to be excused from logic and reason. to follow lines and paths into territories that are territories only by where they are not rather than by where they are.
    to follow the heart.
    he is amazed by people's ability to suppress or nullify emotions. he also finds it somewhat frightening.
    they look for words. they let into their lives only that which can be articulated in clear language. they build fortresses of words around themselves on foundations of precisely surveyed reality. this is this and that is that. relationships are negotiated business deals and only ones are kept that show a profit. and this is called love.
    and what love is other than that he cannot state. if you don't know then you don't know and he cannot tell you.
    it is something felt beyond what is known or thought to be known. it does not make the world go 'round. it makes the world stand still integrated into where and when it is here and now without desiring more and more with ravenous hunger.
    yet few can stand still long enough for this or even want to or see this as an experience that has any worth. and in terms of things having worth or not, it doesn't. the idea of worth in the sense of gaining more than what one already has does not apply. it is the absence of needing things of worth more and more.
    they all have places to go, people to see, things to do in their busy lives they don't have enough time to live. their lives are short, not a moment can be wasted - especially on some vague useless emotion that cannot be measured or recorded.
    and all emotions spring from this one. this emotion is the primary source. all hate, anger, happiness, frustration, sadness, joy, despair, etc. are only states felt by how much or how little love is contained in them.
    and all this is written with foreknowledge that few will understand what he is writing about or even see that there is something here to understand. to most this will be dismissed as so much rambling nonsense by some misguided fool. and that is pretty much what it is. what more does one expect? it's what one expects that is lacking in what he writes. that is what he can never fulfill. he can write what is, but he cannot write what one expects.
    to be satisfied is to expect nothing. in that way whatever is is more than what one expected. that is how one's cup runnth over.
    remain in a state of laughter. remain in the light of the eternal moment.
    and how many times have we told them this in how many different ways and they still don't get it. but that's ok because we don't get it either. he's just sitting here putting down words as they come to mind. he has little or no idea where they come from or what they might mean. thoughts formulate themselves into existence - out of thin air, as it were.
    he selects them by how they feel or vibrate in the harmonics of all else than by how they may or may not make sense or not. the latter he leaves to you. that's your job. that is how you seem and appear to function keeping or discarding what comes to you by how much sense it makes or not.
    he cannot get through to them. he cannot predict what they will finally decide what makes sense or not. what methods they use to do this are a mystery to him. but they are sure of them. it's gotten them to where they are now and they're not about to let go of something that works. and it does work, doesn't it? aren't they happy?
    and that they are somehow satisfied by where they're at and where they think they're going is evident by them being there and doing what they do, otherwise why would they stay and continue doing it? but he sees nothing in it. he sees them struggling through lives surrounded by things that constantly go wrong and need constant maintenance to remain as they expect them to be. they see this as a challenge and find reward in that, he supposes. it'd drive him nuts. and he sees it driving them nuts. it puts them in such a state that we cannot get through to them. they won't stop long enough. we are pushed aside in their eternal head long quest for the land of milk and honey and big bucks that they are convinced is just over the horizon and if they hurry they can get there in time to enjoy the rest of their lives there where they want to be as opposed to where they are, where we are, where we are left behind in the wake and wreckage of them just passing through taking what they need to keep them going and when that's used up, moving on. to hell with those, us, who can't or won't keep up.
    but who invited them? we've been here long before they arrived. we were at peace and enjoyed what we had which was plenty until they showed up and began complaining that it wasn't enough and what a hellhole this place was and let's get to work and pack up and go to this other place they imagined was so much better. and on and on.
    pillage and plunder. they are no more than a pack of bandits. an army that keeps itself going by sacking every place it comes to.
    and many are those who see that if they are to survive they must join them. whether they agree with them or not, they see this as the state of affairs in this world, fair or not, that's how it is.
    and they will do anything they are told to do. they will turn anybody in or cut anyone loose - friends and family included - anyone.
    and this is where their power comes from and how their numbers grow. promises of looted treasure beyond compare if one follows their way to the cities paved with gold.
    and we can offer nothing against this. they have taken everything and hand it out to only those who obey them. we do not obey and are left to rot. we expect nothing more. we see who and what they are. we have trusted them before and had that trust betrayed. there is nothing left they want or need from us and we won't join them and help them seek out more. we are cast out. we no longer have use and will not function to the level of their expectations.
    and this is where he is. this is what he is writing and has his doubts about how much value anyone will see in it. it states nothing that supports their way of life and justification for their existence. it will not make sense to them. he sees that already.
    he sits this one out. he played a minimal part for awhile to see if anything in this world had changed from the last time he was here. he checked out the worth of reality of the grand words they chisel into their monuments of ideals they are supposed to believe in and promise.
