no god of dabblers

there's no god of dabblers
no have your cake and eat it too state of grace
nothing in the middle of the road but dead armadillos

fuck it always on the tip of my tongue
nothing on the tip of my tongue but taste buds and fuck it
fuck it, just words, in poor taste
rarely backed by action
fuck it might be said, but it won't be fucked
it'll act on impulse, despite the executive decision
to fuck, if not all of it, at least this particular fucking dead end

but there's never-ending stories in zeno paradox corners
and regressing floorboards, dust families in dust fables, crack ecologies

update: general error
avg says, like it would
general failure reading disks
general failure, captain obvious, major semantic antic adjunct to second leitmotif
now that's a gold leaf inlay i can get with, maybe melt down for some credits
for BMW showroom chrome

sounds good

You'd best believe we gonna be mixing it up with somebody... or some thing... Or, cut to the chase. Yes, fuzzy-head friend, I know, I'd do it too, I'd trade every hair left for a right word. The problem is the venue, gotta code your way to an escape, for what? This Bastille sideshow? Hell no, don't go, wallow, till the apocalypse finds you, assuming it'll ever make it to this crevasse - crease? Carcinogenic gas will suffice, six thousand sided dice, pass the time, your time, whoever cares to drop by. Wish you could make trades, a friendly shadow for these dime a dozen sallow faces in high-def.

It sounds good, but it's empty, by which I mean simply stymied. I mean that simply, it's a simple matter of meaning. A full complement of trazadone might pass through the sky, missing both dream-eaters and semioticians on speed - but I'll know there's a difference between those other ego-trips on the couch, and those scrap metal epics under the bedcovers - what that signifies, i will pose as an unanswerable question in the margins of a pop rock anthem

the purpose of saving money is so you can waste it – you get the long-term satisfaction of being smart and prepared and slow & steady, and on the good purposeful path – and then you get the carefree satisfaction of burning it all in a weekend – win-win

fuck the fucking pixies

they're not that cool

just wanted to say that

placeholder

[oh, how there needs to be some placeholders - some, not one, but several placemats under plates piled with filler, garnished with cool arugula banter, distractingly flavorful, cause that's where the flag people are waving me in

so here, cause i can hide the frustratingly flat nature of this plateau with sculptures of ice and gum, squeeze my stress into a squishy blob, put things up around me, hide the horizons choked with electromagnetic noise, they flicker but never change substantively, there's still a feeling lying under everything, eternal sleep, not death, but not life

manyana caffyana hadn't done that balls-out balls-deep shuffle in a while, don't know when it'll be gotten to again, or if that's even possible today or tomorrow - castaneda's leading me on, or so i thought a minute ago - not enough whitley streiboids per capita here in the desert to avoid talking to myself, but that chatty castanet almost sounds like somebody, i'll go with that

i'll keep the severe photo up on my wall, and maybe it's not handsome, maybe not my best pose, but it tells more truth than the good photographer captured]

insoluble

mustardayonnaise man, gotta break me out of jail

my term won't expire

what innocuous-looking street will lead to the next polite fight? falling short, fail, abort, retry, what will it be next time? another exhausting pondering? or an accusation just deserved enough to spur me on, to try to right another wrong, in an endlessly repeating fraction? i ought to care about this - i have to care about that - oh i know, sorry - i'm not apathetic about not caring - why not quadruple the negative while we're at it? it would be so wonderful if i cared, i'd be the person i agree i ought to be - you have no idea how hard i try, to care, i push shit uphill, both ways

i wish i could shrug it all off, and stop caring about what i don't care about - i wish i could stop trying to pretend - i haven't been my own man since, well, childhood - so is this me being an adult? then the game ain't worth the candle

oh, here's a drain wave again - a whirl down the spout

thought i had energy today

thought i didn't need coffee

almost fooled myself about there being a new page

the human spirit, etc.

