October 28, 2021

I am having a fun morning. I can say things like that because, this is my blog and…it is all about me. Haha. I found a post on Facebook that has caused me to think about the Devil, God and evil, generally. Part of this morning’s thoughts were orchestrated by the dream I had. I dreamed I was at work again. Yes, that evil place. It won’t leave my psyche and I am now thinking that perhaps, I have Post Traumatic Stress Imagining about it. Was it truly evil? Did The Devil run the place? Were everyone’s hormones subject to gravity waves from the moon? Was God too busy to get involved?

Work was pretty bad. Near the end, people would shout at each other as they walked through the office. One fellow said he would ‘beat the shit out of you’ to another guy and they started pushing. I am guilty of being caught up in it, myself. I once corrected someone’s English (abysmal) and he exploded at me. I received an extremely threatening, inches away from my face tirade. He would have attacked me physically but that I acknowledged his complaint as accurate. Yes, I did correct his English and yes, that may have seemed to have ‘put me on a pedestal’ and yes, ‘who the hell did I think I was’. I agree. As ever, that day no one said a thing about it or tried to intervene, defuse. In fact, my co-workers just ignored it. That sort of misbehaviour happened on a daily basis. Yeah, it was kind of evil. This Devil guy that we hear about or have heard about (we Christian indoctrinates, anyway) must be alive and very well, thank you.

The post I saw on our beloved Facebook spoke about the Devil as being a fictional character in The Story. Yeah. He was ‘an element of the text’, as they say in literature class. While I have had some rough experience in life that might tend to put ‘the fear of God’ in a person, I agree God and Devil may not be more than text elements in a series of books. The books got bound together in a different fashion for different folks. There was a Facebook post about it. I took that post and ran with it. It gave me cause to reflect on Devil and God and life and truth. Who is telling the Truth? Is there a Truth?

I think The Story is exactly that. It is one culture’s attempt to explain the big three: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? The Bible, because I was born into a Christian cuture, is our take on how and why. The indigenous cultures had their own ideas. Some of the other ideas around the world are a bit more colourful, some are more clever, some are more rational – as in science’s conclusions. Still, science has some pretty far-out and hard to believe ideas, just like the Bible. The Big Bang Theory? is that any different than ‘God saw that it was good and on the seventh day, He rested’? Quarks and black holes and Charm? Why do we tend to believe that sort of malarkey? Because it is measurable? Because we can see it and it’s effects and because the theory seems to work? Well.

I am stepping back a bit from the Science explanation, from the Christian explanation, from the Hindu explanation…etcetera. I think that the very likely truth comes somewhere in between all of the different theory and opinions. When everyone finds a point, small point of agreement…we are probably on to the truth. The exact truth will take a whole bunch of analysis yet. We have to grow, improve. The data can’t be trusted, our machines and minds are not well enough developed. Yeah.

I imagine that life and soul can be reduced to this: we DID come from somewhere. we DO exist and MIGHT have a reason for being. we ARE going somewhere. Yeah, we see folks being born and more folks kicking the bucket or buying their farms. We see the little creatures keel over and get eaten. Sometimes, we do the eating and the keeling them over. The plants green and grow, then brown and curl up. The sun rises, the sun sets. ‘Swiftly go the years/ one season following a-no-ther/ laden with happiness and …tears’.

Could it be God who makes the sun shine and the Devil who has power over the moon? Is it a Quark with Charm or some other kind of particle that wiggles and builds sentience, then wiggles again and shuts the whole she-bang down? Is it the Great Spirit who built Turtle Island and our stubborn imperfection that puts the garbage out without a tight-fitting lid, causing all manner of ill things to happen?

Maybe Diablo or God are elements of the text and not real things? How and why do either of them play into this, Our Story, Our Realness? I think that in all cases (science, too) a Devil is just an object, a theory, a thing to blame for the crap we don’t exactly care for about living. “The Devil made me do it!” or “To the Devil with that nonsense!” Hitler was the Devil incarnate!” (BTW – as an aside to thinking what The Devil made folks do. Yes, it seems Adolf Hitler may well have had only one testicle. What puzzles me is: either Eva had a big mouth, or somebody took his pants off when they found the body? If somebody took his pants off for a look-see, then why? Were they thinking, “Well, sir…the only thing that could make a man so crazy is to only have one ball. He won’t mind, let’s have a look!”).

