Tiny rocks that splash through the wafts of water
spilling over the table's edge down, down, down
into the chasm below, humidity, smoke, a mist
shrouding the oncoming traffic as it trickles
into a sea of nothingness, jagged edges and
blackened moss waving to onlookers as a crowd
after a big hit.
free fall, spinning, twirling, bounding, some
screaming towards impending splashes,
ready to disappear into the rubble of a building
soon to become a pile of political rubble,
terrorism, television and theaters all to come.
which kamikaze myth will come true today?
The print springs to force and the masses will
come to the periphery and peer over it, starry eyed,
looking for neon signs and electric dreams,
ready to parachute, plunge and pummel themselves.
Deep, deep in the belly of the abyss, a grumbling begins;
when will it end?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Convoluted
Convolu(ted,)
Ripe dis(tress)
Unfinished tho( ).
how to get to Go?
collect and mope.
collect and mope.
or maybe
mope and collect
mope and collect
show them
show them all
never reality without it.
what, why, where, when, how?
show them all
show them all
show them nothing at all.
Ripe dis(tress)
Unfinished tho( ).
how to get to Go?
collect and mope.
collect and mope.
or maybe
mope and collect
mope and collect
show them
show them all
never reality without it.
what, why, where, when, how?
show them all
show them all
show them nothing at all.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Passages — Chapter 4
The waiting game...Watering Holes and the Jim Morrison Blanket...Hunters and the hunted...Harshing mellows to create Men
"Yea man, I think I'm feelin it," says Venkat.
"Really?" asks Dave. Apparently he wasn't yet.
"Yea man, definitely."
"Yea dude, I think I am too," added Vik.
Dave and the author of these passages looked at each other. He wasn't sure what to think. He wasn't sure whether he was feeling it and ignoring the effects or if in fact the acid hasn't hit him yet.
He was looking at Cal, who took a hit on the bowl and coughed loudly and heavily in beat with Heroin, the Velvet Underground song, playing on Venkat's notebook computer. Drum-Drum-Drum-Drum-COUGH-COUGH-Drum-Drum-COUGH-COUGH-"I-COUGH-COUGH-Drum-Drum-have--made--COUGH-Drum-COUGH-Drum-big-decision"-COUGH-COUGH-Drum-Drum
Then the author looked at Dave's tensed up face looking back at Cal, "What?"
Drum-Drum-Drum-Drum "Wwhhaaatt? Nnotthhii-," then Dave turns to Venkat and says, "I thhinnk Ii'mm fefeeeling iiit toooo nooowww."
Venkat laughs that high pitched wheezy laugh, "heh-heh-heh-" resonating in Dave's head until it overwhelmes him and he starts to laugh.
Cal smiles and passes the bowl to Vik. Venkat bobbed his head up and down to the beat, then lit a cigarette, took a drag and looked at the lit end for a dazed moment, entranced by its glow. Spirals vibrated out of the smoke, like the cosmos was shaking the life out of it. The red ambers bubbled like violent volcanos scorching up wiggling tumbleweeds of tobacco until it reached it's flashpoint and evaporated everything in its bloody path. The cascading plumes coming out of this white smokestack thunderously boomed in an increasingly fast pulsing clamor. Venkat looks up at Cal, exhales his smoky breath and notices Cal was looking directly at the cigarette too. He smiled then, "Did you see that also?"
"Yea, I'm feeling it."
------
Birds kept chirping loudly, everything far away seemed close, there was no way of telling whether that tree over there is 1 foot or 40 feet away - there was no way of knowing if that tree over there is imagined. What are these flashy spots in his vision? The author of these passages didn't know. What was that?! Walking over there? Cal looks, but nothing is over there. Is that person looking at me? He thinks. Wait, damn, it's not a person, it's nothing. It's something. But nothing, it's not anyone. It's NOT anymore.
The loud percussion of Vik playing Venkat's hand drum pleasantly pierced the author's ears. This was an echoing delight! Feeling like he was on a safari - over there behind the trees, is that a garafe? Yes, I think that's a garafe indeed, Cal considered. Let's go over there and investigate it some more he says to himself.
