Freedom Rights, For Seagulls

Did you know that seagulls are racists?
Brown against white
Turf wars spill out before me on the banks of the English Bay.
Light against dark,
and a small territory,
of an invisible square.

Do you think they would kill him?
If he continues to refuse?
The imposed order of things?

Scatter

Horizon clouds
Like snowbanks from the shore.
Drift-less puffs of cold steam.

Free will,
the power to surprise.
Sailing ships in the sky with rotary blades,
cuts the power.
And blankets the atmosphere.
In and out,
out and in,
in and out and in and in and in. . .

The endless struggle.
Factory workers of the sky,
dropping bombs of water,
into steam.

It ends here.
The beginning and the end ends
In all moments,
As this moment is.

White fought back.
The larger of the darkest having gone,
he picked a protegee brown to unleash his repressed emotions on.
His relinquished territory reclaimed in the name of opportunity,
Like all good things.

Though it may remain a question of personality,
not consciousness. . .
I can't prove the gull is angry.
I can only argue he has the capacity to be.

Water wind is always remarkably cold.

Ground pepper shores.
And salt washing constantly inwards.
Spice of the earth,
Below my feet.

And now the sun.
The passage of time unbearably bearable.
Is this all there is too it?
Just a request?
And a promise,
That tomorrow there may, be?

Smoky processed pork, does not feel as good as it smells.

Mum, you're son's going to remember this forever,
Days at the beach,
At least somewhere in his mind.

I remember feeling safe like that.
The cleanliness of security,
It washs perceptions dry
Through a wet wind.

This will always be an experiment,
this will always be guttural.
It's how I was trained.
Yes, you should do well,
But how do you feel?

Oh the places you'll go!
Forgot it was a metaphor,
and lost it's own subtly,
along with mine.

But here I am.
Not quite alone,
but wishing I was
at least out of range.

Are you supposed to swim in this?
Doesn't seem right. . .
How does he know?

Speed boats across the elastic tundra
knows not that I am here,
Nor what it is speeding towards.
All he can say is brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. . . .
Which I interpret to mean,
I love you.

Harold.
You're a good man,
if just a bit broken.
I think age might age you - but I'll never know.
Thanks regardless,
For all the fish.

The oppressed seagull thanks you too.

Some Thoughts - In Transition

I don't know how to pull back any further. I'm trying to let go but I feel entranced by my own past. Time is a nightmare moving into the future - keeping no secrets. I hold on, on, on. Past the point of no return, past mere logic and into sleep. Past these dead desires that manifest in purchases I'm too dumb to see. My hands are old. Sinew rigidity. They look like my mothers, they remind me of my father. As everything falls out of place I expect something; and as anyone can tell you, that is my first mistake.

I expected you to call – earlier. I expected to get here – earlier. I expected something – different. Only the mental space between here and there and its passage will alleviate the guilt, the confusion and the lies; I've told myself.

Feeling mostly narrow now. Narrow mind, narrow eyes, narrow steps. I keep shaking my head and taking deep breaths, I keep working through. But except for a temporary understanding between me and the universe I generally remain unavailable. I remain closed and struggle through the dirt to follow up to the surface, the cracks of light I see through the muddle.

I felt more myself at home, in love with the idea of leaving. In love with the fact that I had met my own escape. The psychological worst case scenario come true – I'm trying to run away from myself. Running from these thoughts and the perpetual sense that I am in some way being undersold on life. That there is something in the world and it is saying I. . . CAN'T.

But it is my own shadow. I see that now. My skin, my own boundary and all the fucked up miscreants inside that flow like clockwork. My body factory. Squish, squish – snap. Squish, squish – snap. Snap.

And there it goes.

It's dark outside and you're too afraid. Have to impress somebody. Have to make good on the promise to yourself that you won't deny how much you LOVE . . . EVERYONE.

Bullshit. Love is like blue cheese. And just like love, some people will get that. And some people won't.

But I get it. Loud and clear – coming in like the bloody bells of Notre Dame. BING! Time to move. BING!! Let's go. BING! Faster now. BING! Pushing forward. BING! Ceaseless. BING! Careful. BING! Watchout. BING! BING! BING BING! BING!

Fire's out.

Feeling hollow.

Oozy, doozy brains. Shhhhhh. Shhhh. Quiet now.

I will complete the puzzle. I will manifest joy. I will attempt at living. I will die.

Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.

I will complete the puzzle. I will manifest joy. I will attempt at living. I will die.

Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.

I will complete the puzzle. I will manifest joy. I will attempt at living. I will die.

Shhh.

