Dimentia's Cure...

Fill the crevices of the brain with the fine putty of prescription drugs.
Line the personality with sugar coated behavior bubblewrap.
Leave living to those that can stand being alive.
Reality not satisfying?
Tune into the media.
Feel hopeless and apathetic?
Pick up an addiction.
Danger to ourselves?
Invoke Darwinism.
A danger to others?
Bounce your way to the rubber room.
Turn the knob and feel the morphine drip.
Calm yourself my pet.
Count backwards from negative one.
Walk through the threshold.
Each step further distances you from your own mind.
Let existence become linear.
Tunnel-vision toward the kaleidoscope future.
One pixel at a time.
Breathe deeply into the mask.
Feel your head lighten and lift.
Look below to see your body float away upstream.
Head bobbing in the waves.
The itch has become a tingling numbness.
Buried in the sands of time.
Don't squirm you'll sink quick.
Walk the tightrope above the valley.
Bite down on your rubber doggy toy.
Sit, stay, good boy.
Now you may feel a bit of a tingle.
ZZZZSSSHSHSHHSHSSHHHZZZZTTTTTT!
Don't worry I'm a doctor, I know what I'm doing.
Increase the voltage.
Dim down the lights.
It's too dark to find yourself.
[sigh]

Explosion...

When you're young your growth is more of an explosion. You learn at geometric rates. Exposure is in the fast lane and when you learn to learn you start to believe that you can accomplish anything if only given the chance. The world, in a general sense, appears simple and making a mark is only a question of when; there is no if. You wait for that opportunity, but for some reason, it doesn't knock on your door.

The explosion wanes and when the dust settles you find pieces of yourself strewn about and quickly starting to erode in the harsh environment of the real world. The hypothetical is much more appealing. It's clean, it's pure, it's uncorrupted and fresh. But then the outside elements are introduced: time, desire, doubt, urgency, priorities, etc... This is the dust settling, concealing those nuggets of knowledge that would have once sprouted into a golden calf.

Time seems to speed to a sprint and you're moving as though through water trying to uncover the pieces that you once held dear. You start to feel that tug of the chain of time and grow frustrated that you can't gather everything simultaneously. You grow so angry that you're ready to toss whatever it is you gathered and surrender to the momentum that is no longer in your control.

But you wait. You pause for a moment and question whether that suicide will solve anything. You decide that if you travel that route you will simply feel a failure forever and regret will be your life partner.

So you continue the quest and pick up another piece, but now you polish it as you travel to find the next. You study and catalog it. You compare and contrast. You file and index. You systematize and categorize. You do all of that so that if another coat of dust settles, you can uncover anything you lose with ease. Its a plan for preservation. Preservation of that which you hold so dear... Yourself.

Decay...

Your silence salts my mental storms,
rusting that fist of neurocratic rule,
eroding those dreams from granite to dust,
guaranteed by romantic momentum.

The heart is its own excuse,
phasing out everything of use,
tightening all that's loose,
the smooth fibers of the descending noose.

Will I aim my head for the center
climb to the scaffold above
swing and release into the crowd
or treat it as a wick to light?

But ashes would only turn to cement
causing me to rage and lament
while stuck in the grave that time rent
leaving my reserved energy spent

How I hate this life long distraction,
blurring the contrast between fire and fuel,
this wedge dividing my already rotten stump-
I'll fix this problem twelve ounces at a time.

Biding and Writhing...

Magician of the linear art
you tangle and weave
you warp and decieve
to burrow your way to the heart

From the very darkness you bound
to whittle and write
those stories of might
whose alluring communiques resound

But when the pages and binding doth kiss
and I to the street
I lose that lost beat
as my harmony gets scattered amiss

For from those that once prayed en masse
to abandon hate
before t'was too late
have quit to just sit on their ass

While a few uproot what was sowed
they ho and they hum
excusing it from
the woes that the pundits forbode

Due to their collective neglect
the profits are lost
at the future's cost
for our chained hands to correct

We await the turning of the page
mouthes eager to speak
of ancestral pique
we welcome the custodial age

The Spider's Venom...