    he found emptiness. he found himself in a void. where no feeling of love or compassion could exist and thrive. a wilderness of pain. a vacuum left from their greed. they took it all to themselves to have and to hold even though it was more than they could use and it rotted in their vaults and warehouses and still they would not let go of any of it.
    he lives now on their guilt that twists their arm just enough for those they've victimized to keep from starving to death.
    he expects nothing more.
    he has expected more. he has expected his share and only for them to hold it back from him to get him to perform tricks for their amusement.
    they play god or suppose the worldly authority of god. they figured out how the system works and used that knowledge to use the system for their own ends. they got one thing, they can get another. and in this way their greed grew exponenttially to the rabid proportions it exists as today swallowing up the whole world.
    they will gobble it all up and will keep on so until they choke. and that time is coming because there is nothing left to consume but themselves.
    they chase themselves in mad circles biting at each other' tails in terror of others biting at their own tail.
    we watch this. we wait. we are amused. we sit this one out. we wouldn't miss this show for anything.
    come one, come all, the greatest show of all time on earth. the final destruction of what was known as the human race.
    sit back and relax. the house lights dim and the curtains draw back. pass the popcorn.

    to dance on one's own grave. to be more than what's expected by oneself or anyone else.
    to play out this mad tragic comedy and to laugh in its face.
    those whom god wishes to destroy it first drives mad. and when one finds oneself as one of these selected to be destroyed and no matter how much one tries one cannot seem to escape from the madness surrounding one and growing inside like a cancer. there is finally a point reached that an exit is provided and opened.
    it comes as a joke - a riddle that cannot be solved. and one can either struggle with it until the day one is destroyed or one can walk away from it laughing.
    when one can see the god of judgment coming down from the skies. when one stands before the whole created universe and is asked, where were you when i created this? and when one stops trembling afraid and answers back, who were you before i thought of you? then that is when the laughter rises in one's heart.
    when one sees and recognizes one's sins and can get up off one's knees and stop groveling for forgiveness and salvation and just say, that's your problem, not mine. quit bugging me because i'm doing just fine. and dance away out of the reach of this god who draws its omnipotent power from our hearts and minds to feed its own head inflated by the images it places before itself to be what it is not because without us it is nothing.
    we can and will transfer the power from this god to ourselves, not to act according to its will but to our own any damn way we feel like. and no one and nothing can touch us anymore. we who are to be destroyed have accepted the madness of our fate gladly. the rest can go to hell.
    we intend to die and we can do anything. others' approval doesn't win us anything but to be enslaved to their opinions. and neither does their disapproval win us anything. we refuse to fall into the trap of defining our freedom by doing what they tell us not to do. control through externally selected channels of rebellion. who are they to say anything at all for or against us? we are beyond their limited finite comprehension of this world they cling to and get off on thinking they possess the power to control it.
    they accept only that which they rationally categorize and contain in cages of involuted self-defined and supported logic.
    they are dead. they might as well not to have existed except as an example of being what we are not. we are not them as they see themselves as this human animal between birth and death subject to all conditions thereof.
    we imagine ourselves out of that. we know well worlds they are convinced do not and cannot exist. all on the head of a pin. all out of our minds. we are out of our minds. our minds they have walled us within so they could tell us what to think, say and do. our minds on a leash of conditioning.
    we've found that the walls are mere illusion. we passed through them when we took the chance of not being able to get back. many of us haven't. there's not all that much to came back for except to gather others of our kind and take them away from them with us..
    this is it. this is the promised salvation we look for within ourselves acting as our own saviors after all others have lied to us with promises undelivered.
    we broke through it.
    we remembered who we are.
    we gaze through this world with x-ray eyes and see the inner workings of the traps set in it. we spring them on ourselves and dance away free.
    it's in our heads. they look at us and see nothing. they cross us off their lists one by one and one by one we enter the paradise they think exists elsewhere if at all.
    we laugh. they wonder what we find so funny. it's the joke and the joke is them - and the joke is us too - all of us together getting exactly what we expect and want without even knowing what it is.
    how do you feel?
    what do you think?
    we don't care anymore. we got ours and it's too bad no one can see what's in front of their face and keep grabbing for what's out of their reach.
    it's all whatever it is. we got tired of being told we had to pay for what should have been free, so we worked our way around the game until we found the position no one could touch. there's nothing to gain but there's also nothing to lose once the expectation of our infinite greed is dropped wanting nothing more as there is nothing more than this to be wanted. the gap between have and have not is closed and the anxiety that drove us away from ourselves disappeared as being the bogey shadow phantom it always was and had nothing to do with our survival or pursuit of happiness.
