a hare's bound

Intense Tense

2012-01-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

In my shower, in my box of a bathroom, in the morning, in a slightly off balanced state of mind; I shower. The ache behind my eyes has settled into a gentle throbbing tingle, almost pleasant. I watch the drops bouncing off my chest and shoulders and fly past the sunbeam coming through the window, each individual one is splitting its own personal colour spectrum within.
I play with the idea of following one drop's journey. from falling out the shower head, bound together with many others for extra momentum, to dramatically bouncing off my shoulder and breaking away from the others and taking its own flight path, but just before my little hero reaches the sunbeam I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and begin following another path, my own path, that is being paved by the rhythms of those gentle throbs originating from behind my eyes.

Before I knew it I had to choose between other paths. paths being paved by other beats, rhythms, throbs and wails. This wasn't a four way intersection or two paths diverging in a yellow wood. these paths were not numbered, but nevertheless completely based on precise mathematics. Completely based on precise mathematics and at the same time as messy as a high school art teachers ashtray. There was one and infinite, more-or-less and before I knew that, I had already chosen one to go down. I wasn't forced into any decision, not by anyone but myself, even though I was there before I got the chance to make it.
I was making decisions in history while experiencing their consequence. And when tense became too tense I opened my eyes.

I open my eyes in time to catch my little drop hit the sunbeam and split its own personal fantastic colour spectrum before leaving me.
Where did it go? Is it dead? Did it know it was going to split that rainbow? Did it join back together with the other drops? did it know I was watching it? Did it split that rainbow for me? Did it wonder or care? It was just falling wasn't it? Making decisions in history.

Climbing Limbs.

2011-12-08T22:10:00.001-08:00

I've often wondered why tree climbing isn't a more appreciated activity/hobby (sport?). So when the clouds parted and the sun shined on down, I went to the woods and I climbed on up. I still wonder.

2011-09-14T04:15:00.000-07:00

2011-09-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

The Sirens

2011-09-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

They make themselves visible when I least suspect them.
I assume when their presence isn't even present

in my deepest brain cavities,
Long after I have forgotten that such beings

can exist within five senses.
That's when they sneak up on me,

but not from behind a tree

or my back

or any of the many stealthy hiding spots around.
They'll appear before me,

smack bang in front...silent...almost hovering.
Before I can clearly make out their outlines they'll slap my frozen cheeks

with their gentle translucent hands

and lightly frolic away before I can even feel full sting.

And I'm left standing,

my legs somehow still balancing my weight,
My skull somehow still holding onto my jaw as the burn melts into my face

and grabs hold the back of my pulsing eyeballs.
The sirens wail reminds me to breathe again,

I draw in two lung fulls of crisp forest air,

tasting the aged wood and autumn leaf particles pass over my tongue and cut down my dry throat,
I hold onto it for longer than I should,

until my chest hurts and my head starts to spin to the rhythm of the wails,
but sure enough, it too frolics away and the sound and the memory of the sirens fade

and I’m left back in the clearing,

more lost than ever.

She wails.

2011-09-11T06:43:00.001-07:00

She wails amongst the others in an attempt to affirm her presence,
Sure, they affirm her voice, her laugh,
her wail and of course her well groomed body,
but the same cannot be said for her presence.

She takes a swig from the bottle and wails,
She takes a puff and bellows the smoke
while wailing her wail.
She passes the bottle and wails,
to whom?…who knows?
Why? Who knows?
She wails, she wails.

I know what’s behind those wails,
at least I like to think I know,
At least I wish what I thought I knew were true.
Behind those wails she can gently smile at the breeze in her hair,
Unaware that anyone’s there.
Behind those wails she can softly stroke and feel what’s really there,
Well aware this feeling is rare.
Behind those wails she can dance to wind, to sound, to silence,
Well aware there isn’t a care.
I remember what was behind those wails and I miss it,
I miss it,
I miss her,
I long for it.

