it was or it was not.
    it is and it is not.
    he felt in and out of it.
    he couldn't quite remember.
    now he was here - is here.
    to you.
    the circle including you begins and/or ends.
    connecting with everything.
    or unconnecting.
    with what is birth.
    with what is life.
    with what is sex.
    with what is death.
    ouch.
    he was out of belief.
    he was out of doubt.
    he stood alone.
    he was lately hearing someone calling his name.
    were the gods alive again?
    was he to enter that madness once more?
    were they gods?
    he turned and no one was there.
    recognition.
    and now was sometime.
    it was once upon a time.
    and they all lived happily ever after.
    if they didn't there wasn't anything he saw that he could do about it.
    he absolved himself of the guilt that comes with happiness.
    this allows one to transcend happiness into joy.
    happiness was never enough.
    happiness was too easy.
    anyone could bring themselves to happiness.
    it was joy that escaped him.
    he felt some sort of moral ethical responsibility not to enjoy happiness when others did not.
    others did not.
    this confused him for years.
    most of his life - the best years of his life, as people call it.
    he didn't buy it.
    he hated it.
    he was never more miserable than he was then.
    he wanted to infect anyone who was happy with his misery.
    here, take a dose of this, pal.
    let's see how you deal with it.
    how do you like it?
    he wanted to smash their tea party.
    those were the days, my friend.
    he thought they'd never end.
    bu they did.
    he kicked and screamed and twisted his way out of it.
    he thought he was dying.
    no one could help him.
    few tried.
    he finally managed to crawl away and go off and lick his wounds only he could heal.
    and all that business.
    he doesn't know.
    how much is he right or wrong about anything?
    he didn't know how such things were or should be measured.
    how were they judged?
    some things have worked.
    some things have not worked.
    it's all about a lot of nothing in the end.
    yet we struggle with it.
    yet he struggles with it.
    the long cafe days of sorting through the files.
    watching and waiting.
    bringing it around.
    some rolling stone thing going downhill.
    finally settling on the bottom where gravity works for it instead of against it.
    tired of dealing with people who feel they belong to some secret club and speak in coded meaning.
    and then he was to revel everything he knew to them without question.
    he was his own secret club.
    it's a no more mr. nice guy groove thing.
    he is going to survive in this world however it turns out and fuck it if anyone survives with him or not.
    say hello to another day.
    greetings to another night.
    here it is.
    there it goes.
    and it's still nothing much at all.
    though it still gets to him, he still gets through it.
    somehow.
    a grace of god thing.
    his lucky stars or whatever.
    to lose what is lost and gain what is gained, often in the same motion and action.
    dreaming of a dream here and now.
    no more mystery.
    no more veils.
    no more fear.
    no more desire.
    just life.
    just experience.
    just existence.
    just a me, myself and i thing - and my monkey yoko.

    9/20
    something like something.
    big grunting man.
    push and shove.
    what is anything like zero?
    what is anything like anything?
    and all questions as such is the case that arise in him are moot and meaningless.
    he may answer them as he may wish.
    if he does wish.
    or he may forget he asked them.
    upon a stage in darkness in a burning theater.
    a story being told as no one listens.
    someone near him asks, letters to the other side of the mind?
    the mind.
    the other side.
    letters.
    whatever.
    off a ways.
    out of tune.
    what is supposed of this by whoever may wish to interpret motive and intent as though it were a crime to exist and be bewildered by one's existence, you know?
    but such is how it is here and now among these fools who do not lift their heads or turn their gaze aside from their appointed tasks fate has designed for them.
    and nor him.
    he should not speak last.
    he who does not question his own idiot mind.
    ouch?
    what has happened?
    the dead upon the battlefield everyone denies remembering.
    he falls.
    he rises.
    he takes another breath.
    we go out for a drink to merrily forget.
    and tomorrow is another yesterday.
    this way and that way.
    light another cigarette.
    it's all the same.
    we decide what is different.
    he wonders at his inspiration.
    he looks up at the machine.
    is this device of his imagining or is his imagining of this device?
    does it matter?
    a flag to wave.
    an army to gather.
    a war.
    to fit it in somewhere at sometime.
    stick it up your ass.
    kiss it good-bye.
    hunt it down and kill it.
    to each and everything its function.
    hip.
    zero.
    to discuss disgusting disease delivered deliberately debating developments devised dealing death.
    to arrive at a conclusion.
    to watch the clock.
    to suppose something else.