i was meant for greed
coulda been a contender, so greedy
coulda been the champion, the greediest
people woulda needed me, and i coulda been so good
at being rich and nothing else

i remember the money games i came up with as a kid
that were like spontaneous training, that i never used later in life
i got my sister, and my friends, and my friends' sisters
to ride around on the deck of david's parents' house
on tricycles and bicycles and fischer price layers
of social stratas while i sat on the center table
collecting and apportioning coins and bills from the 1980s
according to an evolving system of rules
that felt natural in a brilliant synthetic subset of nature
that was my diamond-in-the-rough creation, work is play!
a moment in the sun, a glint, a hint of coulda-beens

if i don't do it, somebody else will
so let them
let them get credit, let them get laid
let them be the horny holy prophet

incidentally, it's in us all to express genius and power
i'll wave my warms in an inclusive manner as i hear the ring of spring reverb
we've all been deputized to do this or that, but changes could be made, internally

What is my purpose?

What is my purpose in life? At least, at this stage in my life? I need to figure this out, because I feel so lost.

My purpose is... to package savoury. It's a job, jobs are good, they give people purpose. They give people income. I can get lots of hours, and steady pay. It's a recipe for insanity, but it's better than other jobs I've had. My co-workers are pleasant, in spite of, or because of their possibly-dangerous levels of blood-savoury content. We have savoury in our blood, literally, it's so dusty. My eyes are heavy, I just got off work.

It's no dream job, and yes, I'm a cog, but Cogswell isn't all that bad in the live action version, though he does have a mustache like in the cartoon. Wait, wasn't that Mr. Spacely who had the mustache? Anyway, when he drops by, it's not a drag. A purpose, not the purpose, could be found in packaging savoury. Running out the clock. Running on auto-pilot to keep the hands busy because it isn't break time yet, but break time is coming, Timmie's time, candy junk smoke cards time, am radio game-show time. Purpose in making enough money to live, if not independently, at least more than I have been thus far.

My purpose is to stop backsliding into the indulgences of protracted adolescence and ugly ego-trips. I've done those juvenile delinquencies to death, but it's been so wrapped up in this image of The Artist as Rebel, or something, that I still worry about becoming a goody-goody. It's time to leave the carnival funhouse mirrors. But I still get to look back and laugh every so often. And even take it seriously too, like a libran on tramadol.

It would be purposeful to accept that the "party like a rock-star" days are over for me. There's just no point in continuing to try and recapture unrepeatable, context-bound past glories. Until I find a new way to party, or to be a rock-star, I can deal with my nostalgia for the lifestyle I grazed by using the notes, song scraps, memories, and experience I accumulated over those quasi rock-star nights and days, for creative endeavors. For fuck sake, that's what I've been meaning to do since I started aping the rock-stars in the first place. But the means became an end. Many ends.

My purpose is to stay ahead of my opponent, the part of myself that's always dragging us down (slow anesthetized suicide, anyone?) in our neck-and-neck race - just in time for turning thirty, which is the new twenty, thus, adulthood, or something. Thirty! Fuck, that still gives me the creeps, that that's happening this year. The stupid waves are at record amplitude. I'm going through the wash, but I don't feel clean. I feel nauseous and out of place - a bit like Bingo the Clowno, except he did have a place in the circus, upon accepting his role. I don't have that luxury. But I do have a salvation army bed to fall back on, if things get too hairy. I haven't yet burned the bridge to the Wiseman Center. I'll even eat the Newfoundland fish brew they serve there sometimes - if I have to, in order to be polite, and take nourishment, literally.

Purpose could be had in quitting caffeine and re-growing the capacity to feel actual energy again. It's like I'm on pharmaceutical-grade proletarian speed all day. I substituted the high-powered club-uppers for a shitty drug that got its hooks in me. It burns out my brain just the same - it's just  less noticeable, that's all. But I'm clueing in. It might be nice to digest normally, and sleep and wake normally, and have more than a two hour time window to get anything done. While I'm at that, I could quit the trazadone, and learn to sleep naturally again, and allow my dreams to flow naturally again, and be something approaching recharged in the morning. Staying off the cigarettes goes without saying.

