Thinkerinker

a little lost

2009-06-24T03:13:00.000-07:00

I do not know how to
with my feet
move forward
in the right manner
in the right direction;
a gentle fellow I'm
bewildered
and a little lost.
But if I were to become
for a moment
a man,
a fierce hard-talking man,
I might say,
“Don't you EVER
ask
me
to FUCKING GUESS woman!
Because I am no fucking woman and have NO
SPECIAL FUCKING GUESSING POWERS,
I am only a
GOD DAMN
FUCKING MAN!”

I might say that;

but I'd soon settle down
and be gentle again.

50 Word Story

2009-06-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

The boy gazed at the ribbon of smoke rising like a genie from the rifle’s eerie orifice. Dumfounded by the pain, his eyes lowered sluggishly to the warm crimson puddle burgeoning around his toes, then forward to the still life of his father, the wife beater. Worth the busted shoulder.

Cinema in the year 2018

2008-12-13T02:21:00.000-08:00

In 2018, I belong to an Independent Virtual Film Library and I’m given advice on media texts by a Virtual Librarian. Payment is graduated. As soon as I begin watching a title a transaction is initiated which is wired from my NET account to the individual filmmaker or independent production company’s account. The IVFL receives a small cut of all sales. As I continue watching, the transfer grows towards a maximum payment. If I stop watching at 6 minutes I only pay for 6 minutes.

Say, for example, I feel a desire coming on for something Russian – contemporary – made after 2015. My neurocircuitry isn’t in great shape and I’m feeling lazy. The IVFL’s doors are always open. Nice and quiet, elegantly designed, away from the garish hustle and bustle of the rest of the ether. A friendly Virtual Librarian always ready to help. Rather like the librarian at my local civic library back in 2008, the 2018 VL is a gargantuan receptacle of film knowledge and a great film conversationalist to boot. I begin with some loose criteria perhaps describing the mood I’m in, a theme, the impact on me made by a particular piece of direction in one of my favourite films. The VL listens. Ah! That personal touch. I’m asked some leading questions; the VL is an expert at eliciting. After some invigorating discussion into which are drawn a couple of fellow VLs a selection of films is gathered and I’m left alone to browse. I follow some links to the intraweb spaces of a small production company in Norilsk and a couple of independent filmmakers in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, and I hop amongst the three absorbing ethos and aesthetic. I choose a social realist/memory crime hybrid by the Norilsk crew, fix myself a c-shake and settle down in a comfy chair. My living space darkens and the hyperscreen illumines.

What’s your poison?

Ego

2008-02-17T11:35:00.001-08:00

It erupts,
spewing molten thoughts,
words and phrases melding
in the liquid clause -
rolling out its
unstoppable tongue
accelerating from a source
soon forgotten
it envelops, encases,
erases the unknown
until inherent limitation
causes flow to slow,

and it cools,

coalesces,

cradling change in its pores.

Afternoon in autumn

2006-10-22T08:43:00.000-07:00

We grow older. We may think we’re cheating time. Especially when we give up the drugs and get in all that exercise and clean living, but the truth is there in the mirror if we only move a little closer to the glass. Always planning, that’s it isn’t it, the planning, imagining better and better situations into futurity. Once I wrote an easy comment on a weblog dismissing those who live for love. But I forgot to add a postscript. The one that reads: when it’s a minute to four on any given Sunday afternoon in Autumn and the rain has been constant since morning and the light is falling fast, a feeling like the very last birthday of childhood passes in sudden flashes through me. It passes through me with a radiance that lights up chamber after chamber in memory’s castle. And priceless lantern slides rise from dusty trays in love’s time-honoured chests. It passes behind each frame, projecting visions of another life. One with different meaning to this one. A hand. And fingers. And fingertips against mine.