    people around us killing themselves and each other day by day. there is nothing we can do except stay out of it and let it all run its course and hopefully burn itself out before it annihilates everything it touches. but the chances of that are slim and getting slimmer.
    this is a death world eating its young. the smell of blood fills the foul air as the warrior kind rage in battles for anything that glitters in the sunlight creating mirage images feeding their ego fantasies clouding their view of what's real.
    and what is real? what is real is that none of it is real except what we shape together and accept as reality.
    the gravity of mass - many minds supporting one reality with the energies of their perception. what you see is what you get.
    what does he know? he gets up, goes outside, picks some flowers. before he comes inside again he looks up. a ufo hovers overhead anywhere from 100 to 1000 yards above him depending on how big it actually is. his sense of perspective is lost to the blue cloudless sky. it sits up there blinking different colors off and on in random sequence.
    his neck gets tired looking up so he comes back inside and sits down again after putting the flowers in a glass on the table.
    what does this mean? there's been so many of these things around lately. everybody's seeing them. he stores it in his memory and thinks of something else.
    what he thinks about is the rabbit that's in the house somewhere. probably behind the couch.
    he named her janet.
    he doesn't think about killing people anymore. that phase is done. pressure. always having to do something and always having to please someone else - parents, teachers, bosses, the wife. he hated them for that.
    so he finally quit. he doesn't work on maggie's farm no more. drove him nuts. he realizes now that he's been able to cool out for a year or so just how nuts he was - and how nuts most people around him still are trying to keep up all that stuff they think they need. one can see it in their eyes. one can see it the way they walk down the street nervous hurried behind time is money twisted paranoid and driving their cars in push and shove cut 'em off at the pass races from traffic light to traffic light cursing the idiots who should get off the road and out of their way while another is cursing at them.
    nuts. no doubt about it pushed past the limit condition red alert nuts. and none of them is going to be the first to question or to show any sign of weakness or doubt though their minds are screaming locked up in a padded cell down in the basement somewhere while they hold on and try to remain calm and orderly and don't panic though the whole control board is flashing sparks and smoke. they pride themselves on how civilized they are able behave on the thin ice surface they keep moving or they crack on through. don't look down and realize they're standing on nothing at all except blind faith that they're somehow or another doing the right thing though none stop to figure it out if it's really right or not. as long as there's money to be made they will do anything at all to make it. hop up on the bandwagon that makes the most noise and has the appearance of going somewhere though where it goes no one knows or cares as long as it keeps going somewhere. they'll buy into it, nevermind what it is.

    and so another day. more coffee, more cigarettes, more words to write.
    this is what he does now. he has no idea why. what value any of it might have he cannot imagine. there' more than enough words taking up space around the place. and that's just the ones that are published. how many thousand times more unpublished like these never to be read. big deal. everyone's got some sort of story to tell and all the stories are basically the same. - only the names are changed. we all play the same games. we all get stuck in the same dead end situations. we all dream the same dreams. we all imagine a perfect world existing somewhere in space and time in our heads.
    the basic structure of the human mind beating its head against the walls it sets up for itself.
    every conversation is the same. we travel the spiraling circles together with only the illusion that they go anywhere. because the plain simple fact of it is that there is nowhere (now here) to get to. a trick done with mirrors.
    he goes for a walk from the house the kitchen is part of. he walks up a path that winds through a section of the forest to where there's a meadow. in the center of the meadow, though a bit to the side, is this great big rock the size of a two car garage half buried. he climbs to the top of it where there's a flat ledge he sits on a lot of the time.
    it's mid-morning and the sun is beginning to heat the day to when it will be too hot to sit outside later except under a tree or two.
    he smokes a cigarette and imagines horses in the meadow and there they are. at least he sees them anyway. two full grown ones and a younger one but no longer a colt. one of the full grown ones is slate gray. the other two are chocolate brown.
    they stand around as though waiting to meet someone on a street corner. who could it be? whoever it is they are late. the horses seem somewhat impatient though they have nothing else to do.
    he has nothing else to do. is he waiting for someone? whoever it is they are late. he doesn't know who it could be. no one knows he's here except you. is it you he's waiting for? how can that be? he's not really here and he doesn't see you here either. but maybe we are. we could be if we wanted to be. that's how this works. we can be anywhere we want to be any time we want to be. so what if it's just in our imagination? what else is our imagination for? we must be able to imagine this for a reason. very little of ourselves is left to chance or included for no use or purpose except maybe our appendix or tonsils which only get infected and flare up and need to be removed.