This lethargy problem is the bane of my existence. I never tire of saying that, anyway. It would be purpose enough to solve that problem. Whole chapters would follow from that, novels even, spin-off prequels, motion picture adaptations! Easier said than done. I don't know what the root of the lethargy problem is. Could be so many fucking things. That's why I'm always on about drugs, if not on drugs. Well that's reason number fifty-nine. Maybe it's parasites. Maybe it's what everybody feels when they get on the wrong side of their twenties but most people don't complain about it as much as I do. Maybe I can't solve the lethargy problem and I just gotta live with it. That suuuuuure wooooooould suck. But even if that's what has to pass, I could at least avoid using drugs as a quick and stupid way of feeling alive again. I could stabilize. It would take time, and more patience than I currently have - a lot more. But purpose would flower from just that state, the state of stabilization, manifold function like a marigold, unfurling. Crazier things have happened - not to me, but they've happened, I figure.

I could take purpose in keeping a clean head, if I could cultivate just a little more discipline. I'm not talking monastic shit, just more willpower than I've got now, the little that's been whittled to a sliver since addiction. With a clean head, I could work on my spirit - not with brute force, but a light touch - addition by subtraction, Japanese gardening. But I shouldn't drive myself crazy trying to live up to my fussy detail-obsessed standards concerning things that don't matter much really. They results in manic depressive cycles - no harmony or equilibrium.

Perhaps most importantly... I could continue weening myself off the zoloft, until I get to zero, and stay at that baseline, that I haven't known in so many years - and see what it's like. Reconnect with the full weight of my emotions. Something like that really happens after quitting anti-depressants, I hear.

Purpose could be had in going about my day-to-day life with sufficient satiating focus on the here and now - and not worrying about a goddamn career or a degree, or where the start of my path to martyrdom or artistic maverick is. I don't know what the hell to study or do with my life, what my vocation is, what I'm suited for, if anything - and what's the point in banging my head against a wall trying to solve that koan?

Purpose could be had in playing one or two more shows with "In The Flesh", polishing those cover tunes, then quitting the band to focus on my own stuff. There's also.... sigh.... the For The Love of Learning collaborative album project, tentatively titled "The Drop Ins", that I started last February, since abandoned. It's more than worthwhile, for so many reasons. I want to finish that. But in the purpose-driven future, I shouldn't take these draining logistical nightmares for art projects. Rather, I should be true to my own artistic drive, and follow my creative bliss. It's still in there somewhere, I feel, but my compass doesn't work too well here. There's so much noise. Ringing in my ears, campaign signs on the streets in clusters.

My purpose is in keyboard improvisation technique. To be a one man Keith Jarrett, that would do. I mean, the attempt is purposeful, obviously the goal is absurd. Improvisation is where my damn soul is, I'm just realizing that! Maybe if I was in Nellie-town with Malik and one of his many fine bass-playing colleagues, my purpose would be in doing the power trio thing we talked about, but here and now, it's improv, and not for an audience! It's my improvs, that's exactly what I should be throwing myself into, if I had to pick one thing - and maybe I fucking well should pick one thing, cause I'm spread thin and stagnant, at least to the behaviorists. My mind is smoldering, but the fuel to set it blazing is buried under some uncooperative brainlobe. Maybe in the next life chapter I could incorporate an audience. I want to get away from ego trips. Okay, and into solipsism, but that's not quite the same I don't think.

My purpose is to gradually improve myself. Let's be realistic. Run with Briar, around town, around the lake, down the jogging paths - and see if it's really true that there's such a thing as going from this flimsy body I'm stuck in, to something noticeably fitter. Watch her when she starts a new painting session and learn the basics. Conquer my fear of the canvas and give in to my latent fascination with oils.

Purpose could be had in eating better - and allowing that to be a new paradigm. Cooking with Briar. It's amazing what I enjoy, that I would never think of myself. I could see there being a chemical spiritual interface there. I already have an inkling about how to eat a peach and not merely consume it. Zen may not be purposeful, but it could serve, for me. There are shadows of forests, but it's hard to make sense of it.

