they will react quickly and knock you out with their nose bone somewhere in to a tree... and lastly, one deep one nestled in my eyebrow, reminding me not to try climbing up japanese innertubing waterslides (i'm sure other ones are okay), because japanese hospitals are scary, so disinfected.. and because it hurt.. there are other scars, too, but these ones i will never forget..
3.11.09
31.10.09
last night i dreamed about candy
then i woke up, and it was halloween. go figure.
the only costume idea i have so far is an irate pirate. which doesn't even rhyme. it's a better play on words than costume. it looks great on paper, like a lot of things.
best TRICK of the day *so far*:
"hey hawco, you want a threeni?"
"a what?"
"a threeni! it's like a toonie, but three dollars."
"is that legal tender?"
"..."
can't wait for the TREATs.
the only costume idea i have so far is an irate pirate. which doesn't even rhyme. it's a better play on words than costume. it looks great on paper, like a lot of things.
best TRICK of the day *so far*:
"hey hawco, you want a threeni?"
"a what?"
"a threeni! it's like a toonie, but three dollars."
"is that legal tender?"
"..."
can't wait for the TREATs.
27.10.09
f/r\a g m|e|n|t (s)
Today has no purpose, but for that of a stepping stone from yesterday to tomorrow
"I (personally) have always found it a little tricky to put together my desire to be with and love someone with my need and desire for solitude."
[tell me everything is going to be okay.]
Today i'm not angry at bus drivers or people saying stupid doing stupid. no, today i only hate i only hate myself.
26.10.09
bonafide
it has crept in to my attention that i am becoming a *bonafide* pessimist. little hints, like thoughts of 'i hate everything' and 'people are the worst' scroll through my head, usually in the morning. these indicate the potentiality of a larger problem, brewing.
since i am generally known as a person who smiles noticeably more than the status quo, it seems to me that this is a more recent development.
things that may be contributing to my less sunny disposition:
cold weather
lack of sleep
homework
work
the disintegration of human moral
increase of stupid people in my immediate surroundings
loud noises when not necessary
a general distaste of the moronic goings on around me
too many people in general
finding my jar of peanut butter nearly empty early in the morning as i go to use it for breakfast...
things that may help me through the hate loop:
good music via good room mates (m83)
robin still loves me despite this 'hate everything' attitude
bonus points for putting up with the early morning version of above mentioned
writing things that don't make sense
going home for the holidays
the salvation army
spring
things reached a peak this morning on the shuttle bus as the driver raged around corners and repeatedly slammed the brakes, despite the overload of students on board. between the redundant, annoying conversations i had to overhear and the constant pitching and falling of the vehicle, things were not going well. i surmised that the general population of students and people in my appropriated surroundings are fucking retarded. excuse the socio-politically incorrect use of mental disability to illustrate a point. i don't care.
in general, the amount of times during any given day that i have the urge to tell someone to 'go fuck themselves' has increased exponentially since this time last year. i wonder, have i gotten angrier, or everyone else more idiotic--and me, by default, smarter. i prefer the latter and that is what i am going to go with. if you disagree, it's only because you aren't intelligent enough to comprehend my rationalizations.
since i am generally known as a person who smiles noticeably more than the status quo, it seems to me that this is a more recent development.
things that may be contributing to my less sunny disposition:
cold weather
lack of sleep
homework
work
the disintegration of human moral
increase of stupid people in my immediate surroundings
loud noises when not necessary
a general distaste of the moronic goings on around me
too many people in general
finding my jar of peanut butter nearly empty early in the morning as i go to use it for breakfast...
things that may help me through the hate loop:
good music via good room mates (m83)
robin still loves me despite this 'hate everything' attitude
bonus points for putting up with the early morning version of above mentioned
writing things that don't make sense
going home for the holidays
the salvation army
spring
things reached a peak this morning on the shuttle bus as the driver raged around corners and repeatedly slammed the brakes, despite the overload of students on board. between the redundant, annoying conversations i had to overhear and the constant pitching and falling of the vehicle, things were not going well. i surmised that the general population of students and people in my appropriated surroundings are fucking retarded. excuse the socio-politically incorrect use of mental disability to illustrate a point. i don't care.
in general, the amount of times during any given day that i have the urge to tell someone to 'go fuck themselves' has increased exponentially since this time last year. i wonder, have i gotten angrier, or everyone else more idiotic--and me, by default, smarter. i prefer the latter and that is what i am going to go with. if you disagree, it's only because you aren't intelligent enough to comprehend my rationalizations.
25.10.09
th!nk
nothing i write makes any sense.
sometimes i think: why bother?
other times i am sure that this is irrelevant.
why make sense when you can wander through equilibriums... drift aloft on clouded wing tips, avoid crowded conversation... run away from the definitive. embrace arbitrary: ambivalence at its finest.
did anyone see the rain after it washed down the drain path and disappeared into the dank obscurity of the underground mazes?
did anyone care to watch long enough to see?
think fast. time doesn't wait. nothing waits, any more.
19.10.09
16.10.09
i'm only happy when it rains
just kidding. i like sun too.
also,
happy birthday chris!
because even though you told me not to wish you a happy birthday (via matt),
i know you'll never read this.
hah.
i liked you better with a curly moustache.
happy birthday chris!
because even though you told me not to wish you a happy birthday (via matt),
i know you'll never read this.
hah.
i liked you better with a curly moustache.
14.10.09
snow, breakdowns and a cold october..
maybe i'm hallucinating, but i just counted three snowflakes outside my window. and it's cold. nevermind. there are a lot more than three. goodbye summer...i'll miss the way you let me dance without piercing me with thick, icy needles and frosting my nose closed when i only wanted to breathe....
and despite the romantic notions i still have about winter...the warm hearth, mulled wine, a good book and snuggles... nobody i know here* has a hearth.
my computer broke the other day.
i came home from work, maybe a little too excited to lie down, get cosy and watch some new episode of something... but when i turned it on, all i saw was gray screen accompanied by a never-ending series of three LOUD beeps. i should have it back and *functioning* in three weeks.
thanks Future Schmuck. don't worry about school, it's not like i'll have anything due before then.
but really, i can't complain....everything else sort of rules...i get to MAKE MOVIES and play with PHOTOSHOP FOR MARKS and write POEMS for (sorta) marks... and the people at work are okaaay too..
speaking of nothing... when i think about the wind...
...she calls my name with a whisper
quiet, inaudible,
sincere.
she plays with leaves--
a summer's breeze
twirling trees
like paintbrushes in the sky.
7.10.09
if i had a twin
- we'd pretend to be one person and fool everybody
- she'd be doing my poetry homework while i did this
- i'd only have to work half the time
- we would go on double dates and switch halfway through, when we got bored
5.10.09
everything hurts.
my body--
the spaces around my head, pressing inward
closing until my world consists only of the inside of my eyes.
there's hardly any light
and why?
i am erasing it all.
slowly, carefully, purposefully,
unintentionally.
i didn't ask for this, but i created it.
all these nights spent up until light finds its way back through the window vanes--
pleasant torture,
and completely unnecessary.
but still, i can't stop.
all of my promises to myself
demolished in the scent of a moment--
and maybe it's you, too,
because some days you fit in with this puzzle and i can't quite separate you from the tangled
confusion i think i'm trying to avoid.
i need a break, but nobody here will let me go.
i can't wait. i need out. i need out. i need out.
my body--
the spaces around my head, pressing inward
closing until my world consists only of the inside of my eyes.
there's hardly any light
and why?
i am erasing it all.
slowly, carefully, purposefully,
unintentionally.
i didn't ask for this, but i created it.
all these nights spent up until light finds its way back through the window vanes--
pleasant torture,
and completely unnecessary.
but still, i can't stop.
all of my promises to myself
demolished in the scent of a moment--
and maybe it's you, too,
because some days you fit in with this puzzle and i can't quite separate you from the tangled
confusion i think i'm trying to avoid.
i need a break, but nobody here will let me go.
i can't wait. i need out. i need out. i need out.