After Paris

2006-03-06T04:15:00.000-08:00

What have I learned since leaving 90s Paris? I’ve learned that every so often I have to put on the Joan Jett version of I Love Rock and Roll. I have to put it on and forget that I was ever interested in socialist politics, forget about subservience to the endless and pitiful stress that accompanies being committed to impossible causes, and definitely forget that I was once a communist. And after I’ve shaken myself out completely in rhythmic homage to the goddess of rock, I’ve learned to be at one with the little man inside who continues, peaceably and resiliently with, “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.” I’ve learned that ideas are like partners: there are so many, many beautiful types, all so attractive in their very different ways, but once you’ve chosen to live with one, you have to be prepared to pay your subscription to fidelity and get down to some hard work if you’re ever really going to succeed with the relationship, and then one’s tastes in ideas and partners regularly changes. Ah yes, I’ve learned all about the ecstasy of contradiction. I’ve learned that though I shouldn’t eat ice cream for health reasons, it goes well with chopped banana and chocolate sauce, and I think I’ll just take the good with the bad. And that goes for Coca Cola with ice and lemon, cold Hoegaarden White, lamb tikka masala, chicken biriani, peshwari nan and lamb saclik, raspberry trifle with sherry drenched sponge, Blenz caffe mocha, Costa Chocolissimo Latte, North Yorkshire scones with real salted butter, strawberry jam and fresh whipped cream, fish curry, Sicilian pizza, Red Leicester cheese with pineapple chunks and ham off the bone, peanut butter and honey on toast, cold roast chicken legs with Heinz mayonnaise, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate and Mars Galaxy from the freezer compartment, Christmas Stollen, Panettone and Pandoro, fish ‘n’ chips wrapped in paper, New York Cheesecake, Tiramisu, traditional English pancakes with sugar and lemon juice, Dunkin’ D’s’ lemon doughnuts, moules mariniere, Canary melon and Schinken, prawn balls with sweet ‘n’ sour sauce, fresh fruit salad in rum syrup…I mean I could go on for a very long time. I’ve learned that if I want my body to be in shape it ain’t going to happen sitting on a bean bag propped up against the end of my king size watching mindless American formula or up-their-own arse British art flicks on DVD. I’ve learned that outdoor sports do it for me in a way that indoor gyms never can. I’ve learned that all the drugs I ever did – and I got around the briefcase – were over-hyped and the downs always lasted so much longer than the ups, so, so much longer. I’ve learned to smell fruit before I take it home; all fruit. I’ve learned that selflessness isn’t on the whole a characteristic inherent in human beings, in fact it’s up against an opponent far more innate, but if you practise, you can get quite good at it. I’ve learned that it’s possible to do most of the hardest things if you just practice; the routine turns into habit then it’s the “doing” of habit that enables development, and boy is that true of environmental-friendliness and safe sex. It doesn’t really go for gymnastics once you’re past a certain age, which is a shame because I’d like to be able to tumble. I’ve learned that there are many beautiful sounds in this world, and good muzak is only one of them. I’ve learned that the weather and the earth combine to make a formidable orchestra, and I can listen to its arias, sonatas, concertos and symphonies for hours. I’ve learned that the sciences and arts don’t dialogue enough and on the rare occasions they do, ego usually spoils or confounds progress. I’ve witnessed the power of pornography and still marvel at how little the Yanks and Limeys are prepared to discuss its impact, whether good or bad. I’ve learned that political correctness is all too often just a way of avoiding having to tackle the really important issues, you know the ones, entrenched, endemic, the ones you have to get your hands a little dirty and sometimes a little bit bloody too to deal with; at its worst pc-ism is nothing more than conceited, pseudo-intellectual faff, it’s not having fun without any of the benefits of not having fun, so from me it very consummately gets the finger. I’ve learned to feel species shame, and remorse towards all the other organisms we share this earth with, but still have a soft spot for human beings. I’ve learned that foxes don’t deserve such bad press, especially from the very same walk-on-two-legs beasts who manage with relative ease far more killing and maiming of one another and other crawly things, directly or indirectly, than the poor old common fox. “Oh foxes, they’re horrible, they just kill for the sake of it…” Hmmm…is that so. I’ve learned that as intensely as I used to advocate the use of public transport for the sake of the ecology, so I do now love my car for its privacy, precision and reliability and that hypocrisy washes off me as easily as that old mollie cool H2O off a mallard’s back. The one area where I remain constant is school; I have always and do still despise most forms of conventional education for the myriad doors they close on young people’s learning when they open the gates of their own curricula. The most important thing I’ve learned is that there is not a damn living soul on this planet with any of the answers to any of my most pressing questions. So I’ve stopped asking them. I’ve learned instead to swing high on the garden swing, feel the wind in what remains of my hair (quite a bit it has to be said) and just smile. Oh, and enjoy sex the way I enjoy jumping from a great height into water.