I was dowsing last night when a long legged spider climbed upon my pillow. It said to me, "why don't you crawl out of your head and visit my web, I've woven a piece of art to deceive and entangle, we can feast upon those of poor sight and weak mind, and you need not pity them for they have chosen their fate through their own indecision. Come follow me to my home and you'll see that from the ceiling all those below are game for your sport."

I replied, "you don't fool me. You entice me to accompany you only to ensnare me within your webs. You are taking a risk by coming to such depths, for I could easily crush you under foot and that is why you appeal to my grain of identity rather than the constitution of my body. You only wish to feast and I refuse to be your meal. So leave me be before I indulge my own temptation and render you to pulp upon my pillow."

"You are mistake," the spider replied, "my intentions are sincere. Loneliness is the curse of residing at the peak. True, my web captures the unsuspecting, but that is certainly not foreign land to you. Do you not spin your own web? Do you not rely upon threads of reason to triumph over adversity? We are similar you and I. So my invitation places me at just as much risk of you as you are of me. So lets disregard our differing motives and cultivate our similarities. Come with me and we can learn from each other to enhance our craft for attaining our goals."

"My goal is purity of virtue," I countered, "and you will only serve to contaminate that which I'm working to cleanse. You work to compromise life and I filter my own decisions to advance it. While your threads connect only to yourself, mine connect with every component of my being both within and beyond. So go and climb back to your web of solitude and take with you the poison you've been dripping into my ear."

"You deny yourself in order to pursue an unattainable ideal," it rebutted. "When you distill your own filtration you will be as polluted as before you began. How will you know when to cease your cleansing? Will the cycle continue until your stream seeps into the earth? With nothing gained you merely loose. For millennia, those before you have understood this, and they alone have shaped the earth. If you continue your fruitless quest, it will be as though you never existed and your wasted life will serve as further justification for others to join me upon high."

"Others will come to the same conclusion as I have drawn," I explained, "and eventually you will have no visitors to your web and hunger will drive you to the surface where a scavengers life awaits you. Your former opulence will be replaced by shame and destitution, and everyone will avoid you for your web will no longer conceal the vile baseness to which you adhere. Everything is transparent upon the surface and your deceitful arguments will convince not a soul to relinquish themselves for the sake of your appetite."

"How you misjudge my nature," the spider exclaimed. "You only view me as wicked because I have no boundaries, but you fail to see that I am the artist drawing the boundaries you obey. I would thrive upon the surface as I do upon the ceiling and in the cellar. My resolve is greater than my venom and attracts and intoxicates those I meet. I only choose the peak so that I can train my pawns to act as rooks. But if they choose the tangent over the direct path, they find themselves circling back into my web to become my next meal."

"You act as though you're the only dominating power," I informed. "When another force encounters your own, you may find that you are the meal for the victor and the one on the deviating path. If by chance you are the victor, then when no one is left to battle your forces will fall into discord and will annihilate each other. Solitude will be your curse regardless of altitude. Your futile efforts at domination will only serve as a postponement from you confronting yourself, and when you finally do, you will be so repulsed that you will self destruct."

"You underestimate my self-esteem," the spider refuted. "Do you suppose I feel worthy of dominating because I consider myself inferior? My self confidence is the pedestal which raises me to great heights. Only by believing that I am worthy do I earn my merit. Your self doubt binds you to the surface. If you would only abandon the shackles of suspicion you could become the architect of the future rather than a nuance in the background of the present."

"You words of venom fail to befuddle my intentions," I assured the spider. "While you labor on designs for the hereafter, the present is left unattended. And you fail to see that the present encompasses the all, rendering your efforts superfluous. So weave and deceive as you will. You will find that your domain is limited to the margin, and from there the smallest step leads to the abyss."

"You speak of the abyss," the spider retorted, "without knowing that you reside at its nadir. Where do you think the surface rests? But as to our domain, the spiral directs us both. We journey down opposing directions. You towards the center, and I to the threshold. I concentrate on where I'm going while you focus on where you've been. You should turn around and embrace the unknown instead of evading it."