In some cultures, angry Gods caused the difficulties, the floods, the famines, the poor television reception. It wasn’t The Devil, it was just God on a tear. I am thinking, God, Devil, Quark, Black Hole…if you say so. I have to take all of it on faith, since I have not got a method to prove anything. I can’t say for certain that Earth is round. Sure looks like it is but I haven’t got an evidence of my own. I can’t say there is or is not a God. As an experiment, I prayed once and I didn’t get what I wanted. The test was inconclusive because the wild card was – I may be a sinner and God wasn’t happy about it. Perhaps, God thought I didn’t need what I wanted and that a couple of stained glass windows for the church were a budget priority.

I did bad things once. It was me, being stupid…I didn’t feel the hand of Satan, pushing me, his voice in my ear, “It’s cool, Babycakes…go ahead and smoke it.” or “Sure, it’s your Dad’s Christmas money but you could use it for now.” Of course, my belief that trouble happened by my own action isn’t proof of no Satan, either. It could have been the God of Hell-Fire who got into my head or put butterflies in my trousers that time. While I don’t have a particular affinity for apples, I do like fruit and I suppose the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil can make substitutions. If I were to be tempted by Satan, I think it would have to have been a cherry pie tree. Hear that, bad guy? Get it ready for the next time.

I am not righteous nor evil, I suppose. Each condition is a temporary thing, not an intrinsic one. I am, you are, all are moving between states (conditions, not entities). I am born, I will die. I am like the sun, on it’s rounds. I am warm, I am cold as the moon. I am alike as any creature, plant or star. I do good things, I do bad things, good things happen and bad things but there is no God and no Satan. (I say this equivocally – since I call the unviewable, the unknowable, God) The scientists are probably making their stuff up, too. The possibility exists of no actual moon landings or space stations – just movie sets and props that show well on TV.

While this could be wild theorizing, I am not in conspiracy…I just made it all up by myself with a little help from Facebook, People Magazine or sometimes, The Smithsonian. I keep trying to read more of The Bible but it gets a little boring with all the begetting and begotting. Sometimes, it has a high point or two, like when God catches Adam and Eve, then they each throw someone under the bus about the Crime Of The Millenia, before stitching up some loincloths and heading out. Yeah. The Book can get cloudy and hard to finish. I am reading it, slow as molasses in Damascus but finishing will happen one day, I am determined.

October 27, 2021

Funny stuff today… I saw a very incommunicado-looking truck pull up to the beer store. It was a stealthy approach, as though it were actually a Brinks truck in disguise. No, it wasn’t a Brinks truck, it was a ‘Blue’ truck sneaking up to deliver valued cargo. This is Canada and a beer truck needs not announce itself, for safety’s sake. There have been hijackings. I remember the great ‘Moosehead’ robbery on the east coast some time back. They never did recover the load or discover who stole many thousands of dollars worth of the liquid. We have our suspicions but no facts to back them up. Somewhere, maybe in Newfoundland and Labrador, they are still enjoying a free brew. Down the shed, they are not fixing fishing nets but watching some hockey on the portable tv and drinking a surreptitious cold one.

Speaking of cold ones, it’s chilly but finally sunny again. Times have changed, the earth has tipped away from the sun up here, near the 42nd. I find that interesting, if you were standing at the centre of earth and looking upward at approximately 45 degrees from the horizontal, you would be looking at a lot of Canada. You would be hot as hell and thinking how nice all the ice and snow would be, right about then. Maybe you would be laughing about some old skit from way back that involves Doug and Bob MacKenzie. “Oh, those Canucks,” you might say. Would diablo be sitting there. enthroned, with his tail curling around? Maybe the great red one would be roasting marshmallows on the prongs? Nah. I hear he is actually slithering around on his belly, watching out for women’s stilletto shoes and behaving himself. Now, I am wondering why we got this idea of Hell being below? Must be from the Bible again. Darn book. …and how did they figure out it was hot down there, did they watch a volcano and put two and two together?

The Bible. Did God really say, ‘Hey, write this down’? Maybe He used a machine like the one that Margaret Atwood invented. It writes what you write, only it does it four thousand miles away. Or, do you think He put people in a trance and pushed their hands back and forth? Maybe folks just imagined it was happening and actually wrote their own thoughts. Beer and wine and wacky tabaccy were all over the Middle East by then. Even Jesus, himself had a drop for his rheumatism or a glass ‘with supper’. With all that It would be easy for someone to get a ‘little TOO high’ and think that God was speaking to them when the television got too loud. Happens to me all the time. Or, were Paul and Peter and Mark and Luke and John just making stuff up? If they were and he could prove it, my Dad would say, “They are talking out of their asses!” He would say that adamantly.