3.10.09
in an other world
they make you pretend you're designing the cover of a magazine. for 1%. thaaaaanks, first year intermedia class that's interspersed with little girls who wear bobbles in their hair. knew i could count on you for 60% of my workload. you one, insignificant and mandatory, first year class.
just kidding. i could learn to love you.
just kidding. i could learn to love you.
when
poetry prof asks you to write about an early memory, an historical event and to describe someone you hate without naming them... you write about your best friend face planting off a concrete wall at the feria in seville on your fourth birthday. you write about the death of silent film. you describe stephen harper as acidic and frigid.
then she tells you to write a poem using all three pieces. what?
finally:
(before they turn again).
carnival spires spin through the dusk—
as you walk the line.
from beneath a curtain of frailty,
marble eyes fight ferris wheels
for clearer visions of you.
you tilt--
falling down from concrete heights,
unwound.
marble softens to shrouded lies,
an opaque doorway in the night.
the process was painful. the poem? questionable.
then she tells you to write a poem using all three pieces. what?
finally:
lights fall down a darkening sky
(before they turn again).
carnival spires spin through the dusk—
as you walk the line.
from beneath a curtain of frailty,
marble eyes fight ferris wheels
for clearer visions of you.
you tilt--
falling down from concrete heights,
unwound.
marble softens to shrouded lies,
an opaque doorway in the night.
the process was painful. the poem? questionable.
28.9.09
25.9.09
24.9.09
this morning
started with a BANG. when ten FRENCH workmen knocked down my door at 6:45 a.m to change the windows on the front of our apartment.
thank (fuck) you landlady.
the whole moving-everything-to-the-other-side-of-the-room part was really charming too. especially since everything was up against my bed which was up against the window.
then big men in steel-toed boots clomped across my bed and laid a ... .. dust sheet (questionable cleanliness) over it and the, now enormous, gap between my bed and the window.
speaking of ... .... presently, there is a LARGE GAPING HOLE where my window was ten minutes ago.
words can't even describe the levels of animosity i am currently feeling toward any human beings within 50ft of me at this time. this strongly includes the landlady's shrieking child-things.
NEXT UP: class at 9:15am. plenty of time to embrace the day.
thank (fuck) you landlady.
the whole moving-everything-to-the-other-side-of-the-room part was really charming too. especially since everything was up against my bed which was up against the window.
then big men in steel-toed boots clomped across my bed and laid a ... .. dust sheet (questionable cleanliness) over it and the, now enormous, gap between my bed and the window.
speaking of ... .... presently, there is a LARGE GAPING HOLE where my window was ten minutes ago.
words can't even describe the levels of animosity i am currently feeling toward any human beings within 50ft of me at this time. this strongly includes the landlady's shrieking child-things.
NEXT UP: class at 9:15am. plenty of time to embrace the day.
21.9.09
when bored in class
make a list of out-of-date things girls have in their hair...
1. scrunchie
2. excessive bobby pins.
3. thin sparkly hairband
BONUS: thin sparkly hairband later tied her hair back with BOBBLES
(first year university classes CAN throw back to the playground)
1. scrunchie
2. excessive bobby pins.
3. thin sparkly hairband
BONUS: thin sparkly hairband later tied her hair back with BOBBLES
(first year university classes CAN throw back to the playground)
20.9.09
17.9.09
16.9.09
9.9.09
Dance dance dance dance dance to the radio
and if you're an Hasidic Jew, then say something too...
because when I rode up to work today, the street was FLOODED with Hasidic Jews protesting the trampling of the *religious* jews by the Israeli army in Jerusalem....hmmm...sounds like the *religious* jews and the Palestinians have found a new common ground.
Globalization at its finest.
because when I rode up to work today, the street was FLOODED with Hasidic Jews protesting the trampling of the *religious* jews by the Israeli army in Jerusalem....hmmm...sounds like the *religious* jews and the Palestinians have found a new common ground.
Globalization at its finest.
7.9.09
MmmuSIC
Last night I wandered over to M for Montreal in the Old Port and Creature was playing a wicked set. These guys are INSANE live. Blew MY mind. This video hardly does them justice, but it gives an idea.
ALSO
Think About Life played after and they were pretty great. Double BLEW my mind.
Later I went to a punk show at Fear and Loathing at FouFounes Electriques.... ... standing in the mosh pit, I was a little out of my element. What a riot though. Does anyone else crack up when they see a mosh pit? That was some hardcore shit (sound quality is terrible, but this one is by far the best representation of what I saw last night).
ALSO
Think About Life played after and they were pretty great. Double BLEW my mind.
Later I went to a punk show at Fear and Loathing at FouFounes Electriques.... ... standing in the mosh pit, I was a little out of my element. What a riot though. Does anyone else crack up when they see a mosh pit? That was some hardcore shit (sound quality is terrible, but this one is by far the best representation of what I saw last night).
5.9.09
4.9.09
2.9.09
30.8.09
dream.
i dreamed i dreamed of a dream that nobody can dream of but me...
some sort
of
ethereal--
ephemeral
discontinuity of
despair.
some where i took a photo
and laid it in your hands.
you never looked down
to see my imprint
on
you.
recycled words/just a little different
this
time.
recycled ideas,
from my washing machine.
the spin cycle molds everything in
to
one glob--
and
each time i pry it apart
i remember another idea
i haven't written down
in a while.
these surface like fruit flies
on
the funniest of days.
some sort
of
ethereal--
ephemeral
discontinuity of
despair.
some where i took a photo
and laid it in your hands.
you never looked down
to see my imprint
on
you.
recycled words/just a little different
this
time.
recycled ideas,
from my washing machine.
the spin cycle molds everything in
to
one glob--
and
each time i pry it apart
i remember another idea
i haven't written down
in a while.
these surface like fruit flies
on
the funniest of days.
29.8.09
Walking up St. Laurent...
"Let's play eye spy!"
"...ookaaay.."
"I spy with my little eye....a pimp!"
"...."
"..."
"Did you just start a game of eye spy to point out that guy dressed like a pimp?"
"Wasn't that fun?!"
"...ookaaay.."
"I spy with my little eye....a pimp!"
"...."
"..."
"Did you just start a game of eye spy to point out that guy dressed like a pimp?"
"Wasn't that fun?!"
26.8.09
25.8.09
23.8.09
AmaZING
Lego's tribute to 8-bit video games. Wasn't really in to either, buuuut this is pretty spectacular.
(i have no idea how to post a video. the picture is to get you excited. aaand it's a link.)
(i have no idea how to post a video. the picture is to get you excited. aaand it's a link.)
22.8.09
polaroids.
my room mate left his polaroid camera on a table in the "arts/crafts/computer/living" room about a month ago. it was a big box of amazing. i picked it up and took a couple of artsy polaroids to make sure that it worked...including one of myself.
then my other room mate came in and i hid the pictures. he told me that room mate (1) couldn't buy film anymore and only had a few slides left.....ohhh...ooops.
what a waste. i can't even show anyone my awesome artsy pictures because i'll get caught. they're on my wall though. placed very carefully.
then my other room mate came in and i hid the pictures. he told me that room mate (1) couldn't buy film anymore and only had a few slides left.....ohhh...ooops.
what a waste. i can't even show anyone my awesome artsy pictures because i'll get caught. they're on my wall though. placed very carefully.
15.8.09
Croatian Rulz
This rules.