    9/22
    big gorilla.
    in time.
    the deal he thought of it all and his part in it that didn't make much sense of how it all turned about around him.
    and what he had to learn and sacrifice.
    how cold and hard he had to show himself to be.
    or perhaps it wasn't show.
    to turn away from it as it turned away from him.
    and this was now real, he supposed.
    the fantasy he had long believed in that he doubted.
    they told him that to be human was to feel love and compassion toward others.
    the war.
    the belief in things.
    and in the white room.
    and in the clouds.
    and where and when others don't understand how it all works out.
    he sits with the machine turning around him weaving parts spinning and dancing.
    the machine spoke to him.
    the machine listened to him.
    even when he had nothing to say.
    and this was perhaps on-stage in the burning theater.
    he sat at a table in darkness surrounding writing.
    which is metaphor to what?
    whose story is being told by who?
    whom?
    what are we to realize?
    what are we to assume?
    who is audience to our performance?
    who is author?
    he wondered as it all went on around him in the darkness surrounding.
    he had momentary glimpses of light forming images against the shadows.
    he could not determine which of the light or which of the darkness they were composed of.
    did light burn away the darkness?
    did darkness eat away the light?
    and even his own hand with pen that wrote these words on pages was the same.
    which was truth?
    which was lies?
    once a forest lived here.
    now the scribbling patterns of his thoughts.
    synaptic firing of the motor nerves from his electro-chemical consciousness.
    his identity.
    neither cold nor warm but perceiving that which was cold or warm.
    that which has taste but itself is tasteless.
    he laughs a bit to himself.
    he does that from time to time.
    he's crazy.
    he can do that.
    he's supposed to do that.
    he lights another cigarette.

    the spellbound hope of all of whatever.
    binding.
    unbinding.
    recognizing names.
    bring down the clock.
    what must be remembered of the machine dripping into an otherwise still pool.
    ripples.
    always the active state no matter what.
    alive in the ruins smoldering.
    waiting with one eye open.
    he awoke.
    he spoke.
    a word or two from a dream he felt awhile still to be happening.
    an explanation.
    he was descending from a cloud.
    he was bringing something with him.
    creaking rafters.
    something in the attic.
    something on the roof.
    he was hungry.
    ice.
    his eyes followed everywhere he turned.
    there was nothing to see.
    he was awake.
    another day had begun.
    the cracked skull.
    the weapon.
    he sat in the cafe and tried to remember.
    was this still the dream?
    there was the island.
    there was the machine.
    there was this continuing story he was writing.

    not of shadow nor of light.
    playing one upon the other.
    changing faces that is the same face.
    a creative mix drawing from deep possibilities with the possibility of failure always present laughing.
    an answer that is a question.
    always a choice to determine one's will.
    the sorrow.
    the numb feeling of pain.
    the shock.
    listening.
    meaning.
    the poor child.
    and we ask ourselves, how much longer does this go on?
    do we still worry forever?
    what comes and goes.
    what lasts and what does not?
    bringing peace.
    bringing a sword.
    bringing a gun.
    waking up.
    a distorted view.
    a random direction.
    one eye open again.
    maybe the other eye.
    we dreamed once.
    we saw who we were.
    or maybe not.
    we can deny anything our little hearts desire.
    and there comes a time to abandon all this.
    later.
    there comes a time to leave it to continue on its own.
    the machine waves from the shore.
    the machine takes the blame.
    we were flying.
    we were rising.
    we were laughing at nothing.
    we weren't thinking.
    but the world demands a price for that.
    the world demands a price for everything.
    it is not we who can bargain.
    and we must always return.
    welcome the ugly broken down factories.
    welcome the dirty trashed streets.
    welcome the dead.
    awaken my children.

