Monday, February 27, 2017

Disconnected/Dreaming/Waking Up

       A warm spell finally broke the unholy cold but a sinister wind was blowing. It rattled, and clattered. It reeked and clung like a damp dirty blanket. It blew in but never blew out. It filled the melting land with a painful, uncomfortable tension and we locked ourselves tighter inside. The heat had promised relief but it turned a frigid claustrophobic hell into a warmer and filthier one instead.

       I had a strange dream last night. It was summer and I'd left embers in the backyard fire pit. I woke up to the smell of smoke and I ran to the window. The wind had come up and reawakened the flames. The night was pitch black but by the time I got outside it glowed orange. The neighbour's house caught fire and was almost instantly engulfed. I ran to the side yard to get my hose. I thought I might still save the house! I turned the tap but I couldn't tell if the water was running. Then I realized it was actually my house burning and the hose might be melting. The fire and the destruction was all my fault but I still hoped I could stop it. I heard a fire engine siren in the distance, getting closer, closer. Was it for me? I didn't want to get into trouble. Then I think I woke up.

       Another dream. I was fighting a headache.
       There were two open wounds on my left thigh, one below the other. The bottom one was a long gash on the outside from mid-thigh to just above my knee. It was recent and deep but didn't seem to hurt. I had to keep it clean.
Above that and over to the inside was a round wound, like I'd been shot or stabbed. It was old and festering. I squeezed it and a white, round, puss-filled tumour bulged in my fingertips but didn't break. It stung sharply and I was forced to relent. When I did so it burrowed back under my skin out of my reach. Some type of white and maggot-like bugs wiggled out. They had short, hooked legs like ticks. They dangled like spiders on long hooked rear appendages and seemed to be looking for a new host. I held back my vomit and began pulling them off, one at a time and throwing them into some sort of convenient hell pit. Something larger rolled under my skin and pinched at my fingers with brown crab claws. I dug into the round, festering puncture, desperate to stop the bugs spreading to the other injury on my leg. I got hold of a hard, chitinous shell, squeezed, and pulled.
A large brown queen, shaped like the smaller bugs, came out in my hands. It was slick with my own blood but it clung like hell to my hands and wrist. Instead of the thread-like hooked tail it had a stinger and tried again and again to stab me. I finally broke off the pincers and  flushed it and all its parts away to hell while it screamed and fought. Then it was just a matter of picking off the remaining nits and flushing them away too. I had to be careful to get each one because I could only wake up after that was done.

        But the next one was a cockroach dream. I found it in a dishwasher. German apparently, you can tell by the two horizontal stripes down it's back. It looked like a female without an ootheca, the egg sac. I cut off the head ran it through the garbage disposal. The body I sealed in a Ziploc baggy and threw away. Then I thought better and pulled out the bag from the garbage. The body was still moving. It was another problem on top of what was already on my mind. I'm waiting for the straw to fall across this camel's back.

         And then there was a student. He had a panic attack of some sort and thought he was going to be arrested. He got angry, and started shouting about destroying the classroom. He was upset because he hadn't been paid and was told someone was looking for him. He took that to mean a warrant had been issued and the cops were coming because he got angry (not unusual in his experience) but it was a friend of his in town from another city.

        The last one. I'm in a dugout basement with a large group. The walls are earthen and we're inspecting them. While we inspect them we argue about the foundation of a personality and what makes someone a nazi. I try to argue it has nothing to do with the basement we're in but some are saying when the concrete is laid over soil that person is a nazi and others are saying no, it's when the concrete is built over stones. This basement is under the kitchen of a summer cottage. At first it seems to be sealed but air and light are coming from the back corner. No one notices or cares we are in a trap. I dig enough at the back corner to make a hole and I escape. No one follows. I'm at a larger campsite and it is nighttime lit up by a full moon. I wander over to the neighbour's yard, then back. I look at the building I escaped from underneath. No one followed me and I wake up.

Monday, December 5, 2016

What's going to work?

