the epicene coup

perhaps i have given offense.
the winds have pushed to 'bout.
must i obsecrate?
as god is my witness,
i thought turkeys could fly.

bomb them with pillows

"just keep it over there in the north korea area." she said.

i replied, "no, no. you don't understand. it's not an area. the right foot IS north korea."

"whatever. i don't trust it."

"all we are saying is, give peace a chance."

"i don't know what its going to do."

"well, you gotta have a little trust. i mean, look. the toes are vibrant and moving around. i think they're taking over."

"mmmm, okay" she said, moving her leg up over mine. "i guess that's not so bad."

"yeah... but that's france. the left foot."

"oops! i can't tell!"

+++++++++

i woke at five-thirty and got my clothes on.

"where are you going at 5:30 in the morning?" she said, engulfed in the pillows.

"home." i said. "where do you go at 5:30 in the morning?"

she chuckled a bit, said i was strange. i bid my adieu, walked out into the morning chill.

who the fuck thinks of this?

sometimes, i look around and wonder just how in the fuck i got here. i mean, the last thing i remember was driving down the I-5 and telling her about the times that i'd had sex with men. that was, what, 2000? i look up at the calendar and it says 2007, but i mean... man... what the fuck? where am i?

i asked, 'what if david lynch made a film of a p.k. dick story starring parker posey?' the answer, the motherfucking answer, my friends, is '2004'.

i look around and where the hell am i? the last thing i remember was driving around southeast looking at her in the passenger seat, pink hair. that was when? feburary? no no no.. new years. it was new years.

i can't tell what came first or last. is there a last? the last thing i remember that was true was sitting on some rocks in the high desert of utah. that was when? yesterday?

i can't tell what was the last thing, or if there was a last thing. i fell asleep one night, and now i am here and everything is different. there was an argument of sorts. nightmarish. i don't believe a fucking word of it. who set that up? bullshit.

the last thing i remember was i was sitting quietly watching her.

the last thing i remember, it was just yesterday, i think. we were sitting and talking about the future. i was taking notes so as to not forget. the future, we wrote, shall consist of these primary things.

where are those things now, huh?

its a clusterfuck for sure. there is no solution, only more questions. like, how in the hell did this happen in january? can it really be like this?



hrrrm.


i never thought of this.

never.


so this i say to you, you pundits of powerful positive thoughts. the school of 'thoughts create reality'...

i never thought of this.


so, who did? who in the fuck thinks of this? i've got some words for you, fuckface. its not bad, overall. theres just the pure shock and horror of the not being and the not having and the not reality... once you're over that (or at least develop the emotional tolerance to ignore that briney fucker), its not sucking.

what it is, is this;
everything i ever thought
everything i ever believed
everything i ever wanted
everything i ever hoped

vapor.


come at me now, looking for answers, solace. beware the smirk on my face, its not malice or intended harm... its... knowlege.

answers. ha! you want fucking answers? welcome to the goddamn family. we gots some answers for you. they won't fit your paradigm, no matter what it is.



nothing.
everything.

okay, this is going nowhere.

try some more:

~when i was about 9 years old, we were living on ten acres of farmland outside of...

nah.

~she got out of the passenger side and popped the back door. she slid into the seat before i even had opened mine...

ugh.

~slammed on the brakes. shaking. furious. i said, 'those are MY FRIENDS...'

phuut.

oh. woe. is. me.



you ask me what i want.

seriously? what i want is

another. one more. do it again. do it over and over until its done right. do it until there is no more tears or reason for them. do it until there are no promises broken. no secrets.

because this, this thing here...

i can't even see where i begin. i can't tell if this was intended, or a crazy dream, but i keep waking up lost and disoriented.

this is why i wake at first light.
this is why i run outside to see the sun rise.
this is why i need to see wy'east, there.

i don't know where i am, but i do know where i am from and that... that thing there... is real.


what's real?

and now, some creative non-fiction

in the dream she was arguing with me, egging me on and making faces. she wanted to know where i was going, what i was going to do, who i was going to be, who was going with me.

i said, 'look, the things you're asking me... i just don't know. what i do know is that my life starts and ends with me. i've traveled, i've stayed. i've worked, and i've fucked off. i've been doing this thing for as long as i can remember, and i'm pretty damn good at it. i've done psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and psychotropics. i've studied the religions and sciences of man. i've stood under stars and looked under rocks and into the sea. i've looked under every nook, cranny, and crevase. the questions you're asking don't have answers.'

she curled up her lips into a smile like she used to make, hugged me.

i awoke. maybe its selfish to say so, but its true. what i do know is my life starts and ends with me. i don't know where i am going, what i am going to do, who i am going to be, who will be there with me.

she said i can have intention, but not plans.

my life starts and ends with me. maybe i'll hang around a little while afterward, as long as your memories permit, but i rather expect to be out and not answering the phone when i do go.

i awoke in my dream, and she took my hand and held it against my heart.