I too have began to wail, I too strain to remain.
I too have lost the winds rhythm.
I too have lost soft touch,
I too have put up these wailing walls of uncertainty,
Like playing the game of being human,
Partaking in the pastime of existence,
Well aware of the rules of the game,
But completely unsure why we play it.

Throbbing wails,
Wails of fear,
Wails of hope,
Wails of pain,
Wails of indecision,
Wails of falsity,
Wails of imprecision.

I remember being behind these wailing walls,
And she was there with me,
Behind these walls was also within,
Now we are free,
But it’s not so cosy.

Neither here, nor there, nor somewhere in between.

2011-08-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

Any man's significance seems mighty insignificant
to anything outside the sea shores and mountaintops.

He can try feel at one, but he'll never be more than alone.
He can filter the seas of minerals and life,
but his eyes will never see a speck of purity.

He can leap off bridges, fall through clouds and glide through the stratosphere,
but he'll always fall short of real bending fear.

He can hunt down oxen and deer, study their bones, pick their brains,
drape themselves in their fur,
strap on their horns and wear their hooves as boots,
but he'll never attain their wildness.

He can study mathematics, calculate decimal points, measure bacteria and
square root that by half an atom till kingdom come,
but he won't know true preciseness till his own time has come.

His time and numbers play no real role, His words plays no real role,
fur and bones play no real role, trees and their leaves,
wild flowers and their honey bees play no real role,
bricks, glass, mirrors and plastic spoons barely make an utterance,
while the aging man's body is somewhere in between.

His equations aim to explain, but his science only detracts,
his poems aim at being content with misery,
but his language merely distracts.

Neither here nor there nor somewhere in between.

Every poet, every pianist, every trapper, every fisherman, every cowboy, every tramp, every monk, every shaman, every ju jitsu master, every mathematician, every astronaut, every alcoholic and their fathers and their brothers, their enemies and their friends.

Neither here nor there nor somewhere in between.

you've got to ask yourself...

2010-12-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

I sit to rest a while, on the edge of a magnificent, impressive bridge. It is a monstrous mix of metal, looking like machinery, like a robotic arm ready to move both masses of land which it joins. Sitting in the middle of it, I make believe these are my arms, like I can move these peninsulas according to my whims and gather the boats beneath into a pile in the sea just for its aesthetic value. Just to temporarily please my wandering mind and waning sense of self, like priding yourself over making a sculpture of pretzels at a bar whilst getting drunk, but instead of whiskey I have the warm sun and my weariness. I laugh to myself as my giant robot man-day dream begins to turn into a Japanese animation.

I open my eyes and look at my real arm, my hand has been bandaged up after an accident involving a rusted screw piercing my palm. There is something about having a bandaged hand or a slight limp in your step that makes you feel a little bit more masculine, like a boxer or a wounded soldier or Clint Eastwood, it makes you want to spit in the dirt. I reach two fingers into my inside breast pocket, but instead of a .44 Magnum I pull out a small bar of hotel soap. I unwrap the little plastic packaging with a slow smooth finger move and drop the bar down below me, into the sea. It fizzles a while, I watch with the warm Mediterranean wind blowing my straw like hair madly and I smile an evil grin. I Look to either side and spot a pretty girl who has just witnessed my strange act, I quickly try to rub the evil out of my grin and replace it with something nice, but by the crunch of her eyebrows and the wrinkles on her forehead I realize I have failed to redeem myself and she looks down at her feet and continues to walk across and off the bridge.

Frustrated, I dig through my rucksack to find another bar of hotel soap I rip the plastic off with lightning speed and stand up. I look calmly into the distance a moment then peg the soap off the bridge as far as I can, it pains my raw palm wound but the pain is worth the distance. The bar flies through the air, flipping and soaring in slow motion. While watching in anticipation I feel my hand begin to bleed again. The bar collides with the mast of one of the tall sailing ships with a loud clang, it bounces back a few meters and into the deep green sea. It seems to bubble and boil, as does the blood in the middle of my palm seeping into my dirty white bandage. I start to breathe heavily, standing with my legs spread shoulder width apart.