...That watering hole over there that has my name written all over it I'm there I'm everywhere I'm coming I'm coming there it is there is the water there are the animals those beautiful animals I love you animals I am here with you the lions rhinos garafes jackals elephants raise their trunks and splash away...
...the willow tree hangs softly on the water, it's reflection of the afternoon sun more real than the tree can ever be...
"Come here!" There is Dave too exclaiming in his turtle voice.
No one paid attention.
Venkat was raising and lowering his head to the beat of Vik's drumming.
Dave was on the other side of the watering hole seemingly laying eggs – trying to hatch wisdom.
The author of these passages was about to swoop in and impale the surface of the water and cup the cold refreshing liquid and Venkat put his hand on the author's shoulder and said, "Dude, this water is dirty, don't drink it."
"Ah, of course, right, right." Another time perhaps, but he knew it was never to be. "Wait where are we?"
"Passion Puddle, man. Heh-heh-heh. I think Passion Puddle...yeah, Passion Puddle." Then, "I think."
"Alright, I think I need to lay down."
"Ok, man. I brought my Jim Morrison blanket," Venkat pointing to the Jim Morrison blanket says, "you can lie there, yeah?"
"Yeah, I think that is a stupendous idea." Stupendous? He really does need to lie down.
He does so. On his back. The lions can't see him that way. Elephants won't touch him, to them, the author of these passages is a just a mouse – a less furry mouse.
It's getting cold. The sun must be setting. What else happened? It was hard to remember. The author's memory seemed blurry, only The Now existed.
What about the rhino's. Damn those rhino's, they'll charge you like you're a matador flashing a big red cloth. Just for lying there.
...Au Bon Pain: that's right, Cal tried to order a sandwich, but it was hopeless. Words splashed off his toungle like class five rapids and his brain was kayaking through just trying not to capsize. It was hopeless. The poor girl didn't know what to make of it. She leaned in and Cal got to see her cleavage. It was too much. Just too much. A flowery burst of petals flew out like bats from a dark cave. It was amazingly beautiful and mezmorizing and the sight rendered the author confused and it was hopeless. He ended up stealing a bottle of water because the order was hopeless...
He opened his eyes and saw the puffy clouds over his head and couldn't help think of the Little Puffy Clouds song by The Orb and he likes that song and the girl in that song talking about colors and skies and clouds and the clouds started vibrating and drifting towards each other like Pangaea was reforming some 200 million years later.
The shapes kept morphing and the more the author looked at them, the more new objects he recognized. Sleeping bear, crawling panther, coiled snake, giant roach, soaring dragon. The imaginary animal kingdom shapeshifted seamlessly.
Damn. Lions can smell you.
"We need to go on a hunt!" It was the author yelling to everyone. They all stopped and looked at him.
Again.
"A hunt?" asked Dave.
"Yes, a hunt! Get the rifles ready." Vik orders.
"Yes, yes - keep playing that drum Vik. We're going to need a fast beat!" Cal, picked up his rifle, gave the elephant gun to Dave and Venkat got the 44 Handcannon in case the beasts got too close.
"Wait, wait guys!" Venkat drew a cigar out of his kurta pocket and lit it with a match.
They started creeping along the edge of the grassy knoll near the watering hole. Looking for targets.
Dave whispered to Cal, "What do you think?"
"Not sure yet...wait, I see something," and he points to the left edge of the knoll where stood a large beast, still too far to recognize the type. "Let's go take a closer look."
Vik played a low and steady beat for the careful approach, hugging the treeline, they tried not to disturb the scene, inching along in a line, half duckwalking to keep a low profile. Venkat was in the back, looking behind and around to make sure nothing was trailing them, holding the 44 ready and the cigar is cemented to the side of his mouth.
Dave was in front of Venkat, pivoting mostly to the right towards the watering hole. He kept the elephant gun pointed down, trigger finger straight -- off the lever -- squinting to get deeper vision.
Vik's beat was starting to creep faster, Cal stared out front and could sense something big is going to happen, the beast in the distance was starting to take shape, a large and angry looking Rhino with a huge tusk that was begging to shred something or someone. He whispered, "I see a rhino, we need to keep slow and get within range. Once we get within 50 feet, we will charge for 30 feet, take aim and shoot him down."
"Aren't rhino's endangered?" asked Dave.
