Once
For the record, here 2B recorded...
once was
something...
very special
here, between
me and this man, but,
now and forward, only here
between myself and
memories, that cold,
unhappened, remembered only
as they are,
the memories of two once,
now only one...
only one.
Thelemic Principles 1
Such is the true nature of The Path of the Warrior, to perceive and prevent a potential conflict or danger, or to control such a conflict to the extent that no one is hurt, and this by overcoming the real enemy within.
Fatal Exception Error
I have to tell you, that i don't like poetry, he announced.
And him, a man of many languages, syntaxes and symbols. I recognized, then, his blinding commitment to functionality and utility over inference and ineffability. Words, to him, just another of so many tools.
While he can toil unending hours compiling text, strings and commands, his ends are concrete and substantive. For him, there is no need to reach beyond the operands. No aspiration outside of validated output.
And in truth - I do not fault the man, nor his methodology...
I only fall between the lines, unhandled, escalating layers, off in my own alternate universe. Alone, and cycling interminably.
Child's Play
Yesterday my aunt told me that when my young cousin plays with his toy cars, you can tell he's an urban child, because he doesn't race them around, he parks them. In neat little rows.... I grew up mostly as a rural kid: we used to blow our cars up with Black Cat firecrackers squirrelled away from the last Halloween or New Year's.
It made me wonder what other reflections of myself i can find in my childhood play patterns. Clues to my identity and background hidden in the games we used to play, the songs we used to sing, the worlds we used to invent...
What does it mean that my brother and i once hung my barbie doll from a tree on a noose made from kite twine? Why did we give her an appendectomy with a pocket knife directly after we had hung her "by the neck until dead"? What about the elaborate dirt civilizations we'd build in sandpiles, every moment anticipating the excitement and the transcendence of destroying them by water, fire and avalanche? To what cultural force can i attribute the ornate funeral ceremonies we conducted for hundreds of unfortunate insects which crossed our paths on a slow day?
What would an analysis of any one of our innumerable mud clod, snow ball, or rock flinging engagements look like? What ideology enabled us to hit, bite, kick, bruise and punch each other into blood and tears, defending some strange and inexplicably hurt childhood pride, then sit down directly afterwards to watch afternoon TV together, with our tears dried, our wounds cleaned, and our relationships healed?
How does one go about explaining the reason we built an endless series of clubhouses and forts, or why we played cops and robbers, spies and subversives, or sharks and fish? And what about the time we wrapped flour in tin foil packages, pretending it was smack and we were a drug cartel?
Does it tell me anything about myself, that i used to pretend the baby sitter's house was an indoor mall-like version of Las Vegas, and i was Lola the Showgirl, on my way to work at the Copa Cabana, located in their sunken den? Or when i was Princess Leia, held captive in a cold, wet prison - but i never gave in and i never snitched because i had faith in my rescue by a Jedi calvary?
Why was nothing ever as fulfilling as climbing high up into the limbs of the chinaberry trees on the river, or hiking a mile and a half into the sandstone cliffs behind the house in New Mexico, or walking and walking through the prickly-pear and tumbleweeds of West Texas until we found a landfill, stock pond or barbed-wire fence, all the while imagining we were noble outlaws, brave indian warriors, or gothic quester heroes?
Why did it matter who got the red one, or the longest straw, or the biggest piece?
Chained 2 the Rock
Sisyphus, the real punishment
is not the pushing
of onerous boulder weight...
and it's not the interminable distance
up the mountain,
scraping sliding tearing
flesh...
nor is it the fact that the damn thing often breaks
away
rolls down the other side -
or worse -
unlucky reverses back down
right atcha tons on toppa
then over
you, to settle
rudely
whence you last started.
No, the real
'fuck you' from the universe
is the knowing -
knowing the entire time you're pushing the damn thing,
or running from it,
or scaping urself out of the dirt,
- the real torture is the knowing
at all times
that, yes,
you're probably
gonna have to
do it all over again.