"But your widening revolution forbids you from ever identifying yourself. While I'll eventually know where I stand, you cannot and must continue on as a mystery unto yourself, never knowing certainty and relinquishing your past every moment, as though you never lived at all," I construed.

The spider laughed, "your sight has just befallen the seed of your folly and yet you fail to recognize it. You are no different than me, but you leave yourself vulnerable. Your quest to the origin has left you at a relative standstill, and that is the very behavior that I rely upon to ensnare those like you in my web. Your preoccupation with certainty allows me the opportunity to spin my web around you leaving you cocooned and no longer a threat but rather a supplementary resource to be used at my will. What is so laughable is that you don't yet realize your own tragedy."

"You forget that the present encompasses all, rendering direction of travel meaningless," I expounded. "And while you consider me within your web, you follow that which I determined. There is a greater web in which you are trapped and I am free to which you will never be witness. While my vision may become cloaked as you spin your web, it will just open it to the other. And you never observing the other web, despite your numerous eyes, will live in self prescribed darkness. My sight will grow and observe higher and higher webs that contain subsets and my understanding will blanket that which you call yours and that which you will never see, and as you spin your threads around your prey I will pity only you for you are the victim of your own short sightedness. While you toil the earth, preoccupied with pips and concerned with kernels, I till the seed and plant the land."

Thus spake T.S. Idiot...

Cosmic Fibers...

My inadvertent quest towards cognitive suicide seems to be failing. I don't know whether to celebrate or cry. Pushing this boulder across the river may not seem like a good idea when I'm midway across. I'm already gasping for air and I'm not yet submerged. If I were smart I would've gotten a snorkel and oxygen tank, but instead I'll drown from stubbornness and spite.

My only hope is that those fine little cosmic fibers attached to the back of my neck keep me above the water line. Problem is that I've been feeling the tug less and less frequently as time goes by. I don't think that they'd be able to keep me afloat.

It could be a psychosomatic separation. I'm trying to hard to see these fibers but my focus keeps fading to the background. The blurred images convince me that everything is disconnected.

I keep telling myself that by just believing that they're there would prevent me from distinguishing them. Instead self-scrutiny points me towards doubt and doubt towards the inescapable black hole of analyzing my own imperfections so that I can attempt to filter my mind. With that task the inward spiral never intersects itself.

Giving up is impossible. Control appears to be imprinted upon my chromosomes. My double helix is governed by some paradoxical love between the void and the all.

Sometimes I can feel the fluidity washing my suspicion from that ever tightening knot binding me from behind my eyes. The assurance of unity seems to lighten me as my mind emulates the all. That imperceptible pattern of observation broadens its range without expanding its reach and my mind diffuses throughout the whole and at last I see from the surface.

But I can't maintain that radius and I collapse once again into my single point. Distance once again become vast and everything readorns itself with the extrinsic mask of individuality.

I still can't reconcile why it is that demand that I distinguish myself and yet I am the most at peace when I feel all as one. The only things that holds me together and away from the abyss of madness are those celestial fibers. One would think that would be evidence enough to believe.

Suburban Purgatory...

Talent is the least valuable in the suburbs and provides only a false hope of future progress. The young artists line up to entertain those who have already given up. The audiences grin with a subconscious spite as they watch these minors spin their wheels and get no where. They don't bother to inform them of the futility, and they don't know whether it is due to a malicious motive to watch them break or if it is from a hope that they might just be the ones that make it.

Throughout my experience I have seen many of young suburbanites with talent to match or exceed those that become distinguished simply never get that deserved notoriety and work so hard to build that buzz that catapults one to the spotlight, and then they just get tired of all the effort with nothing to show for it, so they give up. Their problem is they felt obligated to stay in the suburbs, due to family, friends, location of their day job, or even the one they love. They all knew that if they made that step towards the city, they would have made it by talent alone. But they didn't. And I seem to be following their examples.

