The Ouroboros Project #17 - The Bridge

{Barely a poem. But then again, read it!}

Yeah, I enjoyed it, but it was one of those stories with the ‘grass is greener’ type narratives, ya know? And it got me thinking this: So what? The grass is luscious over there - go for it. It made me wonder if the troll from the three BGG anecdote was actually the narrator’s efforts to ward us away from any adventure that may lead us from unhappiness to relish. I mean, you wouldn’t want to risk your life while being alive, of course. But another of course, the metaphor holds true, I suppose. But it makes me wonder if many a rugged man of yore died eviscerated by rhinoceros happier than him who lived to 90, tea and scone in hand.

The Ouroboros Project #16 - The Endless

{Today's poem was written whilst on an hour long train ride to Chiba. It's...a tad wacky, but hopefully you can see some threads of thought and maybe even ascertain what was happening on this trip.}

“Ladies and gentlemen,” my robot chides. This is the place, here, now, with a mumble mumble and. And. Aaaaand… She’s out, her microphone thudding softly on her forehead, eyes seal forever, eyes sealed forever. So inactive. Concrete river, concrete sides. And then from the shadows a towering mass metal glass beasty rears its maw, teeth creeking, salivatory rust dripping from shiny pinpoint teeth. Then, his foe, the gnome with his pointy hat creeping skyward; an inanimate serpent watching me tumble by, bumble by, ready to strike. They battle in the distance now, forgotten. Then, in a lonely station, an empty news leaf circles circles in the tired supposedly irradiated wind. And these greys are clouding in too, graying down, no storm today, no liquid tunnel washing the concrety concrete river of the things Japanese people abuse. Whip crack taboo, nothing to do, nothing to lose, in the tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel tunnel. Geez, it never ends (faux anger fanger). Slow slow times in the never-ending sheet of black. Not a word to drop. But newspaper still circles in the silence and then there’s me and this guy. “Shhhhh.” The man, with the inconspicuous hat glares at me across the station. We are alone and his hand shuffles in his trench coat pocket – uh, aggressively at that. We. Are. Alone. Out it comes the never ending rifle-barrel and I shudder (again) shudder (again) shudder (again) – regain composure and the rifle is still coming, meter after meter the longest barrel in the world damn it. He points it at me but the slender cylinder is still sliding out of his pocket into the unknown, yeah, his crotch under fire. He could blow it right off and I’m told he will pull the trigger, soon. He knows it, he knows it, he do, he do. Microphone thud thud thud. She didn’t even wake up. His finger is still on the trigger, gentle crease caress, no, “not yet,” he says, gun barrel still poking out of his, oh, pants now. It really doesn't bode well for trench coat man. Light strikes as the trigger is pulled out of the shadow, the sun sweat tune, crack in the stillness, the silent bullet mangles him and most parts of him disappear into the noir noir noir dream. Go solve a fucking case Colombo. Sharsharshar. And now bridges stretch away from me, left and right as he departs. Weird metamorphosis, weird child, left is night and right is wild. My friend’s friend’s friend comes and sits next to me and mutters something about all roads leading to Rome. She adds that we may have to stop at several million houses for coffee on the way. Sounds like a plan we echo echo, horizon yellow-ing before our eyes. And we shall eat bread, half the recommended dose of Holy Communion. Yes, yes, red wine will not be necessary today – yellow through and through, through and through, brown liquid communion stew. Thirty minutes before the end of the end – the beginning of end’s grief, of that big mistake that you will repeat into infinitum. You know, that one that robbed you of being a man. The concrete swathe interjects; Colombo’s muttering, cluttering and spluttering – smaller and smaller going this time. He has a bayonet! Hey steady on, steady on Bayonet Betty … he is smiling this time though and Bayonet Betty isn’t for me. Hey, speaking of BB. Then comes the grit, grey comes dome, somber, help me to undertake  this empty test, well how about this? Take your hands and raise them in the air. Clap. Beat. Come on, that’s it, be with me, in the rain sheet tumbling together in the dripping bedclothes of the words the words. Be with me, companion as it is you I wish to suckle – no no, not in that way; nurture, nurture, further, further, searcher please be oh, holy holy. She walks by again. Damn, I really wanted that sweetness, moments ago, I asked for it. But you know, there really is no difference between trust and faith – it's like comparing a donut with a muffin – both are… I trust you agree. Oh? Looks like I was wrong. Colombo doesn’t have an opinion. Neither does Microphone Annie, Bayonet Betty and the Meandering Zoo. And at that the monkey screams because the cockerels were singing out of tune. Disagreeably so. Hippo wasn’t even paying attention. He was just yarning with his chums like Bird soup and Toledo Toe. Monkey has a point though; none of them have looked out the window for months. Holy shit, look at that, it’s not man-made, nor is it divine. It just spires into the grey sky, crisp hard white ivory’s shame into the clouds. Is it coming down or going up? It could be static – it’s not at all! Down come the minions, spiraling down an impromptu staircase. Round and round – they’re here for us. They bring an everlasting heat that breaks up, melts down the concrete river snaking along besides us, sparks lifting into the air like Offering Surprise baked by a lonely house wife. And now we have a river of fire – nay – flames. It runs through the new green fields, lush  trees glowing orange in reflection-refraction, mellifluously. It’s not evil, this tower of white, Ivory’s bitch, Black’s bastion, Scarlett’s dreams, Colombo’s sweaty brow, oh, she does too. Newspapers still circle the empty, malevolent stations, dust now too. In winter, the flaming river turns to ice, icicle peaks reaching gently in the air, perfect slides for jolly penguins. But, sadly, they aren’t native to these parts and they would probably be eaten, lucky for the penguin, yes, I am still waiting for them. And onward we slip and bump, skate and tumble, foot loose and fallen coming to halt at this brief new home. As I walk off, Microphone Annie, Colombo, Bayonet Betty and her Meandering Zoo, monkey the gang with their new friend surfer penguin etc wave invisibly and point and laugh at my stomach.