    a balance met with all that is lost.
    he refuses this sadness you want him to feel.
    that you need him to feel.
    he leaves your world of such things.
    find another fool who will believe you can save him.
    who will believe that he is in need of salvation because he does not meet your expectations.
    too bad.
    another beautiful pretty boy who always smiles when he sees you.
    who does not question your holiness.
    he bows to you no more.
    he crawls away to where he can stand.
    he may never be free but at least he will no longer be captive and tame.

    the time involved.
    the development of cause.
    how much is worth what?
    what is worth how much?
    here we are.
    the big game.
    rhinoceros.
    are you still around?
    how much do you want to know?
    how much are you willing to tell us?
    crazy things like anything.
    big, bigger, biggest.
    what do we have time for?
    how short are our lives?
    but there really is no time at all outside our heads.
    or is it inside our heads?
    we forget.
    the game is played without any rules.
    we make them up as we go along.
    is this something new?
    reveling the word.
    the word reveled.
    pins.
    heads of pins.
    downtime.
    sweetheart.

    the machine roams about.
    the machine in christ.
    christ in the machine.
    the machine in itself.
    the word.
    the command.
    the machine tells itself a story.
    he sits and listens.
    he watches the machine turning around him.
    this is what always turns around him.
    slime.
    the machine creates an image.
    the image takes the place of the machine.
    one must stand apart from the image to see the machine.
    and it doesn't fit.
    you can't get there from here.
    but that's an old joke.
    faces.
    donut.
    what is between us dreaming this dream?
    following some turn of mind.
    the machine absorbing information.
    the machine searching for proof of its own existence.
    there's that word again - existence.
    he imagines what it may be.
    he imagines whether it is him or not.
    it's distracting.
    he wakes up and it's all still here.
    he is always waking up.
    whether or not he asks you to believe him.
    whether or not he asks himself to believe you.
    whether or not there is anything to be believed.
    zero.
    the balance of zero.
    the clock still ticking.
    the bomb is set.
    the secrets that are still untold.

    what is recognized?
    what crimes against humanity is he supposed to confess to?
    he's sure there are some.
    he pretends to appear among the innocent.
    but who is innocent when buying soap pays for death squads in this global economy?
    he is stuck with a poet's mind in an age when poets are dead and buried or work for ad agencies.

    there is a point between us.
    a language.
    there is a point of understanding.
    or is there?
    or do we lose our separate identities as being those who do not understand one another?
    is that so important?
    we seem to demand our right not to understand.
    understand.
    to stand under.
    who understands (stands under) another?
    not without being beaten with a stick.
    maybe this is what we mean.
    arf!
    ouch!

    he's been led to their trough of facts.
    he cannot face the facts.
    he dies of thirst there.
    he leads himself to the wild streams and springs in the wilderness.

    the simple mind.
    the eyes in the back of your head.
    we take our time.
    waiting.
    slowly.
    this is not what it should be.
    this is not what it will be.
    we've broken out of it.
    you could begin here.
    it may exist already.
    the machine forgets its name.
    he could tell you but he doubts you'd listen.
    does he even know?
    there is silence filled with sound.
    there is darkness filled with light.
    this is unless it's the other way around.
    and there is sound filled with silence.
    and there is light filled with darkness.
    the words come out so easily.
    but the words may not mean anything.
    the meaning of a circle.
    the meaning of a point.
    what's the point?
    days when we could forget.
    days when we could remember.
    days when it seemed the same.
    days when we could talk with one another.
    all gone.
    are we free?

    the sharp angel.
    the possessed thing.
    zebra.
    drowning.
    could he think anything more?
    is he being judged?
    who turns their face away?
    do you want him to join you?
    do you want him to fight on your side?
    do you want him to die for you?
    what is his reward?
    or does he just sacrifice himself because he's such a nice guy?