Musicians with skill and lyric that would impress any agent, artists that would receive continuous commissions for their work, writers that would be writing tracts to incite movements of passion, poets that would calm a bustling street corner through verse alone... All have failed. They put down the guitar, the paint brush, the pen, and put their hands and minds to work to support a life they don't genuinely care to maintain.

I've corresponded with some of them to find out if they continue their artistic endeavors in private where the subjective pleasure of merely creating without the possibility of recognition could be honed. They all seem to have developed a contempt for their former love as though they regard their talent as an adulterous partner. Most have dissociated themselves from that part of their character. Or hopefully they won't admit toiling at an activity that isn't practical nor attains a tangible goal.

Suburban life centers around practicality. Effort spent for its own sake is effort wasted. There always must be a end associated with a mean, and that end should always advance one's position. If that end is one's own peace of mind, then the effort itself is a stain upon their character for one should be content with just being.

Don't confuse this with some eastern philosophy adhered to by ascetics. The denial of self is reserved only in the realm of happiness. Possessions, indulgence, plotting, intrigue, tormenting, acquisitions and displays of dominance are all sought after with great fervor and encouragement from others. If the practice of one's talent fails to advance a similar goal as those stated above, then it is considered absurd and inane.

The communities in the suburbs promote unity through conformity. The very nature of an artist is in direct conflict with that principle. An artist endeavors to create the original, which by nature is dissimilar from the existing, so that effort is a deviation from the norm and counterproductive to the collective goal of the community. Those free thinkers that refuse to conform tend to gravitate to those small enclaves in the big cities where they can deviate with others pursuing the same objective.

But can one survive in the suburbs without that passion for their talent drying up? Does the lack of like minded people create a shame that suffocates their drive to endure? It's like being in solitary confinement - eventually you'll break... Or loose your sense of proportion. The latter weighs down the scales.

Suburban adults often take on fanatical notions and obsess over them nearing a state of lunacy. These notions can be formed by their own faults. These adults can be spurred by a sense of shame to revolt against a carefully hidden characteristic that can only be obscured by a radically contrary position. Many times adults care nothing for themselves and simply continue as automatons placed on a path by their parents without ever leaving the trail.

Of course, a great many of those adults began as aspiring artists. Once they thought of changing the world. Now they want to change the color of the siding on the next door neighbor's garage. When did that choice occur that squandered their efforts to blaze their own trail? Will I make a similar choice?

Creamy Impetus Spread...

The major issue in my life is that I spread myself too thin. I try to accomplish so many tasks simultaneously, that a great deal of them fall to the wayside.

Recently my fiancee has been involved in her graduate school practicum (clinical internship). During this time, I've been responsible to drive her to and from the clinic. This extra traveling adds another hour or more every day to my commute, and there is always very heavy traffic in her direction.

I find myself experiencing road rage and that ends up taking such a toll on me that I am not motivated to work on any of my various projects. Vegetating in front of the television has become my default pastime.

Car pooling isn't the only cause of this slump in productivity. I have been absorbed with making money since I will be buying a house soon and having a wedding within a year. Whenever an opportunity arises to make some extra cash, I can't refuse. Even if I am dead tired after working 8 hours and driving through hell to retrieve my girl, I still muster the strength to go to the side jobs I may have.

I don't care too much for the extra work that comes my way. I've designed small database management system, installed phone systems, wired offices, installed networks, created web pages, etc... The only pleasure I get from all that work comes from the money I receive. There is no passion involved, although I still provide an attention to detail and quality when working.

I can't imagine how I would rate my life if I had a career based around something I loved. I've tried not to think about that too much. It tends to point me towards depression. Rather, I just put on my best automaton impression and continue with the grind.

Last night I had a dream that brought this need to do what I love to forefront of my mind. I dreamt that I was at a ceremony, at my old high school auditorium, honoring the artistic people in my life. During the ceremony my old roommate, who was very talented musically, left the auditorium before the awards were given. I followed him outside to see what was wrong. He was having a cigarette on the "smoker stairs". With much derision he said that nobody there deserved an art award since they all gave it up. He was right about that; every person I've known besides my fiancee has abandoned their artistic endeavors in exchange for career, family, friends or drugs. He said that if you don't love what you do you're abusing yourself and if you give up what you love you have no self respect. He then said, "never leave your art behind."