I hear Mary Magdelene wrote a book for the Bible, too but some pages got lost, so they didn’t go to press with it. The whole thing makes me suspicious, I think the committee screwed up. Yes, the committee. It was earthly and political. An f’ing committee made the decision about what was and wasn’t God’s word and they made the decisions about 300 years after Jesus had died. By that time, all the principals were also dead so nobody could argue about stuff and/or keep it out of print. It was like Nixon and Watergate and Deep Throat. Now, we are some couple of thousand years further on and, after several reviews, changes and translations — we have the literal word of God to follow? yeah, right. I think I will just go on being a homo until I get some better proof that God ain’t down with that.

As far as being a homo goes, it has been a pretty dry spell. Darn. I know my aunt doesn’t like me to talk like that but, hey. It is what I is. Yeah, it’s thin out there these days. The pickings could be better if I didn’t have an ‘affinity’ for cherry pie and ice cream. That stuff is making me fat as heck. The not getting exercise situation is keeping me where cherry pie put me, too. I see lots of potential in the everyday world around me but those handsome young things are looking elsewhere. Sigh. I did see a fellow at the beer store who is a sort of possibility. He is very chatty and personable. I save up empties and take them back, one at a time, so that I can chat more often. It helps to have a good excuse. Returning empties is better than keeping on buying more. He could get suspicious, I suppose, if I come back to his kiosk every day with just the one bottle. Gonna have to step up my game. Anyway, that’s my story about the beer truck at the beer store….

October 17, 2021

Trafffic, traffic, traffic…sigh. Must everyone move about at the same hour, using up our limited resources? All I wanted was to get to Starbucks for my tea and bagel and writing. What a crowd on the road! We should do this relocating of our persons at allocated times. That’s how they handle vacation overcrowding in the Netherlands. Half the country goes off in early summer, the other half in late summer. Some of us are up and out early, some later so let’s restrict ourselves. We will draw lots or straws or something. We can do odd and even Social Insurance numbers. That is the way to progress. If we keep on the path we are on, it will soon be impossible to move about. There is, of course, the possibility that economics, heading into the end days of earth, will make our choice for us. We might well be kept home by high costs and dwindling supplies.

High costs are making big changes in transport. The more fuel costs, the more insurance costs, the more licensing costs…the wilder the so-called alternative vehicles on the roads. Each day, things turn more in the direction of a Mad-Max scene. Add to that the social mood of anger, frustration and rebelliousness and you get a wild mix out there on the fair boulevards. It’s hard to predict what you will find on your way. Today’s assortment of oddities included bicycles of wild design, electric two-wheelers of limited speed, stuck together pieces of whatever from wherever and a high-handlebar affair that appeared very hard to steer safely.

With the wild mix of vehicles comes a wild mix of ideas for traffic safety, a wild and broad interpretation of traffic rules. You might just as well admit defeat and keep your head (while driving your vehicle of choice) spinning about in a defensive attempt at observation of road conditions with an eye for self-preservation. The general mayhem is approaching what the streets of India look like on National Geographic tours. When the drones are set free, I pity us.

Yesterday, or the day before (it blurs a bit) a young-ish woman with long, beautiful brown hair and a non-descript bike cut me off. She was so casual and deliberate about her error that it astounded me. I was traveling southbound in a standard automobile of recent vintage, she was on her bike and traveling at right angles to me. She had a stop sign, I did not. This meant that I had the right-of-way, she did not. She looked at me as I approached, she saw me, I saw her. I was traveling more than the posted limit of 40 kmh (as we each and all do, don’t we?). When I got close to her, she calmly kept her moderate pace and sailed right past a bright red hexagonal stop indicator, exactly into my path. I had to hit the brakes to avoid her. She smirked at me and drove off in an unhurried, relaxed manner. It was such a casual and aggressive rudeness that I was dumbfounded. Suppose I had been texting?

We all have these stories to tell; stories of the fellow on his powered mobility cart who simply turned left in front of you, never looking left or right, the older gentleman who wore a neck brace and dragged himself along by pulling his wheelchair with his feet IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TRAFFIC LANE, a bicycle coming out of the fog, southbound in our northbound lane, the tattered, elderly contraption that spewed smoke and spare parts as it lurched along…and… the usual collection of farm machinery, busses, transport trucks. Wild. Mad Maximum. I blame the money.

