A Map Of The Mind

As years turn into decades

Look back and find the patterns

The points upon which life pivots

The lines that were crossed

The success, the defeat

The moments where life

Rinses then repeats

And over time you shall see

Far in to the future

03/01/22

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Software companies really need to apply this old expression.

Miss Medicated

A dead eyed mall queen

Forces a fake smile

Then strikes a pose

To show the world

The emptiness inside

And yet she feels

With such emotion

A longing for a change

As reality grows darker

Yet

Her fantasies remain

It is a hard pill to swallow

A detachment

From the self

To be the product

Of the moment

Before returning

To the shelf

To gather dust

Over time

And watch the world

Pass on by

As what was empty

Fills with sadness

Yet

Those dead eyes remain dry

The Grey

Maturity comes with experience and contemplation.

Thought Bubble

Before I Forget

You stood on the bridge

Holding a flame

The final chapter

To finality’s game

Into The Flesh – Day 15

“There was a wedding. You were seated at the back watching the ceremony when it came to the moment of reckoning. A man steps up to the microphone and asks if anyone objects to this union while the groom stares at the bride who is staring at you and a woman on your left whispers: don’t say anything.’

‘What’s the strangest thing to have happened to you?’

‘Shit! I’ve had a few of them. I had a body swap once.’

‘A body swap?’

‘I went to bed with one woman and woke up with another.’

‘Were drugs involved or are you speaking metaphorically?’

‘I mean: I went to bed with one woman and when I woke up there was a different one next to me. Similar in looks but another person entirely.’

‘Where were you when this happened?’

‘I was at the apartment of the woman I went to bed with.’

‘Were you involved with this woman in some way or was this some one night stand?’

‘We were supposed to be very much involved.’

‘Okay, let me get this straight. You went to bed with a woman at her place. She got up and another woman took her her place while you were asleep?’

‘You nailed it Sherlock!’

‘Why?’

‘Fuck knows!’

‘What did you do once you realised?’

‘Well that’s the thing. I didn’t realise until after the fact. The room was dimly lit and frankly when you go to bed with someone, well, that’s who you expect to be waking up next to.’

‘So, how did you come to the realisation that it wasn’t the same woman?’

‘Well that’s where it gets stranger. I was getting the train in to town years later when two guys approach me and one of them says: ‘You sodomised my girlfriend.’

‘How did you react to that?’

‘I told him that I usually just shake hands then went to move on but he wasn’t finished. He then tells me that she had an abortion and I inform him that unless she pinched off a three kilo turd that it has nothing to do with me but still he hasn’t finished. Turns out that he is speaking for the guy next to him and that the guy is thinking of settling down with this lass and wants my advice.’

‘Erm, what the hell?’

‘I know, I just told him to go with his heart and got my move on.’

‘Hold on, how do you know that this all connected?’

‘I know but that is all that I am willing to share.’

‘Okay, and that is that then?’

‘Yip’

‘What now?’

‘Well, there have been moments in life where I wiped the slate clean and started over but this time is different. I’m giving you the slate and I am walking away. Do with it what you will but always remember that it is no longer a part of me.”

Into The Flesh – Day 14

“Sometimes it is a good idea to talk to the dead even if it just as a reminder of where we are going. A reminder to make the most of every breath we take.’

‘Have you ever had any near death experiences?’

‘Oh, I died years back. I’ve been a ghost for over fourteen years now.’

‘How did that come about?’

‘A spike in a legal drug. It killed my heart.’

‘And yet here you are, without a heart.’

‘It’s funny how things work out isn’t it.’

‘So you don’t feel anything then?’

‘I feel the emptiness in others. Their mundane, repetitive existence desperately grasping at fantasies to try and climb out of the dullness of who they are.’

‘Why do you think you feel them.’

‘Because they are the ones who killed me. The source of my loss. Those blank faced liars, deceivers, parasites running on a disproportionate love of self.’

‘Narcissists?’

‘Narcissism, self love, same thing. Short sighted ego trippers.’

‘You seem bitter.’