The real *gem* comes around 1:25...but maybe that is because i am biased.
This entire video is really just magnificent as a whole. And maybe that is because I have no idea what the common thread is between chubby kids in swimming pools, weird beaches, Croatian biker gangs, mirages, paintball (or real??) guns and Global Agents for Change--ie: my lady love, Gala Milne!
But I'll let you decide for yourself. Everyone seems really happy to be in Croatia, so that's a bonus.
http://dnevnik.hr/bin/tv/?media_id=60242242
(Ignore the awkward 10 second commercial. K, thanks.)
The real *gem* comes around 1:25...but maybe that is because i am biased.
This entire video is really just magnificent as a whole. And maybe that is because I have no idea what the common thread is between chubby kids in swimming pools, weird beaches, Croatian biker gangs, mirages, paintball (or real??) guns and Global Agents for Change--ie: my lady love, Gala Milne!
But I'll let you decide for yourself. Everyone seems really happy to be in Croatia, so that's a bonus.
http://dnevnik.hr/bin/tv/?media_id=60242242
(Ignore the awkward 10 second commercial. K, thanks.)
11.8.09
Today is
Today. I can only pretend--
I can only make-believe that you are not. That I, am not. That there is not--us, or you, or me--that we will never, really. Be.
You come around, every now and then. And I think it's kind of all. Right. Right now.
And you come around every other time, and you spin these syllables like papier mache on a pedestal--of titanium daisies. But what the fuck is that. Even.
But you. You don't unravel like the rest. Paint pretty pictures with your silhouette on a cloud that I cut from cardboard two nights ago, under that moon.
That moon. You (my mother didn't like this word/I think i'm over it as well. Suggestions welcome).
I can only make-believe that you are not. That I, am not. That there is not--us, or you, or me--that we will never, really. Be.
You come around, every now and then. And I think it's kind of all. Right. Right now.
And you come around every other time, and you spin these syllables like papier mache on a pedestal--of titanium daisies. But what the fuck is that. Even.
But you. You don't unravel like the rest. Paint pretty pictures with your silhouette on a cloud that I cut from cardboard two nights ago, under that moon.
That moon. You (my mother didn't like this word/I think i'm over it as well. Suggestions welcome).
5.8.09
(My) Words
haven't been particularly prolific lately. Probably because July was about the worst month/ever. I'm still recovering...but so far, I'm convinced that August is going to rule. Mostly because it isn't July. But also because the sun has been shining. Though the birds chirped all through July/don't catch me on cliches..
..and because I got a new bicycle, with curly handlebars/and an amazing *gem*
from the sally ann. Because we are getting a new roommate who can't possibly be worse than the last (he ate a lot of Hawco's almonds without asking. Which made Hawco throw hissy fits and grow increasingly paranoid about the whereabouts of his food/alcohol/cigarettes[he doesn't smoke, though])...and because I made a to-do list that might actually get done.
I got into the creative writing (minor) and am taking poetry and fiction this year/maybe that's why I haven't been writing. I'm stashing the goods.
Last time I wrote, someone (anonymous) commented with a youtube link to 57 (or something) "Ohms"...nice gesture. I sat through six or seven then put on Pink Floyd and grabbed a beer from the fridge. I keep meaning to go back and listen to the rest. Little repetitive though.
...but this kind of doubles as my journal--and will continue to do so...so as much as I may need to loosen up--this is where I don't actually have to.
And if you don't like it, then just look at the owl (I'm trying to find him a cat eye to replace the creepy black one)...
..and because I got a new bicycle, with curly handlebars/and an amazing *gem*
from the sally ann. Because we are getting a new roommate who can't possibly be worse than the last (he ate a lot of Hawco's almonds without asking. Which made Hawco throw hissy fits and grow increasingly paranoid about the whereabouts of his food/alcohol/cigarettes[he doesn't smoke, though])...and because I made a to-do list that might actually get done.
I got into the creative writing (minor) and am taking poetry and fiction this year/maybe that's why I haven't been writing. I'm stashing the goods.
Last time I wrote, someone (anonymous) commented with a youtube link to 57 (or something) "Ohms"...nice gesture. I sat through six or seven then put on Pink Floyd and grabbed a beer from the fridge. I keep meaning to go back and listen to the rest. Little repetitive though.
...but this kind of doubles as my journal--and will continue to do so...so as much as I may need to loosen up--this is where I don't actually have to.
And if you don't like it, then just look at the owl (I'm trying to find him a cat eye to replace the creepy black one)...
4.7.09
These are the days when nothing is known. All is uncertain, and yet...and yet there are still answers to be found--
I know where they are; I can't reach them.
I've never been lonelier, than the days when I am submerged in this crowd--
of writhing bodies, all rotting in their own descent.
I've never felt more lost, than the days when my place is marked on a map;
when I am most traceable, I am least accessible.
But I keep turning around, and around...I don't move forward, unsteady perhaps, but forward--
no--
I spin. Not like a child in a field full of daisies, but frantic and confused...and displaced--
because this is what I am--
without belonging:
neither there, anymore, nor here--yet.
You can't pin me down.
But nobody can. I am unfathomable--infallible. Ephemeral. Ethereal, perhaps...and incongruous.
Fuck. I mean really. Fuck. Fuck you in all your glorified passivity; your pretense and apathy. You are the world, and I am the one that falls beneath your footsteps. You are each heel to my neck, pushing me further to the mud. I am this land that once made to serve you--and now run as I may, I cannot escape you. You have destroyed me, and so I am bound to you more than any other. You kill me; you cannot get rid of me, until you perish also.
This is the story they told, so many years ago. It is the story we overlooked when we thought we might outlast (it). It is the story we're to repeat as we turn soil into ashes and back again for eternity.
And some days I am so angry. At me..the world...at everyone and everything. I don't pray/ god is a fallacy. Spare me your wisdom, I'd rather decay in ignorance/ right? Well, they tell me, somebody's got to know it all.
Let me know when you find them. They've got the weight of it (sic:"cliche" the world) on their shoulders; they'll be a hunchback to the floor/ cynical and bent on exemption--from it all.
I know where they are; I can't reach them.
I've never been lonelier, than the days when I am submerged in this crowd--
of writhing bodies, all rotting in their own descent.
I've never felt more lost, than the days when my place is marked on a map;
when I am most traceable, I am least accessible.
But I keep turning around, and around...I don't move forward, unsteady perhaps, but forward--
no--
I spin. Not like a child in a field full of daisies, but frantic and confused...and displaced--
because this is what I am--
without belonging:
neither there, anymore, nor here--yet.
You can't pin me down.
But nobody can. I am unfathomable--infallible. Ephemeral. Ethereal, perhaps...and incongruous.
------
Fuck. I mean really. Fuck. Fuck you in all your glorified passivity; your pretense and apathy. You are the world, and I am the one that falls beneath your footsteps. You are each heel to my neck, pushing me further to the mud. I am this land that once made to serve you--and now run as I may, I cannot escape you. You have destroyed me, and so I am bound to you more than any other. You kill me; you cannot get rid of me, until you perish also.
This is the story they told, so many years ago. It is the story we overlooked when we thought we might outlast (it). It is the story we're to repeat as we turn soil into ashes and back again for eternity.
------
And some days I am so angry. At me..the world...at everyone and everything. I don't pray/ god is a fallacy. Spare me your wisdom, I'd rather decay in ignorance/ right? Well, they tell me, somebody's got to know it all.
Let me know when you find them. They've got the weight of it (sic:"cliche" the world) on their shoulders; they'll be a hunchback to the floor/ cynical and bent on exemption--from it all.
27.5.09
Dreary days forge a gloomy mind...the sun doesn't shine so bright, inside my head. But all is well this time. This time.