If a pen can be a sword and a boxer can be a butterfly, can a bar of hotel soap be a .44 Magnum?

Ivan has kept the lighthouse for over thirty lonely years, its staircase is filled with old novels.

2009-07-31T03:26:00.000-07:00

"...i've kept that lighthouse for over thirty years" he grunts gnashing his teeth, "now the sky doesn't storm, the sea doesn't roar, the gulls aren't flying, the grass is too green, the crabs aren't dying and nor am i."
he pauses, looks to his boots and sighs, then continues a touch more cheerfully "but at least i'm old, have a beard and hook for a hand.

woman and child.

2009-07-31T02:59:00.000-07:00

...He sat there for hours, catching the blizzard in his beard. He shook, shivered, snorted and bounced his numb legs. But when he caught first glance of the two walking by him, a whirling warmth lined his stomach and thawed out his insides. He smiled as if the boy was his own.

birds and bees and beds and futons

2009-04-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

This place was massive, a warehouse the size of a suburb, filled with furniture for the Sunday consumers. We all sat together in one of the display rooms, the whole family. We were spread out all over the thick cushioned lounge, it was long, so we all fit on it comfortably. My father said it reminded him of the lounge his family sat on, in their fifth storey flat in a grey concrete apartment building in Wroclaw during the 70’s. We lazed around, tired from a frantic sleepless night of moving furniture, boxes and white goods, our muscles ached and our caffeine tics toced. We sat and watched the crowds rotate from display kitchen to kitchen to office and through to lounge room; it was a life size dollhouse. We watched the Indian families, the Arabic couples, the trendy lovers, the Chinese children running around, the dread-loched beach siders pushing their newborns in new prams. Sure it sounds diverse but really it was about as multicultural as the furniture they were looking at, same thing just different colours and shapes. For a moment, as the crowds walked past and looked awkwardly at us watching them, I proudly felt like we didn’t fit in.
There was some tacky 70’s hit playing over the system.
“You love this song don’t you?’ I said sarcastically to my old man.
He listened a while.
“I don’t mind it” he replies after some time.
“It brings back memories”
He stared at the high iron ceiling, where the music was apparently coming from, after the chorus passed, he continued…
“When I first came here and I was going to English classes, the teacher brought in the lyrics to this song and the class sang it together. She said it was a good song for us to practice, because it has a lot of verbs”
we listened some more and all looked at each other smiling, my mother, father, brother, sister and I, almost laughing. The song finished and no other followed, just the sound of peoples footsteps hustling about the shiny wooden floors. We were silent for about five minutes whilst my father contemplated with nostalgia in his eyes.
“Her name was Ruth” he said
“My English teacher, she tried one time to explain to us what the word ruthless meant”
I thought about the word a while and then the name. I couldn't think, I felt confused to be here, I think we all did a little. We decided we could make some bookshelves instead and pushed ourselves out of the comfortable lounge and left, walking against the grain of the crowd. Even when my dad was driving down, from the 5-storey car park, he drove in the wrong direction most of the way. People wrinkled their foreheads and waved their hands, palms facing up. We all laughed as my mother grinned nervously and my dad zigzagged through the car park singing the chorus with a strong accent.

“When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.”

diving through the sky into the earth.

