rolling purple hills

In the thick of things it is easy to let the sheer staggering beauty of this blue green planetoid we've come to know as home. The cyclical dance of insects and plants, sex and death, death and sex. Over and over, season by season. The hills outside have gone purple, vetch in full glorious bloom. The bees make their rounds, all bustle and buzz. The list of tasks grows ever longer and time slips away. Sunlit moments catch the darkness in pinchers of green grown brightness and shake it like a dog with a rabbit. Darkness screams it's silent scream. Light shines down in the cold and new green grows. Dormant seeds lay claim to fertile soil, left fallow for far too long. In these new blossomed fields joys unknown take shape. Their ways brought forth through careful tending. It is bright, it is beautiful, and there are mountains in the distance.

is this real?

The stumbling progress of hardened hearts builds towards a life worth living. These moments are what it lays its foundation on. Quiet determination, mixed with two parts insane caterwauling. All this, all this, all this. Time moves in fits and spurts. It's linear nature a lie. The flow moving inexorably towards crumpling flesh and creaky bones. That is real, this is real. This is real. All the moments in between are real.

von Thoth geheilt

In the light
thrums a vibration
born of simple words
taken without hesitation
the offered hand
unclouded eyes
lack the fear, suspicion
key logs slip, the flow returns
torrents surge into the long dark
miles slip uncounted
beneath the red machine
melodies weave unbroken
from the then into the now
warmth seals the wound
teeth flash in blending waves
the core spring is filled
runs with new abundance
vibration thrums
in the light

New Meat

I'm going to need a new meat machine. It is a happy chance that I just might be able to pull this one off. Current model is still viable, but it is requiring more and more maintenance to stay functional. Even at peak efficiency it is hardly the machine it was a few short years ago. I watch the technical journals and plant seeds here and there in the collective unconscious. Brilliant new imaging and data storage systems grow exponentially more complex. Gleefully I observe the processes and dream of the new meat. Weather it takes the shape of a digital mainframe driving a muscle and bone avatar or a full meat brain transfer to a newly grown bioship is of little importance. I think some gills would be nice, maybe some crocodile blood to help process an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide and methane. Optical receptors from a mantis shrimp and the olfactory organs from a mako. Hell, lets throw in a few thousand stacked electroplaques from a knifefish. That's right, when I grow up I want to be a sea monster. In the mean time I'm going to make an appointment with the massage therapist, the chiropractor and the physical therapist.  Got to hold this aging meat machine together for at least another twenty years.

word vomit

wiggle twist, bend and break
contained vermin in a red box
built to suit
ten thousand strong
the weak erect monuments to failure
celebrations weave in and out of dark dealings
 hardened heart makes the most noise
all wheels in motion
momentum carries the beast forward
no one at the helm, full steam ahead
these dreams, they speak of endings
wrought in blue/green flames
days become weeks, weeks into months
a silence profound settles
it matters not
not one wit

funguys

I forget, sometimes, the simple joy brought on by an evening filled with friends, rock and roll and some of the P.N.W.'s finest psychedelic mushrooms. Opens up the heart, third eye, and puts a hell of a smile on me face. Lights spin, the music hums in the visible spectrum and the feet move in gleeful patterns. A dance, the happy mushroom two step. Inspired, energized, and ready for the really real. Brothers and sisters, let me tell you, it's a good goddamn time.

The yearly sheering

 It's a shock to see my face, always startle myself when I catch a glimpse in the mirror. When you wear a beard ten months a year the feel of wind and sun on a freshly shaved face is a singular experience.The flames claim the old and the stench of burning human protein fills the air. It's a small thing, this yearly ritual. It seems to help keep the dark places at bay. Sunshine and dirt on your face works miracles.

...this darkened way...

It takes it's toll in all these little ways. That song, those words, the view from the hill. Boils down to burned neural pathways as they slowly rewrite themselves. A horror creeps below the surface, lanced deep into the psyche. So much given, so little returned. All the years stack up. Built a wall so high that no light reaches the bottom. No warmth at the cold dark core. Gentle caresses, loving words, an eye with that special glint. Gone and forgotten. The need lies under it all. Desire for a thing of warmth, truth and trust. Built of quiet moments and raucous abandon. Little meals, made lovingly, shared on summer evenings. Dirty hands finding each other at days end, weary, but content. Golden light taken in on the regular, some fermented beverage in hand. Melodies play behind the eyes. Recounting all that has transpired. A tune rich in longing and desire. Notes linger in the melodic minor, their voices raised in the shaping of tale. A story long and torchorus, filled with all the hate and falsehoods of daytime television. There is no moral to the tale, only sound and fury, told by an idiot. It signifies nothing.

space bender

Flickering light shimmered out of the box. Traced patterns, track left and right. The clickity clack of the projector spins hundreds of fragmented grizzlies trough the rift. The stain is still drying, tacky to the touch, but it works. To glorious result. Ecstatic moment woven from years of preparation. Wondrous, simply wondrous. Time slowed and minds traveled. Back, back to older things. Celluloid and smoke. Light and mirrors. Tied together with witnessed intention. In the crescendo the Earth itself seemed to shudder. Through those ancient eyes the light cast shadows of memories, dark and cold. Face your fear. Turn the inner eye. See it's path and remain.

And remain.

...timey wimey...