F is also for Fridge

2006-02-25T13:02:00.000-08:00

Inside my head there is a fridge. Inside the fridge are four shelves. On the top shelf there is nothing. On the second shelf down, in the centre, a mobile phone lies listlessly on its side, its front and back bending away from one another like the half peeled skin of an unripe banana. On the third shelf, there are two things: an unglazed Earthenware bowl filled with assorted potpourri cuttings, and a blank DVD. On the bottom shelf there is a very strange thing. Curled up, right in the corner at the back on the left hand side, partially covered by a tissue-like membrane, a very small hairless dog. Upon close scrutiny its stomach seems to be rising and falling, or it could just be my imagination.

F is for Fantasy

2006-02-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

I’m standing in warm rain.

Let my head fall back.

Above me towers a long, smooth, shimmering EDF finger which seems to be leaning right over and rubbing its façade against the CNIT building; just below, a wash of precipitation on glistening walls, the great open interior of Tête Défense, and deep magenta the sky through its arch.

Sonnet with Rhyming Handicap

2006-02-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

Again there is no answer to the prayer.
I bookmark the page in Revelation
And step out to watch the heavens shimmer.
I see my soul drift in isolation
Amidst the wide infinitude of theirs
And close my tired eyes in supplication.
I sense a haunting presence drawing near,
And through the darkness discern a figure
Hovering aloft in the cold night air.
She glimmers and beckons me to join her.
As I move her aura dims and flickers,
A knowing smile and then she disappears.
I stand, blind, a victim of self-taught fears,
Agnation’s failure falling to despair.

Leverage

2005-12-23T06:08:00.000-08:00

You can take that away. If I wanted to, I’d get down and lick the floor. Trying to prize them apart isn’t going to work. What a nerve. I’ve never done that to you. I’m sure. In the kitchen there was an understanding I think. Yes, I think so. I wasn’t the only one laughing when the dog’s water went flying. It would be different if you wore slipper socks or something. They may be unfashionable but I know a lot of guys who find the ones that cut off about a third of the way up the calf very sexy on a naked woman. I don’t mind that. Your odour’s still attractive to me. No, I’m sorry. If you want a submissive, and offering me that won’t…wait…make it…again. Okay. You’d better not rescind. Easy! The little one first. You need to cut your nails.

Car trouble

2005-11-11T12:31:00.000-08:00

Your car’s nice. Smells nice. Smells...
…doesn’t smell like you. Smells like
a
nice
smelling
man the way I’d like my smell to be for you to like it again.

Crescent

2005-11-01T15:13:00.000-08:00

If I turn to you and you turn to life beyond the clouds, don’t think you cannot speak to me there. If it helps you to dream a little while filtering my words, s’fine by me; we all filter. Or perhaps a clear view through the troposphere helps you to think. Turn then. I’m content if you answer me there. Your eyes are beautiful, but turn away when you like; sometimes the crescent of a profile is as beautiful.

C21 Cannibalism

2005-10-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

In your microwave I do in about 30 minutes on high. Split the time. Take me out half way through and turn me, carefully, my flesh is delicate; you wouldn’t want to spoil its smooth texture. Make sure the door is clean and you can watch me start to change colour. Leave me to stand, outside, but not too close to the pond, for 2 minutes. Keep your eye on the cat. She’s partial to warm meat. I serve best with fresh green beans, baby carrots and petit pois, all organic of course. Some freshly baked parsley bread on a side plate and proper butter; scoop a knob and paste it along my thigh for a delicious flavour. To drink? Why not try that bottle of homemade elderflower cordial, on ice in a tall glass. I lit one of the Mexican candles for you in advance, which always looks far prettier when it’s been burning for a while. You’ll dine alone I hope. It would be a crime to miss an occasion to reminisce on all the funny times we had together, and our quieter moments.

A shifting focus

2005-10-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

In small pockets all over the planet there are people enjoying remarkably good standards of living. Those standards largely derive from processes of production and exchange that are neither sensible nor equitable. Until the beneficiaries begin themselves, each and every one, to redress the balance, their small worlds and an entire geopolitical situation will continue to grow more pressured and more dangerous. CC

Not zero. Not one.

2005-09-24T23:41:00.000-07:00

I felt close to her. I felt a sense of purpose.

I do not understand consciousness. If I did, or if anyone on this planet did and could explain it to me, I might then understand the nature of that purpose.