2009-04-01T18:12:00.000-07:00

The pale grey concrete highways heading south always remind me of an American freeway, just like the ones on the high speed police chases across California, filmed from a helicopter.
With my window open and my sneakered feet on the dash I tilt my hat forward to block my eyes of the bright warm rays. Every so often we burn across a high bridge suspended over a gorge with tall trees and a river underneath. The shadows of the bridge cables flicker over the bonnet, up my legs and skip over the brim of my hat, one by one.
The dry grass plains are tightly stretched across the horizon, like the skin of a drum. I only wish we didn’t know where we are going so we can improvise a beat on that drum like those outlaws running from the cops do.
I wonder if the dead wombat on the side of the road knew where he was going, or if this hitchhiker in sandals, with her knotted dreads and belly sagging out of her little shirt and over her tight waste band, knows where she is going. The crows on the powerlines I don’t wonder so much about, crows always look like they know exactly what they’re doing and where they are going.
In the corner of my eye I watch some skydivers drifting down from the sky, the parachutes and air gently letting them down. I take my hat off and stick my head out the window to have a proper look. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, one of the five sky divers speeds past all the rest at an incredible pace. Both his body and his parachute are facing the wrong direction. I pull my head in the car to watch this horrific scene through glass. In the car we all catch the sight of this man’s last seconds on earth, before he hits it. All we can do is watch and yell and scream and grab our jaw dropped faces. His arms and legs flail in a terrifying manner as the whole gravitational pull of the planet sucks him down. He disappears behind the trees and we don’t see the impact. The other divers slowly float down towards him. We turn to each other and all swear and cuss for a while, then go back to silent gazing out of the window. The rest of the day goes on like any other day and the incident is never mentioned. Things like that stay in a person’s head somewhere; maybe in some slight way even change them. Maybe I didn’t know where I was going that day after all.

You can only write about dreams in Braille.

2009-03-18T23:17:00.000-07:00

After a long walk in the heat of the city I walk into a shaded park to find a spot in the shade. I sit in the lush, thick, greener than green grass and feel the cool breeze sway the white hairs on the back of my neck. The sensation lifts the goose bumps out of my skin and a shaking relief goes shimmering down my spine like wet sand. Running my index finger across my arm, I try and read my goose bumps like Braille. All I can understand is that it says something beautiful, but not quite logical or useful to me, something about the relationship between the grass, the trees and the sky. I cannot usually read Braille, but I can sense that these bumps include the words: beauty, soft, air, wings, fur, gentle, and maybe even love. These words sit in my head side by side and when I tilt my head back and inhale, the air rushes in and blends and shakes them all together; creating another eruption which sets off another spinal Mexican wave of trembling vertebrae. From my spine the relief-quake follows into my nerve branches and releases firmer goose bumps on my skin. These bumps are clearer and more defined and I am able to understand more of the Braille. It tells me why the birds are singing in the trees and why the flowers look so comfortable swaying in the wind and why the air feels so satisfying rushing into my lungs and why i can use this air to blow a feather away.
As the sensation wears off, the goose bumps soften then disappear and the answers fade. I fall back into the grass. Sometime passes whilst I stare into the sky and as my eyes close to sleep, I picture the earth as an ants nest in some dark woods. As I get closer to sleep I imagine a young boy, in overalls and no t-shirt, one day finding the nest and jabbing a stick into it.

with one eye open and the other shut.

2009-01-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

A large handsome rock sat on its own on the southern side of a smooth pebbled beach by the sea, an ideal place for Edward to park his wearisome, wandering self. He stopped to tower over it a while and admire its layers, curves, lines and above all its striking bold blackness. “A slate to contemplate” he half sung, half announced in an operatic fashion, arms open to the side as if he were about to hug the thing. He looked around with a smirk to see if the coast was clear, unsure if he had just embarrassed himself or actually found himself amusing. Most probably the former he agreed, and sat down with a grimace. He sighed once again like he had been constantly this whole grey day. Not only did he not have any ideas for his next book he didn’t even feel like he wanted to write at all. He looked around a while, trying to make things beautiful by staring at them for longer than they needed to be stared at and giving them more thought than most would consider necessary. He pulled a thread out of his felt suit and let the wind blow it out of his fingers and into the boundary of the pebbles and the sea. He picked a dry leaf off the ground and wondered how it got there with not a tree in sight then crushed it in his palm and fed the crumbs to the wind... It did not land in the same place as the thread. Even though he was, Edward did not consider him self a dreamy romantic type and felt a bit unmanly playing with leaves and sentiment in the wind; he picked up the largest pebble within reach, about the size of a flattened grapefruit, and hurled it as far as he could into the dark blue sea. The stone seemed to implode with the surface creating a brief black hole before dropping to the bottom. Satisfied, he dusted his chest and thighs with two hands. With one arm on his hip and the other shielding the non-existent sunshine from his eyes he looked out towards the blurred horizon, imagining he was a sailor, a man of the sea. In his head he played out a great scene starring himself upon the deck of an old rusted fishing trawler, his half dreaded long curls being blown about and his grease-stained bearded face bombarded with hard sharp drizzle. He could almost hear himself singing to the sky, improvising some half drunk half grumbled sea shanty. And the sea would play like an accordion and the gulls would dance like dirty sailors in a port town bar, the kind of rowdy bunch he would only write about in his wildest pages.