"I don't know, but it's better the rhino than us."
"Good point."
"OK, dudes. Get ready...hold steady." Cal was waiting for the rhino to turn away so they can take him by surprise. Rhino's are surprsingly very fast and have an even higher degree of power. It was going to be a challenge, but the author knew his crew was up for it. "Steeeady...Go! Go! Go!"
They broke column and ran as hard as they could. Cal, Dave and Venkat sprinted downhill away from the tree line at the rhino, quietly and quickly. Vik lagged behind, drumming a uptempo tribal beat on the djembe bounced under his armpit, hands feverishly flogging the tight skin.
Cal drops to the ground and points Dave to the rhino, signaling him to shoot. Dave drops to his knee, his eye had a laserlike focus down the gunbarrel at the beast, finger on the trigger ready to pull, stone solid concetration painted in his facial expression. Venkat kneels down behind them ready for any stragglers thinking of joining the party. Vik is still charging up, the beat all frenzied like his running.
Dave fires, Venkat turns and shoots his 44, dropping round after round until the rhino is peppered with bullets and leaky.
Cal slowly gets up and walks over to the rhino laying on his side breathing gasps, the crew behind him ready for anything. The rhino bucks and Dave and Venkat flinch, instinctively raise their guns and shot one last round at its head. The tension in its muscles ease and the carcass lays falls to the ground one final time, the dust still settling around on the warm, rough, blood basted skin.
A car drove by on the road to their left. The two passengers were girls and they were laughing for some reason.
----
Try to imagine -- the two girls driving into Douglas campus, passing the co-op bookstore, the passion puddle, the bus stop, going around the curve and looking to the right and see a group of guys huddled and walking together, one with a trombone, another with a guitar, another with a drum and they all stop and raise their instruments yet pointing them toward a point in the ground and they all simultaneously blast the horn and loudly bang on the drum and wildly strum the guitar while deliberately angling the tip of the guitar toward that point in the ground as if shooting something with the guitar, intensely wailing away at their instruments, these guys then suddenly stop! and at that very moment the girls burst out laughing right as they pass -- and you might have a vague idea of what the author of these passages is trying to convey.
----
It was dark. Back at Venkat's house, they smoked some bowls and listened to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, discussing things like David Gilmour's guitar effects and Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground and the crazy ideas our internal little voices conjure up and sometimes don't you wish to be able to just act on them? But, then, yet, we digress.
...laying still, on ice slowing everything down until it burns like fire, now you know EXACTLY where you are...
"Alright, I gotta go." Cal got up and slapped five with everyone.
"You sure you ok to drive?" Dave asked, though really it was a question emptier than a cup in a dessert.
"Yea, I'll be alright." It was true that Cal was still seeing trails and his vision was framing a bit but it was manageable an he remembered Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and Neil Cassidy's wise advise about driving while on acid - it was something like: the trick is to realize what the hallucinations are and then drive through them. To Cal, the man was a sage.
After a rather uneventful drive to his parent's house, he came home and walked inside and went downstairs and didn't say anything because the house was dark and Cal's parents seemed to be asleep.
He walked through his room and into the bathroom. He took a piss and washed his face. He looked at himself in the mirror - his face looked tired and his eyes were bloodshot. The door behind him was open, and in the background Cal sees his father appear. He wasn't sure if he was imagining this or if his dad was actually standing behind him, scowling at him with daggers of hate coming out of his eyes.
"Hey...dad?"
"Cal, I need to talk to you, turn around." Cal does.
The father of the author of these passages glared into his son's eyes and became disgusted with the dull pink orbs in the eyesockets staring back at him. He shook his head and said, "Cal, where were you all weekend?" A shrug. "Son, I asked you to help me with the yardwork and you never even bothered to call us to let us know where you are. We were worried something happened to you. Now...you come home, it's almost 3 in the morning after disappearing for almost 3 days. This is unbearable!"
Cal blankly stared at his father, his father's eyes swirling and trailing as his head shaked unapprovingly. "I can't have this. You are twenty years old, you're a man, so act like a man." He walked over to Cal's keys laying on the desk, picks them up and starts taking off the car key. "I'm taking your car because it's obvious you drove home drunk or high or whatever you are. By next weekend you will pack up your crap and move out. Enough! Be a man, act like man!" He stormed out of the room, his heavy footsteps up the stairs echoing in Cal's mind like thunder.