And the rain still pours, and I cannot decide why it is I haven't peace of mind--though all in all feels quite still.
But stillness does not equal peace, as many have found before me.
Perhaps a piece of me wonders, if the sky must cry, then shouldn't I?
This indecisiveness is debilitating.
But there is something....something that won't quit gnawing..won't leave me be in this equilibrium.
Something tells me, that something is not right--
is not wrong, but--rather--not there.
I'm not content. Not that I should be, or that anybody really should be...but there is such a weight threatening to tip me over...trying to hint, to push me in a direction. But every time I squint and try to see the distance the mirage fades and the desert stretches for miles.
It's that destination I know is there, but I cannot determine how far, or whether it is the place of my dreams, or of my nightmares.
What do I do. What do I do...What do I do?
Guidance doesn't exist--in the land beyond the clouds.
And the rain still pours, and I cannot decide why it is I haven't peace of mind--though all in all feels quite still.
But stillness does not equal peace, as many have found before me.
Perhaps a piece of me wonders, if the sky must cry, then shouldn't I?
This indecisiveness is debilitating.
But there is something....something that won't quit gnawing..won't leave me be in this equilibrium.
Something tells me, that something is not right--
is not wrong, but--rather--not there.
I'm not content. Not that I should be, or that anybody really should be...but there is such a weight threatening to tip me over...trying to hint, to push me in a direction. But every time I squint and try to see the distance the mirage fades and the desert stretches for miles.
It's that destination I know is there, but I cannot determine how far, or whether it is the place of my dreams, or of my nightmares.
What do I do. What do I do...What do I do?
Guidance doesn't exist--in the land beyond the clouds.
19.5.09
I have had the strangest dreams--I have found some peace of mind:
it has stopped turning for now.
I have found a level of contentment that hasn't existed for me in a while.
I notice little things like the curve of my shoe against the floor, and the dust on my sweater--I watch the wind blow the drapes across the way, and for once it doesn't worry me about the day--but introduces me to how the cotton flies in the draft.
I dreamed last night of a place far away--a place that I belong. I dreamed of the journey to get there and the many obstacles in the way--
and how wonderful it would be to get there. Not because of the place, I realized, but because of the people who are there.
I have a sense of impending excitement...something is about to happen--something wonderful, and complex--
something that will change everything I know about myself, and everybody else.
It came upon me yesterday as I rested under a tree in the park. A loud separatist rally writhed up the hill above me; children played dodge ball in the sun. And I laid against my tree surrounded by life and beauty and diversity.
But it wasn't the moment that allowed this feeling--it was the calmness that allowed me to perceive it. Apprehension, brevity, adventure: something lingering just around the bend in this overgrown, forest trail (think Frost, The Road Not Taken).
I don't want to sleep anymore. I want to wake up and see what I've been missing--I gather this is a lot.
I am often overcome by an urge to sell all of my belongings and move to Brazil. My rationale tells me this is a bad idea, but it is this impulsiveness that intrigues me...perhaps a less drastic impulse, I should follow.
I think what I feel is the return of my cravings for adventure. Last time it brought me to Montreal, before that the French Alps, Prague, Vienna, Rotterdam...I need to loose these shackles and roam--
not in discovery, but in acquiescence. In an understanding of the dichotomy that exists within myself--
I'm like the existentialist tripper who took a wrong turn and ended up on Mulholland Drive, for a little while. Who finally found her own feet again, one shoestring at a time, and began to pull herself together--pull herself back toward the part of her that had fallen by the wayside on the slippery streets of superficiality.
There is a piece of everyone before me, left within me--it's frightening to think of all these destinies to fulfill...so many things to do, to try--I feel them all pulling at me, little urges: different ones each day.
I want to be it all, and so I have been nothing.
Today the sun is shining, though I can only see it reflected on the windows across the alley-way--I know it is there. Today I ride my broken bicycle (again) to the shop, where I hope they will fix it for me, or give me a better one. Today I am making one effort above all others.
A curious man from Trinidad taught me yoga yesterday. He spoke of committing actions without any expectations--of not wanting reactions, but simply doing things because we want to do them, or because they are nice to do for others.
What a feat! Human nature--through our societal disconnect--is to expect something in return, always.
My roomate just woke up. He has his own demons--often they pollute the air in the apartment, scrambling for attention. I can feel his unrest...I hope he finds peace.
This isn't even a stream of consciousness, because my consciousness keeps shifting--rather it is an evolution of thought...a journey through the morning, fueled by coffee and complexity of desire.
It is time to go forward in my day.
It is time to find out just where I might be going.
it has stopped turning for now.
I have found a level of contentment that hasn't existed for me in a while.
I notice little things like the curve of my shoe against the floor, and the dust on my sweater--I watch the wind blow the drapes across the way, and for once it doesn't worry me about the day--but introduces me to how the cotton flies in the draft.
I dreamed last night of a place far away--a place that I belong. I dreamed of the journey to get there and the many obstacles in the way--
and how wonderful it would be to get there. Not because of the place, I realized, but because of the people who are there.
I have a sense of impending excitement...something is about to happen--something wonderful, and complex--
something that will change everything I know about myself, and everybody else.
It came upon me yesterday as I rested under a tree in the park. A loud separatist rally writhed up the hill above me; children played dodge ball in the sun. And I laid against my tree surrounded by life and beauty and diversity.
But it wasn't the moment that allowed this feeling--it was the calmness that allowed me to perceive it. Apprehension, brevity, adventure: something lingering just around the bend in this overgrown, forest trail (think Frost, The Road Not Taken).
I don't want to sleep anymore. I want to wake up and see what I've been missing--I gather this is a lot.
I am often overcome by an urge to sell all of my belongings and move to Brazil. My rationale tells me this is a bad idea, but it is this impulsiveness that intrigues me...perhaps a less drastic impulse, I should follow.
I think what I feel is the return of my cravings for adventure. Last time it brought me to Montreal, before that the French Alps, Prague, Vienna, Rotterdam...I need to loose these shackles and roam--
not in discovery, but in acquiescence. In an understanding of the dichotomy that exists within myself--
I'm like the existentialist tripper who took a wrong turn and ended up on Mulholland Drive, for a little while. Who finally found her own feet again, one shoestring at a time, and began to pull herself together--pull herself back toward the part of her that had fallen by the wayside on the slippery streets of superficiality.
There is a piece of everyone before me, left within me--it's frightening to think of all these destinies to fulfill...so many things to do, to try--I feel them all pulling at me, little urges: different ones each day.
I want to be it all, and so I have been nothing.
Today the sun is shining, though I can only see it reflected on the windows across the alley-way--I know it is there. Today I ride my broken bicycle (again) to the shop, where I hope they will fix it for me, or give me a better one. Today I am making one effort above all others.
A curious man from Trinidad taught me yoga yesterday. He spoke of committing actions without any expectations--of not wanting reactions, but simply doing things because we want to do them, or because they are nice to do for others.
What a feat! Human nature--through our societal disconnect--is to expect something in return, always.
My roomate just woke up. He has his own demons--often they pollute the air in the apartment, scrambling for attention. I can feel his unrest...I hope he finds peace.
This isn't even a stream of consciousness, because my consciousness keeps shifting--rather it is an evolution of thought...a journey through the morning, fueled by coffee and complexity of desire.
It is time to go forward in my day.
It is time to find out just where I might be going.
17.5.09
The dichotomy of the living: the field notes of the dead.
One whispered to another, why are we dressed in red?
A painted pretty picture; a paradox of lies--one slipped beneath another:
concentrated in the eyes.
The tale of tales, a storybook told--one villain to the next;
there is no life, or love: is lost--
there is no glory, that's the cost.