    is that  what our imagination is - excess baggage that when it interferes with our health and well being should be removed?
    you make the change.
    you raise the blade.
    you rearrange me till i'm sane.
    the question of sanity. and whose answer do we believe in and trust?
    after all here he is sitting at a table at a cafe downtown being a lazy good for nothing freeloading bum who does nothing but write imaginative fantasies about things like sitting on a rock in a meadow watching some horses. even in the fantasy he's not doing nothing.
    what's wrong with this picture?
    somebody get this guy a job. about time he snaps out of this dreaming daze he's been in all his life and face reality. roll up his sleeves and do his share just like all the rest of us have to. who is he anyway? we should round up all these idle parasites and put them in work camps. what do we work our lives away for? to give these bums a free ride? no way.
    and it goes on like that in his own head. but here he still sits with nothing much more to do than this. and not wanting much more to do than this.
    he sees people digging their graves until they drop into them face first. for what?

    a lot is missing now - some good, some bad.
    he was very frightened about where his life had ended up with nowhere to go but down and down. it was almost over the edge. he could have done something to stop it but he didn't want to. he didn't care, or he didn't see anyone else really caring. he was willing to play victim to their system. another one down. no way out. he'd let it all go away. this was it.
    this had started a long time ago. he grew up in what is known as the american dream. all that everyone in this country, and in much of the world, is striving for. he had it. he was there. and it sucked. it sucked one's soul away. it was a vacuum - a wasteland of mediocrity. he knew something was wrong but couldn't quite see it. he couldn't point to it and say this is it or that is it. just this feeling about it that wouldn't go away. a feeling that what it was was all wrong - it should be different. but everyone else was so happy - or acted like they were. though he could see the cracks in their smiles. it was more of a case that one was supposed to be happy. one wasn't allowed to be otherwise because life was perfect. this was the life everyone wanted. what could be wrong with that? he could not say. he still can't.
    what was wrong for him came through when the riots started in the mid-60s. the ghettos. he didn't know what a ghetto was. he never saw one. no one told him. now there it was - ghettos. he lived how he lived while others lived in ghettos.
    he didn't understand it. all he understood was that he didn't deserve what he had if it was denied to others. how did he get it and not them? and he understood the relationship between what he had and they didn't. he had it because they didn't.
    and no one else noticed. they might shake their heads and say, too bad, but they weren't about to give up anything to change it. they had what they had and they were going to hold onto it no matter what. so they sent in police and national guard to shut it all down while they enjoyed their happy lives watching it on tv in the big houses with the swimming pools.
    he was miserable. he hated it. this was all wrong. how did he get here? how did he get out?
    the way out for him was to do nothing, or as little as he could get away with. his parents and teachers wanted him to struggle for more, to maintain the same level of success he was born into, or what they considered success. he didn't want it. he didn't want success that was measured by how much one had that others did not.
    and this didn't make sense to them, and it still doesn't. they saw themselves as having worked hard for what they had. and in some sense this was true. his father went to school - business school - and then to work every day doing what was expected of him to do in order for all of them to live how and where they lived. it was his belief that this was available to anyone who applied themselves to it. and maybe it is to anyone, but not everyone.
    there was always the story of how someone who worked their way out of poverty and attain a desired amount of success for themselves. the american dream. his folks always brought this story up whenever anyone hinted at having complaints about the system. that was their answer.
    there's room at the top they are telling you still.
    but first you must learn how to smile as you kill.
    it was wrong. but there was no way to tell them how and why it was wrong. he never could anyway.
    so he did nothing. he saw nothing to do.
    this wasn't out of some philosophic belief but mostly because he was lazy. some lazy suburban kid grown adult.
    he tried to pretend he was an artist for awhile. he made paintings, collages, drawings. music. it came to nothing. he had no ambition to make it come to anything.
    he had a few lower end jobs. he got fired a lot. he quit a lot.
    it all went nowhere.
    then it really went nowhere.
    he found himself on the street with a whole bunch of psychotic visions in his head.
    from there he managed to get to collect government checks still needing someone to take care of him. he couldn't do it on his own. oh well.
    and that's where it's at now.
    it's other people who expect him to be doing something. it's them who lay the guilt on about when he's not doing anything. they act as if he's stealing from them. and maybe he is. doesn't everyone steal from everyone else? isn't that how the system works?
    what is justified here and what is not? why does he feel that he has to justify anything he does to anyone? what is he doing that is so terribly wrong that most people feel that they cannot or should not associate with him? or is it him who feels he cannot or should not associate with them?
    he sees them all as criminal.
    they criticize the weak yet without the weak they would not be strong. that is where their power comes from.
