Naked and spectacular

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2010-11-30

A lucky man

Two people could never be as happy as we are at this moment.  We are the entire universe, my friend.  This is all it is and we both know it.  I don't think anything better could possibly happen to me but of this I am not sure.  When the time comes I will be a better person than that.  I know it.  I wish I could help all those people out there but really I want to help myself but I'm not going to I'm going to help them.  They are so sad and pathetic that I am starting to feel sad and pathetic putting all my energy into focusing on them.  I could get drunk tonight, I know.  I could find friends through my drunkenness, then at least I will be safe from all those hateful people in the world I am desperately trying to make contact with.  Everything ends, I know, but I am not sure I want this feeling of alienation to end yet.  Maybe I am, I guess I will find out when I realise I have made a decision and taken an action that has ended my alienation.  I'm a lucky man.

2010-11-13

Some jumbled manic thoughts

Rice expands my stomach and so although it is used to make meals feel filling it actually makes me hungrier.

I don't like this perverse attempt at control I am supposed to exert over my life, it is too boring and stressful for me.

I am the funniest person I know because I find extremely serious things to be funniest of all.

I can't get a literary agent because none of them can afford to put time and effort into "the financially unrewarding field of poetry".

I don't care whether I am successful or not because I am.

I am so happy that I don't really mind so much that I am not really fulfilling the plans I had planned for myself and my life.

I don't mind, I really don't.  So many people love me and there are so many places to go and so much to do that I couldn't conceive of boredom or loneliness except momentarily sometimes just to remind myself what it feels like cos I guess there are quite a few people in this world who experience these things and I want to empathise and I want to write about how they feel cos maybe I feel this way sometimes maybe I don't but I certainly used to feel this way and I got over it and maybe they can too. 

Maybe I am just arrogant and self-righteous.  Maybe I truly am from another planet.  Maybe we all are.  Maybe I am special.  Maybe we all are God, maybe we all are the reincarnation of the Son, the Christ, the Divine Manifest On Earth.  I don't know anything more than anyone and nobody knows much if anything.  I'm not sure whether my writing is a more accurate description of the universe when I lay my thoughts out clearly and structurally or when I go mental and have page-long sentences and thoughts that diverge into all sorts of directions.

Everything is just a big jumble of influences anyway isn't it.  We can observe this on a quantum level.  Things appear and disappear.  Influences come from all directions in time and space.  Reality is fluid, maleable, interesting.

2010-11-12

Melt [part I]

She knew nothing would happen.  It was stupid really.  She was old enough to have a computer when the Y2K paranoia had gripped the world.  As soon as she heard about it she changed the date and time on her computer to 31 December 1999 and 11.59 and watched it tick over to the new millennium as if it was any one minute ticking over to any other minute.  She knew people were stupid and needed something to fear and let them have their fear, she does not need it.

It's a dark winter morning and she is feeling claustrophobic inside the house.  She knows it's cold outside but she wants to go for a walk.  Snow is not going to stop her and paranoia certainly isn't.  She puts on as many clothes as possible and steps out into the crunchy snow.  She loves this time of year, the quiet days of Christmas when everyone goes off to their families and leaves her with the gift of some peaceful solitude.  She can't help thinking about all those years, all those myths and all that anticipation leading up to right about now.  Some of her friends were obsessed with these myths and talked about them constantly so she couldn't help thinking about them herself.

As she walks she enjoys the quiet and the solitude and the effect it has on her.  She feels a peace and a nice balance between her thoughts and her simple observations of the frozen winter forest she calls home.  The world isn't going to Hell so fast because she is able to live in the city and take a walk through the forest only minutes from her apartment.  The world is certainly an increasingly weird place of course, that's undeniable.  She doesn't follow any media but her friends are always telling her about the new Abstract Economy desperately trying to maintain capitalism and Character Politics and its attempt to retain people's interest in politicians.  This latter has apparently resulted in the election of someone calling himself Jesus Christ as US President, who promises 1000 years of peace.

The craziness doesn't usually make it into the forest though, a bit of rubbish sometimes, but she can simply pick that up and put it somewhere more appropriate.  Most people come here to visit her cos they want what she wants for a little while; a bit of peace and sanity.  She loves her friends so she accepts that they come for temporary peace from these crazy lives and then for some reason want to return to their crazy lives after having a wonderful time here with her.  There is change here in the forest too, but it's a change that need not be understood.  It makes sense without needing to know anything about it.  It is chaotic, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and this is natural.  It is good.

Today is the day the world is supposed to end yet here in the forest it's just another perfect day.  The world is frozen, but life continues.