The Ouroboros Project #15 - The Gap

{Some poems are better left unexplained I guess}

My word,

I had one, a while back.

Evidently, I need a new one.

What happened though,

where’d she go?

An endless walk.

On a road.

Where does / that road go?

I see this, kind of, tired brown figure, a man.

Soft, worn shoes pad gently, kitten like, on the dusty welcoming road.

It meanders through the mountains, I’d say, yeah it’s dusty.

Right through some towering sierra of dreams.

Snowless.

Did I say welcoming?

He has a stick with polka-dot bundle slung over his shoulder,

unlit cigarette in mouth,

lips parched from the Chinese sun or cold wind or something, does it matter?

Not in this vacuity;

Oh, wait, that’s the future, maybe.

Is it me though?

Is it my stubble walking hand in hand with those parched lips?

Oh, he is thirsty,

As he walks,

into that, oh yeah, vacuity.

The Ouroboros Project #14 - The Pinion

Floored.

Obtusely so.

By a red-handed sword slice.

They claim it’s white.

I can’t run from them anymore.

An eagle roars though, aloft.

The screech is deafening.

And talons tear through the sky.

I’m not the prey.

Cutting.

They tear at the white clad, scarlet-pawed foes.

Foes?

“Foes,” the eagle affirms.

“Soon I will have to leave, wont I?”

“Foes,” the eagle reaffirms for the buzagillionth time.

“Who gets left behind?”

He spreads his pinioned arms.

Shelter glistens.

Off he wings into the distance.

My questions unanswered.

The Ouroboros Project #13 - The (weary AKB48) Girl

{An ode to AKB48}

There she is, again,

beaming, juxtaposed

with a photoshopped baby – not a fly in sight.

It’s her fifth portrait today.

This one she’s in a bikini with some others,

beaming, beaming, and rapturous, eyes piercing us all.

I’m supposed to want her?

Of course not.

Want her music?

No, of course not.

Oh.

She’s perfect from some angles,

nothing to do with light catching her sculpted nose and tweaked chin.

But something that wasn’t hidden,

devoured by our culture of perfectamundo,

is the run of bags under her teenage eyes.

She was weary today – it was getting to her,

her propagative smile couldn’t hide that vein of calcic decay scoring her face.

I wonder if they told her she’d need plastic surgery,

that is,

to do what she needs to do for their product,

their lies, their product, their lies.

I wonder wonder.

Tomorrow’s shadow and I see her spent and forgotten,

her radiative smile blurring as she paws along the cornerless maze she was sent into.