    and this is not pointing out anything new. and he certainly doesn't have any new answers for it - except his own. he's removed himself from it as much as he can. he sits this one out.
    and as it is now he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to. of course he sacrifices a lot as there are a lot of things he cannot do if he decided he wanted to.
    but the other way around has equal sacrifice. in order to be able to do anything one might want to do one must do a lot of things one does not want to do. either way it works out the same. he just happens to value being able not to have to do anything than being able to do things.
    maybe that makes sense and maybe it doesn't.
    he comes back to reminding himself that it's just a joke. that's how one gets through it. if one starts taking it seriously then one will only drive oneself crazy - mad - fit to be destroyed.
    but many things are hard to explain that way. all the pain and suffering that goes on in the world. it's hard to keep oneself laughing through that. to let it go. to let it work its own way out if it can.
    and the pain and the suffering one feels in one's own life to varying degrees with each person. but it's always there no matter what - from crippling disease to broken hearts. pain is pretty much pain. and to say one person's pain is worse than another's is absurd. worse to who? which? who's to say?
    and to feel no pain is to be a zombie who exists in space and time and nothing more - soulless.
    to have a soul. and why is the soul measured by pain, or seems to be? his soul seems to be. but maybe that's just the measurement he puts on it. perhaps he should learn another way. measure it by joy. how much the heart is gladdened by experience instead of how much its shot down. reverse polarity.
    this is where the joke comes in handy and remembering that that's all this all is. right? do you remember that? does he? can he?
    there's always acid. that's what gives it to him. there are no answers. there's no inner reveled truth. there's just laughter. there's just the punch line. he needs that for now.
    and he tries to remember that between the times he takes it. he tries to feel and remember where that laughter lies within him. to be able to release it on his own. sometimes he can do that. many times he cannot.
    that is what these words search for - both for him and for anyone who might read this. if he can find it and bring it to another. if he can make them or allow them to see the joke and to laugh. if he can remember that and remind himself and them too. if these words, whatever else they may or may not be, can do that then they're worth something after all.
    and likewise and vise versa, these words, even if they somehow contained the deepest wisdom and highest truth, if they do not revel the joke and produce laughter in us then what are they then?
    if these words do not result in laughter - burn them. forget they were ever written. they are more than useless, they are harmful and dangerous.
    as the dada-ananda has thusly spaken: if you take what  i say seriously, then you have a worse problem than i have.
    and that is the case here now. and it's not that he is not serious about what he writes down about, it's just that it shouldn't be taken seriously - heavy seriously. no long discussions about the exact nature of everything and what's to be done and not done and who's responsible for this and who's responsible for that. don't let any of this end up there. not that that can't be or shouldn't be a process of it, but don't forget to laugh at the end of it. don't take that serious road. there's nothing there. he's been there most of his life pondering the absurdity that is beyond pondering. sinking into the pain of it. it's nothing and nowhere. a void of meaninglessness.
    the only thing that saved him was being able to pull up out of it and shake his weary head and laugh. laugh at himself most of all - the biggest fool stumbling over his own feet falling flat on his face. no fun at all. he fell right over.
    otherwise he fell into the deepest darkest despair about it where the only thing that made any sense was to destroy it all. he imagined somehow some day finding this mad god who created him and the rest of it and spending the rest of eternity in nirvana bliss strangling it. killing the god who cannot die forever.
    some fun - huh?
    now he imagines just glancing up when it comes out of the sky with all its all powerful end of the world fireworks display and casually thumbing his nose at it and going on his merrie way. leave it guessing.
    but these are idle thoughts he plays with within the devil's playground. don't mind him. it's nothing.

    he dances through this without a clue. he bumps and crashes into other people and things upsetting their calm orderly existence. get out of here until you learn to behave yourself, they cry and shake their fists or sometimes very nicely try to explain that although they think he's a very nice unique and special person, and they're not really saying that he's not, and he shouldn't take this the wrong way but it's just that it's somehow or another very irritating to be around him and they're not saying they don't like him or anything but they just need their own space and they're sure he needs his so... don't go away mad, but please just go away.
    and to say that doesn't hurt would be a lie. but facts is facts and all he can do is to dance on thumbing his nose along his merrie way - as merrie as he can make it.
    after all, we must remember here that it's just a joke. he's just not about to have the joke played on him. he who laughs last, as they say...
    let them guess what he's laughing at. let them continue on with the horror of their mindless destruction upon each other and themselves. he's laughing at it all. let them continue in their hell that they create. he'll dance on their graves as well as his own.
    break china laughing.

