On Conditions

A sudden fantasy about death under rails is upon me; the thought of slaughter at the hands of her machinery fascinates. I can feel the slow effect on me always- soul rotting, heart removed, dessicated. i blame her, and her putrid smells. this city in her adolescent spasms, not yet a woman, but old enough to be a window-shopped slut. she welcomes with short skirts and poorly furnished make up.

And yet i have been deposited within her midsts, not her under-developed bosom, but the cavity within her chest where her heart is supposed to reside. inside and inside i wander and search. where are the places that my parents once described? the culture that i yearn for, the peace that home is supposed to provide. in its place i find a longing for the crisp air of the Canterbury plains, the mysterious suburbs where my belonging now subsides.

I dream at night of train stations filled with ghosts. caricatures of caricatures of caricatures. carriages of living dead. it is my fault these vivid nights are upon me - in the day my mind fantasizes and conjures - this young lady from a bank coyly glances at me; i imagine her a fresh graduate yearning for the hedonism of her future and weighing the hours she will have to work against the material she'll be able to bring in. the old man on the seat in pajamas muttering to himself in dialect; lost in the midst of his past, neglected by its offspring in the present.

Always, my dream ends the same. Blank faces, row upon row of heights, bodies... empty vessels to be filled. i reach my stop. i reach for Beatrix's hand. but she is not here, and ever increasingly do i realize that neither am i.

Forever young [2]

So here we stand, Youth at his most shallow, neither burdened with soured hope nor expectation, stagnant in enjoying this labour that has yet borne little fruit.

We have given much thought to no occasion, but rather on the slow decline of us, that generation so characterised by a media that we hold too dear, that bombards us gently in these methods pervasive and perverse. there is nothing righteous about the desensitization of morality, nothing decent about the tyranny of the majority - these dullards to whom the only reaction can be pessimistic humor, or cynical rage.

it is in these times we wonder: is there no standing to the juggernaut? to the corporations and the governments who wield control? oh how effectively they perpetuate Maslow's myth! - that without this you will never be safe.

Yet, this youth is seemingly at the cusp of its nameless epoch, no longer wondering if the moonless night will turn. For in this age where we are so closely connected, you can no longer use our differences to keep us apart!

For we are neither empty vessels to be filled, nor hate-filled revolutionaries. We are neither socialist nor democrat, religious nor atheist, artist nor engineer. We are youth, and we are searching for beauty, for truth and for substance. And ever increasingly, we are beginning to realise; that in this, we should have never been alone.

Say it sweetly and softly.

and simply, this is how it ends.

allow yourself to feel, one last time, the weight of the load on your back. events so tiny and so vast that you have been witness to. the smiles and curses of your yonder journey. Take a moment for each, savour the brightness of the memory. for this is your kaleidoscope, these will reflect onto your world, no matter how dim or dark or deep.

remember to breathe, your slow inhalations down that stormy path, each breath a month,a year, every tear a sensation new for the first time.

and be brave! - always be brave. you may have grown from this gutter alone, entered the garden desolate, but like all beings grasped this impossibility and thrown it back. and in its place, hope sprang, as in dreams, for it is a dream, for you to have taken into your arms another, and another, and touched for a moment that shangri-la, that piece of truth that defies what rationale had hoped to accomplish.

Leave now, your shiny shoes on, ties and dresses bright like the flashes from the lenses. Leave now, and put yourself together. Step into the light. Remember to smile.

1.

Holliday is bunched in a corner masturbating when Bud Wally walks into the top floor penthouse of the Holiday Inn. There is a peculiar mathematics to self-gratification, the addiction and subtraction of movement till the multiplication of pleasure increases and equates with what can only be described as finality.
Often there are errors, interruptions, but these are often redacted or ignored with the sheer mass of forced numbers. On the odd occasion the sum does not complete, and such it is here when Wally reaches into the left front pocket of his plain black Nike trekkers, pulls out a small snub-nose .45 magnum and pulls the trigger.

Desperation growing

Oh and turn on the bright lights Joshua! there is patience, yes, and abstinence, but procrastination oh, that is a dirty word -

remember the fall, and the salty estranged sea.

you must have character, Joshua, to live up to the person you can be. For this, above all your talents, abilities and responsibilities will forever define you, your happiness and your place in the world.

there is no such thing as luck.

Self interested bastard.

All i have are questions, and no answers.

What is the meaning of this? there is rhyme, and rhythm to be sure - maybe some sense of higher joy. But underneath, and there is always the underneath, there in my cavern of insecurity and doubt, there will always be the fact that this is no beginning, and that all too insufferably soon there will be an end.

i cling to you, like a drowning man to a raft half sunk.

i am a cynic after all - i think of the words that i spoke before, and wonder at their loud half-truths. perhaps better to take you as my medicine, in these long small doses. but the conclusion seems inevitable, and all too clear from the onset- for these days i picture myself as an artist. and that is to say that i only care for expression of the self.