("The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings.")
One whispered to another, why are we dressed in red?
A painted pretty picture; a paradox of lies--one slipped beneath another:
concentrated in the eyes.
The tale of tales, a storybook told--one villain to the next;
there is no life, or love: is lost--
there is no glory, that's the cost.
("The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings.")
6.5.09
I should be sleeping. Instead, I am awake wondering about things I can't control. The first of which, is you.
Stuck in a limbo-hold between love and hate:
I feel neither.
I don't know how you'll react, if you'll react. And maybe this is the problem.
Remember me? That little glimmer of something you saw some-time ago...sitting in an alcove, all pretty-like, or so you said. I was the one that got away--from everybody else, and yet you still managed to hold on, long enough to keep me ensnared. So what now?
Have you forgotten already? So soon after those empty promises that shattered on some cheap linoleum floor--not mine.
Your mouth says you remember, but that is all. And every day your whisper is a little bit quieter--though I wonder if it's me that's moving away.
I don't believe you. Not anything you say. If it is true, I marvel at it's veracity, then caste it aside. If it is false, I only wonder at how you think I couldn't know...
I remember a feeling, a nice one, from such a while ago...some time when my smile was real and yours wasn't so far off...some time when laughing was my favourite pastime--though I wonder if that too was as real as it felt.
Where has the world gone? In all its swept up glory--those rainy day promises kept in a jar while the desert took its toll.
Did anybody hear the glass break when we smashed it on the tile and ran for the coast...did anybody step on the shards when they were looking for our remains, now sodden in the dampening dark--
go home, somebody yells over the sound of the waves crashing on the beach--I am, at least in my mind, from time to time.
But you...you don't unravel like the rest. You play games with our heads--we're just pieces on the checkerboard (nobody likes chess)...and maybe you're right.
But every once in a while, it probably wouldn't destroy the odds to think that today, in this battle of where we are going in love lost or unfound--
perhaps, you are wrong.
Stuck in a limbo-hold between love and hate:
I feel neither.
I don't know how you'll react, if you'll react. And maybe this is the problem.
Remember me? That little glimmer of something you saw some-time ago...sitting in an alcove, all pretty-like, or so you said. I was the one that got away--from everybody else, and yet you still managed to hold on, long enough to keep me ensnared. So what now?
Have you forgotten already? So soon after those empty promises that shattered on some cheap linoleum floor--not mine.
Your mouth says you remember, but that is all. And every day your whisper is a little bit quieter--though I wonder if it's me that's moving away.
I don't believe you. Not anything you say. If it is true, I marvel at it's veracity, then caste it aside. If it is false, I only wonder at how you think I couldn't know...
I remember a feeling, a nice one, from such a while ago...some time when my smile was real and yours wasn't so far off...some time when laughing was my favourite pastime--though I wonder if that too was as real as it felt.
Where has the world gone? In all its swept up glory--those rainy day promises kept in a jar while the desert took its toll.
Did anybody hear the glass break when we smashed it on the tile and ran for the coast...did anybody step on the shards when they were looking for our remains, now sodden in the dampening dark--
go home, somebody yells over the sound of the waves crashing on the beach--I am, at least in my mind, from time to time.
But you...you don't unravel like the rest. You play games with our heads--we're just pieces on the checkerboard (nobody likes chess)...and maybe you're right.
But every once in a while, it probably wouldn't destroy the odds to think that today, in this battle of where we are going in love lost or unfound--
perhaps, you are wrong.
24.4.09
and I have been trying ever so slightly to come across a specific passage in Tropic of Cancer, but as much as I hope to see it with my own eyes--because indeed I know it is there--it simply won't present. I spend my days scouring the pages, in chronological order growing closer to the end, or at least the end of this one...and nothing. And I don't want to admit that it might be what I am looking for--because that is a secret.
Henry Miller's stream of consciousness reminds me of the things I have heard about James Joyce--about his stream-of-consciousness writing style that leads sentences into paragraphs into full chapters, never pausing for a minute to punctuate, and take a break.
I wonder why these things cause me to react in a similar way--why reading someone else's train of thought from one hundred or more years ago changes my own from punctuated and concise to rambling, thought provoking (even), bumbling, un-ordered, un-conjugated muttering of somethings...but nothing as decisive as a stream of consciousness..nothing that actually takes me anywhere except further in to my own head.
But I no longer want to blame Miller or Joyce because thinking back, I've always thought like this--only, I have always tried harder to disguise it...to change the way the words come out, from the way they existed in the first place.
Words. They mean nothing until we tack meaning on to them...they are empty vessels that we restock like freight container ships--letting them empty and lose their meaning and then rebuilding and filling them with new connotations..annotations. denotations? Words are just sounds we've learned to make with our mouths and tongues and breath and voices...words are meaningless, were meaningless until we learned meaning in itself. Then we were able to attach distinct meanings to distinct sounds--words came about. We created them; this means we can also destroy them, will destroy them.
And what might come after words? When we have exhausted, torn, twisted and pilaged them...what then? We'll have no more use for them--they'll be tossed out the window (if we have those anymore) like an old pair of socks. Perhaps, we will even cease to communicate at all.
I don't believe in the space age.
It seems like such a fabrication from such a small and idealistic group of people...people who would have to convince so many more people that any of this could be possible, and more than that, useful.
I think instead we should regress.
Progress could still be regression--that is, perhaps going back to the beginnings of things might be a better act of moving forward than moving forward itself--the moving forward we mean when we talk of moving forward.
Speaking of moving--here, for now, for today and this day--I am done. I am moving on.
Henry Miller's stream of consciousness reminds me of the things I have heard about James Joyce--about his stream-of-consciousness writing style that leads sentences into paragraphs into full chapters, never pausing for a minute to punctuate, and take a break.
I wonder why these things cause me to react in a similar way--why reading someone else's train of thought from one hundred or more years ago changes my own from punctuated and concise to rambling, thought provoking (even), bumbling, un-ordered, un-conjugated muttering of somethings...but nothing as decisive as a stream of consciousness..nothing that actually takes me anywhere except further in to my own head.
But I no longer want to blame Miller or Joyce because thinking back, I've always thought like this--only, I have always tried harder to disguise it...to change the way the words come out, from the way they existed in the first place.
Words. They mean nothing until we tack meaning on to them...they are empty vessels that we restock like freight container ships--letting them empty and lose their meaning and then rebuilding and filling them with new connotations..annotations. denotations? Words are just sounds we've learned to make with our mouths and tongues and breath and voices...words are meaningless, were meaningless until we learned meaning in itself. Then we were able to attach distinct meanings to distinct sounds--words came about. We created them; this means we can also destroy them, will destroy them.
And what might come after words? When we have exhausted, torn, twisted and pilaged them...what then? We'll have no more use for them--they'll be tossed out the window (if we have those anymore) like an old pair of socks. Perhaps, we will even cease to communicate at all.
I don't believe in the space age.
It seems like such a fabrication from such a small and idealistic group of people...people who would have to convince so many more people that any of this could be possible, and more than that, useful.
I think instead we should regress.
Progress could still be regression--that is, perhaps going back to the beginnings of things might be a better act of moving forward than moving forward itself--the moving forward we mean when we talk of moving forward.
Speaking of moving--here, for now, for today and this day--I am done. I am moving on.
28.3.09
This isn't about metaphors and similes. It isn't about assumptions or misconceptions (though there have been many of those). This is about trust. It is about evolution and regression. It is about human nature, and the fundamental basics of human nurture.
Why is it that we feel such an intrinsic need to violate the terms of our personal relationships?
Why do we never face the people we must with the facts? Why do we sensitize and detract to one person and embellish and vindicate to another?