    he is inspired by madness to heights of doubt that it will not be him who is destroyed but this god who would destroy him who is destroyed. he stands on this mountain and dares tread upon this holy ground without falling to his knees but to raise his voice and call down heaven and call up hell and all that reside in both. to call to this earth all the angels, demons, gods, goddesses, whatever spirits and powers there are - to call them here to finally overthrown the oppression they have held on the human race - the oppression the human race has held on itself. he doesn't care. it's enough. it must end.
    this is the place and time. he no longer is interested in hearing long winded explanations of reasons why things are the way they are or moaning excuses for why it cannot be changed. he is tired of it all. he is sick of it all. from his own pain to the pain of whole peoples throughout the history of our kind. whatever this is or is not it must end and end now, not in some prophesied never never time. no more carrots held out of our reach so we pull the cart on an endless uphill treadmill toward a place that does not exist. nothing exists but here and now. and if this ain't it then to hell with it - push the button and put the whole goddamn thing out of its misery. how long are we going to drag this out thinking that if we struggle through another day we'll get there?
    what a bunch of shit. just mouths making all sorts of noise so we don't stop and think and realize that we've been ripped off by those who have told us they're taking care of things and don't worry since day one.
    who invited them? where did they come from? it's time we told them where to go.
    he has no idea how this is to happen. he just declares that it will happen. he knows this. he doesn't know how or why he knows this but he just does. the rest is up to the others. it's them who have control of it who let others use that control or get them to use that control against themselves.
    he laughs. he laughs at it all. he gets the joke. he's twisted his brain inside out all these years to figure this all out and he finally did it. he's read ahead to the last page and he knows how it works out and it works out just fine. we all get our share of the pie in the sky. the others need to figure it out for themselves. unless he's smarter than them, which he's not. he just took the time and energy to work on it in his head while they were all chasing after a stick called success beckoning to the master's voice doing exactly what they were told even if they thought they weren't - doing the opposite of what they were told. that's the oldest trick in the book. reverse psychology. people fall for it all the time.
    unless he is completely mad - which has occasionally occurred to him himself and whoever he is this time around.. and he is. don't believe him. put this down. don't you know better? he's a fool and he's fooling you. he'll take you down the first chance he gets. he's the last person you should trust. as if trust has anything to do with it.
    and he comes to you in your dreams. he stays awake while you sleep. he casts his spells. he comes as a thief in the night. can you guess his name? he is perhaps a man of wealth and taste. who is he? who writes these words and doesn't care if anybody reads them? stay away from this guy. he's nuts. he's flipped. no telling what he'll think, say or do.
    he'll consume you. he'll eat you alive if you don't watch out.
    he sits here alone at night going madder and madder. he watches your dreams. he steps into them. he slips into the psychic spacetime of the underlying reality you think of as fantasy and imagination. madness. insanity. delusion.
    go on - think what you will. who knows? maybe you're right and he is wrong. but what does that give you? your real life world of pain and suffering. and you convince yourself that this is human fate - that as human you overcome the hardships of your real world and triumph or merely survive to struggle another day.
    if that is what you want - fine. you can have it all and good luck to you and yours. as far as he's concerned, you're history - obsolete - has beens of human evolution that can't see past your nose and jump at your own shadow. afraid to become the gods we truly are. afraid to step off the edge and fly for fear of falling.
    and you laugh at him, this throwback who still believes in childish dreams of candyland paradises. you laugh at his ignorance and naivety. he laughs at your lack of faith in doubt. you cashed it in for trinkets and gizmos. you sold the farm for a handful of glittering generalities, a plastic credit card, money in the bank a computer tells you is real. your reality is a joke. your reality is the joke.
    he laughs it away away as he wishes himself into the wild and free spacetime of imagination. he comes and goes - and soon he will just go. he'll pack up all he's wanted and send it home. he'll click his heels and follow. and all will vanish that's left behind.
    or maybe not. he doesn't know and doesn't care. you'll see him and he won't respond to any name you call him - except one. do you know what that name is? can you guess?
    rumpelstiltskin perhaps. late for dinner. hey stupid! hey you! wake up! you're pissing all over yourself. jesus!
    he's just someone else who's gone off the edge. backflipped into his own head. someone else to pass on by on your way to wherever it was you were going. do you remember?
    he remembers. he remembers the future you've forgotten. the future you've convinced yourself or allowed yourself to be convinced cannot happen. and it cannot. it cannot be reached by the path you follow - logic and reason - words that make sense - definitions of this and that - your world divided apart by all that cannot exist together - where love is a word used as if it meant nothing at all. do you know its meaning? do you think he does?
    he does not. and he does not know if you do or not. if you do you keep it well hidden in a secret place to yourself. as does he.
