When I die young . . . .

No Crueler Tyranny: Accusations and Other Terrors of Our Times

Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined. Bloodshed. Epic.

So long ago I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees

I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn
With the long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste
She always had a pretty face
I wondered
Why she hung around this place

She said it's cold
It feels like Independence Day
And I can't break away from this parade
But there's got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed
I seen the sign up ahead
At the county line bridge
Sayin' all there's good and nothingness is dead
We'll run until she's out of breath
She ran until there's nothin' left
She hit the end
It's just her window ledge

This place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn
what sounds of cheap old wine and cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn
I'm so alone and I feel just like somebody else
Man I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think her death it must be killin' me

- Wallflowers

Dedicated to me.

Love will abide, take things in stride

Sounds like good advice but there's no one at my side

And time washes clean love's wounds unseen

That's what someone told me but I don't know what it means.

Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time

Caught in my fears

Blinking back the tears

I can't say you hurt me when you never let me near

And I never drew one response from you

All the while you fell all over girls you never knew

Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long long time

Wait for the day

You'll go away

Knowing that you warned me of the price I'd have to pay

And life's full of flaws

Who knows the cause?

Living in the memory of a love that never was

Cause I've done everything I know to try and change your mind

and I think I'm gonna miss you for a long long time

Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time.

- linda ronstadt

How do I do it?

Without it I’m failing
My heart waits in the wings alone
The stages I go through
Keep coming time and time and time again
Do you wonder how I stay
So complacent
It’s like waiting for the ocean
To save you from the waves
When you’re so far under
Silent
Never moving
You’ve taken your timing
So flawless executing me
So fearless and hopeful
Can you imagine such a scene?

- Finger Eleven

All the Secrets and No One to tell

A little death

Without mourning

No call

And no warning

Baby.... A dangerous idea

That almost makes sense

- - Bono

Momentary Relapse of Reason

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

~Kurt Vonnegut

Packing things away, Life should go on - Pt iii

Jan 31,2009

The Acoustics

Sometimes I swear I can hear you, in the wrinkles of clothes, in the hum of radios, in the mold slowly forming on unused t-shirts. I swear it. It’s there in my battered, torn shoes left to dry. It’s in my phone and my computer. It’s in the musty pages of old books and in empty deodorant cans. I hear you most when I climb into an unmade bed and feel the hairs on the sheets.

It’s there when I sort the clothes into the right position and in the soft, sagging folds I can hear “It’s wrong! It’s all wrong!” in that naturally cute voice of distress. It’s in the cigarettes over coffee and in the mirror where your grumpy face lingers in a shadow before realising your feelings and casting aside all maladies in a damp hug against the door.

It’s in the songs on the pod and in the sheets upon sheets of paper folded neatly in their envelopes hidden in my drawers. The chirrup of a phone. The pixels of an image. I hear it everywhere and nowhere. I can hear your voice in all these things but what I want is to hear your voice in my ear as I fall asleep and come home from work and sit hunched over this keyboard with fingers whirring at useless, random thoughts and in my bed telling me that it’s wrong, it’s all wrong until I make it right again and you fall asleep and grind your teeth at dreams to come.

January 17, 2009

The life and adventures of Bourbon

I was in a terrible place for a while. Lets not get into the details on that, lets just say that it was a low point. The past two months have been shaky to say the least, but they’re over. Now I am back. Hello.

I made a conscious decision on Tuesday. It happened when I woke up at six-thirty instead of eight and I had almost two hours to do nothing. I decided that I don’t really want to be doing the same anymore. It’s a good image I’ll admit; sitting in bars with friends having drink after drink and looking all the more haggard because you did the same the night before. And then the night before. But image isn’t everything. Last weekend I had so little sleep and so much alcohol that most of my memories of it are gone. I can pick bits and pieces, but they’re hazy at best. I felt like I was destroying myself a little bit.

Maybe I did, I don’t know, but I decided to stop.

And that’s what Tuesday was about. Tuesday was about setting things right, with everything. And it worked to an extent. Of course not everything was fixed and who knows maybe more problems have arisen, but things felt a hell of a lot better.