Man, I hope she can come out of that game she’s in with her soul intact;

I hope all of us can.

I hope all of us can.

The Ouroboros Project #12 - The Vision

This lady snuck into my head at a drop of her Bonnet.

On the cusp of sleep.

Who was she?  Was? Is.

Malcontent.

Her bonnet was dark. Was? Is dark.

She is cool. Seething. Is? Was seething.

Surely, I haven’t defamed her name.

Oh, dear me, maybe I have.

I’m sorry.

The Ouroboros Project #11 - The Friend

{This one is about an old friend of mine. It's all very maudlin, but then again it is poetry innit}

Back go the pages, a few moons, just a few spans and a few thoughts and regrets wash themselves upon the shore with you posing in the seaweed of creativity, of yesteryear.

Post-prepubescent youth fades with our looming adulthood stalking us, the future beckoning us into the fog and on we walked hand in hand.

And there we are again again again, camels floating into the floral sky, a colour you would describe as mottled. Your word choice was always concisely expressive, ultimately apt, while we scrawled leaf after leaf, our pages, pouring forth into this chasm, this fissure, this invisible mountain I should have called friendship.

In the reflection, we talk, the words bouncing, living, experiences, positivity, the low sun of autumn warming the air, cooling the breeze, speaking of newness. A memory that will never fade. And then there’s a vision of me running through the snow of tomorrow, the air wintery and English, now/then, in the dream.

“I want to kill myself,” I utter, amateurishly. We had the crowd in whateverness, I remember not caring actually, just to do it was wondrous, but maybe it was a prophetic shadow of me being a friend and then not again. I was never sure what I was doing – not quite a leaf in the breeze, but barely a sturdy branch, huh.

And then I told you I would always be there, yes, I wrote down as much sometime or another, I’m fairly sure I used the word always, but I kind of messed that one up didn’t I? Foreshadowing fulfilled – but we were never all cried out.

But the truth is, I thought and think about you most days and still regret not being a better friend. I ponder the friendship that we should of had, had things not been so, ugh, just me being useless at friendship, never sure, never sure and the leaf whirls around the empty castle floor.

Hominids don’t meet many soul mates, maybe one or two before the end of the page, the looming margin. But I think I missed out there and even though we talk, I hope the soul I truly know is well and knows how much you still mean to me, even through the haze of yesteryear to the distant invisible mountain we scaled.

The Ouroboros Project #10 - The President

{# 10 is poem based on an imaginary conversation between Barrack Obama and I, for the record we high-fived at the end.}

Tell me, Barrack, what do you think of the current state of the world?

Well, firstly let me say that we as an international community are as –

Hey, letsssss, cut the crap, huh. This isn’t congress. It’s me and you, you and I, in my brain, so, really, tell me; the state of the world – your thoughts, Mr President.

Well to be honest, Brendan, it terrifies me. The state of the world terrifies me. The world has never been so small and strangely, I think that that smallness has a certain newness to it. We, as humans, have never had such an abundance of communication, signs and signifiers and I sometimes worry about the future of humanity in general.

Are you talking about extinction?

No, I think what I’m getting at, is the unknown, the human race likes to assume that new things have a certain inherent safety and if ever facets of this newness are questioned, they are always questioned pertaining to the immediate future, seldom do we ponder the, say, long term impacts or the impact’s impacts or the impact’s impact's impacts.

This is something you have a lot of experience in?

No, not at all, I’m actually a newly born projection from your mind, Brendan. I don’t have a fully functioning makeup at present – in fact I’m barely you.

Fair enough. What about change? If it’s one thing as humans we have always embraced, it is change. What change is required, in your opinion, as we move forward as a, well, as a planet. Forget America, what about the planet?

Yeah, change is interesting isn’t it. Well, we’re one as a world and you know, as I said the world has never been so small. But we’re not really united as “humans”. What is our vision of the future? In fact we’re so far away from being united that it’s close to impossible to fathom it. And it – the world - is getting smaller and smaller, rather rapidly. Soon there will be nowhere to hide.

Sorry, Barrack, hide from what?

Well spotted, I’m not sure. There was no overt inference intended there.

It’s very interesting that you would use that kind of term when speaking of a shrinking world and the change that is coming – or is going to continue coming, wave after wave after wave. But going back to your covertly overt statement. What are we going to need to hide from? Is there a threat in our future? Do you see a threat in our future?