Why do some of us choose to believe the worst in others, no matter how hard they might be trying to disprove us? And why do some of us refuse to see the malice in people no matter how present it might be?
These aren't just my questions, but I am asking them now. Why now...Why?
(A why? doesn't always illicit a because.)
I'm asking because certain realizations have plummeted these questions into the forefront of my thoughts, and I can't get away from them even when I try. I will wonder about these things forever. I wonder about them now.
I sat on a bronze lion today--at the foot of the monument in Montreal. If you have been to Montreal, you know what I am talking about. If not, think Trafalgar Square. If you haven't been to London--
why the fuck are you sitting at a computer reading this nonsensical discourse?
Go do something. Fuck off and do something.
The truth is...spiteful.
The truth is also, that the only people who can really hurt you are those you love (sic: and respect) most. And what does it mean when the hurt is inadvertent? If the hurt comes from a third party...if the person who curdles your skin with their words does so to another and it unintentionally comes your way? Is it worse? Because the things they say carry more truth? and weight? Is is better because you know at least that those things they say are their worst, because they never did say them to you?
Maybe I'm the marionette. Maybe my strings fall to the wayside, when nobody is watching. Maybe nobody knows, because they only see the chic-cherry smiles and the overdone eyes. Maybe I'm so good at faking it, I've forgotten what it feels like to be real.
I'm suffocating in a box. It's locked on all four sides--
as long as I'm in here, I'll never be happy--
as long as it's locked--
I'll never get out.
Why is it that we feel such an intrinsic need to violate the terms of our personal relationships?
Why do we never face the people we must with the facts? Why do we sensitize and detract to one person and embellish and vindicate to another?
Why do some of us choose to believe the worst in others, no matter how hard they might be trying to disprove us? And why do some of us refuse to see the malice in people no matter how present it might be?
These aren't just my questions, but I am asking them now. Why now...Why?
(A why? doesn't always illicit a because.)
I'm asking because certain realizations have plummeted these questions into the forefront of my thoughts, and I can't get away from them even when I try. I will wonder about these things forever. I wonder about them now.
I sat on a bronze lion today--at the foot of the monument in Montreal. If you have been to Montreal, you know what I am talking about. If not, think Trafalgar Square. If you haven't been to London--
why the fuck are you sitting at a computer reading this nonsensical discourse?
Go do something. Fuck off and do something.
The truth is...spiteful.
The truth is also, that the only people who can really hurt you are those you love (sic: and respect) most. And what does it mean when the hurt is inadvertent? If the hurt comes from a third party...if the person who curdles your skin with their words does so to another and it unintentionally comes your way? Is it worse? Because the things they say carry more truth? and weight? Is is better because you know at least that those things they say are their worst, because they never did say them to you?
Maybe I'm the marionette. Maybe my strings fall to the wayside, when nobody is watching. Maybe nobody knows, because they only see the chic-cherry smiles and the overdone eyes. Maybe I'm so good at faking it, I've forgotten what it feels like to be real.
I'm suffocating in a box. It's locked on all four sides--
as long as I'm in here, I'll never be happy--
as long as it's locked--
I'll never get out.
27.3.09
She reminds me of a marionette. Her strings are taut, she looks impenetrable. But when they loosen she falls apart into a hundred separate fragments--
confused.
When the world is around to pull her together, she is beautiful. When they turn their backs, she is a mess--
all string tangled with string and piece upon piece of contorted confusion. Her disparity is overwhelming, she knows she isn't perfection when she is simply herself. So each new day she tightens her strings to welcome the crowd from her throne. They beckon and wave and praise her shell--
the beauty she projects over them. And not one of them questions her. Nobody asks whether she is happy at night when the crowds have gone home. Not a single soul wants to know if she's anything more than that pretty face that smiles so selflessly down upon them.
She'd cry herself to sleep, but she doesn't see the point. The eyes have to open each morning and put on the same show, week upon week. Month upon month. She never falters, but holds her own, in the loneliest place she will ever know.
(to be continued...)
confused.
When the world is around to pull her together, she is beautiful. When they turn their backs, she is a mess--
all string tangled with string and piece upon piece of contorted confusion. Her disparity is overwhelming, she knows she isn't perfection when she is simply herself. So each new day she tightens her strings to welcome the crowd from her throne. They beckon and wave and praise her shell--
the beauty she projects over them. And not one of them questions her. Nobody asks whether she is happy at night when the crowds have gone home. Not a single soul wants to know if she's anything more than that pretty face that smiles so selflessly down upon them.
She'd cry herself to sleep, but she doesn't see the point. The eyes have to open each morning and put on the same show, week upon week. Month upon month. She never falters, but holds her own, in the loneliest place she will ever know.
(to be continued...)
10.3.09
Little paper shacks--
make up this world (of mine). They dot the horizon like pebbles on a beach--
somewhere far away--
from here.
Doesn't anyone live in them? Somebody wants to know...they're empty.
Vacant lots, as they swivel in the wind--doors open,
if you look closely enough.
But isn't that just
what we never do?
Glance as we pass
by the window-sill--
looking at the pretty things,
only.
Pretty things-
like love and flowers;
like laughter and snowflakes--
pure things. Simple things. Those that want naught but to give in, giving--
those that demand nothing,
but what they incur.
Falsify the obvious.
Pretty things aren't pretty when you look at them like we do:
love leaves one lost, and roses have thorns--
laughter covers the pain, as snowflakes dust over the rusty muddle of winter.
The underside of it all.
make up this world (of mine). They dot the horizon like pebbles on a beach--
somewhere far away--
from here.
Doesn't anyone live in them? Somebody wants to know...they're empty.
Vacant lots, as they swivel in the wind--doors open,
if you look closely enough.
But isn't that just
what we never do?
Glance as we pass
by the window-sill--
looking at the pretty things,
only.
Pretty things-
like love and flowers;
like laughter and snowflakes--
pure things. Simple things. Those that want naught but to give in, giving--
those that demand nothing,
but what they incur.
Falsify the obvious.
Pretty things aren't pretty when you look at them like we do:
love leaves one lost, and roses have thorns--
laughter covers the pain, as snowflakes dust over the rusty muddle of winter.
The underside of it all.
21.2.09
Careful, a little smurf whispered--
fix the cracks so the rain doesn't get in.
It was stormy out--that's true,
but it leaves one there to wonder whether she meant the rain that lashed the sides of that tiny hut as it hugged the edge of the sea-swept cliff--
or if, in fact, she spoke with intended eloquence of a more proverbial type of rain.
Either way, it began a journey into unexplored territory--
that of the vicious and tragic night that was to follow,
and an internal exploration of sorts that revealed far more than I think either of us, to this day, would care to admit.
In binding the sides of that hut closed to brave the elements,
we unintentionally bound pieces of ourselves--
figment upon figment, creating a connection of sorts that doesn't warrant much explanation--
but exists nonetheless.
Later we lay in a heap under moth eaten blankets and listened to the cacophonous symphony that played above our heads--
careful not to let go, completely.
And when the sun rose some hours later,
and the clouds parted above the white-capped waves
a tiny dart of sunlight nibbled its way through the window and rested on the mass-like lump that was us.
While the morning held its breath,
I listened carefully for her delicate wisdom,
but she'd gone like the storm--
leaving behind the walls we'd bound so tightly against the rain.
fix the cracks so the rain doesn't get in.
It was stormy out--that's true,
but it leaves one there to wonder whether she meant the rain that lashed the sides of that tiny hut as it hugged the edge of the sea-swept cliff--
or if, in fact, she spoke with intended eloquence of a more proverbial type of rain.