Anyway, I thought I’d break with the tradition of my usual veiled entries and just come out and say it; I am alright. I’m not overly ecstatic and I’m not down and out. I’m doing fine. This means that people can leave me alone in a room without showering me with protection, but it doesn’t mean you can abandon me or stifle me with affection. I am OK.

So there we go, lets resume regular programming.

Jan 11, 2009

Mancold Martyr

I’ve been sitting it out far too long at home sick as hell for the past few days so I thought I’d recount some of the titles I’ve watched. And other things.

First up is the much too short Afro Samurai which I will thrust down people throats. The only problem that I’d bring to figure would be the appalling lip-syncing. It’s as if Samuel Jackson looked at his characters and said “Fuck it, there shouldn't be no mother fuckin’ restrictions on my mother fuckin’ lines”. So there’s the occasional weird scene when the anime character is shouting and good old Samuel is whispering something. Other than that everything was seamless. I watched it over two days with the flatmate (God bless his soul for recommending it in the first place) and I really wished I could’ve watched it in one. The animation was seamless, the action perfect. And the teddy bear samurai- I liked him better when he didn’t take off his mask but he was yet brilliant.

Another on the anime list would be the Samurai Champloo series which I’ve laughed at so many times just because it’s slang for orgasm. It’s a classic series, made by the same people and (roughly) at the same time as Cowboy Bebop, and it’s occasionally quite ridiculous. The series is a cross-genre work of media, blending the action and samurai genres with elements of non-slapstick comedy. It is also a period piece, taking place during Japan's Edo period. The series is interwoven with revisionist historical facts and anachronistic elements of mise-en-scene, dialogue and soundtrack. The series' most frequent anachronism is its use of elements of hip hop culture, particularly rap and the music it has influenced, break dancing, turntablism, hip hop slang, and graffiti. The show also contains anachronistic elements from the punk subculture and modernism, but less prominently.

Took another run at Donnie Darko the other day. I forget how much I love that flick. I think it’s not just the amazing cast, but also the overall art nouveau style and noire-ish sentiment with whip cracking dialogue that makes it worthwhile.

January 4, 2009

Untitled

Lets take a second here. Just a second.

I had a good day yesterday (if you take away the sole reason which made it not a good day, but we won’t go into that)

December 30, 2008

A Long December

A long December, and there's reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than the last

I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin'

Now the days go by so fast

- Counting Crows

Dec 7, 2008

The Dopes of Haphhazzard

I’m gonna pull you in close,

Gonna wrap you up tight,

Gonna play with the tips

that you came in here with tonight.

I’m gonna light your face,

blow circles as things fall back in place.

I can’t remember the last time I got high. I just have this one memory of one fantastic time. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe from laughing. I danced and the footage is still doing the rounds. I woke up with cotton mouth and a cut on my forehead.

Dec 6, 2008

Blot out the light and the world drops away

Morning. Slivers of light descry around the edges of the blinds and assault my eyelids. I roll away onto my right, away from the clock on the phone that digitally chips away at my remaining time. Probing fingers count the bruises on my legs, pressing each one gently until I wince. I find three new ones and one new dent where my leg had yielded against the jutting keys in the filing cabinet. Absently I pick the skin off my fingertips and count the hours to work.

I'm safe at three.

Packing things away, Life should go on - Pt ii

November 27, 2008

Untitled

So you see there’s this guy, and he’s with his girlfriend on the bus (where I seem to encounter a few interesting people these days) and they’re having an argument or a discussion or something. I can’t tell from where I’m sitting. What I can tell, right, is that the girl’s mad at the guy or concerned at the guy or something. Basically she’s the one that’s in some form of distress. Now, this damsel is giving him the works; concerned frown, short, quick gestures with her hands and a little bit of hope lingering on her lips.

The guy though - this swooping knight in shining armour that’s supposed to rescue her or something - he’s just like sitting there confused. He’s got a little frown too, but it’s a frown like he doesn’t know what to do.

I can sympathise.