    let him repeat that he knows nothing at all about anything, least of all love.
    he is just another damaged product of your mad machine that spits out generation after generation of defective useless whatever it is we are who live out some absurd life and then fall over dead. love? you've got to be kidding. he knows greed. he knows it as well as you do. and you do know no matter how well you think you disguise it so no one suspects that is what you truly serve. as do we all. as does he.
    all he knows about love is that it is the only thing that counts. however we are to make it, to work things out between us, individually and among the nations, love is the key ingredient. without it all we think, say and do is bullshit and will only lead to our destruction sooner or later. and without love what is the point in later rather than sooner - or even now?
    when do we begin? what are we waiting for? what are we afraid of still? - that someone will laugh at us? he is laughing already. how about you? he knows what it is and what it is not, and this ain't it. he doesn't know what one calls what's going on here now but it's totally useless to him. it's a joke. all the noise and hoopla and the parades and flags and money made and the wars still being fought and the knowledge compiled and taught and the dream vacations and the houses and the cars and the boats and airplanes and the fashion clothes and the concerts and tv and movies and walks in the park and camping under the stars and romantic moonlight nights and beach parties and promises kept or broken and food and drugs and songs on the radio and on and on and etc. and then some - all of it, everything we as humans do and have done and continue to do generation after generation from the most crowded cites to the remotest jungles is all diddley squat to him if it don't got love, baby. and you call any of this that is love? he may not know what love is but he knows what it's not. and this it's not. not with the pain his heart is putting out it's not. not when he has to think of things to keep himself from flipping out of his head from all he sees around him. keep that "love" to yourself. he's got enough to deal with as it is.
    and in the absence of love there is always acid. it's the next best thing. and in the absence of acid he keeps as far away from the rest of you as he can. he sits this one out. whatever keeps him laughing.
    he always knew he was on his way out. and he always wanted to go out laughing if that was the way it was going to be.
    he almost didn't make it. he almost went out screaming killing spree smashing his way through the walls closing in. but he didn't. not that it matters. just more statistics. a headline story to sell to the suckers born every minute. stay tuned. pay attention. details after this commercial break. suck it all in and let it suck you all out. buy! buy!! buy!!!
    but that's history now. bygone days of yesteryear. he's ok now. just stay out of his face and he'll stay out of yours. just because we're born on the same planet doesn't mean we have to like each other.
    oops - gotta go. i'm late. you know, places to go, people to see. but it was great seeing ya. so long. good-bye. hasta linguine. peace. have a good one. go to hell. fuck off. good riddance to bad rubbish. thought he'd never leave. what's his problem anyway? is he on something or what? what'd he keep laughing about? gives me the creeps. they oughta keep people like him off the streets. never know what he might do - or say - or think - or be - or imagine - or what.
    and so it goes. and here he is, whoever that is. let's see, where does he want to be? spin the wheel. let's see where we land this time...
    where are we going? he'd ask.
    crazy - wanna come? his dear dead mother would reply. it was a joke she taught him. he learned it quite well, don't you think so? maybe yes. maybe no. actually he's just faking it to keep from having to get a job, to keep from having to deal with all the others and their circus world. he's perfectly sane and don't you forget it for a minute. other wise... well, nevermind that for now. maybe we'll get back to it later.
    what?
    who?

    and if the band you're in starts to play a different tune...
    and all on like that. what is it when you can't seem to touch anyone? when it all seems so incredibly far away. when everyone has let you go.
    you go to your room and close the door. or does one leave it open hoping someone will come in? maybe this time...
    but no, life isn't like that. we're not living in a fairy tale here. this is reality we're talking about. cold hard reality where nothing moves from where it's supposed to be - precisely defined between what is this and what is that. one cannot be expecting things to go like they do in one's head - in one's imagination. that's insanity. and insanity is a disease. remember that. remember who you are, where you are, when you are. remember what's expected of you, what demands must be met before anyone will have anything to do with you. or else one is lost. gone with the wind coming through one's window. adrift with whatever one has managed to grab onto when one went overboard.
    was one swept off by a wave? did one jump? was one made to walk the plank? it doesn't matter. maybe the whole ship went down.
    i see that we meet again, the old man said waiting as he walked in and sat down in the same chair next to the fire. i knew you'd be back. i tried getting off this damn island myself years and years ago. what for? what's out there? a raging storm on a sea of faces of people you don't and can't know and who don't or can't know you.
    it can't really be that way, can it? he asked.
    why not?
    i don't know. i mean, they do it, don't they?
    i don't know either. it seems that many of them do, but look at what it costs them.
    what?
    themselves. it costs them their own damn selves.
    does it? how? you mean as opposed to this, sitting in my head with you?
    the old man laughed. what else is there? if you don't like it then have another go at it. i don't care.
    maybe i can do both. that's why i'm writing this.
    you can try. you want to read my notebooks? i've got almost 300 of them.
    not now.
    of course not. not now. not ever. why should you read them? i don't.
    yeah, i know. i don't read mine either. but i'm going to rewrite them someday. go through them and write something someone might read. have you done that?
    i started a few times.

