'why aren't you writing down that which keeps you from breathing? may be it would help, you know, to write it down, get it out, so to speak?'
it wanders slowly towards the water and picks at broken seashells scattered along the gray sand:
'the tragedy with you is that you don't know how to just sit back and watch it all go by without feeling like you're missing out, and then you jump up and start chasing around the bits and pieces. and you want the bigger picture but how do you expect to get it when you're always out of breath...'
cats are like gypsies - appearing and disappearing at their own mysterious disposition, sending their young to shamelessly beg, they're charming and although subject to all sorts of flagellations, sacred, existing somewhere in between species, in between time zones and times of day.
a moment of clarity, a faint memory of the exorcism that took place only a few days ago. i knew my mind would fog and all the settled dust will get stirred up and flung into my eyes and lungs, but how unromantic, how sticky this feeling of helplessness is. those, like jack kerouac, who managed to turn it into a life source, a way of life, a direction - are gods. the ruthless words of rootlessness.
in the middle of some dusty village of concrete and cars, in the middle of the holy land. hiding in the garden, banging pecans off the tree with a stick. something to do. half a chameleon, some leather left around the head and the spine and ribs sticking out. i was plastered to the bed this morning, missed the sunrise. i think it's impolite to miss the sunrise.
the elephant house sighs again...
'that space in your head, the one full of nothing but light and air, clean, fresh, ringing, endless air, that's the only part of you which is alive. that's bad news for the rest of you and bad news for everyone around you who doesn't know about that space. all they see is a walking corpse, imagine that? what a funny nightmare you're in.'
dogs are like lovers from a past life.
expectations and words punctured my lungs but i am full of light and another dusk is coming over the land and i will sit in the garden and watch it change the colors of the leaves of the dry trees. i wonder how much i need to sensor myself and who cares and what does everyone else feel about facebook and email and everything. what does everyone else feel about everything? i think my greatest joy right now is to breathe. when i hit the nut tree with the stick, bunches of silver flies floated down, disturbed from their humming and sleeping in the nutshells. i can feel one crawling across my forehead.
there is an accordion player in every big city, and everywhere is full of music. you must seek the prophets and the poets. they must all be so tired and confused they don't even know who they are anymore, let alone professional pursuits. everyone rolls the end of the world around on their tongues, like a pill, relishing the milky plastic taste before swallowing. keeps you just crazy enough if taken daily to not care that much. side-effect of time warps, and taking it in overdoze is like rolling dice: may be you will end up famous as soon as you come out of the coma, or may be you'll feel exactly the same as you did before, or the coma might not lift. the above information is beta. sidewalks might be missing from sections of the route.
"the ruthless words of rootlessness" This is a gorgeous phrase. For all those who are unsure of where their roots lie, and for all those who have an idea but pull and tug at them to see where they're dug in the deepest, the experience is in a very real sense ruthless. Ruthless in its sense to take one away from family and place and test the stuff of a person. To have no root, even if temporarily, is to be in an alien place, where the markers of sanity and sense are spread sparsely leaving much room for doubt. Doubt, but fresh observation, new colors and lines, and speculation that never would have happened with roots too heavily relied upon.
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