‘I should be but I’m not. I’m disappointed.’

‘Why the disappointment?’

‘Because it could have been so much better. I lost years helping others understand things that they only truly grasped with retrospect and then I had to watch them repeat the same mistakes in a different environment.’

‘You’re not bitter, you’re frustrated.’

‘That I am.’

‘Drink?’

‘Drink.’

‘Here’s to brighter days!’

‘Hmm, it is darkest before the dawn.’

Into The Flesh – Day 13

“Some will long for what past them by but the battle hardened know better than to clutch on to what could have been. They do however suffer from a strange kind of melancholy. Having seen the worst, they care too much for brighter outcomes to want to be a part of them. Feeling more at ease in the shadows.’

‘Were you ever in the forces?’

‘Nope.’

‘Yet, there is a hint of the military about you.’

‘I grew up around men who went to war and women who had to deal with the consequences of these wars.’

‘So, in a way, conflict was part of you growing up.’

‘Very much so.’

‘Would you say that this affected the way you interact or feel about people?’

‘It’s been an influence but not what drives me.’

‘Okay, what drives you then?’

‘Rhythm and rhyme. From the music created by humankind to the poetry of the wild.’

‘What do you mean by: the poetry of the wild?’

‘Take the cycle of life as rhymes. Each newborn a blend of the generations that came before them and all set to the rhythm of the planet. It is all there to read, you just have to sit quietly and pay attention.’

‘Mmm, you don’t have the next generation on the way. Why is that?’

‘I wasn’t given the luxury of choice.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean’

‘Okay, I won’t pry any further. Maybe the future will put that choice on the table.’

‘No it won’t. My art is my child and that is the way it shall stay.’

‘Never say never!’

‘You’re pushing it.’

‘I know, I just think that…’

‘Let me tell you a story. A singer gets drunk one night, really drunk and during this session he hears a thud on the French window. He gets up and staggers outside to find a dying crow. The crow is in pain and is not going to make it so he puts it out of its misery. He then goes back inside, drinks some more and then with pen and paper he writes a song about the dead bird.’

‘Okay and how does this relate to what we are talking about?’

‘Well, I didn’t kill the crow.’

Into The Flesh – Day 12

“Freedom can be found through thought. The mind can let you escape to wherever you wish if you let it take you there. An ability that is crucial in the most dire times of trouble. As it allows a bit of respite when everything has turned so very dark.’

‘Are you a daydreamer?’

‘I was called that in school but really I was just thinking about other things.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Projects. I would formulate them in my head then work on them when I got home. I liked to build vehicles, both small and large.’

‘Were you planning on going somewhere?’

‘Oh, I like to be on the move. As a kid I’d disappear in to the wilderness. Hiking through the hills or cycling through the woods. Now I let my mind roam.’

‘Where did the vehicles you built fit in to this?’

‘Mmm, I suppose they were prototypes for how I wanted to travel. A fast car, a plane, a boat. I never made a train strangely enough.’

‘Why is that strange?’

‘Because it is my favourite way to travel.’

‘So you like things to be laid down on rails?’

‘Oh I go off the beaten track far too often to say that that is the case. Trains just have a great sense of destination and you can mingle in ways that you can’t on other forms of transport.’

‘You can mingle on a ship.’

‘Trains don’t sink or have to deviate course because of the weather. You get on and nothing is going to stop you from getting to destination.’

‘Does this reflect your train of thought?’

‘Yeah, I suppose it does.’

‘What would a station reflect then?’

‘An option.’

‘An opportunity to settle down maybe?’

‘It could be that but those haven’t worked out very well for me. Maybe I just go off at the wrong station.’

‘Were there other stations that you wished you stopped off at?’

‘A couple yeah, but I didn’t get off did I. I just watched the waves of hands as the train left with me on it.’

‘That sounds like regret.’

‘It is but it is best to take it as a lesson learned. It’s a gentle thought really. A moment to ponder what may have been but never will be. A reminder that…’

‘That?’

‘A reminder that a simple gesture can change everything.’