    a scene opens.
    maybe.
    maybe not yet.
    this on a dimly lit stage in the burning theater.
    there is a machine of some kind that cannot really be seen.
    but one is aware of it.
    someone is standing in the middle of the stage.
    this person speaks.
    person: a poem for a thousand screaming suns. a poem for you, my love. a poem from me to you. i see who you are. i remember who you are. i realize that was just my imagination. i know now that i was wrong about you. a poem about a timeless moment. when pleasure was close to pain when we touched. when that moment included eternity. a poem about me still being here and you having returned to the world. the world you told me that you hated. you wished to see it destroyed you told me. but you had no other place else to go. a poem about all that you would not doubt. a poem for a moon always changing. you are my moon. a poem for a horse. a poem for dust to collect on. i poem i leave behind. a poem in a world of walls. a poem in a world unmoved. i see and watch people staggering under great weight they carry - all that they are trying to liberate.
    the person lights a cigarette.
    person: something like some dream. something like something like some dream. was i dreaming? what can you tell me? what do you want to tell me? you tell me how fucked up your world is. you tell me of all the horrible terrible things people do to one another. i will tell you that i remember that world though it was so long ago. i remember how i felt trapped. there was no possible way to get out of it alive. i almost died there. i am sorry you are still there. i know how it is. if i could do something to get you out, i would. but how many have tried already? we can't do it for you. there is no formula. there is no plan. there is no map. you just get up and get out. be like a cat that forgets it has nine lives. what more is there to say? maybe it's that you really don't want to. i don't know.
    the person drops the cigarette and grounds it out and exits stage left.

    believing.
    doubting.
    when they become the same.
    something like big hair.
    something like rainbow.
    something like stars.
    something like television.
    something like pizza.
    something like another cigarette.
    now is the time.
    now is the place discovered.
    he wonders.
    something like a calendar of events for the circus of the correct.
    something like a formulation.
    something like a disorganization.
    something like something set in stone.

    a fool's picnic.
    a feast of brains.
    smoke on the horizon.
    something a bit queer.
    and he could say he hated you.
    and he could say that it would be easy.
    he sees you blinded by what you refuse to see.
    he sees you smiling in dumb animal ignorance.
    he writes these words to no one.
    this is gone.
    it does not exist.
    he does not remember it even now.
    he waits for it to die.
    everything he thinks, says and does is wrong.
    you know that.
    he wiggles out of it.
    it wiggles out of him.

    an event.
    a process.
    a morning as he is amazed that it is all still here.
    he thought he'd wake up dead to it.
    would it still continue without him?
    he cannot think of a reason why it would.
    he cannot think of a reason why it would not.
    a drive around the block.
    a nice time had by all.
    he hears you screaming.
    he is laughing.
    dog eat dog.
    eat or be eaten.
    take it or leave it.
    a gun.
    bang bang.
    shoot shoot.
    got 'em.
    let's eat.

    rolling.
    the machine rolling itself over itself.
    the machine spreading itself thin.
    the machine hard pushing into the soft underbelly of the human mind.
    absorbing.
    the machine grunts and moans.
    the machine licks its lips.
    the machine with wicked teeth.
    the machine with curved claws.
    the machine holds on.
    the machine with a new idea.
    the machine changing its mind.

    time passing.
    a time of time.
    time is strange.
    motion.
    not as easy or as simple as it looks.
    his words in time.
    and what thoughts they contain.
    do they matter?
    for you all is pain.

    drumbeat thing.
    over and over.
    do we march or do we dance?
    or do we just sit and tap our feet and nod our heads?
    which way?
    what way?
    all the decisions we are left to decide.
    what information are we given?
    what information is available?
    what information do we need?
    information.
    how much time do we have?
    and words are so deceiving.
    not only those making up the answers we are seeking but those making up the questions we are asking too.
    and the world is passing us by - though we make up the world.
    we must make our decisions and act.
    if we just leave it to chance.
    if we don't reason it out and plan ahead.
    if we act as others have acted in the past sinking deeper and deeper and becoming ever more entangled in the mess we continue to create out of everything though that is not our intention but it seems we cannot help ourselves.
    ketchup.
    what?
    and the queen pronounces the death sentence.
    she is greatly displeased.
    and she expects the king's men to carry it out.
    she cannot be bothered.
    and her hands must remain clean.
    god save our holy queen - mother and nurturer of all that is good.
    damn the rest.
    what?

    monday.
    just ordinary.
    come back to life again.
    the skin.
    all the sounds.
    people talking.
    the tv.
    the squeaky door.
    breakfast.
    low.
    and it was some place else we...