    and a space of real time passed. he dropped the hit. real time?
    the occurrence of logic. the time apiece. flags.
    and what happens then as we follow the mission of our lives toward ends we cannot imagine? he is thinking of something else now.
    and what sort of idea do we imagine? people in boxes. hope. the scratching noise.
    random sense. again the occurrence of logic. and he speaks of something else. how does it work? we are in rhythm. we lose ourselves to ourselves again and again over and over - non-repeating.
    he tries to envision this model of it. events. he sees these soft gears like almost shaped of or by water flowing past him now as he flows past it - or with it and it with him.
    no - that seems to be what at least part of the problem is. non-alignment. he broke a mirror tonight in a performance he did. it was the most logical deduction he could make though he acted without it - or perhaps he means here that it acted without him. something like that.
    and he knows this seems to be maybe a confusing way to go about any of this, but it is the most direct he can think of. it is direct in being attempting to be directionless. and wait a minute here, is he lost? he has found his way here to this moment of his life as though maybe it was supposed to happen. was it?
    at what moment does anything occur? the decision rests in what perception of occurrence there may be or not.
    yet this too is not the issue we are trying to be dealt with. we seem to somehow undermine the conclusions - or maybe it's not us but the conclusions undermining themselves.
    a fool - to be. an atheist believer in everything in doubt being in the form of all, one or nothing. an answer does not permit anything to follow. we must find our own way from there.
    we dream again, always forever.
    and while this his brain does juggle his heart lies shattered somewhere. no - not his heart, but himself. where does it go? will it take us there where we are here now?

    and today's poem is this:
    he sits here.
    here he sits.
    all thought that has come before and that of it he has been able to capture with words.
    this is what that is like. last night we were in the park and who in the park with us were two men with butterfly nets. so this is what it is like. and perhaps this has been thought of before but anyway he just thought of it now again.
    this is analogy. be careful.
    think of butterflies all around in the air or resting on flowers. now think of a man with a butterfly net capturing one butterfly. and he brings it home, lets it die and he pins it to a board with other butterflies he has captured.
    this is what writing is like for him. his thoughts are butterflies and he goes through his mind with a net and capture ones he feels typify those uncaptured. he lets them die and displays them on paper with ink as words.
    and it's such that these words are no more his thoughts than the pinned dead specimen in a display case is a wild living butterfly.
    something like that. it's sort of like that and sort of not.
    but how else is he to state this is what i am thinking anymore than the man who collects butterflies is to state these are the butterflies i saw in the park?
    of course one could go to the park and see them for oneself. or maybe one has seen them and seeing the ones in the display case reminds one of seeing them. and perhaps some of his words are like that. reminders of what one is thinking or has thought.
    but suppose there are butterflies on display from places one has never been. what does one imagine then?
    and the words he writes from places no one has been. he's never seen anyone. they just walk on by.
    and what is any of this worth? dead butterflies. dead words.
    but besides that today he is thinking of places he's been before too many times and places he's never been before.
    he checks how he feels. emotions. they come and go. he must remain. he cannot move. he cannot allow himself to be carried any which way by whatever chemical tides ebb and flow through him.
    not in this world. he keeps thinking some other world in the place of this one. or something like that.
    the walls remain intact through it all. boundaries - lines drawn between us. this is me. that is you. never the twain shall meet.
    and is he better yet? perhaps not. just trying to stabilize here. become amused.
    everyone can go to hell. he remains. he watches the tide take them away - someplace else. does he care? he cannot. he cannot allow himself that weakness, what he must consider weakness. whether it is or not doesn't matter.
    just faces. just someone else out of all the someone elses. no more or less than someone starving to death somewhere. does he care? can he care?
    he has tried to think of ways to stop this. he cannot. he can only stop himself from caring.
    someone lost. what is that? a common everyday experience. hardly high priority on the list of what's fucked in this world. who does he petition? who would listen to his case? forget it. live out his life as though nothing happened at all. how silly to think that being with someone is anything to be valued. wipe it clean. push the clear button. program does not compute. crashes all the time. error.
    an obvious defect in the human design. does not function. edit. cut. retake.
    how can he think of this any other way? to remember with fond memory makes him sick and wanting more.