My purpose is to love my woman. Yes, I feel possessive these days. Not like I own her, but like there's a bond. I don't know if that's that the done thing, to blog about this sort of thing. But just because I was sentimental once, on a blog, about a relationship that failed, well, that doesn't mean I ought to censor myself forever after, does it? I'd refer you to The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - you know, that sort of thing. Things rarely feel worth blogging about. Nonsense is usually the best subject matter, it takes a rare bit of sense to attract words from me, in sentence case, no less. I could become someone she could lean on, one day, when she would trust me and herself enough to fall like that, into my arms.

My purpose is to love my family. And let them know that in ways less run of the mill than my standard repertoire.

My purpose is to love my program family. Not take them for granted or forget how many times I've been welcomed back into the rooms. We could go on hikes again, that's the best way to break the ice with them, things were gooey last summer but they froze a bit this winter. Purpose could easily be in not letting anything drive me to drink again - but rather to reach out - even pick up the fifty pound cellphone.

My purpose is to love this land, as an adopted home, for now - especially over the coming spring and summer. Enjoy the days.

My purpose is to love my friends back west. Write them more often, pick up the phone occasionally with the faith that the dread I feel when dialing someone I haven't talked to in forever will, before long, fade to laughter and informative Kootenay trivia. Use Skype for god's sake. Maybe get a webcam.

This is my purpose now, and I need to write this to feel right, cause I'm lost and exhausted and a little messed up. But there could be purpose in a few things, hypothetically speaking.

let the world turn without you tonight

team america pangs, for the record

feeling off

feeling off in her company is better than on with me
it's plenty to work with

all i really have to worry about for tomorrow is bus fare
that's all i told myself i have to worry about, when considering the list of things to do that rarely get done

something's off with me, chemical, emotional, spiritual, all that, y'all
i can't even be pithy or poetic, can't externalize soul, can't feel it inside
i can sort of draw hydro-electric whale-bone channels that may be good for something
on everybody-gets-a-trophy day

that's a symptom of what's off, that i can't express
it's a blockage, i feel like i need to snap, maybe that could be done
with feng-shui and synergy

nothing is working quite right, even if i got the right idea
do the next right thing, right? even if the feeling don't come with it
this is how the writing is coming out, even though this pseudo-poetic style is pointless, but it's where my patterns have landed, in this culvert, let's call it, sure, why not, question mark - superfluous park bench squatter's right - actually
nothing as simple or sophisticated as that - you can tell, it's fallen to tired eyes
i need a kneaded gum eraser - to turn the background into a figurine, to make the figurine a fissure in the graphite glare and park myself there and justify
tired eyes self-justify, nothing works, but i'll work tomorrow
my feelings feel well enough to take the night off
off in her company is better than on with me

it's gone beyond conventional scale
graduated from gratitude

humil

break up homes, bury bones
it's all very meaningful - if only minimally symbolic

dream girl 227.290
so named because she appeared in a dream
at such a location, in the chronological succession
{with a linear time bias}
of demarcated cerebral forms and sawfigures and such

oh i forgot what i was gonna say
except it's so feelingful
if not meaningful:
a conjunction of images and gnosis
the tiny tip of the information iceberg trans-codable to this realm
sluice from the sunken colony
deep in the turquoise mines of my dreams

i'd say i'm blessed, but i don't know who blessed me
i don't know what blessed me, i think i'm still hallucinating
in alpha waves of cognitive superstition
i don't know what cursed me, i don't like the idea of a deity buddy
that's just not me, you know? and i know that's the point
don't wanna think about it, that thinkin thing

seamless

scattered mind seemed so seamless, once upon a time
they said i broke it so i bought it
fractures turned glassware

it felt alright that night
was grist for the mill
it kept me from hunger, it kept me from cold
daylight and detritus stymied my flow
so i sold my soul to god or good or some kind of thing

sometimes i want it back, that collection
of nothing but molten sand, beta-decay
and moments that never needed arithmetic
casino delirium, soft pumpkin slave to the cyborg imperium
just like a million junkies before me
lukewarm puddle from a snowflake personality

at last, SPRING has come to this miserable windswept peninsula! (i'm not slagging the whole island, you see)... just thought i'd share the thought, since it's so original

dry ablation

now what?