We do have the approaching future high cost of transport to complain about. It’s frightening. In the end, I suppose I shouldn’t worry much about Mad Max when the benzina is over $1.40 a litre should I? Ha ha. What else are people going to do? I will be maybe walking soon, too. Perhaps, I could construct an unusual and affordable fuel vehicle of my own? I have a couple of garbage cans and an extra recycle box. With a bit of string, I could make myself a quite comfortable example of rolling stock. It might be noisy as heck, rolling the cans along the pavement. What a roar that could be! Likely, I will be walking, although, by my powers of deduction, there is no doubt that walking could be dangerous in this environment. I see the occasional, timid pedestrian hidden in the crowd of jaywalking ‘sashayers”.

Oh yeah, the sidewalk is a dangerous, Maxian place also. The words ‘excuse me’ have been lost in the noise and confusion of our modern, digital age. No bicycle bells drrrrinnnnng out a warning anymore. I witness the near-trampling of the meek on a daily basis. If tail-gating bothers when you are ensconced within the bounds of a steel vehicle, can you imagine someone ‘drafting’ you by walking very close behind to reduce the wind drag on their own person? Yikes! Look out!

Fortunately, in all of this change, in all of this reconfiguration of sidewalk and road traffic, in all of this unsettled grimace we are living through, we have the HORN! The horn. Ah, that age-old curve shaped musical instrument, intended for communication. I am sure I read that initially, the horn was ripped off the skull of a murdered beast and sounded as an invitation to a meal of fresh beast flesh or a celebration of victory. That must be what it was. The horn was designed for glory. Oh, I am sure the horn was not intended as an urgent, impatient prod or a negative feedback instrument. No, no.

Myself, whilst I am about on my four wheels, I hear the horn often and wish to use my own, similarly. A shake of the fist is only modestly effective and only as a personal relief. “The fist shake prevents a kill,” I always say. I did have an interesting idea that should be put into development. How about a horn that sounds out loudly when the button is pressed, with, “ASS-HOLE!” That only requires technology for two loud sounds, perhaps a whole step apart? ASS hole! I will get right to work on the drafting-to-concept. Cheers.

The world starts again today. Schoolkids, full staff behind the bar at S’bucks, cars, traffic, political cartoons – er – campaigns. Folks are going back to work, opening up to the world but we are damaged. Things are almost as before but yeah, it is different, feels different. Everyone is angry, now. The anger is bubbling up in the smile and outward ‘good times’ attitude of the staff here. The anger honks hard, suddenly and too easily at a minor annoyance on the roadway. The anger frowns mean at some fool who isn’t walking on the sidewalk, is dawdling in the street, is on the phone and not paying attention. The strength of this modern vicious impulse is surprizing. If you pay attention to the daily news, it seems more and more of us are overwhelmed by the impulse. It’s hard to tell when but anger appears so quickly nearly everywhere. I am feeling it, too, like some forgotten gas well that is leaking. Where this blows up? is a good question.

We have been deceived and our lovely illusions about the world of peace and plenty we inhabit, here in the west, are gone.

Part of what we are feeling is the legacy of one Donald J. Trump and his filthy cohorts – the likes of Roger Stone, Rudolph Giuliani, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson. Another part of our malaise is fed by companies like CNBC, Fox News, CNN, and the wonder-tech of social media. It is twenty four hour days, seven day weeks we spend filling ourselves full of garbage that masquerades as truth. To misquote and paraphrase the Beach Boys, “Scroll on, scroll on sailor…” into the fiery sunset of civility or respect for one another.

We have been cheated and our lovely illusions about the blessings of modern life and stable governments, here in the west, are gone.

What to do?

Well, take no leader at the promise of a salvation. None can do that. Even God and Jesus or Buddha and the Golden Calf have no power here. This delicious planet rolls to it’s own will. There is lots of proof we can’t limitlessly control our future, our days. That is illusion of power. “…there is always something…” Time and again, smoke rises from best chosen incense and our earnest prayer…time and again, evil dominates, sets it’s own uncontrollable fire and good gets singed, swept to the side. Sometimes the sweepers are political flamethrowers, masquerading as saviours to all yet secretly built of hatred and miscommunication. Sometimes, the sweepers are blazing organs of the church but the facts are that evil is a part of life. It will always be. Life is a gamble no matter what. The only thing certain is disruption. On earth, in our lives, a fuse always blows. It does not matter what you pray to or whom you elect or what or whom the church or the town council sacrifices for the good of all. That bad shit happens is just the chaotic nature of being alive, like the other creatures and gelatinous things.