She steps off the path to where the trees are thicker and notices the snow has melted here.  She turns behind her and sees thick white snow covering everything and yet here in front of her it's melted and the ground is slushy and wet.  She trudges through the thick slosh of mud and dead leaves and pine needles.  She looks down at her feet at where she is walking and suddenly feels a direct warmth like a hot ray of sun breaking through directly onto the skin of her face.  She looks up and sees not the bright yellow light of the sun but some white dull light that is somehow unbearably intense and can't be looked at.  It's all white up there in the sky, overcast, and yet she can't be sure cos suddenly it's so bright she can't direct her gaze in that direction.  She can't look at the snow because this intense light reflects off that too.  The light even glares through the gaps in the trees.  It is so bright the trees seem to be melting.  They even bend over like soft candles.  Slightly disoriented she leans her hand against a tree trunk to steady herself; it is soft and her hand leaves a five-fingered indentation.

She is a calm person and doesn't panic, but she does not understand what is happening cos she can't even think about it.  It doesn't confuse her even because there is no reference point to reality or at least what she usually refers to as reality.  She continues to walk, neither looking at nor avoiding the intense light and unusual physical phenomena.  It is not just the mud and half-rotten vegetation that is mushy beneath her feet, everything seems to be getting softer, losing its density but not really changing form, just bending a bit.  This doesn't seem as unusual as it should and she laughs at the thought that it could easily be a dream.  "What difference does it make?" she wonders.  "If this is the reality I find myself in, what difference does it make if I call it a dream of a wake?"

Reality continues to melt and she continues to walk.  She considers her friend, the one constantly speculating with excitement about what would happen at the appointed time when everyone knew something would inevitably happen.  He had some good ideas and she told him many times to write a novel but he claimed he wouldn't be able to complete it and get it published in time and so there is no point.  She pulls apart two close trees like a curtain and he is standing in front of her smiling.  "I told you," he grinned.  "You never predicted this," she looks around.  They hug and their bodies coalesce without losing their own form.  They move in and out of each others' form with casual amused curiosity.  She sees her friend's skin seems to be glowing and he appears so much more beautiful to her than he ever has before.  She touches his face and feels a wave of intense love for him that feels like sadness but a good sadness.  The feeling is reflected in his face and they don't even need to smile at each other anymore.

She remembers that he is supposed to be on the other side of the planet, far away in some other country.  She doesn't know how he got here but can't even remember what country he's supposed to come from anyway.  She thinks she should know more, but can't even remember his name or how she knows him.  But she loves him so much and must've known him her whole life.  She can't imagine not knowing him.  Even the idea of her country and his country sound a bit silly and she wonders where she got this idea from.  The whole universe is here, it is them and this sphere of tangible environment around them.  Nothing else needs to exist and these types of thoughts start to fade anyway.

She notices the differentiation around her slowly disappearing.  The tree tops and the sky begin to look similar.  She can no longer tell the difference between snow and mud.  She looks at him and he seems to be observing the slow changes with the same detached curiosity as her.  They make eye contact and their silent expressionless faces communicate something.  It is like the bright white light is continuing to brighten but the glare is no longer harsh on the eyes and there is no associated heat, just a pleasant warmth, just like she is cozy in her warm winter clothes.  It's like she's drifting into sleep.

2010-11-11

The God of the Ocean

He feels guilt, as usual.  He feels guilty for the little touching he desires.  He stares at them in their shorts and thinks thoughts and is comforted only by the knowledge that his thoughts cannot be read.  This is when he sits alone.  He knows he shouldn't look like that, he should see them as people like him rather than bodies to be desired.  They deserve respect, of course they deserve respect, they don't need to be looked at in this objectifying manner.  His desire is clearly perverse, there is no love in it.  Maybe what he lacks is love and so he tries to fill his love with touching bodies, or at least perverse thoughts about touching bodies.

His favourite half-naked bodies eventually depart and he trudges heavily up the hill, unable to cease his scanning of the myriad human bodies lying about on the grass and sand for one that fits the age gender bodytype requirements to receive his perverse attention.  Always this guilt with it though.  He walks along in the sun with a beautiful ocean view trying to be peaceful for a while and coming to a public toilet with a picture of an archetypal man on the door.  He picks a cubicle, hoping for graffiti, finding none.  He takes out his penis and after urinating can't help but masturbate.  He can hear the other guys around him, coming in, undoing their belt, urinating, washing their hands, leaving, as he continues to silently masturbate in the locked cubicle.  When it is time to leave he waits for a quiet moment and slips out as quickly as possible, not forgetting to quickly wash away the residue of semen from his hands.