Cal yells, "How am I supposed to find a place without a car?"
"That's your problem!"
"Yea man, I think I'm feelin it," says Venkat.
"Really?" asks Dave. Apparently he wasn't yet.
"Yea man, definitely."
"Yea dude, I think I am too," added Vik.
Dave and the author of these passages looked at each other. He wasn't sure what to think. He wasn't sure whether he was feeling it and ignoring the effects or if in fact the acid hasn't hit him yet.
He was looking at Cal, who took a hit on the bowl and coughed loudly and heavily in beat with Heroin, the Velvet Underground song, playing on Venkat's notebook computer. Drum-Drum-Drum-Drum-COUGH-COUGH-Drum-Drum-COUGH-COUGH-"I-COUGH-COUGH-Drum-Drum-have--made--COUGH-Drum-COUGH-Drum-big-decision"-COUGH-COUGH-Drum-Drum
Then the author looked at Dave's tensed up face looking back at Cal, "What?"
Drum-Drum-Drum-Drum "Wwhhaaatt? Nnotthhii-," then Dave turns to Venkat and says, "I thhinnk Ii'mm fefeeeling iiit toooo nooowww."
Venkat laughs that high pitched wheezy laugh, "heh-heh-heh-" resonating in Dave's head until it overwhelmes him and he starts to laugh.
Cal smiles and passes the bowl to Vik. Venkat bobbed his head up and down to the beat, then lit a cigarette, took a drag and looked at the lit end for a dazed moment, entranced by its glow. Spirals vibrated out of the smoke, like the cosmos was shaking the life out of it. The red ambers bubbled like violent volcanos scorching up wiggling tumbleweeds of tobacco until it reached it's flashpoint and evaporated everything in its bloody path. The cascading plumes coming out of this white smokestack thunderously boomed in an increasingly fast pulsing clamor. Venkat looks up at Cal, exhales his smoky breath and notices Cal was looking directly at the cigarette too. He smiled then, "Did you see that also?"
"Yea, I'm feeling it."
------
Birds kept chirping loudly, everything far away seemed close, there was no way of telling whether that tree over there is 1 foot or 40 feet away - there was no way of knowing if that tree over there is imagined. What are these flashy spots in his vision? The author of these passages didn't know. What was that?! Walking over there? Cal looks, but nothing is over there. Is that person looking at me? He thinks. Wait, damn, it's not a person, it's nothing. It's something. But nothing, it's not anyone. It's NOT anymore.
The loud percussion of Vik playing Venkat's hand drum pleasantly pierced the author's ears. This was an echoing delight! Feeling like he was on a safari - over there behind the trees, is that a garafe? Yes, I think that's a garafe indeed, Cal considered. Let's go over there and investigate it some more he says to himself.
...That watering hole over there that has my name written all over it I'm there I'm everywhere I'm coming I'm coming there it is there is the water there are the animals those beautiful animals I love you animals I am here with you the lions rhinos garafes jackals elephants raise their trunks and splash away...
...the willow tree hangs softly on the water, it's reflection of the afternoon sun more real than the tree can ever be...
"Come here!" There is Dave too exclaiming in his turtle voice.
No one paid attention.
Venkat was raising and lowering his head to the beat of Vik's drumming.
Dave was on the other side of the watering hole seemingly laying eggs – trying to hatch wisdom.
The author of these passages was about to swoop in and impale the surface of the water and cup the cold refreshing liquid and Venkat put his hand on the author's shoulder and said, "Dude, this water is dirty, don't drink it."
"Ah, of course, right, right." Another time perhaps, but he knew it was never to be. "Wait where are we?"
"Passion Puddle, man. Heh-heh-heh. I think Passion Puddle...yeah, Passion Puddle." Then, "I think."
"Alright, I think I need to lay down."
"Ok, man. I brought my Jim Morrison blanket," Venkat pointing to the Jim Morrison blanket says, "you can lie there, yeah?"
"Yeah, I think that is a stupendous idea." Stupendous? He really does need to lie down.