    You are not responsible for your own failures. Someone or something beyond your control is holding you back. Only I can overcome these obstacles, and for your sake, I will. Believe in me and you will be flawless. The others that threaten you? I will make them go away. You don't need to change, you don't need to adapt. You are fine just the way you are. your good nature has been taken advantage of, and "they" those outsiders, are the problem. I will think and act for you.
    Comforting words maybe, but not true. There is never any going back to a "better" time. Time moves on and if you're unhappy with your life now, attacking people or groups with little or no political voice won't make you happier or bring you the success you think you deserve.
    The reality is the quality of your life is directly linked to the quality of your relationships with yourself and other people. This is really the measure of success.  No-one lives in isolation, wealth and popularity aren't spontaneously created.
     It's okay to feel damaged, or threatened , or fearful even. Feelings are okay and natural. It is even okay to accept the line "I can fix all your problems for you." It's harder, but necessary, to call it out as a scam.
     There are two ways to survive a tyrant. Bow your head, stay low, and flatter, flatter, flatter. Creativity, industry, self-expression are sacrificed for the great leader's ego, but you might survive.
     The other option is to tell on them. Tell the truth, good or bad, no matter what. No-one likes a tattle-tale but truth-tellers are sacred.
    So truthfully, like it or not, we all have a relationship with each other, even with our leaders and they with us. We all want a better life and a better world. Focus on improving relationships, focus on right now with yourself and with others. Be a better you and make the world a better place. And finally remember in a free world our only duty to authority is to undermine it.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Fighting Trim

     All my shit's broken. Nothing new. Cobbled together. Taped and patched. Just like me. But most of it still works. Just like me. Hooked up with tubes wheezing on these machines. Tick tock an old style clock spins its arms at the foot of my bed. I never could read those things. There's a crack runs across the plastic face of it. The nurse uses it when she checks on me.
     There's a windstorm tonight. More broken things tomorrow. I'm a polisher. I shine things up. Even the broken stuff, make it look good, give it some pride. I haven't been doing too much of that lately. Not much to be proud of, getting old, worn down, each second of that clock another gust of wind blowing away another part of me, some part I never knew or cared I had until it wasn't there anymore.
     Martha, the kids, all of it is broke. Taped and patched yeah, but we don't talk and they don't come see me here. I wouldn't either, that's why I had the nurse take away the mirror. Me, my machines, and that damn clock. And sometimes the wind, like tonight. Smashing down every little thing we make. Lifting it up and throwing it on the rocks. Taking away our answers, our breath, our sleep, whatever is dear and bringing it back as dust. No way to fix anything that broken.
     I know there's more, but I run out of steam. Just a little nap. A little recharging and I'll be back at it again, fighting trim. Tomorrow. Always tomorrow. 

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Playground Triptych, on a garden wall

     He takes stock of all the things that are falling apart and draws parallels to himself. He is a bastion of decrepitude, decay, and entropy. He slouches like the beast towards, he assumes because he doesn't really know if he has a direction, Bethlehem. He also likes to wallow in self-indulgent narcissism. He gets so tired of thinking about himself, all he needs and all he wants. How over-diagnosed are we? He also specializes in hyperbolic, pretentious generalizations.

     A low flying jet rumbles over the playground, looking like low-hanging fruit, waiting for some giant's hungry hand to pull it from the sky, peel back the hardened rind, and eat the soft, juicy, screaming insides. Forty-five seconds later there will be another, then another, then another...

     She smashed her bicycle into a pole, but the only thing broken was the front reflector. Her pride and pelvis were bruised-the consequences of trying to impress some boys-and her shiny new confidence, rock-solid until now, felt scratched and shaken loose.