I awoke right after chanting that last statement. It was just after five AM and I wasn't able to go back to sleep for over an hour. During that hour I laid in bed thinking about why I basically left my art behind.

I figured that time is no longer a commodity in surplus. I no longer have the abundance of time to dedicate to my own goals. I have to "help" people with their goals too often. I slight myself and can't figure out how to stop it without hurting people I care for. Indeed, I've already lost people with whom I had enjoyed company because I hadn't the time to spend with them. And I miss them and probably won't be able to regain their friendships.

Sure I enjoy being needed by those few people that have taken priority in my life. There is a sense of fulfillment when you perform selfless deeds. But the predominance of these deeds is causing me to lose sight of myself. I liked who I was when I did my own thing. I don't want to abandon that person, like I have done to so many people in my past. I want to embrace this person I've cultivated for so many years.

With the growing prospect of a marriage, house, and eventually children to add to my already goal ridden life, I know that more dreams will need to be dropped. A reconsideration of my priorities must occur or else the pattern of abandoning my cherished aspirations from my individualistically driven past will continue.

I don't want that to continue. I don't want to say good-bye to myself. I refuse to say good-bye.

Falling Lights...

I've learned that during an eight hour sleep period a person experiences four separate sleep cycles each containing 5 stages of sleep, from dowsing and sleep spindles to REM sleep. Most often I can remember a couple dreams per night, but recently I've been able to remember three or four the last few nights. Last night I can remember two, however I was told by my fiancee that I woke her up at three o'clock in the morning to somberly tell her of a disturbing dream.

I was not able to recall the dream, nonetheless, it seem familiar to me. She said that I described it over and over again with my eyes closed and that I would respond to her pleas for me to shut up and go back to sleep. Instead I kept on telling and retelling the dream. Then suddenly, my breathe quickened and, according to her, I started to get emotional, and said, "that's the end of it; it must be prevented," then went right back to a silent sleep. She told me she tried to wake me to see if I was well, but I wouldn't be roused.

This morning she told me the entire dream dictated by me from an unconscious state. I'll describe it in my perspective since that was the original source. So without ado...

I'm carrying a bucket and a ladder. The wood keeps giving me slivers but I can't feel them. My legs are long and scrawny. I'm wearing a coat with tails. I can't distinguish them from my legs. Don't know who's walking down this street. I have a wet towel over my head, but I can still see. It's too dark here, but that's why I'm here. I'm supposed to light the lamps. It smells like kerosene. It's in the bucket. I'm at the first post. This ladder is awkward to set. The ground is muddy. I hope it doesn't slide. I can't climb with any speed. Its like I'm moving through water. Maybe its the towel. The street looks filthy from these heights. People move so fast, but disappear when I try to follow them down the road. There's a small fire already in the lamp. I have to blow it out first, then refill the reservoir. I keep spilling the kerosene. My reaction time is off; always tilting the bucket too much or too little. Replace the lid and climb down. Water world again. When I'm down I move so fast. So this is what its like. I like this. I keep repeating this process down the road. Fast, slow, climb, fill, down, slow, fast... I finish all the lamps on the street. Seven in all. One, one, two, three, thank you Fibonacci. Strange, the bucket is still full. Its still quite dark. I'm so stupid. I forgot to light them back up. This is a dream. I can light them with my mind. The first lamp is lit. Now the rest. Know the rest. The fire keeps on growing. It spread to the posts. Seven pillars of fire. Nobody is on the street, but I can hear them talking. They think I'm responsible. I never wanted this job. I can't make water travel more controllable. Its a problem of altitude. The farthest post collapses. They're all falling down. The lights are falling. Its getting bright here. Job well done. The next block is dark. There are too many people there. I still have a full bucket. I still have to refill the lamps.