It's hustle and bustle. Movement in space, one task at a time. Clock ticking with less minutes than are needed. Always like this, never enough head room. In these moments it's easy to skip the important things. The little bits that make it all worth it. The restless drive to float incorporeal with no tether to these fuel driven meat machines hangs like a tangible thing. Which, by it's very nature, is utterly ridiculous. Breath deep, take the steps. Forward, but never straight.

End times reproduction

Trees and bushes burst with buds and flowers, not to mention pollen. It's a constant money shot. All over your face, all day long. Plants know it's going down, the sixth mass extinction. When the bombs drop people fuck more, lots more. With lustful abandon fully aware that life could be snuffed at any moment. It seems plants do the same. Awake crusty eyed and bleary with all the congealed plant spunk on your face and mucus membranes.

Debt and Dreams

It's a scam. Been running it for a little over a year. Started with selling off the collection of junk packed every nook and cranny at the folks place. Packed and shipped all over this huge land mass. Another job here another there, keep the money coming in, pay those old debts. All of a sudden, on paper, it looks good, this weird little life. Lines of credit established. Same as cash, 6 months to pay. Ridiculous. It's brought back how destroyed it was. Shattered, stomped, teeth kicked in and crushed. It only took seven years! Only seven, and they went by quick. In the here now it's all forward momentum. These dreams are built with other peoples money. A Loki style approach to manifestation. A powerful glamour wrapped around this dirty old metalhead. Some nights you wake up laughing at the hilarity, others in a cold sweat at the horror you've embraced.

...

Call comes at bar close. Her voice swollen with drink, looking for another place to go. Listen to the rambling as a scream builds deep down. Manage a fairly polite declination to entertain amidst mild verbal abuse. It's right back to that first apartment when the drunken call comes and other whisky swollen voice curses from the other end. A shriveled meat pump labors in a cage of bone and blood. Pieces of a life long left behind lodged into the cracks leak poison. Years long it creeps, waiting to spring out and scream "REMEMBER!" at the slightest provocation. There is no trust, no warm embrace to take the edge off the days labors. There is good built into these hands though. They make things, beautiful things. There is dirt beneath their nails and thick calluses. There is solace in that.

One spring day

Seventeen years. Numbers like that are the way it is now. Seventeen years. Jesus, where does it go?  I stood in front of the gods and everybody and made an oath to stay with her to life's end. Last I heard she had done time for identity theft and was living in North Dakota with her new husband. Not exactly death due us part. There was an effort made, ten years of effort, but only so much abuse can be tolerated. When there is no better and only worse and worse and worse. Been out of it for almost as long as I was in it. Hasn't stopped it from haunting me, kept me in the same patterns. Repeating patterns of love. Like the song goes. Heh. Cooking a great feast for mostly myself. An exercise in loneliness. Sad songs on the jukebox with a couple revenge of the nerd style joints. Going to drink my own wine, feast on the fruits of my labors and drink to better days ahead.

Nightime

These nights grow so long. Sleep an elusive thing that twists and turns like a twisty turny thing. Managing a few hours of actual REM time, but little else. Sleep deprivation is a harsh mistress. Everythings washed out and coffee stained. The place where normalcy exists, balanced forward thoughts, is long forgotten. This brain matter has rebelled. No amount of medication/meditation brings that once restful thing known as sleep. Seems to be growing worse as time progresses. Focus remains somehow. Possession of will makes all the difference. The real question is, can this be maintained? The answer has always been a great big capitol NO. Hasn't changed the nature of things though. In the dark moments, twisting in the grip of some creeping thing in the hiddy spots of the subconscious, time ceases to be and there is only that moment of frozen horror. An infinitesimal macro universe spins, huge and terrible. It seeps down into the quantum spaces between the protons. All the while it's just me, my mind, and the dark.

Equinox

The spring sun has risen and I hunch for a moment over the death box before the shovels fly. Too cold for planting yet with the weekend lows hovering in the high twenties, but much work to do regardless. Good thing too, the "too much to do" keeps me moving. If I stand for too many moments my mind goes dark. The loss, the fall, the horror of it all. Growing things keeps it at bay, with the aid of some choice chemicals and healthy dose of artistic endeavour. It's a struggle to be sure, even with the "best I've ever done" on the table before me. I stand outside many of the little joys now, and always will. A societal anomaly with an empty nest whilst the others bring forth new lives with the loving support of lifelong partners.
I have a cat and five guitars...

mirror, mirror

Faded technicolor kodachrome. Hands full of glass shards and plastic burns. Blood dries on the cardboard while the stack of heirloom seeds, both saved and purchased, wait for the soil to warm. The hum of strings and her haunting voice float through smoke filled air. Flickering light takes on all the shapes I could hope for, but lacks any of the solice. The cold air seeps in from between the cracks in the door and these bits and pieces of ideas rattling around from year to year have become something. A real existing thing, bending light and time in it's own little cycle. The puzzle is still so far from done and, as always, as a new piece falls into place someone snaches another from the board. Still, progress is progress.

New Ground

Winter winds down and new soil waits under grass. To till, shovel and  prepare for the seeds and starts. A cycle that takes more and more precedence. So many things go astray, lost to human drama, but the growing things are a constant. There is still much in the larder from years past, but the looming reality of fresh from the ground food always makes my blood quicken. The days go by fast, though, and the tasks are always so, so many. The soil here is thick and dark. Doesn't need much to grow fine, fine veggies. It is also the climate I know how best to work in or at least it was. It grows increasingly difficult to know what each season will bring. Daylight's a wasting. The old rototiller waits.