revolution's happening on some other bread slice

evolution's acting on some other scale

my tongue is bleeding and it tastes like blood

desires are dry ablations

keats is scattered bones in a plane crash in country C

an anonymous island jungle

where it would be poetic to be

nothing works

when you're living in a bukowski book

i live a little life

on a big island

so much space

carpeted ground

exposed rock, fierce cliffs, raging surf

and where are the delusions? i miss those things

can't see the ones i'm in

people ask me if i'm writing anything

i don't know what the hell to tell anybody

something's missing, a chicken and an egg in country kitchen

and a hen and a rooster and a conjunction preposition

pre-supposed to wake you up in the morning

semi-vegitative

frustration and resignation, all in the same
physical itch that is a strain that is a sting
that is sore in everything that bends

itchy neurons, low electrical wattage shifted
through electromagnetic re-calibration to
frustration and resignation all in the same
physical itch that is a strain that is a sting

tender malfunction, easy malfeasance
artifact of consciousness, product of biology
shrink-wrapped for the dumpster

why do i want to believe in fate?
one day i'll regret that decision, when it's made for me
because i wanted it, when i'm clawing at an oak coffin ceiling to no avail
the netherworld is a bureaucratic nightmare
but at least there's something out there
flog a dead horse for what seems to be eternity
and one day you'll see it get off the ground
and gallop over some horizon that is like
a spoon in your brain that got turned around
and nothing will be the same again, cause there's a twisted spoon in your brain
but you can't remember what it thinks like to be in any different derangement

still itching, still burning
no alternative to pleasure, take the baton
it's a relay race

i'm not blind

i see that she's a gift

orthographic

"it's never good to isolate"
is the kind of thing you expect to hear
and often do

maybe it is good to isolate sometimes
maybe it's good for me, anyway
maybe it's not bad, at least
maybe it doesn't matter

what if i promise it's not meant as a fuck you to you, or society, or anything?
then is it alright? then do i come by it honestly?
what if i promise it's a finite isolation?
don't believe i'm clairvoyant, but i'd bet on that
if i said it was infinite, that'd be less credible than a 14-day weather forecast

it does seem atmospheric, anyway, it does, yeah, it features
earthlike seasons, titaneous gas, sysiphean contra-indicative purpose
and electric heat
it's like rain, mate, it'll pass
although here, it's the rule, not the exception
except when it's freezing
which is the exception not the rule according to the oceanography institute's latest climatalogical study
we should be happy, it's a harbinger of a slower apocalypse, a beverage best served chilled

It has become entirely plausible

peacemaker

life's a bitch, but she's got a soft spot
a light touch on the death-bed, let's say
through this tube, it reads as peace to me

lame lion or tamed lion?

which is better? i'd go with the latter, most likely

...

things ain't all that tame, but i was that lame

with pockets and drawers full of crutches and canes

now i'm running, like jim fix, not quite like jimmy connors

not chasing tennis balls

not dying of a coronary

in lieu of that, clefting bangs in twain, leaving a wane

mane strain, the silent killer, the lion de-fanger

a parasite, attacks on a jungian level

you'll step in front of a bus, so, therefore...

i'll make an executive decision and shave it off, no wait

i'll wait until i'm rejected for the job, then shave it off

as a big bald fuck you, like as if i would ever do anything for them, no

i'm incidental to that, but until then

all this rockin hair and me in a rocking chair

retired... dio, time to go, he's such a gentleman, they say

these are the collection of ailments, something's always wrong...

it'll be a golden age in retrospect, gilded powerslave cap

as they mostly are, if preserved in cerebro-spinal fluid at appropriate temperature

some memories evaporated through the ear canals and ocular interface

some sweated through pores