As he inhaled Edward smelt his aftershave, he disliked it and thought it made him smell like a sleazy old man, the kind that pinches girls behinds in the street. He decided to throw it away when he got back to his hotel room, despite his cheapness. He rubbed his clean-shaven chin, cheeks and upper lip then ran his fingers through his neatly groomed haircut as he completely fell back into the body of Edward the novelist.

Walking back slowly he spotted a soldier crab scuttling sideways atop the pebbles.

“Hey soldier, where’d you learn to march like that?” Edward demanded, releasing the day’s final childish outburst.

The crustacean rushed under a rock without a reply. After standing and waiting for it a short while Edward sighed once more and tried shake out his foolish behavior. He was sick of seafood, he affirmed, and went to bed hungry later that night.

Nine months on he typed the last line of his book. It wasn’t his best work and he knew it, but he didn’t mind.

“…and so, his little life came to an end and his eternal death begun. The windows were open but the curtains stood still and the fearless man who was born on a ship and raised at sea, drowned. Falling asleep in a bath tub at the Tangier inn"

sugar coated peach rings

2008-10-14T16:21:00.001-07:00

Burroughs would have walked these streets looking to score. Score 14 year old rent boys or some of that junk. Of course it would not have been hard, even now drug dealers hiss like cobra’s from their dark corners to catch your attention as you walk by. The only difference is the cobra hisses in self defence, whereas in Tangier one (an unexperienced tourists at least) feels as though he is defending himself from these cobras.
Stepping up the steep slime wet alley’s your back foot slides out from beneath you as your front foot catches the weight. Everyone slides out every now and then, I’ve noticed, but you must keep your wit about you. Stay up, maybe even growl a little, this is a pirate town. In the odd opening between alleys, where there seems to be a missing building, bright green weeds fight for ground area. Fighting with trash, dumpsters, whitegoods, black goods and reeking food scraps. Mainly stray cats are the inhabitancies here. They are scared as anything whilst ripping at the last bit of fish head that they had to creep out of hiding for. The strays so much as see a shadow approaching and they’ll curl over like a child about to get beat up by a mother who’s flipped out and lost herself for a crazed moment. They’ll freeze in the shrubs hoping the passer by can not see them, but I can. Their eyes are shinning and open as wide as a cat’s eyes can go, staring with terror at what they conceive as their last minutes on this scrap heap island. Mainly cats, but every now and then you will see human life amongst these shrubs. I say human life but they seem to act more like the cats than the humans. Their soil covered faces pop out behind the dumpster just like the cats; and the eyes are just like the cats, a bone chilling stare waiting till you pass to get back to their nibbles. These men are not just your ordinary “homeless” men. They growl, crawl and scratch themselves rummaging through the weeds, not only do they not care what others think but it’s as if they are not even aware the others exist.

There are the shady characters by the docks, with their baggy robes, hoods over their heads, their husky voices trying to convince you they can get you anything you please.
“Bonjour, ca vas? Mi amigo” they try to guess where you come from.
“You want hash? You want taxi? Rent car, cheap hotel, tour guide, something else, anything?”
Or further down along the beach the clean shaven denim jacket wearing homosexuals walk looking like they’ve just returned from a night club running fingers through their greased hair. They point to their wrists and ask the time. I soon learn this is the way of saying “hello”, and I guess if you say yes you are in for some Moroccan man action. Luckily I forgot my watch. Unluckily I’m afraid to ask anyone for the time now. I try to guess by the sun, which is proving hard in grey skied Tangier.