Wow, that’s a great question. I suppose as the metropolis spreads and soon joins to form one, and, I’m speaking really generally here, I guess we may lose something in that process, actually something we are in the process of losing at this very moment.

What are we losing?

I think, I think, I think  we’re losing our ability to enact change on our terms, rather than be swept away in the tide of slow incremental change that may take us somewhere we don’t actually want to go, as a species.

Wow, very cryptic.

Are you talking about revolution versus manipulation?

Maybe, yeah.

Hmmm, it’s interesting, it sounds like you fear change a little. Would you say that is accurate?

Umm, I think it’s natural to fear change, but I don't think, I think what I fear more is the discovery of an inability to change in an ever shrinking world.

That’s a pretty big fear.

Yeah, yeah it is. We are, possibly one of the most important crossroads of human history and I wonder how we are to continue moving forward without a global focus.

I agree actually, what are we going to do about the fact that we are now immobile immobile immobile. Humanity’s arrogant escapade can’t possible get any more arrogant or more ignorant.

I’m not sure.

The Ouroboros Project #9 - The Eclipse

{Poem #9 is about the eclipse that happened yesterday and is aptly named The Eclipse}

“Yeah, Ill definitely watch them, it, the orby orbs, our friends, the sun and moon...”

Memorably annular and we all gaze skyward and say: “Oh my, look at it” while our subtext, in contrast, screams: “Look how rare it is! What is my reaction? What should I be saying to the world about it? I really should tweet, post, foist it upon the manacled masses, the misanthropic dreamers and their dripping liquidic juxtapositions.”

“Fucking look up, Brenny!”

Somewhere in the middle the two spheres of thought collide as the two spheres collide and it is said: “This refracted ballet needs to be recorded forever or I might, I might never remember its…its… I don’t have time to think about ‘its’! I’m busy recording it.”

“Look fucking up, Brenny!”

Later, in amongst the hanging gardens, the greens and blues of the information super waste of time answer my questions to show how impervious to argument I am highway, I see them, it, the dance and it is wonderful; yes, it was wonderful while I was in bed too. It was always wonderful.

“I’m all shook up, Brenny Brenny Brenny.”

But I didn’t go and I missed 130 million people say: “sugoi ne.” I was in bed not quite dreaming about the fact that I’m in bed and my wishes never manifested into the forgetfulness – they just hung there like the hanging shadow of our beautiful orby orbs, our friends, the sun and moon.

The Ouroboros Project #8 - Untitled

There it is.

No holding, something bold and, winning things, and, self-control.

There it is. Adjust.

The goal divine and loving sign, the never preached splitting beats of soul.

There it is. Adjustment.

But on a palanquin we see it ushered in and some folks bow down, down, down again.

There it is.

The Ouroboros Project #7 - The Man

{Poem number 7 is about a man I saw on the Ginza line. Oh, and an earthquake that never happened}

There he sits, juggling his life neurotically, belting through the gash of light, workward – homeward - while we all ignore him. And then my mind wanders to a conversation that never happened:

“Hi.”

The sheath, our vessel, shudders, it’s not the wheels. Are we even on the tracks? My new imaginary mate is silent amongst it all. His bottle top glasses glint in the emergency lighting, as does the sweat on his forehead, his pores doing overtime – much like the reflection of this dream’s soul. His top lip quivers; a hive-five from his Adam’s apple. Pow.

“Hi.”

The earth jars again and the train becomes wreckage close to instantly and is bent like a can, a straw, a piece of bloody melon bread; that’s half the caboose totaled, life squeezed through the wreckage like sickly red toothpaste. The roar is thunderous.

“How’s it going?”

The crush continues and we are all pushed closer, closer, bottle tops denting my brow; maybe someone is screaming, but the reality has turned surreal and silenced the muzzled throes. The tube is three quarters used. Still loads more paste though.

“So so.”

Dear me, who’d have thought I’d be hear, French kissing this guy with the jaws of quietus slowing gagging on my metallic prepubescent tomb. Fine, choke on it you mug. Go on. Go on. Terror, slaps me hard, I hear the fracture of lens, then bend of frame, the finish of stubble kneading my face raw.

“What’s new?”