We know this. Inside, down deep we know God and politics won’t save us, that chaos reigns supreme but I can’t deny that pray, we do. Point fingers, we do. As example: Reverend Phelps (and a good many others) have condemned things like same-sex love as the source of our modern problems. The Republicans (and a good many others) have condemned situations, like migrants who flee oppression, as the source of our problems. “God,” it is claimed by a vocal few, punishes us with storm of all kinds for our misdeeds, whether or not the misdeeds were born of innocence or compassion. There are social blamers, I blame, too. I blame political leaders, church leaders and, wickedly, I blame this new-fangled Facebook and the twenty four hour news cycle. Yah. If it were up to me, I would shut it all off. “Give us peace!” I would say. “Unplug yourselves,” I would say. …but I can’t. That is, oversimplified, my error.

I am addicted to the news, to Facebook, to politics. I also, somehow…fear and love the church? It is my illusion that if only we could tweak the bad guys out of office, change the church, modify Facebook, life could be made whole. If the pedestrian would obey the law, as I interpret it… all would be well. If the @#$hole who scared the hell out of me with his too-ready horn would just ease up… all would be well. I believe that shit and my believing is akin to Donald Trump saying, “We could live with order and peace if only everyone did as I said.” Hmmmm

Are we all doing this?

Yah. We are getting to the ends of our tethers. Modern living, ancient living, any living kinda does that to folks. The fact is, though, that hey…shit happens. In the words of an old friend of mine, “The main thing is, to not get too excited!” or “Let the rough side drag and let the smooth side show!” It’s ours to learn how to deal with the new contraptions, how to relax. I should relax a little, that minor effort will help this world – wide flame cool a bit. It is up to me.

Biden can’t save me, Jagmeet can’t save me, God can’t save me, Jesus won’t ride in on a white donkey. Sure. Stressing out about the Wild West Show of Facebook won’t save me. It is up to me to save me, I have to carry on in the best way I can. I have to let go and let the mouths wag, the pedestrians zig and zag, the horny – honk. Ha ha. Finding something in church, is up to me and up to me if I want it to be. That is my only defense. Who knows what evil waits around the corner but, in the main, (I am) we are okay for a while yet. We still have the ability to shrug and carry on doing the best we are up to. Cheer up, Robert. Shut up, Robert. Go ahead and have an ice cream…or… pie?… no, donuts! mmmmmm

Oh, my dear hearts and friends… I have been away from blogging a few days again. I haven’t felt cheerful enough to wander over the keyboard with my fat fingers. I haven’t felt like whining aloud. I haven’t felt like anything. I have numbed but uncomfortably. This being true, it is also true that the state I am in is not a total dead zone. There are some completed poems and a chapter plus in the editing process for my novel/short story collection. It will take a long while but I am working on those things, in the very least. No cheer, here, though. The days have been bleak.

Some of my friends are struggling and there is little I can do. The twists and turns on what is known as the road of life are so frustratingly unpredictable. I mean, really, God. I am struggling, too…as are we all even though good fortune does still smile at the odd time. For example: Myself and some 7 billion other humans survived the night, whichever 12 hour span we are in. That is good. I woke, stumbling about, groggy but with all limbs attached and in operational order. That is good. I had something to eat (for which I am grateful, it is not taken for granted). That is good. I had a long chat with a close friend. That is good. Yesterday, I was able to help someone and offer companionship. That is good. All of those things are good…but…there is more yet. I found a reason to cheer again. Do you want to know what it is that makes me feel better? There is a new barista at Starbucks and boy, whew, he is a hottie!

So my cheer level has been down a bit. With politics and the earth ablaze there is also my advancing age, my decline. These facts alone mean not much can be done about the lack of cheer. I am not unique. I feel the down-cheer with a whole crowd of folks. I’ve got lots of company, here in the chorus. But. The new Mr. Dark Eyes at Starbucks will help with that situation. I can tell you that, truthfully. A glance in his direction reminds me that there are moments when I am so happy to be a homosexual, sigh. I can see the beauty another might not notice. It’s funny. Checking this fellow out makes me think of how the church seems fixed on the idea of ‘gay’ being a choice. Well, in this one case, I CAN understand how a person could choose to be gay. Haha. There isn’t a soul among humans who would not wonder what a night of romance would be like with this guy…even his dog probably thinks about it.

