Friday, February 19, 2010

Imperfect vessel broken cup

I woke up from dreaming on Wednesday knowing that prisons were a
poison increasing the evil in the world.

My dream, like all my dreams, was real. I was there and I knew it. I
was in it but not of it.

My dream didn't tell me the solution only the fact.

Prisons and detention camps do not a higher pie make, nor do they make
the world safer or better.

The real dreams I remember vividly from this morning are dissolving as
I look for words to tell them. Perhaps as I love words and stories to
tears I have been born mute deaf, no what is the word for someone born
incapable if writing?


Subway
Rush hour
Travelling companion
Companion man
Companion similar age
We are students?
Mid twenties
He is ahead of me
We are just about to enter underground
The last windows are above us
Sunlight streams in
Must be morning
Clothing and architecture unfamiliar
But dusty and sand feel
Aged
Italy? Spain
South
Cell phone rings
A man I know as hard to believe us talking
I knew him
What he says is likely true
But how he knows things is impossible
Is he insane?
He is saying something about signs
I stop my friend from continuing
If I go underground my call will drop
He leans impatiently under the last window in up above and right near
the stairs
He pulls a book from his backpack and reads
The guy on the phone is hard to understand - sounds of fireworks in
the background
"I wanted to be there, but the fireworks got delayed, and I didn't
want to miss them"
Disgust - how can he really be a psychic and not now that?
"why call me?" I ask
"you are there."
He goes on about signs and things and Its impossible he should know
and I am find myself believing what he saying - but not in him - but
the words are true
I know what I have to do
And I get the book out of my backpack
The thick blue one
I start reading it aloud
The passage that he said
My companion is shocked
Will not make eye contact
He stays but not he is not with me
Why does he watch?
I try to get the commuters to stop and listen and turn back
I read to them quotes from the fanatics
I implore them
It is so obvious
Why can't they see it?
Why must they go?
Today there will be a bombing in the subway

It's dusk
I am outside
Under the sky turning orange
It is hot
There is little wind
I have pale skin and by myself
I am in a uniform but I am not a guard
I am surrounded by brown and black skinned people
The ground is dirt

Again no edits

I am outside
The sky is high
The sunset is warm and red
I am surrounded by prisoners
I am not a prisoner
I am observing
The prisoners are black and brown and poor
I am not black or brown or poor

Again

I am in a yard filled with men
Old men, middle aged men, young men
I can see men as far as the eye can see
In the horizon a city sparkles in the dusk
I turn my head to look behind me
There the concrete cell blocks wait
The sounds
Laughing, shouts
Singing
drumming
perhaps someone is playing the guitar
everyone is talking


the sky is now dark blue
classical music is now heard over the loudspeakers
it gets louder
everyone stops what they are doing
all around me people are turning to face the city
the only sound is the music
everyone is quiet and in formation
hands at their sides
evenly spaced
looking straight ahead
invisible in the day when not illuminated
a sign now brightly lit with LEDs
hang huge logos of coke and mcdonalds

Thursday, February 18, 2010

This is it - we are hungry. We are Cain.

Modern man: I am hungry. I have to eat. So I eat. I eat sunshine,
ancient sunshine, the moon, a comet, cosmic radiation from the big
bang, rivers, oceans, forests, species, ozones, languages and cultures.

200 year ago man: I too was hungry. I had to eat. So I ate. I ate
streams, lakes, forests, species, languages and cultures.

2000 year ago man: I too was hungry. I had to eat. So I ate. I ate
streams, forests, languages and cultures.

20,000 year ago man: I too was hungry. I had to eat. So I ate. I ate
cultures.

A curse. Forever eating, always hungry, never full.

Wade Davis, Jared Diamond and Joseph Tainter help us understand
mechanisms but not the inspiration or passion or motivation for
culture eating, or why cultures push themselves to over exploit or why
cultures rush to add complexity.

We are born hungry.

The dog And the bone
Antigone
Goldilocks and the three bears
Rumplestiltskin
Samson and Delilah
Sleeping Beauty

The stories examine the hunger and it's conseqeunces.

Monday, February 01, 2010

Re: Little riding hood with conflict

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 28, 2010, at 10:44 PM, Joshua <joshua@neocodesoftware.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Jan 27, 2010, at 11:31 PM, Joshua <joshua@neocodesoftware.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Jan 26, 2010, at 11:07 PM, Joshua <joshua@neocodesoftware.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That's right. Little red doesn't have enough conflict. A wolf
>>> attacking, grandma devouring, wolf axing story needs more than
>>> just blood and gore - it's needs a sense of inner conflict.
>>>
>>> Let's start with the wood cutter. How is he doing that fateful
>>> morning? He's hung over. He has been drinking more than usual
>>> because the forest isn't getting any bigger and he has figured out
>>> he has maybe another 3 to 5 years worth of logging left. Sure,
>>> there's still plenty of trees, but the ones that are left aren't
>>> worth cutting down. His missus, sensing his unease, points out
>>> that the butcher, the baker and candlestick maker are doing well
>>> and why couldn't he have studied harder for a better job?
>>>
>>> While he was fighting with his wife that he was not a loser, his
>>> dog got the bacon he was taking for his lunch. He kicked the dog
>>> into the basement, and banged angrily out of the house.
>>>
>>> Two thoughts crossed his mind: one, he should take the dog even
>>> though it had eaten his lunch - he had seen wolf tracks the day
>>> before, and two he needed to sharpen his axe.
>>
>>> The anger helped him see things in black and white. It would serve
>>> that woman right, he thought, if I get eaten by that wolf. That'll
>>> make her suffer! And if I leave the house quickly she won't have
>>> more time to scold me while I sharpen the axe. It will be all her
>>> fault the axe is dull because I had to leave in a hurry to avoid
>>> her sharp tongue. Maybe I can think of a way that it's all her
>>> fault the forest isn't getting any bigger. And with those happy
>>> thoughts turning in his head, off he marched.
>>
>> Now the wolf. Former alpha male. Hungry. Forced out of the pack.
>> Dazed with hunger. Will do anything for food. Must eat soon.
>> Regret. Not forced out, welcomed to stay, too proud. Don't want to
>> share suffering. Pain in hips harsh. Remembering lashing out in
>> anger at pups. Must go before hurting them. The pain drove him.
>> Wanted to bite the puppies. Want to kill them. Memory sharp and
>> shameful. Can't face the puppies. Reminded of the shameful rage.
>>
>> Will keep looking for food.
>
> Sweet little red. She loved visiting granny and day dreaming. Maybe
> she would see fairies. Granny said fairies lived in the forest and
> if you were quiet you could see them. She had made a crown for the
> fairy queen and tied a string to it. When granny had asked what the
> string was for she told her it was to catch the queen. Granny had
> been upset, she should have kept that part a secret.
>
> Mom wanted her to take basket to granny but what else? Was it a
> whistle? The dog? The dog would scare the fairies away.
>
> Little red picked up the basket and slipped out of the house,
> wondering when she would see her first fairy.

And Old Granny, what was she up to? Regretting the things she didn't
do. She was in her thoughts as she made tea, did the laundry, and
tidied the house. Little red was coming that day. She would have to
put these thoughts aside when Little red was with her.

Granny sat on the sofa and sighed. Husband dead. Kids gone. Grandkids
to visit.

Sigh. She made a list of things.