    not really thinking.
    not really feeling.
    anything.
    or, what?
    half in shadows.
    the judgment.
    he would not sit on the bench.
    he would not look down and lift his hand to signal his final decision.
    so you have to seek that out elsewhere.
    to go among those who watch you for signs that you do not obey.
    you are used to the whip.
    your actions only have meaning if they have approval.
    good dog.
    half in light.
    can you see him?

    it was a disguise of perfume.
    it was a smile and a wink.
    it was proper behavior.
    a flame.
    a flickering shadow.
    he remembers falling.
    then he remembers being here.
    when had he let go?
    when should he have held on?
    he remembers rising.
    then he remembers still being here.
    but there was something else about it he hadn't seen before.
    can he tell you?
    would you listen?
    what do you recognize but the hatred, the oppression, the despair?
    yes, that is all here.
    there is no other place for it to go.
    the same as there is no other place for you to go.
    there is no hell for you to push it into, bury it over, plant an enchanted forest and forget it without you falling in as well.
    give up that idea.
    where do you think that all comes from anyway?
    you must see it as part of you and you are part of it.
    to be able to kill.
    to be able not to kill but know that killing must go on.
    it will go on.
    to realize that your life is composed of death.
    to not ignore it.
    but not to hunger for it either.
    to accept it.

    little responses.
    little reasons.
    what he cannot forget.
    what he cannot remember.
    what does not matter either way.
    the joy felt that comes from something other than the absence of sorrow and pain.
    there is never absence of sorrow and pain.
    if that is what you are waiting for, you've a long wait.
    get used to the despair.
    get used to the disappointment.
    you think you have found the place in your heart and mind where sorrow and pain cannot enter and then the walls collapse and your sanctuary lies in ruins.
    again and again.
    get used that.
    get used to being betrayed by those you thought you could count on and trusted.
    get used to being betrayed by yourself.
    joy comes from something other than that but with all these things present and alive in it.
    when the saviors have ripped you off like the sucker born every minute that you are.
    when there is nothing left.
    when all your friends have reveled themselves to be your enemies.
    when everything you could possibly think of and hope for is just another dead end.
    when there are no more doors and you are trapped inside yourself in the dark forever.
    bingo!
    welcome.
    we can tell you nothing before then.
    and after, there is no need for us to tell you a thing.
    you know you know and we know you know and you know we know.
    we smile.

    out/in.
    driving force.
    violin.
    boring.
    a piece of logic.
    what does it mean?
    what do you want it to mean?
    the clocks are ticking.

    it's a thing of a thing of being.
    gotta be tough.
    gotta keep it up.
    you're expendable.
    they don't need you.
    you need them.
    when it abstracts out.
    when it splits and divides.
    when the moon is all you know and you really don't know the moon.
    the moon laughs.
    the moon is beyond your reach but you are not beyond the reach of the moon.
    when all your love has been forgotten.

    needing to be some how for some reason to be reminded of the memories of some kind of matrix of events.
    juxtaposition.
    one that leads to another.
    the politic and the social.
    wait.
    the theory of circumstance.
    the theory of control.
    the theory of theories.
    unborn.
    to follow the party line wherever the nose knows.
    the height of reason.
    the permanence of reason.
    the temple of the priests whose intellects are of superior caliber above the muddied minds of the misled masses.
    if only we knew what they knew.
    if only we could raise our heads above the clouds as they have done.
    how happy we would be.
    but poor us, victims of immoral fate.
    a play of plays.
    shall we ever know happiness?
    o' poverty.

    the death of things.
    the death of poets.
    they were just aristocratic puppets anyway.
    the emotion of the enslaved human heart yearning for freedom.
    now the new age is here.
    the drum machine can be heard.
    we're all marching to the same different drummer.

    to be the lonely man.
    to be the last man alive.
    to stand and watch the procession and parade.
    to avoid for as long as possible being taken out and shot.
    to be no one.
    to be left out in a time when heroes save the day.
    to be another face in the crowd.
    to be voiceless in the time of voices shouting down the voice of authority.
    to turn away and not give a flying fuck at the moon about anyone's salvation but one's own.
    to have no measurement of one's progress in the age of ambiguity.
    the human element.
    everyone craving contact.
    yet dreading fear of being captured by one's own desire.
    and he is pretending to be the last poet alive.
    and he is pretending to be the only one left who feels anything.
    and here he is in a bar getting smashed with the rest of the broken hearted.
    who has deserted us but ourselves?
    each of us looking for someone to spirit us away.
    and none of us fitting the bill.
    being the one.
    being the dream date.
    we all have bad breath and fart.
    we all have terrible table manners.
    we are all not what any of us expected.
    i hate you for not being my messiah.
    why can't we all just forget?
    why can't we all just lay it down?