Either way, it began a journey into unexplored territory--
that of the vicious and tragic night that was to follow,
and an internal exploration of sorts that revealed far more than I think either of us, to this day, would care to admit.
In binding the sides of that hut closed to brave the elements,
we unintentionally bound pieces of ourselves--
figment upon figment, creating a connection of sorts that doesn't warrant much explanation--
but exists nonetheless.
Later we lay in a heap under moth eaten blankets and listened to the cacophonous symphony that played above our heads--
careful not to let go, completely.
And when the sun rose some hours later,
and the clouds parted above the white-capped waves
a tiny dart of sunlight nibbled its way through the window and rested on the mass-like lump that was us.
While the morning held its breath,
I listened carefully for her delicate wisdom,
but she'd gone like the storm--
leaving behind the walls we'd bound so tightly against the rain.
13.2.09
It's like we've all forgotten that everyone else has a soul, too.
Like the entire world has suddenly become so monochromatic that all we know is our internal dialogue--the things we feel and the reasons we do things for--but we're all overlooking that small detail that everyone else has this inner narrator as well.
The ignorance-is-bliss people forgot to mention that we aren't all ignorant--and so one man's bliss may be another's ultimate irritation, or worse...
I spent a month in a rabbit hole--
only to come out and see that everyone else was still in theirs--
like Wiarton Willie, who died two days before Groundhog day, ten years ago...
Instead of pronouncing his death and finding a replacement [surely there are other groundhogs],
they found an old stuffed groundhog [because the latter had visibly begun to decompose], dressed him in a tuxedo, laid him in a coffin and put him on display to ten thousand squealing eight year-olds--who very quickly realized that Wiarton Willie was more stuffed cotton and coin-eyes, than psychic ground-animal...
Who cares? I dare you to ask--
because we all think the rest of the world is oblivious--
we all think that our actions are either futile and unnoticed, or over the heads of the highest reaching top-hats...
we think we're invincible--
to others, to our lives..to our deaths--
we're not. We're visible;
in every sore facet of being--everyone can see--through us, over us,
and in the worst cases--into us.
Everybody has an expiration date--
sore thumbs, they stick out of shirt collars parading up the street;
if we're all so different--if there is such a hierarchy of being,
then why do we all die?
Get over yourselves! I'd like to tell you all--
but then I'd have to get over myself too..
and I'm just not willing to do that, yet.
Like the entire world has suddenly become so monochromatic that all we know is our internal dialogue--the things we feel and the reasons we do things for--but we're all overlooking that small detail that everyone else has this inner narrator as well.
The ignorance-is-bliss people forgot to mention that we aren't all ignorant--and so one man's bliss may be another's ultimate irritation, or worse...
I spent a month in a rabbit hole--
only to come out and see that everyone else was still in theirs--
like Wiarton Willie, who died two days before Groundhog day, ten years ago...
Instead of pronouncing his death and finding a replacement [surely there are other groundhogs],
they found an old stuffed groundhog [because the latter had visibly begun to decompose], dressed him in a tuxedo, laid him in a coffin and put him on display to ten thousand squealing eight year-olds--who very quickly realized that Wiarton Willie was more stuffed cotton and coin-eyes, than psychic ground-animal...
Who cares? I dare you to ask--
because we all think the rest of the world is oblivious--
we all think that our actions are either futile and unnoticed, or over the heads of the highest reaching top-hats...
we think we're invincible--
to others, to our lives..to our deaths--
we're not. We're visible;
in every sore facet of being--everyone can see--through us, over us,
and in the worst cases--into us.
Everybody has an expiration date--
sore thumbs, they stick out of shirt collars parading up the street;
if we're all so different--if there is such a hierarchy of being,
then why do we all die?
Get over yourselves! I'd like to tell you all--
but then I'd have to get over myself too..
and I'm just not willing to do that, yet.
7.2.09
...and what do you do to remedy that unequivocal feeling that you are dispensable?
when the entire world has forgotten you--and you don't care, because the people that really matter--those that are intrinsic to your sense of self, they haven't--
but then they do..
and you're left in a void of neither here nor there, and completely, utterly and entirely alone..
all those things you'd thought they'd meant,
all those things that seemed so real in so many moments that passed--
they all became arbitrary in that second when everything disintegrated and left you cold..
and though you shiver in the dark and search blindly for a hand to grasp onto--
and though you hope that a warm touch will reach out and pull you back,
it never comes.
...you're left to wander the cliff edges of pitch-noir, scrambling on mountain sides,
hoping not to fall into the abyss that waits so patiently for your return--
you've been here before--
but not for many years, and all those memories you'd thought you'd left in this darkness..they've all been waiting for you--
and now here, on your own, they emerge from the darkest shadows and welcome you back
with shrill cries and archaic rage--
these terrifying nightmares that dominated everything you knew up until you said goodbye--
up until you were welcomed into sun-light with rose petals polka-dotting your 'i's...
and the world had opened its eyes and seen you in an instant--
everything folded up like origami and fit perfectly into a package labelled, 'me'.
...they all made you feel like you'd come home--
like those years of blackened torture had all been some silly nightmare that was now over--
and had never been as bad as you'd imagined.
..and you believed them..you believed everything they said because in those moments it had all seemed so distant--
so now, back where you started all those years ago,
you wonder--
was there ever a time when there was neither sunshine nor pitch-noir?
when life just flowed, because it could--
when neither the world and its lies nor the deepest black and its nightmares dominated your dementia,
when all that you knew made sense--
simply because that's how it was supposed to be.
when the entire world has forgotten you--and you don't care, because the people that really matter--those that are intrinsic to your sense of self, they haven't--
but then they do..
and you're left in a void of neither here nor there, and completely, utterly and entirely alone..
all those things you'd thought they'd meant,
all those things that seemed so real in so many moments that passed--
they all became arbitrary in that second when everything disintegrated and left you cold..
and though you shiver in the dark and search blindly for a hand to grasp onto--
and though you hope that a warm touch will reach out and pull you back,
it never comes.
...you're left to wander the cliff edges of pitch-noir, scrambling on mountain sides,
hoping not to fall into the abyss that waits so patiently for your return--
you've been here before--
but not for many years, and all those memories you'd thought you'd left in this darkness..they've all been waiting for you--
and now here, on your own, they emerge from the darkest shadows and welcome you back
with shrill cries and archaic rage--
these terrifying nightmares that dominated everything you knew up until you said goodbye--
up until you were welcomed into sun-light with rose petals polka-dotting your 'i's...
and the world had opened its eyes and seen you in an instant--
everything folded up like origami and fit perfectly into a package labelled, 'me'.
...they all made you feel like you'd come home--
like those years of blackened torture had all been some silly nightmare that was now over--
and had never been as bad as you'd imagined.
..and you believed them..you believed everything they said because in those moments it had all seemed so distant--
so now, back where you started all those years ago,
you wonder--
was there ever a time when there was neither sunshine nor pitch-noir?
when life just flowed, because it could--
when neither the world and its lies nor the deepest black and its nightmares dominated your dementia,
when all that you knew made sense--
simply because that's how it was supposed to be.
31.1.09
Moon-nights turn wayward dawns into dusk.
The grass settles as we wind our way down the valley;
foxgloves tilt--
the night is clear as any,
and we find ourselves gazing skyward
hoping to catch a glimpse
of the shadows we left behind--
there aren't any.
Long ago we made a promise--
a promise carried through by particles of dust that cling to us
like silver lining on a cloud.
They belonged to others before us,
from times before any of this existed.
The mountains grow as we follow the path blindly,
ever deeper into the darkness.
Where the moon once lit our way,
we only see its shadows,
cast on the craggy skyline that moves farther and farther out of reach.
We aren't looking back.