He does so. On his back. The lions can't see him that way. Elephants won't touch him, to them, the author of these passages is a just a mouse – a less furry mouse.
It's getting cold. The sun must be setting. What else happened? It was hard to remember. The author's memory seemed blurry, only The Now existed.
What about the rhino's. Damn those rhino's, they'll charge you like you're a matador flashing a big red cloth. Just for lying there.
...Au Bon Pain: that's right, Cal tried to order a sandwich, but it was hopeless. Words splashed off his toungle like class five rapids and his brain was kayaking through just trying not to capsize. It was hopeless. The poor girl didn't know what to make of it. She leaned in and Cal got to see her cleavage. It was too much. Just too much. A flowery burst of petals flew out like bats from a dark cave. It was amazingly beautiful and mezmorizing and the sight rendered the author confused and it was hopeless. He ended up stealing a bottle of water because the order was hopeless...
He opened his eyes and saw the puffy clouds over his head and couldn't help think of the Little Puffy Clouds song by The Orb and he likes that song and the girl in that song talking about colors and skies and clouds and the clouds started vibrating and drifting towards each other like Pangaea was reforming some 200 million years later.
The shapes kept morphing and the more the author looked at them, the more new objects he recognized. Sleeping bear, crawling panther, coiled snake, giant roach, soaring dragon. The imaginary animal kingdom shapeshifted seamlessly.
Damn. Lions can smell you.
"We need to go on a hunt!" It was the author yelling to everyone. They all stopped and looked at him.
Again.
"A hunt?" asked Dave.
"Yes, a hunt! Get the rifles ready." Vik orders.
"Yes, yes - keep playing that drum Vik. We're going to need a fast beat!" Cal, picked up his rifle, gave the elephant gun to Dave and Venkat got the 44 Handcannon in case the beasts got too close.
"Wait, wait guys!" Venkat drew a cigar out of his kurta pocket and lit it with a match.
They started creeping along the edge of the grassy knoll near the watering hole. Looking for targets.
Dave whispered to Cal, "What do you think?"
"Not sure yet...wait, I see something," and he points to the left edge of the knoll where stood a large beast, still too far to recognize the type. "Let's go take a closer look."
Vik played a low and steady beat for the careful approach, hugging the treeline, they tried not to disturb the scene, inching along in a line, half duckwalking to keep a low profile. Venkat was in the back, looking behind and around to make sure nothing was trailing them, holding the 44 ready and the cigar is cemented to the side of his mouth.
Dave was in front of Venkat, pivoting mostly to the right towards the watering hole. He kept the elephant gun pointed down, trigger finger straight -- off the lever -- squinting to get deeper vision.
Vik's beat was starting to creep faster, Cal stared out front and could sense something big is going to happen, the beast in the distance was starting to take shape, a large and angry looking Rhino with a huge tusk that was begging to shred something or someone. He whispered, "I see a rhino, we need to keep slow and get within range. Once we get within 50 feet, we will charge for 30 feet, take aim and shoot him down."
"Aren't rhino's endangered?" asked Dave.
"I don't know, but it's better the rhino than us."
"Good point."
"OK, dudes. Get ready...hold steady." Cal was waiting for the rhino to turn away so they can take him by surprise. Rhino's are surprsingly very fast and have an even higher degree of power. It was going to be a challenge, but the author knew his crew was up for it. "Steeeady...Go! Go! Go!"
They broke column and ran as hard as they could. Cal, Dave and Venkat sprinted downhill away from the tree line at the rhino, quietly and quickly. Vik lagged behind, drumming a uptempo tribal beat on the djembe bounced under his armpit, hands feverishly flogging the tight skin.
Cal drops to the ground and points Dave to the rhino, signaling him to shoot. Dave drops to his knee, his eye had a laserlike focus down the gunbarrel at the beast, finger on the trigger ready to pull, stone solid concetration painted in his facial expression. Venkat kneels down behind them ready for any stragglers thinking of joining the party. Vik is still charging up, the beat all frenzied like his running.
Dave fires, Venkat turns and shoots his 44, dropping round after round until the rhino is peppered with bullets and leaky.