Yeah, air is a lamentable loss at present as the jaws chew mercilessly on my leg. Dear me, it’s really happening innit? A crazed laugh spasm from me, my friend too, I feel water trickle over me. Oh, it’s red, dear God, it’s red – and warm and his. The tremors stop, unlike the liquid trickle, trickle, trickle, me old mucker.

“When did you come to Japan?”

The tremors may have stopped but rigid bodies still squirm, trapped, elbows saying a thing or two to kindly neighbour, unkindly community. Jeez, the moans, the gargles, thick glass slicing at my face, his glasses, glasses, dear me.

“Ginza, desu.”

And our story is over and off he shuffles, faux case in hand into the new dreary day, maybe his dream, maybe his nightmare.

The Ouroboros Project #6 - The truth

yeah,

sorry,

never mind the sunshine today,

I’ll forgo it,

for these grey billows come sometimes,

they want, not want,

to want, not want,

to stop wanting me to live in Greyville,

but I’m not so sure,

something about the fake plastic sun hanging from the blue crayon sky of their lies,

their absolute misery that I would swim in their pondy pond,

not so muchly much,

not so fondly fond,

but frankly the whole thing just makes me want to run a blade along the trenches,

right along,

a deep cryptic incision,

seal it up,

seal it shut,

or maybe I already have,

I’m not sure where I’ll go,

maybe China for China,

the vastness stretches all the way to the rock of Gibraltar and beyond,

plenty of space to be lost,

to find yourself sitting on a boulder,

alone,

contemplating the grey chasm of misery you didn’t want anymore,

and hopefully not regretting your voyage,

and hopefully not facing defeat’s deceits,

maybe I’ll forgo this today too.

The Ouroboros Project #5 - The Description (black or white)

{poem #5 from the poem-a-day, Ouroboros Project - this is a weird one}

The Description (black and white)

The clouds bubble, grey with love; if they were an indulgent cartoon they would be flowing sheets of floating lavender-like ottomans, the grayness sliding through whilst their fair share of cherubim sat, soft-buttocked on the silky cloud shaped pews; they don’t hold rain.

The clouds ripple like tar, black with spite, spittle at the corners of a hidden beastly mouth, the teeth glisten; if it were a mural it would tear itself from the wall’s mantle, shed the visage of inanimacy and consume us all in a thunderous howling horror; they hold rain.

The rain is ceaseless and cascades through the loving dimensions, forward, backward, obliquely to and fro – sheeting warmth, the caress like the liquid of the divinity; some kind of unwanted baptism, but it’s there for us all, should we need it.

The deluge is unending, torturous, stretching in every direction, the substantial driblets tap and beat agony upon the skin like a switch on a captured Dickensian scoundrel, too young to be a roustabout; the urine of hell’s hounds thrown down on us all.

“Coming, ready or not,” the thunder exclaims joyfully to the land, and so it does, louder, louder, louder, so much love in its voice, so much to say that is an encouragement to us all all all; “I love you,” it mutters brilliantly, “keep going.”

“I detest you and your entity,” the thunder peels like the sound of a fish knife running from maw down the throat emptying a black stomach with a belch of disdain; “I hate you,” it assures coldly, “you’re ending as we speak.”

Lightening dances along the horizon, teasing the hills and they groan with a joyful whimper, a knowing sigh follows; the rapture of nature’s affront.

Lightening fractures the horizon, raping the hills; they articulate a groan of pain as the malice washes over them; the rapture of nature’s brutality.

The Ouroboros Project #4 - The Bullet

{poem #4 from poem-a-day The Ouroboros Project - this one is about Tokyo}

The Bullet

New, anew, knew, anew and today we’ll focus on the bullet.

As ever, it tears through the city, mangled bodies thrown asunder.

As ever, it burrows down into the pipes and hides, gorged for a time, waiting for its next prey.

Where will he strike? This beast, coat glistening in the dim dripping light of the swing faux moon.

Move.

His belly distends and we all flow out like some kind of terrible afterbirth, scrambling to find our place amongst the concrete and the jungle of grey grey grey.

Off it cracks, violence its name.

Off it moans, violence it speaks.

Off it toils, violence boils... but not here, not today, in this fair city.

Another shadow drops, mangled; another one gave in and so today none of us focus on the bullet.