I like it when I make others laugh. Something happens which I find an essential, possibly the quintessential human experience. Everything else feels inordinately flawed, although the flaws themselves are so myriad, so entwined, each one so obfuscated that it is hard to begin to perceive, untangle, identify and express them in an environment characterised by data obesity and shrivelled attention spans.

I don’t know that I feel species shame. I think rather what I feel is a complete lack of expectation regarding human culture. I expect nothing of it nor from it. I expect far more of atmospheric processes and climate, which may programme in human beings new capacity, the transformation they simply aren’t capable of by themselves.

But a tree still stands. And does it arrest me on passing? It does. And can I tell you all the reasons why? Of course I cannot. Something about its shape, its benign magnitude, the majesty it performs above ground, the symmetry it conceals below. The history it has participated in that I have not known. The detail of that history, I have not seen. The changing colours of the fire it lights just as summer turns away, and keeps lit for the museum of emotion that is autumn.

The honesty in a cat’s tail. The tightening in a woman before orgasm. The fleeting blue of morning glory against a white pebbledash wall. Are these astonishingly beautiful things not enough for me? If they are not, incommensurable others are. And each time I forget this, I have only to prize my eyelids apart and learn to focus again.

Not zero. Not one. We start again with colour, with shape, with vibrations sensed by eyes and by ears. And with the air’s gentle currents on our fingertips.

untitled

2005-09-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

boy stands alone

at the thin edge of his life

behind him, his story

ahead, his history

Precious lenses range the panorama

he imagines

his balloon-head buffeted

out to the dreamscape by

currents; kind, protective

like a woman enfolding him in her arms

fear abandons him

his young soul leaps forward

into the textured fate

of a colourful canvas

and all he feels

is a damp coolness

against his warm red cheeks

Matinee

2005-09-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

Mid-afternoon. Catching an impromptu matinee and daring to describe its splendour. Chance meeting of elements and verdant life.

The scene is as simple as it is beautiful. An ensemble of air currents conducted through nature’s score. Tall, unmown August grasses bow gracefully in unison. Cones, needles, leaves leap and fall in aerial ballet. Solid deciduous and venerable coniferous present their arches and alcoves for energetic gusts to vibrate and resonate. A background percussion of fences, benches, branches and stakes stretch out a creaking tempo. Wind chimes echo melodies into the eclogue.

Looking into the frame upon this symphonic hymn to late summer, everything seems to move as if underwater. Cucumber, chartreuse, olive, plum and lime. Oils smearing themselves in a rhythmic ecstasy of aquatic abandon. Marble luminosity and jade shadow occupying and reoccupying one another’s spaces, and folding and dissolving into the deep distance. Sea suspended in air. It stops thought. Amazes.

Right in the centre, a sudden splash of copper steals breath itself. The dying blossom of a lilac, grafted to an apple. A tree I saved and replanted in some other time. Into the colour, light and sound it burns like larva breaking out through the earth’s crust.

R.S.V.P.

2005-09-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

Images bend and blend. The story spins and twists in on itself. Time into time. A whirling tunnel of feelings misunderstood. And missed understanding.

The truth, in disguise again, with customary gift. The nearness of me. Of those I know. As if skins have risen, fallen; eyelids shivered.

Again. Gatsby self. Unseen. Unseeable. And then I am not the host, but a visitor in my life.

Only as I leave I feel it. Passing me. A single breath on the air. An invitation to return.

R.S.V.P.

Dream

Out of time

2005-08-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

I sit by a window and stare through its glass. At the flora dancing to a zephyr’s song. At the movement of a populus, aptly named tremuloides. At its shimmering discs, which spin me through memory and wish fulfilment to the gentlest places imaginable, where no sense of time prevails save the distant beating of my heart.

TOOTE C21 (3)

2005-08-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

In my dreams I timetravel continuously. In wakeful life we're advised neither to live too much in the future, nor dwell too much on the past, which misses the point. Both realities, dream and wakeful life, are subjective. I prefer the freedom of the former to the static of the latter.

TOOTE C21 (2)

2005-08-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Time is so inextricably linked with achievement now that any attempt to ignore its passing seems to focus us on our own mortality.

Thinking out of the early C21

2005-08-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

Time is measurement. Take away the measuring tool and its behaviour becomes subject to your state of mind, your senses and your perspective.