He returns to the bright sunshine and the many people walking around together, holding hands, alone, sitting around, busy or leisurely.  He feels an intense shame wash over his body and he probably even goes red in the face.  He knows they don't know what he's just done and again he is comforted by the fact that his thoughts cannot be read.  This time as he walks amongst the people he feels not the guilt of perversion but the shame of having degraded himself in such a dank repressed environment.  There was noone to share his pleasure with openly in his own bedroom; only he masturbates silently and shamefully in public toilets.  Only he.

He remembers a time when he didn't have to masturbate at all.  There was a time in his life when he did not feel alone.  He was always amongst people who loved him and had no shame of expressing their love to him frequently and with ease.  He was the same because he was one of them.  They touched each other, they loved each other, they looked each other in the eye; he had no shame and no guilt of the love that he needed and the love he offered.  He knew that if he asked for a hug he would receive one and sometimes he needed a hug and there was always a hug ready for him.  He did not need perverse stares and masturbation to close the gap in which he was not feeling close to the most beautiful people in the vicinity of his life.

He also remembers the strangeness of what happened when he defecated during this period of his life.  Every time he squatted to release the pressure in his bowels he would also release some semen from his penis.  This was not connected to any orgasm, but the stronger the defecation the more semen he expelled.  He did not understand why his body continued to produce and release semen when he felt no need to produce orgasm.  He knew he needed to store his sexual energy for higher purposes but his body always found a way of getting rid of it, inevitably.

The sun is so hot and the day is so dry that he steps barefoot down to the water.  There aren't too many people around at this point.  He wears a t-shirt and a pair of shorts which he quickly removes and places in a careful pile.  He decides he is not ashamed of his naked body at least and feels no need to wear shorts in the ocean.  He dives through the waves and into the water.  He enters the ocean and she accepts him.  The Ocean God laughs at those who wear shorts into her waters and reserves special feelings for those who dive into her naked and unashamed and allowing her to cleanse them of all their desires.

The sacred fire

The fire is sacred and all us humans are responsible for it.  Some feel the need to protect the fire with rules, others prefer anarchy and the acknowledgment of an inherent respect.  But the humans know.  After food circle they gather in the warmth around the fire.  They stare into its flickering flames and don't even notice how silent their usually chattering minds have become.  They stare in silence or share intense conversations or dance joyfully with drums and didgeridoos.  The humans love their fire.

When the humans sense the coming of heavy rain, via meteorological reports, they take immediate action.  A dozen young men shed their clothes, carefully placing them beneath shelter and run naked together up the hill where the trees are free to grow.  They find the heaviest and most solid fallen logs and haul them onto collective shoulders.  They drag dead trees down the hill, damaging more regrowth than they would ever admit to.  As the rain starts to fall on their naked sweating scratched skin and the dry earth they throw more and more wood onto the fire and watch it spread outwards and upwards.  They watch the heat-filled pile of hot coals build into quite an intense mound and quickly ignite any new log that is thrown upon them.  As the rain grows heavier the fire crackles and hisses and the water quickly evaporates but the fire is strong and resilient.

The humans gather in the heavy pouring rain around the fire.  They shed their superfluous clothes despite the cold of the rain.  They dance and they drum with more ecstasy than usual.  They feel a hysterical powerful energy surge through their bodies from the earth or from the fire or from the rain they are trampling into mud beneath their feet.  They turn their heads up the sky and scream and howl at the thick wet clouds.  Their joy has expanded beyond any usually conceivable bounds and can only really be described as an intense exhilaration about life itself.  How wonderful and beautiful it is to be alive and experience this world with such immediacy and unrestrained physicality.  They are connected but they are so completely contained within their own bodies.  They stare at each other with an unacknowledged and complete acceptance and they stare at the fire without a single thought.

The rain gathers in puddles around the fire pit and a single human runs for a spade.  He steps closer to the fire than is natural to remove the soaking soil and create a trench for the water to gather in.  Despite the cold rain the fire scorches his flesh and so he slaps handfuls of mud onto his thighs and his stomach and his arms and his face.  The mud hardens and his skin is protected but still burned red in the gaps between the mud.  More mud and more rain and more heat and the exhaustion and weight of the dirt bring his body something transcendent of joy.

Kids play in the mud, piles of soil gather around the fire and naked bodies cover themselves in the ashy mud.  The trench is dug and the water gathers and draws away from the precious sacred crazy fire.  When the humans are not dancing in primitive manic natural ecstasy they stand cold on one side hot on the other, drying and wetting their bodies simultaneously in the elemental dichotomy of the moment.

