The children of that era were never quite sure why they would do it. They would voraciously consume culture by the rice-bowl, spooning it up greedily. Raptors of books and film, music and general artiness. It was as though they were wolf hunting in concrete jungles, looking for meaning in the highest, widest most convoluted spaces. They were the Pacmen of ’stuff’. Their logic was rather straightforward and seemingly uncomplicated enough; find a piece of work, strip it, bare metal, down to raw meat, devour it hungrily, rabidly, desperately, look for the next item on their never-ending nonexistent lists. Rinse and Recycle. It’s good for your health.

It was pointless consumption. Conspicuous consumption. Consumption of attempted intelligent delicacies. In their masses they would copy and share and ensure that they all had their fill, their overfill of media. A media feeding frenzy. The feeding upon. Their insatiable worsening need for more. More Art. With their endless categorization and analysis. Division and Subdivision. New Wave Electro-Bass Quasi-Folk Tin Melodies. Sub-Surrealistic Raw-Conservative Typographies. Deep as they swam, they failed to realised the lack of viscosity in their surrounds, the diminishing density, the dwindling substance in their living mediums.

Their very acts of overindulgence in cult items were the source from which this black hole (quadrant two plus two equals what on earth do you know) was bursting from. The overabundance of information and their Faustian need for knowledge was chiseling away at their cores, hollowing them out. In those instants, they did not want to stand on the shoulders of giants. They wanted to be the giants; but what they should have wanted, was an even quieter sort of grandness.

This time last year a soft spoken small person of a height four foot ten sat by the edge of the bed.

Iron held in an iron grip. Ready to rip lines, rip-roaringly along the creased, now-greaseless, handkerchief.

Glancing quickly out of a smaller window in the top right corner of the room, they followed a quick stream of yellow, dust dancing in the light against the pale wall.

The pale wall had an Outside side, and outside there lay a slightly less vertically inhibited individual sprawled stomach down, down, down on the ground.

The light glinted off the single metal bangle dangling on their hand as they manhandled the grass and attempted to sink lower than low, slower than the glinting blinking light on their limbs.

Head turned every so slightly sideways, ears pressed deep into the land they hummed and murmured, mumbled and heard a softer rumbling sound in the distance.

In that distance, during that very instance, storm clouds rode furiously inward, toward a rather more expansive person, expensively laid out on a bench with flowers in their hands.

Their gown flowed down towards the dangling difference between their nose in the sky and their thighs on the side, with the petals darkening and with the clouds now growling closer and deeper.

Their eyes shone apart as they stared down the greying light, brightly glaring back at them, and oh what a fright, as right there and then, the sky cracked open, Oh lords, Oh Heavens! they squealed as the sights began to roll in.

Roll Tape. “So where should I begin?”

I am now.here.

They spent their summers by the lake house. Not so much swimming in the lake so much as staring at it. Not really from the lake shore, so much as from atop the rain tank perched meekly on a tower to the left of the mild cabin that huddled by said lake shore.They would pull up a sound-box and sit it on a plank traversing the radius of the tank and throw some drinks into the teasingly cold water. Music would radiate from their nest, wafting over the whispering waters, tickling the trees and glinting back at the sun.

They would slink back and forth singing and chanting:

“The boat is | be gin ning to | leak a gain.

The boat is | be gin ning to | rock.

We stepped on the| boat, full |  kno wing that,

Even tua lly it would | stop.”

I would sit hidden amongst them. Under ruffly breath, breathily whispering, murmuring, mumbling:

I am not an Island, though I was in the sea.

I was not, I am not, I am a buzzing bee.

I eloped with an urchin, though I was married to the wind.

Slept on through earthquakes of sound and echoes.

Floating has now taken on; a thicker coat, velvet gloves and an ironic wink.

I dream of green blue planets, though I never learnt how to sing.

Not even softly, not in the shower and never in the Spring.

I ride upon the storm-clouds, though I didn’t see the sands.

Kept going through the night, in wait for this to begin.

Should have known,

it began.

.

“Though empires crumble to dust

and centuries lost in shadows,

the marble still sighs to the stars

‘I remember’ “

– Lover’s Gift I – Rabindranath Tagore

——————–

The weight of the memories are indescribable at best. Having a never ending depth and seem to stretch further back beyond the base of the eyes. They press upon the chest like a sleeper in the night. Sighing, softly, up rise, down fall. “Oh Remind Me,” Röyksopp infects the head with vaguely nostalgic words that echo as though they’ve always been there. These are the quiet hours, when nothing calls and the head runs dry. And full.

There are certain conversations that were meant to be remembered. They only occur so that you may retain the memory of that instance, that thought. You remember how you were both positioned, the expressions, the environment. The scent will linger in your mind, and you can swear that you can still feel how the wind rustled through the leaves on your skin on that strange afternoon. But you don’t necessarily remember the content of the conversation itself. That information seems, in retrospect, almost trivial and irrelevant. Like it was nothing but an excuse to have that memory. You may never recall what words were exchanged, or what ideas were born. And pity as that may seem, nothing can replace that ghostly remembarance. But you’ll never forget that that conversation did indeed take place. It will simply remain as one of those slipping sand memories you just keep grasping at.