So.
God (I am assuming God, with personal opinion difference and caveats it seems the most reasonable explanation. I plan to get into this in a book that is underway) has gifted the beast and the blossom with ability to adapt. We can change. We can lift our heads, when the sword comes down and notice a cute little sweetie in the crowd. Bliss. We can step back from the accident scene, review the time-line, notice our fellow passengers are alert and without more than a scratch or two, count our limbs, feel for any loose blood, find nothing broken and laugh about how the car we were riding in flew up into the air. “Oh, my gosh!” Then, we can go to Starbucks for a coffee and chill. We can surreptitiously observe Mr. Dark Eyes. We can do that anytime we need cheering. We can do that if we are old. I am doing that at this moment. Tres delicaux!

August 25, 2021

“She’s not a girl, who misses much…” dedelededede..is running through my head. My lovely imaginary friend John Lennon sang that, long ago. It was recorded, then reproduced a thousand million times or more. I must have heard it through an equal number of plays. The song still exists, de facto, the hour it was recorded preserved in time. The preserved sound is now sold as little discs or streamed across the internet. The man who lived and sang does not exist beyond recordings, now. The days when recordings of him were first made and I dashed to the shop for the timely purchase of a copy do not exist, now. Those hours have been used up, drained of time. They were not preserved. Those days did decay. The days were consumed. I think the days consume themselves.

There are days to live through and to pass by, all the while ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ plays away. If you keep playing the song, time gets lost. The imaginary world’s ether exists for each play of the tune at 2 minutes/45 seconds. Other time exists but you don’t see it moving. You are in art’s world, it is talking to you and you are listening. Outside, the days are moving and, to paraphrase Carl Sandberg, they slip away on tiny cat’s feet. The song ends, you look up and the singer is no more, the studio painted a different colour, someone quite young-looking at the front desk. They don’t know you.

After the days a recording is made and replayed, somewhere in time, there are days finally to rest. To rest as a pussycat tired from his journey between water and food dish. There are days to rest and clean ourselves and reflect. Those are the latter days. Those days are the days this old pussycat has found. I sit in the window sill, mildly curious but separate from the world outside. The dying sun creates long shadows and shapes for me to imagine as monsters or to remember as heroes. I am aloof, there is a glass of distance/time between my awareness and the new shadows across lawns.

I reflect on and I miss the belonging sensation produced by following a rock and roll group and rising with each of their financial/artistic successes, awaiting their every move with breath bated. My soul heroes. I reflect on and miss the belonging sensation produced by reading a new exotic book by some obscure-no-longer poet or writer. I reflect on and miss wandering museums and puzzling on the pieces stored there. Recordings. Paintings. Messages to the future. Reminders of the past. One soul saying, “hello,” to another. A place to be. I miss that of living.

At the deaths of each hero, the besmirchment of their character, the disappearance of names from the tongues of officials, the shift to a new popular art form or artist name, I deflate a small amount. We are, I am, farther and farther and farther away from the loveliness of youth. That time has consumed itself by being rootless as a tumbleweed and using up one minute, then the next. Some of the past lies face down in Brian Jones’ swimming pool. Some sits on library shelves, lonely for the wild noise of acclaim and criticism. Some gets puffy from plenty, rattles around a big ol’ house somewhere in Connecticut, it’s last tune cranked out and a hell of a lot of money gone.

There is no more excitement of spring, only recordings of it. I can sometimes hear that spring but the recordings are getting pretty scratchy. I have autumn in the yard, whose colour distracts from any replayed warmth of rockandroll guns. Green days may return, in our immediate awareness, but spring is not eternal and each time the green returns, it is a different shade. The only thing eternal is eternity. Ha. Time changes without much warning, the sunshine modified by a tipping and winking of Earth. Spring, which fed on itself, grew into it’s mature summer and will fade. We are finite. The moon is finite. The sun will burn out and turn cold. Do we come around again, in some other form? Perhaps not. “She’s well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand, like a lizard on the windowpane — the man in the crowd with the multi-coloured mirrors on his hobnail boots — lying with his eyes while his hands are busy working overtime…” (Once more around, for a bowl-scrape of the sweetness.)