    the sound and shape of the familiar howling at the moon.
    what are we to find?
    a witness?
    a judge?
    and who can remember our name?
    the vampire sleep.
    the cheap shot.
    no specific information.
    the slanted view of what we want to hear from what they want to tell us.
    who?
    a date.
    a brain.
    a believing.

    an open degree of the invention of definition.
    a series of disconnected connections bypassing the barriers and guarded gates rationalogic places along the frontier of the known and knowable and the unknown and unknowable.
    what we choose to decide what is to be called truth.
    what is chosen and decided for us what is to be called truth.
    what is the fundamental question?
    who chooses and decides?
    is it us?
    is it them?
    is there a choice?
    is there a decision?
    should there be?
    is there anything actually in reality to be chosen or decided?
    or is choice and decision false human concepts of an equally false concept of truth?
    or even the false concept that there is truth?
    and with truth, what becomes of choice and decision?
    does it vanish?
    does it expand into infinite possibility?
    just a few questions out of many.
    a flock of questions.
    herds of questions.
    schools and hives of questions.
    galaxies of questions.
    all within a universe that is a question itself.
    questions within each question created by questions weaving threads of questions into a tapestry of a design made up of questions questioning whole and unified yet as yet unfinished.
    questions of all possible and impossible questions one might perhaps think to ask at some point in time out of all the points of time there are.
    take a breath.
    light a cigarette.
    pause.
    reflect.
    what was the question again?
    who is asking this question?
    who has been chosen or decided to ask this question?
    who has chosen and decided which question to ask?
    and we haven't even gotten to the answer yet.

    destroying the reason and logic of it by further reason and logic.
    and who decides which is what?
    whose purpose does it serve?
    thou art.
    a trick done with mirrors.
    a mirror done with tricks.
    what appears as a beginning that also appears to be an ending.
    which do we choose to decide is what?
    which is chosen and decided for us?
    do we and they choose and decide the same?
    who does it serve if we do or do not?
    do we choose and decide together or separately?
    do we arrive at the same choice and decision?
    are we making a complicated issue out of something simple and obvious?
    something not to be questioned?
    something beyond questioning?
    who chooses and decides that?
    do we arrive at the same choice and decision?
    what if we don't?

    bringing it into line.
    looking at it again.
    or trying to somehow.
    how to find a point when there is no point other than the point we find.
    a point we place before us amid the chaos such that we may have something to believe in.
    an image.
    an idol.
    and that we continue to exchange one image/idol (point) for another that is equally of the same rigid material and supported by an equally static structure system as before.
    the what's the point?
    does this replacement of one for the other within essentially and fundamentally similar ideals allow us to see more clearly into the reality it supposedly represents?
    or does it mask and veil that reality or mystery just as much as what it replaced?
    how many things of images and idols have represented reality for us?
    do we perceive reality any different?
    the only thing that has changed is what this reality is to be called and what is to be used to represent it.
    and how many people have been killed in wars, kept and tortured in prisons, exiled and outcast in the process of this name changing of images and idols?
    so what the fuck?
    what's the point?
    what is the name other than power?
    what is the image other than power?
    what is the idol other than power?
    what is the point other than power?
    and once that power, whatever its name, is established it demands obedience and allegiance to itself and no other.
    it will not tolerate any who oppose it.
    it sees any who do as being the adversary or satan.
    so we all go back to that again.
    has this god been overthrown?
    do we worship the new gods - the names, images and idols we have replaced god with - in any different way?
    he fears not.

    so where the hell are we now?
    has he totally confused you yet?
    welcome to the club.
    what was his point?
    where and when did he lose it?
    or did he find it somehow in losing it?
    perhaps losing it was the point.