Sunday, September 27, 2015

dreaming

     Forget about dreaming of being someone else, or recapturing something that has had it's time.  Be yourself right now, surrender attachments to the past (remember the memories don't waste time recreating them) give up on escaping present reality with wishing for and putting off development.  You are you - right here, right now - and you will always be.  Forget this and you court dissatisfaction, envy, unrealistic desire, and the negative things these bring.  Longing leaves you open to be exploited, to false promises and broken hopes.  Recognize longing and where it comes from.  Why are you dissatisfied with what you have?  Why do you want something more or something different?  Question yourself, question your reality until all the questions are asked.  Have they been answered?  Will they ever be?  Is satisfaction in the past?  In the future?  Were you once satisfied, do you expect satisfaction in the future?  Has this cycle of want then acquisition then want then acquisition ever been different for you?   Be happy now with what you are doing, thinking, and feeling.  Be content with your possessions whether humble or grand.  Be content with your nature.  It's okay to feel the way you feel.  Realize the trauma you relive and flee, express and suppress.  Personality changes and grows and deforms at all times.  Quiet your dissatisfied mind.  Be happy with your attributes.  What perceived personal flaws are you trying to cover with ambition and materialism?  What is lacking in your life that you seek to compensate?  Show them to yourself.  Know the source of your own motivations.  Compensating for shortcomings is to try to fill an empty bottomless well.  Perfectionism is an addiction to arbitrary standards.  We are our flaws.  We are ourselves.  Satisfaction will never come.  Escape is an illusion.  Be happy now with what you are and you will be living your life.  Imagine right now, breathe right now, experience right now.  There is only one continuous moment, life is only in this moment.  Memory is past, future is imagined.  Be yourself, be yourself, be yourself, be yourself, be yourself.  You are good enough.   Treat this moment and all others and things in it as a gift. Escape is impossible when you're already free.  Accept the gift as it is given.
How can one become so addicted to negative feelings?  Judging, judging, judging.  You are good enough.  Accomplishments?  Every day of life is a victory.  Forget the mantra " you can do more"  replace it with "I am enough".

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Bad Trip

I seen it when I ate your eye
I turn into a different guy
Like a bug on a wall I feel so fly
Nobody knows we can get this high

A ghost in your hell
A ghost in your hell
I'm a ghost in your hell
Darkest shadow in a demon well.

I don't bail you out
Won't give you an alibi
You shield me from the light
Don't act surprised.

Can't hold me back if you tried to
Broken foot is in the other shoe
Love it when your dreams never come true
Don't be mad I do it all for you.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Run

     Run. It was the last word Petra heard from her crew boss "Big" Dan Chief when the weather shifted. That's what she was doing now as the fire cracked and popped at her heels. Super-heated embers fell like burning snow as she fled the wind-driven flames. She was singed, blinded by the smoke, and coughing but she wasn't going to stop. Could not stop.
  They were a crew of ten cutting a fire break near the top of the ridge. The break wouldn't stop the fire but it might slow it, or contain it for a few precious moments, maybe help the evacuations and give the water bombers time to get up here and drop their fire retardant loads.
   This was a war, another dry year in a string of dry years, and the whole forest was a short fuse. One spark and everything exploded like a bomb. No rain now, none for weeks, and none expected to come.
    Petra stumbled, fell, and rolled shedding her gear. Her axe, shovel, the forty pound pack she carried, even the fire-resistant tarp-she could have dug in and hid beneath it if there was time-all gone. Run. Down. Keep going down. It was summer and warm dry winds from the south had held the flames to the northern forests. Why did it change today? Vicious gusts from the north starting pushing, pushing, pushing destruction south where the creek beds, the swamps, everything was sun-baked as dry as paper.
     Heat and smoke rolled and roared. Flames overtopped the pine forest now dangerously flammable like gasoline.
   Run. How long? Don't stop. Everything burning. Run.
   Petra broke through to a hydro line, a wide clear-cut swath of grass running northwest to southeast. Overhead power lines hummed as they carried electricity from the dams on northern rivers to towns and cities in the south.
    The ground evened out here. It had been cleared and graded by the power company. Choices. Which way? Away. Away from the flames, away from her friends and workmates, away from the roiling boiling death that burnt at her heels.
   Burning ash fell and ignited the tall grasses at her feet. The far trees seemed to shiver in the wind as the fire roared closer.
   Petra turned left, to the southeast. She'd seen from the helicopter that dropped them off just a few hours earlier there was a cut, or canyon, or something there she could hide in, stay low. Even if she did escape the heat the smoke could still suffocate her.
   Run. Don't stand still, don't stop. Just run.