But we do make hasty jokes and they grow into rocks, cover for us to hide behind while the bullets whistle and fly, wearing us down, sunken eyes hiding in the hidden war zone of Tokyo.

The Ouroboros Project #3 - The Man

{Poem a day #3}

There he is! I told you! Mr. Moon hiding behind the cistern in the bathroom all this time. That strong neo-Roman nose of his really sets of his long stubbled chinny chin. I never would have thought he would be so grouchy or so wrinkled. And I’m glad he isn’t wearing sunglasses, not that it matters, I just would’ve been disappointed at McDonalds being so prophe-prophetic, even with all the slaughter slaughter. But, digression aside, there he sits, lies, stands, sleeps and sneers. Yes, yes, a sneer – it looks like life has been tough on old Mr. Moon and his face is akin to that of a drunken history teacher’s early morning, pre-shaven splendor. I wonder what he does in here after the light turns off and business dies. Does he die and sink into the milky moony abyss of my mind? Maybe he hardens like a firmed yellow cheese, odour growing, growing, toing-and-froing amidst the cockroaches and party rhythms.  He definitely doesn’t have a bright jump suit on, nor does he play the piano and drink Pepsi. He just looks sad amongst the scorched violets and faded pinks of the yellowed, peeling, imaginary wallpaper.  Oh, Moony, chill out man, lay off the linoleum. 

The Ouroboros Project #2 - The Plumage

{poem a day 2 continues with an ode to New Zealand}

After Atlas shrugged he did twelve or so squat thrusts, leaving the world in quite a state, water sloshing over the edges of oblivion, a million species swept under his doormat; someone will clean that up later, brush and chisel at the ready -  mortar and pestle abound.

One landmass in particular, a linear archipelago, was left head and shoulders confused, topsy-turvy some would say. Sunk, submerged, raised, while the birds fly less and less. Less and less and the mammals sprout leathery wings and launch scent-ward into the sky seeking its flowering devil. It’s a land the shape of two massive wings, which ironically, the birds lost after so much walking too and fro, hidden from the god-like form above, it being so swift, ready, scythe-like beak ready to devour the morsel-like pinioned beasties of below below below-ward.

And then the prints of princes, the land fell silent the pinions submit and float ground-ward slowly slowly, defying gravity. “Why should we listen to you.” “Because your blood now colours your plumage, have you not seen?” And so the immortal godly brothers too fell from the invisible blockage into the whirlpool of Atlas’ sink and with the pulling of the plug, round we go, round we go, feathers and all, once more into the black abyss.

The Ouroboros Project #1 - The Words

{So, just quickly, I've decided to write a poem a day for as long as possible. Let's see how it goes. I think I'll call this The Ouroboros Project 


What are your thoughts on this one? I kind of went outside of myself for it.}

The Words

I’ve spent my entire adult life studying this poetry. David’s fortitude. Judah’s evocation. The saintly beast and his words of wonderment. In fact, there’s nobody of my generation more versed in the intricacies, nuances and wavering hammer of air-cutting-word or whatever you want to label the working parts as; the bleeding words if you will. Whatever – no matter - it’s an outrage.

First the restrictive ropes tightening – tightening. And now they say I am useless and not fit enough to work. What right do they have? What right? My bleeding words. My degenerate career? What is degenerate? What is degeneracy?

Where am I to go? I am useless? I have an understanding of generations of verse, the meaning and cadence of thousands of years of erring human history, the smattering of expression left like congealed blood, gone black on the pages of ages. The pages of the bloody ages! The blackest or the brightest, I know, and have read of the days of all, the sorrow, the toil, the sunsets of the forgotten – their symbolism all but decoded and laid bare.

And it is not only the scholars of prose, such as myself; the whole faculty has been ousted. Some trumped up upstart has swaggered in, his shiny buttons glinting in the slanted sunlight sculpting its way through the flotsam of the air; his smirk the nail in the denigratory coffin as his minions clear out papers before the bally dust had its time to settle on the creased corners; the shovel of ash and dirt upon the coffin’s oblique façade, newly buried, never forgotten. The words, oh words

Yes, they shut the university down. It’s boarded up now and stands gaunt in the streetlights of this newly darkened age. I mean, they shut the university down. And now what will happen to me, mine and my? They say we’re going to camps of some kind.