November 22, 2008

The Short Life

I swallowed this little flying piece of pestilence this morning. The vermin wasn't a particularly large bug, perhaps the size of a fly or a gnat, but I'm pretty sure it was neither. The consistency was far more chewy than that of either the gnat or the fly. I suspect that a gnat would crunch under the pressure of my carnivorous jaws.

However, I know for certain that a fly would merely dissolve in my mouth, that I would barely be able to recognize that a living fly had entered my mouth and begun the long digestive trek that ends quite definitively in the digestive tracts. I've swallowed flies before, and the bug I swallowed this morning was not a fly.

I'm guessing that the thing I swallowed this morning was a hybrid of sorts, a bastard child. I don't think it could have been any other type, because this one fought like hell to survive the involuntary retchings of my throat. It probably had issues - huge, emotionally crippling issues in order to put up a fight as long as this one did. No ordinary fly would have known such coping techniques.

If the thing I swallowed this morning was in fact not this special bastard bug, but one of those unremarkable pure breds from a stable home with two supportive parents, I sincerely hope that the father doesn't come looking for me.

Note - None of the above was wanton... I have since been washing my mouth with soap, detergent, toothpaste, kitchen surface cleaners. Its a good thing I don't have to talk.

November 18, 2008

Untitled

So, I’m a room. It’s a big room, a little too big for my ..........

Oct 26, 2008

Keeping Pace

Every day the day gets brighter for those couple of minutes. Getting home from work now in the evenings is a little bit like being blind, and the only thing saving me is the high sidewalk keeping vehicles at bay. And after walking for 10 minutes, suddenly the bright light is slowly touching me - and I don’t have to be afraid for being hit by a share-rick or something.

“Hello”. It was the girl I tended to see whenever I cross the stadium. She jogs past me everyday, and for just a nanosecond our eyes meet each time and then she’s gone. But today she had stopped. And I’m standing still as well.

“Hello?” I said without really knowing why. “Um… I know this might sound strange but…. I was wondering what you are doing?” She looked so shy and afraid when she asked, almost like she’d been practising all day. “What I’m doing?” I asked shocked. Walking back to sector 21!

“It’s just that I see you on so often that I’ve starting to wonder where you’re on your way….”

All of a sudden I had the opportunity to say things like:

“There’s just so many girls in the city so I tend to use this as my area to get the work done. Selling myself here is so much safer than other places. Are you interested by the way?”

“I’m undercover. Please go away.”

“I'm trying out a new exercise regimen. It’s very secret.”

But since my mouth tends to run around faster than my brain, all I had was “Er…. I’m walking back home to Sector 21.” I said like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“But the sector is over there…” she pointed. Quite obviously, I had missed the turn. “Yeah I know…. I’m just ummm .... taking this route so that there is a little bit more light. I don’t like walking in the dark.”

And I found myself talking to a complete stranger who refuses to stop jogging even though I am walking really slowly.

September 30, 2008

When I write to haunt

Love and pithy verses you hear, say what you can't say.

All I shall have to say is, move on, and I'll stand by anyway.

From your changing contentments, what will you choose to share?

Someday drawing you different, may love be weaved into your hair.

In Another World

Another marraiage.... Another set of people that are overtly exuberant... Makes me wish for the remote controls to my life.

I'm haunted by this photograph
Don't know why
Everytime I look, I get shivers down my spine
You're such a beautiful face
I know those eyes
They take me back in time

She could be you
I wouldn't even know
She could be you
But that was long ago
She could be you

I wish that i could tell you
What you don't know
I dream about that day
But it's impossible
In another world,
I'll be yours tonight
But i can't break free from this life

She could be you
I wouldn't even know
She could be you
But that was long ago
She could be you

- Shawn Hlookoff

Natural Blues

Listening to Moby - Why does my Heart feel so bad

And I'm up while the dawn is breaking, even though my heart is aching.

I should be drinking a toast to absent friends instead of these comedians.

- Elvis Costello

Feeling my way around

Love is blindness. I don't want to see
Wont you wrap the night around me
Take my heart.
Love is blindness.