I wonder if Burroughs used the “what’s the time” technique. Buroughs must have walked these streets looking to score junk and homosexuals. I walk the streets looking for candy and chocolate (no, not slang for anything. sugary candy and creamy milk chocolate). I always get a craving for something sweet after a hearty meal. I wish to fulfil it even if it means jeopardising my disguise of a careless tough guy in an effort to intimidate the pirates before they intimidate me.
Bill scored junk I score junk food. I Search the corner stores and markets for a hit while rambling to myself in my best slow grumbling Burroughs impression.
“Sugar coated peach rings are a personal favourite of mine. I recall my first experience with peach rings when I was around fourteen years of age, a boy from school had brought along a 100 gram packet to a lunch time circle. This kid we called “the fish”, for reasons unclear to me. I’d have called him “the snake”. His hair was perfectly straight and parted and he smelt of pack lunch…banana and peanut butter, he was despicable. But this one glorious lunch time he pulled out from his god damn red polished lunch box, this pack of sour sugar coated peach rings.”
I stopped rambling for a while as I stepped into one of the corner stores. I walk through to 5 loud Moroccans sitting around on stools, they stop laughing and shouting when they see me, and just stare. I quickly browse the almost empty shelves with my eyes but really pay no attention to what is on them. Clearly performing that they do not have what I am looking for I back away and step back out onto the dusty step outside. I turn and keep walking down the street dodging a robed man on his motorcycle.
“Sugar coated peach rings hit the tip of the tongue first, upon experiencing this sudden rush of sour the saliva glands swell and ooze an excess amount of saliva which spreads the sugar granules throughout the sections of the mouth, behind the teeth and back of the throat. The user is now, almost instantly, in a state of pleasure and in a few minutes will experience what they call in the business ‘a sugar rush”

so far, so good.

2008-10-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

Some time has passed since I have returned from abroad. I had grown accustomed to it there; it was familiar to be in a strange place not knowing exactly where I am. I would wander in an ambiguous blur of smog, strangers, overwhelming landscapes and curious social activity.
It was hypnotising. Almost paralysing. For the most part, I just simply drifted along with it all, like a salesman drifts on his way to a routine day at the office, his head swaying and bumping along with the rhythm of the train as he stares out the window, staring at the world flickering by, but really seeing nothing at all.
And, so as to not allow the ‘drift’ to drag my mind through the blur I would purposely stop and force myself to recognise how pleasantly absurd it all was. I’d find myself consciously trying to form a memory. I would squint my eyes and pan through the surroundings, inhale and absorb all I could then delicately tattoo it onto my memory, more or less, the way I wanted to remember it. I loved these moments and would try to create them as often as I remembered to. I found that music is a good facilitator for this activity; a melody or phrase acting as the ink in my tattoo gun.
Sometimes if I’m lucky I’d get a little bonus occurrence in my memory-making moment. Like a high flying bird, apparently flying in slow motion; or a train with an endless amount of carriages speeding past some godforsaken backdrop, as if through a photograph. It made goose bumps, it made me smile and made everything better.

I sat on a grassy cliff top one time, below me roared the sea, sharing my field of vision with the overcast sky and far behind me a small deserted fishing village. The setup was almost perfect.
I had just started to feel very pleased with myself, pretending this part of the world was my own. No sooner had I made this declaration than I spotted a head appearing in the distance where the cliffs mellowed out into scalable rocks. It was a girl or perhaps a young woman; it was hard to tell from this distance. Her whole body suddenly emerged. She was carrying two suitcases and wearing a beret. She stopped and looked around while slowly spinning. She made two full rotations and sat down. I wasn’t sure if she had noticed me.
I whistled along to some vibraphone melody. It sounded a bit silly and a touch too sweet but suited the mood nicely. We shared the view for over an hour. She was so far away but it felt like we were sitting together.

fear and beauty.

2008-10-14T00:02:00.001-07:00

lynx and hare.