Stanley Park

New video from my long afternoon in Stanley Park. . . apparently I make video's now! haha

http://www.youtube.com/user/thewonderemporium?feature=mhum

Moving to France

So at the end of this week I am moving to France for a year. But in the meantime I am in Vancouver, BC enjoying the uniqueness that is the westcoast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1vgTo7VGnM

More to come. . .

Seattle Etc. . .

There’s a strange dimness to the light in a City where it always rains. As this languid night spills out before from this top floor Seattle hostel I notice life begin to come into focus. No longer bleary eyed and staggering through routine I look around, and bite down.

I cannot begin to understand why I am spurred so into darker and darker tunnels. Alice, the white rabbit and I, spinning, spinning toward infinity, crashing casually into the darkness and laughing all the way down. At the bottom, through the tiny, giant door and from across the room she looks at me; the lesbian on the lower bunk. So I write her away. Words hit the page like bullets exploding fear into tangible, edible bits. Shrapnel, battleship battalions lay in a wake of creative ruin on empty white space.

Finally, I feel it.

I am here.

I am here.

I am here.

I place the world upon the page and it is defined away; my poetic justice.

In this common room all the languages of the world commence and fall apart on my ears. It’s a hot bed of narcissists, refractories, languishers and hooligans. Wayward children lost in a mess of concrete, looking for the last frontier of affection, looking for someone to pass along the minutes in loudness - drowning. Choking in street side noise and going down in the spatial discombobulation experienced as the lost, in a generation of losers. The husk of a patrician cob thrashed off for the more valuable internal structure - kernels in perfect rows. Unstated fears sweep like marine tides in and out, in and out and playful around the thoughts and minds of a few kids trying to get home. Home. The allegory for my sadness. The end of a rainbow, always in my peripheral.

But we can't go home. Not really. Our homes are just old families with new lives. They do not hold us but in a photograph on comfort side furniture. Whether they left us, or we left them, there was point of no return. A point when the promise of something more mocked us into this gasoline fueled hiatus. That promise mocks me now; from the street, through the window and into the space stained sheets of this hostel bed. Sadness mocks me. Anger mocks me. And this city mocks me with its potential. And mine.

I grind the reality of this place like dirt between my teeth. Pumiced and chalky it pastes between my gums. It tastes and sounds like a place where things began in earnest, rather then in vain, like the marketed wonders of cleaner avenues. Cold open markets splay out in front of me as I watch the eyes, of people watching things. I watch their mouths, lazy gum worms form audibles that pass redundantly, repetitively through weather, children, decorating, banks, doctors; weather, children, decorating, banks, doctors; weather, children, decorating, banks, doctors. These days beat away like a loose snare and, as clichéd as it sounds, Grunge does makes sense here, even if it is 10 plus years gone.

These streets are a migraine. Macaroni and cheese. Chalk silhouettes of artistic trials on long sprawling outdoor shelves. Bacon, boxes, lilies, doorknobs, doorstoppers, door-hangers, odd sods, whole loaves, half buns, panini’s, crepes de banane, ripe oranges, perfect grapes, warm pies, dates, fruits, figs, wine, beer, truffle oil soup - mannequins in a street side masquerade. Layers and layers of things and rings and ideal idleness. This City sinks and is lifted, not by spirit, but by the noise of its own existence. It thinks. This City thinks. . .

Jumping Snowflakes

Something happened last night.

These gigantic, feathery snowflakes fell coating my small universe in a deep sugary paste. They weren’t your regular snowflakes. They didn't fall with the same razor like precision. They floated adrift, almost flying on their own, like big fluffy clumps of pollen. . . or cat hair.

I used to regularly make up metaphors as child about the natural phenomenon around me. The willow tree magician, the sewer ditch river that went on to a land of endless playground equipment and no bedtimes; if I could just sneak between the grates. I remember no other time feeling more grounded, more sure of myself, then with my bear feet in purple rubber boots dug deep into the murky, mushy creek bottom . My immortality against the current, the water washing in over my rubber toes. Within the imperfection of nature there is a symmetry, a feeling of creativity. My Papa taught me that every time he lifted me up to drink raindrops from the pine needles, or pulled to the side of the road to listen to the sunset whippoorwills in silence.