Innocence.

I made a mistake and left the freezer unplugged. This meant I had to throw a few pounds of food away. I am deeply distressed by my error and the resulting waste of a precious thing. The food was placed in the freezer to save it for a time of need. I am judging myself harshly, imposing a sentence of penitent reflection. My small error sits on the counter, mocking me. How loud it mocks and for how long is a thing I control. How much remorse should a human being feel when he or she has committed a habit-thought-crime? There comes a point to realize that remorse, guilt, penury, sorrow solve no problem. In order to continue living and to continue living well, I must shut the mocking up. I must close the mouth of discontent and shutter the eyes of judgement. It was a small error and we are an error-prone species. I must rescue my soul by learning and making attempts to do better in future.

A small error. On a trip to Mars or the Moon, small errors are crucial ones. “Ooops, I forgot to factor this equation and the 1/1000th of a black, small, curly hair difference is going to mean that we like, totally miss the target and die in space!” Tossing out three pounds of ghastly liquid tomatoes and one ear of corn will not cause us irreconcilable death, today. It may make a difference, some still distant tomorrow…it is regrettable, but what price is true enough to pay? What value does dwelling on the error offer the world at this moment on this day? Some folk would not be too upset by this, some folk would not even think about it. Maybe those folk are the ones who smoke cigarettes, drink beer, shout at others in the drug store or bank and drive wanton SUV’s toward the Wal-Mart of oblivion that awaits modern civility. Well.

Fortunately, I believe that those same ‘some folk’ are fewer and fewer as time goes forward. That is a good thing, to a point. We are, most of us, concerned that our home is changing and by our own hand. There is less food, less air, less water, less cool temperature, less civil discourse, more unreliable systems…it does seem that we are very likely in the end days. My cousin says, in his ‘church’ mode, that: “These are the end days, Brothers and Sisters! The end days began in 1948, when Israel became a state!” The end days? Israel? 1948? Wow! Is that an oversimplified assessment of complex situations? Yeah.

We can point and blame in a lot of different directions. We can start with ourselves, in the myriad ways we committ error. We get cross with a recalcitrant child, a balky faucet, a dimming computer screen, a mildly de-tuned radio, a broken finger nail… and, an almost insignificant, carelessly caused, loss of food. I am cross with myself. I can be cross with others, too. I am one of the we who say silly things that hurt others. We comment in italics or all-caps on Facebook as an ill-conceived attempt at adamant conversation. Those are mistakes. We unplug the freezer and forget to plug it back in. We make mistakes. I made a mistake that cost the universe a small amount of sustenance, that sent particles and bits back into the ether as a different form. Now, the precious saved food becomes a living place for bacteria, in turn a small amount of loose nitrogen, minerals and offers a bit of methane gas to waft upwards into the atmosphere. Said methane possibly contributes to a general, global warming of earth. Mea culpa.

Mea culpa, I have guilt. I am not innocent. I am responsible. I have, or my ancestors have, eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In my case, it were no laughing, present serpent who shone bright eyes in my direction as I erred. I was not blinded and thus led astray…I was human and forgot to plug the freezer back in. It is the same crime, though. I bear weight of my crime as I bear the guilt of being human, of being a part of the mess. I am guilty-by-proxy of lots. For one example: the colonialism that destroyed so many cultures and systems on our beautiful earth. For another: The continued use of fossil fuels that clouds our bright blue sky with deadly vapour. Yah. I am guilty-by-proxy, I am guilty by fact. Mea culpa.

I am guilty and I am innocent. I am learning from my mistakes. It is a painful process, learning. You could say that putting a hand in the fire teaches you that fire is hot. You were innocent of self-harming behaviour when you put a hand in the fire, but you did do that. Now, is the time for learning. I learned that I should not be careless about plugging the freezer back in. We learn that fire is hot, we learn that colonialism is a bad thing, we learn that hate destroys ourselves more than it does our victim, we learn…we are learning. It is a changing world, because we learn. It is a slow turning world and the learning is a slow process. Forward movement, future seem impossible, with the number of mistakes made, the number of people erring, the amount of food wasted.

Step back and look again at what seems impossible, insurmountable. I threw out a bit of food, but was successful at the necessary cleaning of the freezer. There is war enough and gloomy outlooks, but the wars are subsiding a bit, in fact. There is disease enough and dying innocents, but medicine improves, daily. The earth is heating up and drying out, the storms severe, but we are still alive. We are learning, growing, guilty, innocent. We are all things. All things are possible. I have plugged the freezer back in and will re-fill it…on we go.