Chapter One - Decay

Chapter one.

There was no year as it was a time when time really was of no importance, in fact very little was of importance, apart from being alive, although most of the living were totally unaware that they were so, their madness such a menace. One thing you didn’t see was folk scurrying hither and thither, pillar to post in a flurry of rush and must do must do. Meetings, deadlines, gant charts and that whole raft of elevated self-importance simply didn’t exist any more – not even in memory.

Why, I hear you solemnly ask?

Well to make my allusion complete, so few still had there marbles and those that did were in a malaise, left on the cusp of it all, fighting the snarling dog of madness forever, like it was trying to claw away at their soul one claw mark at a time – I call them the half mad. In addition to this, there were so few people left around that organized industry of any kind was a bitter memory, something that gurgled up through the madness from time to time, something oiled and dark, meaningless amongst the litany of incoherency.

How is it I manage to recite such knowledge without the touch of madness, without the scent of a disconnected mind? Beyond my narratives there really is no cohesiveness, but this is not only me, it is the world, it’s like all semblance of oneness in the world has fallen away and left rise to some tortured medieval future, a kind of cruel simplicity.

-But maybe I have taken my revelation too far, as it is still common to find crude community within the half mad, tiny villages popped up here and there, often by waterfalls for more than just the intrigue – the remnant of the logic of survival bubbles even in the insane I mean how simple a concept for the mind to grasp is it?  Water is a good thing – water is needed – water near me is good. I wouldn’t call it the peak of human reasoning, but even a nutter in full swing abides by those small feats of logic to sustain itself.

So yes villages, more like bands of people flocking together a buzzing collective remnant – something good, usually, but they’re all different. Most cities now are nothing more than a vanquished history, they choked under the weight of population crisis. It’s a simple theory really. The more people living together in one centralized area, the higher the concentration of toxins above and beyond those that were spread by the devilry of the world’s leader - and therefore the more likely for full-scale madness in any given area and all the subsequent un-pleasantries that go with it. They lie now as sprawling green and grey ghost towns, concrete and steel, fallen and empty, rubble amongst the voice of nature now firmly strangling the charge of bustle and traffic and sedulity. I once ran into a man through the hanging vines, the maze of nature, he sat upon a log and giggled incoherently whilst feasting on grubs from his palm – the necessity to remove the head not lost to him – that survival instinct kicking and rearing its head again. Now, on occasion when confronted with the mad it is possible to glean a past through the murk and haze of madness, the stories can and do bubble up from the rubble and decay of the mind; fragments of truth among the absolute mayhem. From this old tortured soul though, with his near black tatty clothing, zenith knows what colour they were when first donned, raged a vision, an account true and stark. He spoke of the things he saw in the cities downfall, crystallized slivers of the horror of a civilization eating itself one atrocity at a time, you could have listened to him for days had you the mind for it (literally). It seems much like the remnants of survival that bubble in the mad, so too the remnants of perversion, and also like the clamming together of the half mad so do the numbers of the, shall I say, evil. From what I gleaned they gathered as monstrous brute-squads terrorizing all they came across and laying waste to any semblance of coherent thought. I could not say whether this man took part or simply witnessed it but by his accounts it sounded like a self-destructive sexual blood bath transpired. Another thing is clear though the collaboration of such rap shod evil on any large scale was doomed for failure, almost like ouroboros, the kindly snake eating its own tail – they ate each other alive until that remnant of evil dogs broke and spread, disassembled and again that survival instinct kicked in – to be evil in such a manner will not keep me – keep your head down – keep on walking; speaks the unconscious to the void.  This wandering yet trappist like nature become that of many folk though – not only the wicked, to what other purpose could the mad ever serve though? What fulfillment would they ever exceed despite the feat of one foot after the other, scrounging food day to day – an accidental wash, the misunderstanding of agony; the mad wandered aimlessly, the half mad meandered in vexation.

Survival now has never been so raw – no – not raw – something else… New, survival has never been so new. And I doubt anywhere in 4 billion years of evolution has survival of the fittest been truly abstracted to where a wandering pilgrim’s evolutionary success is dependent on whether a human has the cognitive capacity to see and comprehend a 60 foot cliff in front of it. I’ve seen both outcomes before in the same specimen. First time, it sees the cliff, logic prevails and it climbs down the craggy rock face safely safely. Later in the same situation it fails to take in its depth and surmises it to be a step like any other not the step of death it becomes as it walks onward because he thought it was a step like any other. The resulting blood splattered rocks below stand as a testimony to man’s convivial fall from the top of the animal rung.