What do we see, when really look at the life around us? Only in childhood do we ever have the presence of mind to really allow ourselves the time to sit in a stream of thoughtless contemplation. I have had almost a month now to do nothing but allow my thoughts to drift and wander. To tap into the thoughtless. Giving myself permission to not worry, to not concern myself with that which is beyond my control and especially that which is not within the realm of what contributes to my happiness. Now, winding down to the end of my self-prescribed exodus I have a renewed anxiety. I have learnt that there are two kind of happiness. That which is extreme, a fleeting joy, a hyper feeling, a busyness in your gut. And that which is a contentment from being ok with what you are. I wouldn’t say I have been overly happy this last month. I wouldn’t shout my joy from the rooftops or go running through the street hugging, loving and exuding. But something of a quiet whispering pride has appeared. It sits and warms in the pit of my soul. It spills slowly towards laugher and spurs me out of bed early, when I have nothing to wake up for. It dulls my material needs, when I have nothing to satisfy them with. It is a bedrock of self knowledge that has nothing to do with ‘knowing who I am’ and everything to do with being happy with the fact that I am.

I don’t want to lose that again.

But how does one simply get off the proverbial band wagon? Without ending up homeless, poor and half starved? Is there some compartment, some private berth on this train that I can find a sense of contentment in? Because all I see right now is a giant ceaseless steam engine; and the world passing by my window.

I want to jump off and roll in the dirt. I want to jump off and climb up mountains and run down hills. I want to stay out late and wake up early. I want to hear the sound of my own heart beating, not because I’m running on a treadmill to obtain some kind of pre-prescribed physical perfection, but because I’m exerted from wandering. I want to be challenged, not in a way that forces me to work through what I hate, but in a way that forces me to listen. I want to be humbled, I want to be awed. I want sand in my shoes and wind in my hair. I want to see the stars again.

I want to jump, but I'm not sure where I’ll land.

So with one toe over the edge, I peer at the ground swimming past me.

And wonder how much this is going to hurt.

Still Not Sure

Love, absolution, abstraction, contemplative bargaining. Oh! Life! You strange, misinforming torturous beast!

There are somethings that are easy to write and something that are easier to say. Then there are those things that make no sense whatsoever. The abstract intangibilities that elude us, even on a good day. Why do we feel sad? Angry? Misanthropic? Why do we judge? Why do we fail? Why do we fail to fail? Why do we settle. . .

There are many things to feel heartbreak over in this life. First off it doesn't make any sense. The few have much, many have less and even more have nothing. We rely on institutions to raise our children and then to occupy us as adults. Prideful, bashless little miscreants run around building, bombing, expanding, exploiting and condemning without any clear purpose, directive or end. There isn't much to believe in and even less to trust.

Sure we can make some kind of generic claim about love, fantasy, creativity or commonality. Use it to determine some kind of defined boundaries for our fledgling consciousness, but this surveyor is in supreme doubt that something so simple, so incredibly humanistic, could really hold any real value in the broader context of the universe. Not that we need to live with that 'ultimate' truth hanging over us constantly, but the point I'm trying to make here is that if you think about it, it does all really seem to be completely irrelevant.

Now with the pile drive into nihilism out of the way let me share with you some of the things that have given my life meaning over this fairly difficult couple weeks.

- Writing. My longest friend and most faithful companion, once again you allowed me to focus in and express the depths of agony, trist and joy. Without you I would be truly lost.

- Unexpected Love. The sharing of a dormant feeling from an unexpected source. While painfully transient when determined under truthful circumstance, love is surprisingly infallible. What a thing to be reminded of.

- Humility and Honesty. Not always my greatest attributes and not very easy for me to allow to shine through. I trusted someone with it and they didn't fail me.

- Beethoven, Woody Allen and Anthony Storr. Specifically the string quartet in C# minor, Cassandra's Dream and the book Solitude.

- Chocolate Milk. You may have been my friend longer then anything else. Thank you for remaining so delicious. I love you.

- Exercise. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly everything fades away two miles into a great run, or half way through my yoga class. Thank you endorphins.

So while I delight in reliving these simple pleasures, I am remiss to try and use them to bludgeon out some kind of an answer. If we are to believe Jung, there may not ever be any such thing anyways. As he once said, ( paraphrasing) self actualization is the journey your always on, to the destination you never get to.

In this chaos, this absolutely random seeming gyroscope known as earth, that may be the only real truth that we can take any absolution - no matter how far you get, no matter how much you may believe you know some part of yourself, or life or another person, the only certainly is the uncertainty and the doubt. There is no right answer. There is no 'right' path just as much as there is no perfect career, wife, husband, child, friend or pursuit. It is a messy combination of all of these and none of these. Of trying and failing, of failing to try. Of the lowest lows and the highest highs. Of getting up the next day and trying all over again, even in the face of absolute futility, because you need to live. And you need to know.

What else can really be said? Don't need too much, don't think too much, don't set yourself up for failure by listening to the TV. Go outside, take deep breaths. Chew slowly. Be kind. Listen. Use your body. Use your mind. Don't be afraid. There is nothing really that remarkable about being human anyways . . . or is there?