Cal slowly gets up and walks over to the rhino laying on his side breathing gasps, the crew behind him ready for anything. The rhino bucks and Dave and Venkat flinch, instinctively raise their guns and shot one last round at its head. The tension in its muscles ease and the carcass lays falls to the ground one final time, the dust still settling around on the warm, rough, blood basted skin.
A car drove by on the road to their left. The two passengers were girls and they were laughing for some reason.
----
Try to imagine -- the two girls driving into Douglas campus, passing the co-op bookstore, the passion puddle, the bus stop, going around the curve and looking to the right and see a group of guys huddled and walking together, one with a trombone, another with a guitar, another with a drum and they all stop and raise their instruments yet pointing them toward a point in the ground and they all simultaneously blast the horn and loudly bang on the drum and wildly strum the guitar while deliberately angling the tip of the guitar toward that point in the ground as if shooting something with the guitar, intensely wailing away at their instruments, these guys then suddenly stop! and at that very moment the girls burst out laughing right as they pass -- and you might have a vague idea of what the author of these passages is trying to convey.
----
It was dark. Back at Venkat's house, they smoked some bowls and listened to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, discussing things like David Gilmour's guitar effects and Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground and the crazy ideas our internal little voices conjure up and sometimes don't you wish to be able to just act on them? But, then, yet, we digress.
...laying still, on ice slowing everything down until it burns like fire, now you know EXACTLY where you are...
"Alright, I gotta go." Cal got up and slapped five with everyone.
"You sure you ok to drive?" Dave asked, though really it was a question emptier than a cup in a dessert.
"Yea, I'll be alright." It was true that Cal was still seeing trails and his vision was framing a bit but it was manageable an he remembered Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and Neil Cassidy's wise advise about driving while on acid - it was something like: the trick is to realize what the hallucinations are and then drive through them. To Cal, the man was a sage.
After a rather uneventful drive to his parent's house, he came home and walked inside and went downstairs and didn't say anything because the house was dark and Cal's parents seemed to be asleep.
He walked through his room and into the bathroom. He took a piss and washed his face. He looked at himself in the mirror - his face looked tired and his eyes were bloodshot. The door behind him was open, and in the background Cal sees his father appear. He wasn't sure if he was imagining this or if his dad was actually standing behind him, scowling at him with daggers of hate coming out of his eyes.
"Hey...dad?"
"Cal, I need to talk to you, turn around." Cal does.
The father of the author of these passages glared into his son's eyes and became disgusted with the dull pink orbs in the eyesockets staring back at him. He shook his head and said, "Cal, where were you all weekend?" A shrug. "Son, I asked you to help me with the yardwork and you never even bothered to call us to let us know where you are. We were worried something happened to you. Now...you come home, it's almost 3 in the morning after disappearing for almost 3 days. This is unbearable!"
Cal blankly stared at his father, his father's eyes swirling and trailing as his head shaked unapprovingly. "I can't have this. You are twenty years old, you're a man, so act like a man." He walked over to Cal's keys laying on the desk, picks them up and starts taking off the car key. "I'm taking your car because it's obvious you drove home drunk or high or whatever you are. By next weekend you will pack up your crap and move out. Enough! Be a man, act like man!" He stormed out of the room, his heavy footsteps up the stairs echoing in Cal's mind like thunder.
Cal yells, "How am I supposed to find a place without a car?"
"That's your problem!"
Friday, April 9, 2010
she says, "you'll take what i give you"
deleting thoughts
contextual loss
blind spots in my memory
i'm such an american
lunch tray in hand, waiting
to take my pick of feel-good sustainance
but its all blended like pulp
the damn mashed potatoes are mixing with the chocolate cake
and i agitate this mix
and i agitate myself
because i don't want to use these tastebuds any more
there are so many precursors so much context
my mouth is scarred, tastes tainted
the spirit needs nourishment -
must learn to love the pulp
contextual loss
blind spots in my memory
i'm such an american
lunch tray in hand, waiting
to take my pick of feel-good sustainance
but its all blended like pulp
the damn mashed potatoes are mixing with the chocolate cake
and i agitate this mix
and i agitate myself
because i don't want to use these tastebuds any more
there are so many precursors so much context
my mouth is scarred, tastes tainted
the spirit needs nourishment -
must learn to love the pulp
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