stonehaven at sunset

tonite i am more than half in the bag...the stupa is on the hazy mountain...my swingsets are gone...i am living the end of an era...the other day my brother and i stood atop a mountain of garbage, and gazed upon the good land before us...digging through the trash like sewer rats from an earlier age, we found an ancient bottle of eighty proof french liqueur...and there we stood in the dumpster, drinking recklessly on a two-o'clock afternoon...the sun shining lovingly in the sky...overlooking the green pastures, we drank the dirty bottle dry...our last night on the compound...our last attempt at the utopia we were promised upon conception...

a night alone

some days i simply have my head and my ego crammed so far up my own ass i fail to see the beauty in all of it...and today was one of those days...the world may be collapsing on me but damn what a day...i can hear the horses whining next door, and smell the country...one of the last days for all of that...my childhood memories are imploding in the moonlight...falling down malnourished at the door...and it feels as if in thirty years, i will be the shadow, the vagrant, and the fool that consequence intended...

the infinite and the armoire

it's been awhile and i really don't know what to write about...i could write about how i cleaned out my parent's attic this weekend, uncovering numerous volumes of journal entries, math tests, and notations from sixth grade...and how looking at them made me wonder who that fucker that lived that life was, and why was he infinitely different than the immoral loser that has replaced him...i could write about my brother's ratt and roll t-shirt, or how i helped him lift a huge armoire today (the result of which will be for him a place to put his clothes and for me a bad back)...i could write about how my dislike of people is reaching an all time high, and the savagery of our species is destroying an otherwise symbiotic world...but i won't write about any of those things...because at this point i am tired...yeah tired...sinking slowly in the sand, waiting out the summer heat like an over-furred dog...panting while wondering..."why do i have thick fur in the summer...what cruel fate has left me on this ever be-scorched planet with a fur coat and no sweat glands"...but i know you don't care, one of my few and ever dwindling readership, too apathetic or afraid to leave comments...i see you out there through the infinite innerspace, the monitor's eye...sweating through your underwear, searching for salvation, or a cold beer and a good friend...well i am here for you as long as you don't come looking...as long as you don't stalk...i have had a stalker once or twice(if you would like to hear those stories all you have to do is ask) and i do not need to revisit that...but here at the church of al, beyond the ornate alters of the masses, and the stained glass of the saints...i am here for you, after all, where else would i be...

the luck of the irish

i've been alive for awhile now...a good thirty years...and i do not remember ever having a bit of luck...sure you rosy fuckers out there will point to a cripple, to a beggar, or to what have you and say...your luck isn't that bad...and i suppose it isn't...but that does not make it good luck...luck, in its most concentrated form, simply has to do with me[or you]...and my luck is much worse than that of my family...however, it is genetic in a sense...travel back through the family tree and bad luck will turn up in every dusty corner...sure, you will say, it is simply the nature of existence...trace anyone's life, roots, or otherwise and the outcome will be a life of bad luck...(i wish to distinguish between bad luck and having a "bad" life)....regardless, bad luck follows me like a cloud...and there are another group of wide-eyed savages that will insist that it is simply my state of mind...negativity breeds negativity they will say...and i agree, however in my case, positivity, negativity, or even nativity brings about bad luck...because obviously everyone has some mundane control of their reality, but in a greater sense the world collapses into determinism (any true gambler will acknowledge that...it's the fates that determine, to win you must tap in)...the world is how it was meant to be...for me and for you my lonely reader, teetering on the brink of tomorrow...

the art of war

i saw one of my first cousins today...he just turned eighteen and recently graduated from high school...in a month he will be in the army and he has never even been on a plane...he is a nice enough fellow, a little naive, his parents are born again christians, but don't talk about it to our family because years ago my father politely (mind you it is unlike my father to be polite) asked them not to...but here he is, thin, gawky, unworldly, to be given a gun and sent forth...the powerful's wet dream...i suppose there is a good portion of the military that is in this predicament...not really sure of the world, or their place in it...he wants to join to help people he says...my father (again with a rare jewel of wisdom) responded..."if you want to help people join the peace corps"...rarely do my father and i agree, much like rarely does anyone get helped at the end of a barrel of a gun...and even my dad, a retired cop, knows that...this entry is not to criticize people and their choices in life, however limited, but it also is not designed to give passes to people that kill whether or not they understand, or believe in the consequences...the world is what it is, but for every act, violent or not, there is a price to be paid...

a slice of memory

shana dale...do you remember that name? pronounced shane-a...well i do...i was about six years old at a horse show with my friend and his family...they were really into horses...i like horses too, but never would have thought about going to one of these shows if it wasn't for them...up rides shana in her full regalia...my friend's mother knew her from the circuit...she introduced her to me, first name and last...shana was cold, even at six she was how i suspected some proper, blue blooded, horse person to be...i didn't think much of her, and i never saw her again...but i remember the day like it was yesterday...the color of the sky, the smell of the track, the look and feel of my friend's rusty suburban...and the sensation and anxiety of having a new experience...seeing a new world...and tonite almost twenty-five years later, half in the bag, beaten, bruised, and watching the tube...someone mentioned horse shows, and like a flash i remembered shana...sitting prim and proper on her filly...towering over us...cold as ice...memory is a strange thing, especially on cool june nights, with the moon shining almost full in the sky above...

a harsh materialism

i understand most people do not have a lot of money...christ i don't have any myself...but for some reason cheap people bother me...i know i rant about most everything under the sun, but to be honest, i let most people roll off my back and onto the street to be run over by the nearest passing trolley...and i never publicly out someone for their frugal nature, but i don't understand it...maybe it is because a lot of people i know, love, and respect in many other aspects of existence are deficient in the virtue of monetary generosity...it has even got to the point where i will give a friend with means more credit for not being cheap then i will a destitute friend for being cheap...i can understand if you have a few kids, a mortgage, maybe money is tight, but otherwise...jesus its fucking money...are you that attached to it...and before you accuse me of being the self-righteousness prick i am, i will say that yes, i too would rather be rich than poor...but either way, money is meant to be spent on good times, made when absolutely necessary, and saved when you are alone...but when with good friends, money is meant to flow freely...without a thought...like some vague taoist doctrine...this does not stop at simply money but also material goods...if a fellow friend needs a beer from your fridge...you oblige without a thought...maybe a place to stay for a week or two, you do not turn them down...but i suppose this tight-assed behaviour is just another aspect of human selfishness...in the end all the money you have made, saved, hoarded, or spent will turn to dust, along with your selfish rotting corpse...

non-cohesive thoughts

man there must be something wrong...every day i feel worse...the fatigue and physical pain grows deeper...i can't sleep anymore...i wake up so damn early...today i was trying to sleep and i heard some looney on the street singing "it's the most wonderful time of the year"...clutter and commotion everywhere...yesterday my brother found a card i made for him when he was one month old...it said, "to andrew, congratulations on your christenening [sic] love, [church of al]"...it had a crudely drawn flower on the front and inside a stick figure man smiling with the sun and clouds above...shit, when was i that sunny...occasionally i will draw the sun and i used to put flowers in my hair for the hell of it...but the weight of the sky is pressing...breaking and destroying any positive will...humans collapse, dive into the deep, fall from the tower...and are left truly and mysteriously alone in the wasteland...the silent afternoon, the long trip home, the windows of the city have been broken by the blast...despair...and the sweet songs of old friends are floating on the winds of late spring...maybe the good lord will save us all, or maybe we'll find solace in this existence, or maybe nothing will happen...but i am sure of one thing... the dog sunning itself in the park will roll over, scratch, struggle to its feet, and go look for something to eat...