In a parked car, in a crowded street
You see your love made complete.
The thread is ripping, the knot is slipping.
Love is blindness.

Love is clockworks and cold steel
Fingers too numb to feel.
Squeeze the handle, blow out the candle
Love is blindness.

Love is blindness. I don't want to see
Wont you wrap the night around me
Oh my love.
Blindness.

A little death without mourning
No call, and no warning
Baby...Was a dangerous idea
That almost made sense.

Love is drowning in a deep well.
All the secrets and no one to tell.
Take the money . Honey.
Blindness

Love is blindness. I don't want to see
Wont you wrap the night around me
Oh my love.
Blindness.


- Bono (Achtung Baby)

Of passing on

Death has occupied my mind a lot lately.

Actually, I have been ruminating about dying at some point every day for the past 2 weeks, not in a morbid way, but more in an "Am I ready? Is there any unfinished business? How would I want to be remembered?" way, which I guess is constructive. At least, to a point.

What's not is, allowing myself to be tortured by the fear of leaving some people behind. As a new believer, I must draw the line of evaluation there. I can't give in to this distressing hand-wringing. For reasons of my own, I have been reading the Bible for the last couple of weeks.

I have always believed death will be like that dreadful moment of suspension. I cant stop but think about the unique relationship of a trapeze team. When the swinger lets go of his bar and hangs in mid-air for a split second, he has no protection. He cannot see his catcher nor control the catcher's speed or method. But at just the right moment, the swinger's "savior" arrives and whisks him to the base.

In other words, we will not be left hanging for one moment because to let go here makes us present there.

There is one particular place where Paul says, "When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow. And when you sow it, it does not have the same body it will have later. What you sow is only a bare seed, maybe wheat or something else. But God gives it a body that he has planned for it".

The key phrase is: "that he has planned for it." As the story of our life unfolds, we are safe in the strong hands of our savior and "catcher" who has planned for us to be with Him forever. Nothing can pry us from his loving grip.

But for the more Am I ready? Is there any unfinished business parts - there was this song by Seals & Crofts that my cousin sister gave me years ago that I have on looped play.

windflowers, my father told me not to go near them
he said he feared them always and he told me that they carried him away

windflowers, beautiful windflowers
i couldn't wait to touch them,
to smell them i held them closely
and now i cannot break away
their sweet bouquet disappears
like the vapor in the desert
so take a warning

windflowers, ancient windflowers
their beauty captures every young dreamer who lingers near them
but ancient windflowers, i love you

World falls down

I woke to the clock, it was five thirteen
it feels so far from where I've been.
I look around and check under the sheets
fleeting joy and then the energy depletes.
I see the bag and the clothes strewn around too
have the flowers, everything but you.
Broke the chocolates, made a smiling face
I hate it in this sordid place.
I stare and wish upon the spots on the mirror
that things weren't so and you'll walk through the door

Called my mom, she was out for a walk
comforted a cup of coffee but it didn't talk.
Looked through the paper, felt more bruised
more hearts being broken and people being used.
Sat at home in the pouring rain
saw a movie it brought back the pain.
Because it was happy and I was sad
It made me miss you so bad.

Picked up a light and then threw it down
I know you hate it when I make you frown.
Took the roses and stood in the rain
wasted your summer prayers in vain.
Picked your book up, thought I heard your sound
took a deep breath and a good look around.
Sleep walked the day till I moved to the bed
think I'm half alive but maybe I'm dead.
I cry and tell myself it'll be all right
maybe I should just think more of you tonight.

I'll go about my business, I wont do fine
I don't know what I'd say if I had you on line.
Same old story, not much to say
I've broken your heart almost every day.

And I sit in regret till the day is gone
for all the black things I have done.
The gods will have mercy, they are the blessed
as I squirm in the misery that I have wronged.
In dreams till my death I will wonder on
and wait for you there like a stone, alone.

Hic !

i seem to recognize your face
haunting, familiar, yet i can't seem to place it
cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
lifetimes are catching up with me
all these changes taking place, i wish i'd seen the place
but no one's ever taken me
hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away...

-Pearl Jam