Honesty; It’s the street dog that never died,

that lay afloat in the rising falling staying tide,

of floodwater stagnant, rooftops, smiled,

I played in the water, he whispers, I lied.

Away;

Staggering amounts of stardust have fallen upon large communities of hermits that sit quietly together, all alone in the vast wilderness. They were trying to remember the truth in their stories. The basis of their fabricated memories. Silently remembering. Earnestly, honestly, fervently trying. Unsettled reminiscing of all those half baked lives. Those frayed threads left dangling at the edge. The half filled vessels they forgot to tip out as they exit stage left.

After a brief holiday, I return!
Moving on to bigger or brighter, slightly or unsightly things.

A story that gives sense
(an anonymous tale I was told by a friend)

A potentate asks his wise men to compile all the knowledge in the world in one place for his son to learn. The wise men go away for a year and come back with 12 volumes. “Too long, make it shorter,” says the potentate. The wise men go away for another year and return with a single volume and once again the potentate says “too long, make it shorter.” They leave for yet another year and return with a single sheaf of paper. The potentate reads it. It has only one line that says:
“This too shall pass”

—————
– How can you know so surely who you are? – she quietly whispered. Then he took her hand and placed it on his chest and said, — Because this is real, and this, now, is where I am. – She never did understand that confidence. That staunch belief in tangible moments. Everything seemed to crunch in her mouth like smoke.

Coffee bones and glasses thin. Dancing slow and waking dim.
So many unfinished projects. Half eaten ideas slowly smelling faintly of mothballs.

Picker upper pucker up.
This is how we pick us up.
Tiny strings and shiny things.
Golden rings we thoughtlessly sing.

I think I found a better world,
In between the threads,
That held together this and that,
Just beneath our beds.
—————

She had words inscribed upon her back. Thick letters, bold and dark. Fat vowels and lengthy consonants. Voluminous text filling the gap between shoulder and hip. In silence even the quietest sounds seem as though a screaming echo. No. Screams are terrifying sounds. More like a deep throaty echo, reassuring and distant. I think that’s it.

The silences falls heavy upon my ears this night. Occasional grunts of a sleeping dog, squealing brakes and the sigh of trees come in ill-spaced batches.

sip sip. water. gulp. sip sip. water. sigh.

I watched The Fountain yet again. It was beautiful. An awning of a tragedy; of dying and death, being alive and what’s important. Reality and escapism, hopes and practicality. Still amazing. Still a crazy half lit dream.

The silence falls heavy upon my ears. The sound of silence, muffled steam. There it is again, ever so urgently, pressing against your head. Ever so firmly, willing you to acknowledge its existence. Its presence. An all pervading wisp. Silent quiet. Muffled steam.

I have this image. The music sounds and objects around me become animated. Dance! My pens slide with the guitar out of their tidy encasements. They fling themselves at the wall with the shake of a tambourine. The chairs lean back, thump down, turn on the left back leg, thump down! Down! They swing like this with the bass line. Dummmm dum dum dum dum dummmm dummmm. The lights pick up twick twack. You! On! Off! Me! Dancing!

Stop! Everything pauses as the curtain lifts up and sighs. Then Bang! The mug smashes into the wall ahead and the beat picks back up again. The keys clack clackety clack. The water bottle rolls thundering across the table plateau, the top Pop! Water swooshing, fountain cascading lighter twinkles. Pens smash into the ceiling, rhythmically and ink splatters down, pitter pattering.

And there I am, sitting watching with a strange grin, amused, elated, excited by the effect of music on stillness.

Something:

Flying Crooked

There are no more generalists. Attempts to understand Everything seem futile as the amount of information is ever increasing. Knowledge expanding. Where is wisdom. What is intelligence. How will this work.

So perhaps I was born in the wrong era. Classic copout statement.

I was born in this time. In this now. And I should live for it. Not like a long swept dream, left out by most and appearing only in crinkle tissue papered books.

This I rhyme a second word. This I rhyme on time. This I rhyme a tad absurd. This I rhyme just fine.

“He who never lives for the moment, never lives. So what of you?”

This I rhyme once more today. This a little rhyme I play. This I rhyme a lot more strange. This a rhyme about to change.

A Nothing:

I want to tell you a story. A grand tale of waving emotions and overcoats of thought. A story of odd people and strange deeds. Of kindness and unexpected warmth. Of fires in rained-on cabins and the rainy seasons in hell. I want to make you laugh and cry and pull your hair in frustration in the same breath. To coo and sigh and dream in admiration. I want to make you feel. But I have no fictitious story.

I have this.

This Bit-Flip Syndrome. This ever changing state.