Oh yes evolutionary theory groans quite loudly in the wake of it all. Survival of the fittest? Not quite, but perhaps circumstance is on the side of the mad as if you look where the remnant are found it is an island chain – namely two large islands a northern and a southern. But dwelling upon these islands there are no dangerous animals to speak of, no bears, crocodiles, no snakes or lions, not even a poisonous spider numerous enough to have killed more than one in the last ten years or so. In fact ,prior to man’s indelible footmark on this land it was a paradise for another pedigree; birds. It was in fact such a safe and hospitable paradise for the avian lineage that they gave up use of their wings – though there is some conjecture that they barely had them to begin with - and with a shortening of pinion took up the preference of traversing the ground through the shade of thick trees along the moss covered ground never to see the lay of the land from the clouds above again. So when it comes to the mad and half mad wandering aimlessly around the earth, there really is no safer place as these islands. Like a hefty talon on the damp ground and fallen foliage, so is the so-called indelible footmark of man.

There is, if someone were to dig beyond the anecdotal evidence, some evidence that the further north we go in this land of frail birds and even frailer minds the madder people get. Imagine with your faculty, a graph, from left to right equals south to north. The left axis is that of madness. At the northern point of the axis we find the kind of chemical castration of mental faculty that of which would leave a homosapien not only gibbering with incoherence, but also unable to control its motor skills. A lack of control at which point walking would become not only impossible, but mythological to even think that the creature writhing on the floor before you could ever walk with a gracious liquidic bi-pedal gait. And sadly, on the ground in such a way those in the northern most areas suffered greatly, a slow slow death as the body slowly ran out of elixir and starvation overcame them as did the flies. Down the bottom of the axis we find ah the half mad those with faculty enough to communicate if not in a rudimentary but sustainable fashion – gone though are the cognitively halcyonic days of the previous era, no more Einstein-ious folk walking the earth amongst this chemical haze, this chemical fix.  Gone are the days indeed. Anyway, on the graph the line grows from bottom left to top right with an alacrity that would suggest that those in the northern hemisphere, beyond our green islands, have laid down fair and true to this mental death and that beyond our cozy land there breathes no living human with capacity to walk let alone craft and fuse. No more glasses perched upon nose and ears, networks of ceaseless underground trains, gelatinous candies, all manner of tools and equipment for hitting balls to and fro for a lost end – entertainment, no more controlling water in any state you should find it in. 

The sea, rivers, snow and lakes now live free of fear of human contrivance.  No more exams, cars a lost dream, religion too is gone because so few have the essence to ask simply - Why? And so maybe you could say the devils masterstroke was not the fruit and the cynical postulations and deeds of trickery of old – no but maybe the final victory of his came with a liquefaction of the mind – that is if your view the world is so composed this way.  Although maybe the relative peace in which pervades the earth would strike that claim from the list, as why would the devil rule and defy so that an invocation of peace would pronounce itself. Them maybe swing the pendulum the other way – divine judgement? His sentient beings, so full of empty deeds and formidability that his misgivings gave over to a cleaning of the slate, retrieval of the innocence, the peace finally attained.

Oh but which ever way you look at it –and trust me, none do - There really is no fathoming. The fact is humans now meander through the twisted land and plains with an innocent madness, those with any semblance of cognition left live simply, rustically and demurely, men and women alike, riding the human nadir like a jester rides a tank, headlong towards extinction.

Man...

Man. Have we ever understood him? The depths - The savagery. 

There is villainy. There is light. There is a flood of unconsciousness. Because sometimes it is hard to be a man. Not hard in any tangible way.

In fact, Culture would say men have it easy, but in the shadow of every man lies a beast - one not prone to rearing its head in the valley of woman - one incomprehensible to any but the will of a man's own soul.


The animal sleeps, sometimes, head down, but ears aware - ready for action - ready to roar into action and devour its own innards.


Thousands of years of cultural evolution and still we lynch our brother, rape our sister and scatter our mind like a man sweeping leaves in a gale.


There is no control - only its myth.