When we decided to leave so many years ago, now,
we promised we would never return--
would never turn around, even,
and wave goodbye.
There wasn't anybody left to wave to--
anyways.
Every now and then, you glance in my direction--
I don't look at you.
I sit still, stoned on silence.
There isn't anything to say,
as the night grows blacker than black and the mountains no longer stand out from the sky.
The old home we left behind,
where magic hid under the bedpost and night terrors turned tricks on the heather--
it lost love when the fires raged.
We lost too, but we never stopped to ask if the love that was wasted could grow again on its own.
We left as the smoke reached the horizon--
we left while the bed posts blazed and the hills grew more effervescent in the fire-lit glow.
We left, one day,
and vowed as one does--
never to return.
And vowed as one does--
never to look behind us.
The grass settles as we wind our way down the valley;
foxgloves tilt--
the night is clear as any,
and we find ourselves gazing skyward
hoping to catch a glimpse
of the shadows we left behind--
there aren't any.
Long ago we made a promise--
a promise carried through by particles of dust that cling to us
like silver lining on a cloud.
They belonged to others before us,
from times before any of this existed.
The mountains grow as we follow the path blindly,
ever deeper into the darkness.
Where the moon once lit our way,
we only see its shadows,
cast on the craggy skyline that moves farther and farther out of reach.
We aren't looking back.
When we decided to leave so many years ago, now,
we promised we would never return--
would never turn around, even,
and wave goodbye.
There wasn't anybody left to wave to--
anyways.
Every now and then, you glance in my direction--
I don't look at you.
I sit still, stoned on silence.
There isn't anything to say,
as the night grows blacker than black and the mountains no longer stand out from the sky.
The old home we left behind,
where magic hid under the bedpost and night terrors turned tricks on the heather--
it lost love when the fires raged.
We lost too, but we never stopped to ask if the love that was wasted could grow again on its own.
We left as the smoke reached the horizon--
we left while the bed posts blazed and the hills grew more effervescent in the fire-lit glow.
We left, one day,
and vowed as one does--
never to return.
And vowed as one does--
never to look behind us.
15.1.09
Today is different. Somehow. What happened. What changed. Did the rain fall differently this morning than it has on any other. Or not. Did the sun find a mirror in the apartment across the way--that never seems to catch the sun. Did a cloud cover the ground, instead of the sky it usually grazes. Did a child wake up with no sound in his throat. Was the moon still in sight for us to see. What pinched my consciousness and rustled a dream. What dredged up things that have lain dormant for so many years. What didn't let them lie, anymore. What silver of light caught my eye this early morning and pulled me back to this.
11.1.09
There's a lovely little thing with a Glaswegian accent and a stare that's lost on the world around her--she's blind. But that doesn't stop her from smiling out the window at the land that whizzes by, and curling in gently to the man beside her who holds her as one might hold a paper lily before placing it on the breeze.
They're going South--not South as in England, South as in Morocco. They told me over dinner last night. Right now we're somewhere in the Basque region--oh yes this train likes to dilly-dally it's way across the continent, there's no sense, you see, in going anywhere in a hurry. You'll undoubtedly be too late for what ever just happened and far too early for what ever is to come.
They made the decision two weeks ago to leave this old country and head for a land where what you see is so little of what you experience...not to say that Northern Africa can't offer spectacular sights, but the sounds and the smells are so rich and inviting...the things you see are less relevant. And when one is blind it becomes ever so important to entertain the other senses.
She hasn't always been blind, you know...
Oh the conversations we have are marvelous, we speak of rich dreams and evocative nightmares. The little girl tells me what she sees, because it isn't black, you know, when you close your eyes. She makes her own worlds now and gives a new name to each shape she remembers. The man listens quietly and keeps her close to him. He says a word from time to time, but he lets her do most of the talking, and to be honest it's her that I most want to listen to. Somewhere between Basque and Barcelona we stop to stretch our legs and she smells the desert of the Spanish plateau. She doesn't know whether to laugh or weep; the vastness of the desert is terrifying, it smells like death, but it is so open it pulls you in and you almost forget you can't survive on your own.
We avoid big cities because they are only a conundrum of noise and confusing screeches that would upset a little blind girl. We detour in small towns and dine with the locals while they tell us tales of visitors and creatures we thought only existed in somebody else's imagination.
The little girl never tells me her secret, but I know she's got something to say. The man knows too, but he isn't ever going to let on. I want to keep travelling with them but my stop is coming soon and I have to get off.
This train is only for people who don't know where they are going, it only stops once to let you off and you don't ever get to choose where. There aren't any rules, and I doubt very much that there is a driver, but nonetheless it can only be found by those who most need it and isn't ever there if you look.
This train doesn't need tracks, this train finds its way all on its own.
They're going South--not South as in England, South as in Morocco. They told me over dinner last night. Right now we're somewhere in the Basque region--oh yes this train likes to dilly-dally it's way across the continent, there's no sense, you see, in going anywhere in a hurry. You'll undoubtedly be too late for what ever just happened and far too early for what ever is to come.
They made the decision two weeks ago to leave this old country and head for a land where what you see is so little of what you experience...not to say that Northern Africa can't offer spectacular sights, but the sounds and the smells are so rich and inviting...the things you see are less relevant. And when one is blind it becomes ever so important to entertain the other senses.
She hasn't always been blind, you know...
Oh the conversations we have are marvelous, we speak of rich dreams and evocative nightmares. The little girl tells me what she sees, because it isn't black, you know, when you close your eyes. She makes her own worlds now and gives a new name to each shape she remembers. The man listens quietly and keeps her close to him. He says a word from time to time, but he lets her do most of the talking, and to be honest it's her that I most want to listen to. Somewhere between Basque and Barcelona we stop to stretch our legs and she smells the desert of the Spanish plateau. She doesn't know whether to laugh or weep; the vastness of the desert is terrifying, it smells like death, but it is so open it pulls you in and you almost forget you can't survive on your own.
We avoid big cities because they are only a conundrum of noise and confusing screeches that would upset a little blind girl. We detour in small towns and dine with the locals while they tell us tales of visitors and creatures we thought only existed in somebody else's imagination.
The little girl never tells me her secret, but I know she's got something to say. The man knows too, but he isn't ever going to let on. I want to keep travelling with them but my stop is coming soon and I have to get off.
This train is only for people who don't know where they are going, it only stops once to let you off and you don't ever get to choose where. There aren't any rules, and I doubt very much that there is a driver, but nonetheless it can only be found by those who most need it and isn't ever there if you look.
This train doesn't need tracks, this train finds its way all on its own.
2.1.09
I'm building walls.
Every day we'll put them up--
tighter and tighter, and closer
until I can't--fucking--breathe.
You can never know me--
no one can.
And every time I make you recoil--every time I push you away,
a little more--
is every time I prove again
that we were all right about you--
people.
And it's the perverse nature of a losing battle--
that every time I see a small victory--
I stand to lose everything.
<<It's like watching myself from outside a bubble--watching every word lash out and scour you, just a little. I know it hurts. And at the same time, I can't do anything to stop it. I want you to fuck off. I want you to prove me right. I know it's never, if, anymore. It's only ever, when.>>
Every day we'll put them up--
tighter and tighter, and closer
until I can't--fucking--breathe.
You can never know me--
no one can.
And every time I make you recoil--every time I push you away,
a little more--
is every time I prove again
that we were all right about you--
people.
And it's the perverse nature of a losing battle--
that every time I see a small victory--
I stand to lose everything.
<<It's like watching myself from outside a bubble--watching every word lash out and scour you, just a little. I know it hurts. And at the same time, I can't do anything to stop it. I want you to fuck off. I want you to prove me right. I know it's never, if, anymore. It's only ever, when.>>
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