That's when I said what I quoted above. This has been haunting me all day.

Where's our Bob Dylan?

On the path to war with Iraqi neighbors, executive power to become absolute law when the slightest sickness gets out of hand, the government taking away right after right, lies and deception from the highest grounds... Where is the dissent? A couple dozen people lighting candles silently in front of the white house. A group of baby boomers camping outside a Texas ranch. A rally composed of old hippies reliving their protest days. Most of the current protestors are the same ones who did it back in the sixties. Only now they have no single voice.

Where is my generation in this battle? It is after all our future that this administration is selling to their creditors. Why can't we get pissed off about this? Why can't we demand control of our own future? Are the current politicians that great of salespeople that so many Gen-X'ers are convinced that our indentured servitude to the Chinese 30 years down the line is in our best interest?

What about the canceling of funding for higher education? I can't believe that the American people will be able to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps without having intelligent people to guide them. During the sixties the government was assisting students pursuing higher education because they understood that America wasn't only competing for world resources we were also competing for the best and brightest. That's what saved us throughout the seventies and eighties when manufacturing jobs left and during the nineties' recession. Our scientific and technological advancement carried us forward, but now we are starting to slow down and the objections to the policies impeding our advancement rarely rise above a whisper.

Has this generation, raised by MTV, Sesame Street in the child care stockyards, learned to ignore the troubles and just focus on the good time? Have we all grown complacent? We have been taught through stranger danger, DARE, and other McGruff Crime Dog programs not to trust each other, to isolate ourselves and not take risks. And those that do take risks are grouped like cattle into bars and clubs, dancing and gyrating to tribal rhythms that excite the body and silence the mind. Concern is not popular and activism is too melodramatic.

But that is just in the urban setting, what about rural America? There the risk takers are increasingly turning to meth to satisfy the edge craving. The others get so tied up with religion that they're bound for life to be pawns, only putting their stamp of approval upon the great cross. How can they be convinced to change when they would need to change from their living mediums to God? We don't only have to battle social and political ideologies we also have to fight the religious devotion.

There are, however, people speaking out. Bloggers expose the insidious plotting of people in power. People in coffee houses calling for action. Poets in spotlights denouncing the villains. They get people riled up and genuinely wanting things to change, but then the audience leaves the poetry bars or coffee houses, and logs off their computers and goes to sleep with no intention of making an effort.

And why should they? They have to make enough money to purchase music, books, videos, designer furniture, take trips to Europe, pay the mortgage on their downtown condo and save some income to an IRA to make up for no future to social security. Even the most frugal must work hard to avoid financial pitfalls. And if an individual doesn't want to work long hours for those goals, then their spouses, partners or parents expect them to and out of a conditioned sense of duty they oblige.

The defiance of the sixties and seventies was accomplished by having the rich and poor bind together on common issues. They had a pointless war, they had oppression from the older generation... We have the same. So why can't we speak as loudly as they did?

Sex! They had an incentive to go it on their own. The sexual revolution coinciding with the other protests allowed the young people to indulge while they challenged the order of things. They had the older generation forcing sexual repression binding them together against a common opponent, we have an older generation more understanding about sexual desires. Now all a person has to do is visit a bar or club on the weekends and free love is available with no strings attached, but its not exactly free.

Instead of outside influences restricting sexual freedom, we are bound by the laws of attraction. A person must have resources to be appealing; money, a flashy car, good clothes, jewelry, etc... Otherwise a person must be beautiful; membership at a gym, alluring attire, quality cosmetics, expensive hair-do, etc... Both keys to attaining sex brings with them an incurred cost which demands longer hours at work or indentured servitude to creditors. With no time to spend lamenting about global issues we're forced to trust those in power and simply go on with our increasingly quickening day.

People have this blind trust that things will eventually work out for the best without the need of their assistance. But that is exactly what these wolves in Washington, these thieves in skyscrapers and the pharisees in the pulpit want from the masses; a blind faith in a fortunate end. There needs to be a great number of people willing to take a risk, willing to take a stand, willing to say "count me in".