i said, 'i've done things. i've cut wood and bucked hay. i've grown pigs for slaughter, and rabbits for show, and then eaten them. i've worked until i couldn't keep my eyes open. i've stood on mountaintops and wondered. i've practiced twelve steps, ten commandments, and statistical feedback controls. i've imagined every god and daemon imaginable. i've cowered in darkness and wished to die. i've sat on worlds and in universes that don't exist. i've cried, screamed, whimpered, writhed. i've loved and been loved. i've laughed, smiled, and choked. i've been on steamships, submarines, automobiles, and spaceships. i've hurt and been hurt. i've cursed the ground, sky, and heavens. i think the human species is doomed, insomuch as all species are doomed to evolve or die. save the planet? heck, save the human. the planet will live on long after we're gone. the exoskeletons get it next.'

she said i made a good face and i wondered if that was then my epitaph. "here lies warren. he made a good face."

i awoke in my dream, and the world remained out of balance. the push/pull of the moon generated the tides, and the heat of the sun melted glaciers. lightning started fires. tectonic plates moved. i feel warm, content. ease.

'balance', i said, 'is a false idol. the natural world doesn't exist in balance, and i'm not certain we should attempt it.'

i awoke from my dream. put on some clothes. walk down the stairs and open the door. i fish a cigarette from the pack, my fingers feel tight and rough. spark. flame. inhale. it's pre-dawn raining and cold, another northwest winter.

i think i'd like to dance a bit.

epiphanies, hammocks, and the labyrinth

"there is no such thing as a neutral thought or gesture."

+++++++++

spent the better part of my last night in san filipe alone, sitting near the fire pit, giving myself a good talking to. i find myself seriously rethinking my ideas for 'what to do'. it seems to me that particular efforts or ideas i have exist only to feed my ego, rather than my passions. i spent a very long time contemplating of what my dream... MY dream... really is.

the things that struck me as important; home, comfort, love, happiness. i was swimming also in memories of my youth; pressing cider in the summer, fresh corn from the garden, a wood fire, settling into the comfortable chair to read. creating these things for the person whose life i love.

it had become perhaps three in the morning and the sky a great expanse of stars, the full moon as bright as i have ever seen, and the sea of cortez continued to roll in its thunderous waves, never-ending, always changing. stoke the fire with some brambly brush shit that cuts my hands, and i look to orion settling into the western mountains with his bow pointed north, and i say aloud, "where to now, hunter?"

he is, of course silent on the matter, remaining poised over those desert hills painted in the grey/black of night darkness... but the wind into the fire whooshes up whip-cracking sounds.
the only decision i can come tonight is to cease being a source of chaos on earth, a rupturing force of other people's (and my own) sanity and serenity. i want to increase the ease of living, not aggravate the frustrations.

not finding any major epiphanies laying about, i decided to sleep in the hammock.
now, i have always heard that sleeping in a hammock is, at best, a futile endeavor. i believe it was my grandfather or one of my uncles who said it was something along the lines of "romantic, but not practical."

well.

here i had in front of me the idealized conditions for a good night's sleep in a hammock; a semi-tropical beach front, clear skies with minor wind, no insects, the white noise of the sea...so, why not?

let me be clear: i've been in hammocks before, lazing on some sunny day beneath a shade tree, gazing at stars between douglas firs and yellow pines... but never actually SLEPT in one.

i grabbed up my sleeping bag and tried to get it to lay in the webbing with little success. the thing to do seemed to be to get into the bag first and then mount the hammock. this turned out to be the more-correct move, only the temptation to wrap my feet with the webbing was impossible.

the thing to do is to allow the ass to sling low in the hammock with the legs hanging off of it, wrapped and secured by the sleeping bag draped over the hammock, rather than in it. the shoulders naturally get caught in the web, but i found that the elbows become problematic in that it is equally impossible to pull the hammock around my arms with them inside the sleeping bag.

nevertheless, after about twenty minutes of teeter-tottering and grunting, i managed to find the sweet spot residing somewhere between semi-comfortable and slipping off the contraption. i slept. fitfully, but i did sleep.

i slept in a hammock under mexican stars, the full moon, next to the sea of cortez.

it was romantic. but not practical.

i recommend trying it, at least once.
+++++++++

i did manage to discover a few other things (or remind myself of them), so perhaps my previous rant at pilgrimage on tribe.net was ill-conceived.

one thing: there are things i like, and there are things i dont like. i need not rail against the things i dont like, or try beyond all measure of sanity to come to like it, or feign pleasure about it. i need merely pass them by, instead focusing upon those things i do.

second thing: an interesting thing happend on the journey home. we had stopped for dinner and after the meal returned to the bus. i found a labyrinth there, and begain to walk it.
i did not finish because my traveling companions were loaded into the bus and anxious to go. i felt compelled to get on the bus, leaving my wanderings there. no one forced me to stop, or asked me to... i just did... to return to the group.

hmmm. i said to myself.

yeah. i said in my head.

it occured to me then and there that my lack of successful understanding or of finding a signifigant pilgrimage in my travels may be closely linked in parallel to this little vignette.

...or maybe i just found it.