The sweaty invigorated trench-digger runs down to the river to wash away his exhaustion and is followed by another beautiful young man with a vigorous healthy body.  They throw themselves into the cold moving water and scrub each others' flesh with sand, scraping the greasy mud from each others' pores and experiencing the firmness of each others' muscles and the softness of the mud-cleaned skin.  They dip in again to wash away the sand and emerge with an invigoration, immediacy and profound cleanliness that feels like birth.

2010-11-10

The night the poem died

I wrote a poem once, I can't even remember when.  It was more of a story than a poem really; or even a prophesy; but a mythical prophesy, not a literal prophesy.  I do think it's going to happen, but not like that.  When it happens it will be wonderful.  The poem was called Armageddon and I didn't know why I wrote it.  I thought it was nothing and yet like everything I write I stored it safely on my computer where I rediscovered it two years later to my great delight.  I had no memory of writing it and had no idea what inspired or provoked it.  I simply uncovered this ancient artifact buried deep within the memory of my five-year-old laptop.  I read it out loud to myself and I liked it.  I made a few small changes and I liked it a lot.  It had an alarmingly effective rhythm that got me every time and yet I did not understand what it was saying to me.  I knew precisely because I was so challenged and fascinated with this piece myself I couldn't possibly read it to an unsuspecting audience.  At least not until I finally found an audience who I knew could not only handle it but appreciate it; an audience in front of which I would feel comfortable to let myself go somewhere of which I was uncertain.

There was one night late around the fire when I got a specific request to read something from my manuscript that I carried around with me everywhere, in case of the likely possibility that someone would ask me to read or perform.  With such a diverse manuscript in my hands I am able to choose something specifically for the situation.  The energy around the fire that night was an intense calm, an unusual but beautiful combination.  Many people were smoking marijuana, expanding or shriveling their minds, and so I decided to read the piece that I dared not read before.  I sat cross-legged a meter away from the fire, facing my audience of less than ten people.  An audience that quickly expanded to everyone standing in the vicinity and everyone sitting around the fire.  I didn't mind that there were certain parts of the poem that were particularly confrontational or unexplainable because I would simply start reading and once I started I was inevitably reading the entire thing.  In fact once I start I cease to exist for the duration of the poem and the poem itself indeed takes over my body.  Even as I read I was passed a joint of bush buds and I took drags as I read about the impending eschaton.  Sometimes I am present for the performance of my writing, sometimes I am absent and this time as my body sat cross-legged on the grass reading Armageddon I listened along with everyone else and for the first time, after reading it so many times I had almost memorised it, I finally understood certain aspects of it that I could not possibly explain now because they were caught up in the context of the poem and the context of the moment.  It all made perfect profound sense for one alarmingly intense sacred moment.  Of course it's not just sacred poetry that creates these situations, it also takes sacred people willing to create a sacred moment in a sacred environment and in this case we combined all four briefly.

I realised when I returned to my body following the coda of the poem that this poem was written especially for this moment; the creation of this moment is the reason I wrote, edited and carried around this shamefully brilliant poem for so many years.  As we all sat in the heavy wake of this performance, something without an English word thick in the air, I experienced a strange mix of shame and pride and curiosity about the response of the others.  They all stared at me with awe and love as if I am from another planet.  (Am I from another planet?)  The intensity I felt throughout my body was almost unbearable.  I felt something moving through me and I became immeasurably cold.  I climbed to my knees and held out my arms and asked to be held.  I was in the right place and two beautiful humans held me.  The long hug was intense as the three of us shared this unexplainable surging energy.  The woman closed her eyes and took a far journey through dream into another dimension and in only a few seconds of clock time she returned exhilarated and exhausted.  Maybe she projected onto me the amazement she felt that the world is a much bigger place than we have been taught.  Maybe she understands now that our experience is as big or small as we want it to be.  We can live an entire lifetime in one closed-eyed marijuana-stoned post-Apocalyptic hug moment.

I am told that Armageddon is a place in Israel, but I write about an Armageddon that is deeply embedded in our collective unconscious and in the form of myth is increasingly frequently manifesting into consciousness.  What do I do with this poem I love and fear to perform now that the moment it was born for has passed and I am certain anybody with a career would never publish it?  We all know the end is coming soon and we constantly create myths to manifest our understandings and share them, to express the little deaths that are happening every day and anticipate the big death that will so soon annihilate all our illusions.  And so this precious powerful moment we created that night is not gone but still remains in our flesh through the sound vibrations created with its recital.  Everybody who experienced this sound vibration, and anybody who comes into contact with its diminishing aftereffects will possess within the memory of their flesh a powerful myth for the end of the world as we know it.  Perhaps we will all be a little more prepared and a little less scared when the time comes for us to accept the reality of death and live in a world where we have no choice but to love and honour each other and every form of life we share our environment with in all the dimensions we call home.