There was no brutal
puff and gone.
Awareness played at tag along
and woke up in this healing bed,
bright lighted physicians
buzzing overhead.
“Wow! You almost bought it,”
an unseen someone said.

I gasped at the thought, “Not quite bought?”
..discovering I’ve a mortgage still
and my small space under the low hill
waits, yet.
With free movement tied by tubes and wires,
I can see,
leaving the last world harmed me
dearly
and It’s apparent, when you ‘buy the farm’,
that means ‘successful …nearly’.
“Hey!”
to The Doctor I say,
“Your alarm beeps don’t warn folks, clearly.”

That I’ve more future proves, perhaps,
how life by nature, does relapse,
as on the wheeled mandela charts,
this world ending
where another one starts.
How nice!

What once was theory,
wrapped in dream and mystery,
to cool chaotic hearts,

restarts!

I am curious about men and their choices of spouse or ‘pal’. Why is a man drawn to a certain other person? I am of the old school and still believe that a fella follows his penis toward another person. The sniffing occurs, then the courtship and partnering. Doesn’t it? I am at Starbucks, examining my surroundings and the people who populate those surroundings. What I am doing, as far as I can tell, is profiling. I am making an assumption about someone based on their appearance, that most illusory of protective surfaces. It is a thing we all do whether we like that idea or not. Yes. One glance at another human and we start making judgements. “Is this person a whatzit, a whozit?” “Am I taking a risk with my life of peace and prosperity?” I am drilling into my memory banks, sorting through the note cards now to make comparisons and draw conclusions. There is a couple here at the office who intrigue me. Based on their look alone, I have certain questions and observations, certain imaginations about male ‘romantic’ partnering.

She is wearing make-up that is obvious, so I am guessing it is maybe misapplied? There is too much? It is possible that she is on break from the theatre. She is in a production of Bride of Frankenstein or maybe she is just the weather girl. The garish look is something she must do for balance? I am certain the tv camera and lights would blend her visage well, the bright lights emptying the shadows she has created. (maybe her mom or her make-up assistant did it)The eyebrows and cheekbones are highlighted to an almost clown-like degree. Her cheeks appear sunken and the whole effect is of a very tall, thin face. Perhaps, she is not on tv and is only going for a certain look? That could be. She is succeeding at it. She looks rail-thin and a very tightly wound person. The clothing is plastic sexy, the way an actress like Jennifer Anniston would look. A tall, overemotioned, exotic face helps complete the effect. Maybe she is a Karen-esque difficult person?

The fella looks pretty ordinary. He is ‘just a guy’ having a coffee with his girl. He is not fit but not fat in that sort of middle ground way I find attractive. He is just clunky enough to be able to crush you by accident in bed. By demeanor, he is that guy who is a bit clumsy, a bit common but sincere. His clothes are just jeans and a polo-style knit shirt. He looks okay, kinda sexy to me. Just a usual-ish guy. That he is partnered (I assume by body language) with Ms. Franken-Stein is a curious thing. What drew him to the table? How was the web baited?

The make-up, the make-up…it draws the eye, most definitely. If that was the intent, then kudos…well done. Why is the fella/has the fella been drawn in? What is it he sees there? Interesting. Myself, I would run screaming away in fear of a future with a tightly-wound bitch. Even worse, if that is her idea of ‘decor’, then what would the house look like? A mobile home from the sixties? Why does this fella lean in close for a lil’ sniff?

In truth, I don’t know that heterosexual men are terribly discriminating in the area of ‘possible sex partner’. If a lady will cook and pick up the underwear after submitting, then she is in. I do know that gay men aren’t very discriminating. A hand on a thigh is more than enough to draw one of those in. I don’t know that looks matter as much as it might seem. I am not that certain a male human notices what a potential sex partner really looks like. Could he pick that person out of a line-up? “There, it’s number 3. I would recognize that garish make-up anywhere..watch out for her, she has a completed marriage license application in her purse. mmm”. When it comes to the basics, I think ‘opportunity for a sex experience’ trumps just about anything.

I shouldn’t make such a sweeping statement, though. I am sure that some men are ‘attracted to her/his mind’ but…how many? and why? I know myself. I sniff first. That’s how I got in trouble a couple of times.