Law of Infinity

Ah, once again that “Law of Infinity” has raised its ugly head. If the Universe is truly infinite then all things are possible and if all things are possible then all things are also certain to occur.

Given that rule there is nothing that anyone can think of that hasn’t already happened or will happen with absolute certainty.

So if you can fantasize something happening it has or will. It really doesn’t matter what it is, if you imagine that you have a large purple head with one really thin green hair 12 feet long sticking out of your left eyelid and wound around the middle toe on your right foot covered in peach jam, it will happen! Because as the rule states:

All things are possible and therefore all things are certain.

Now having said that, it is probably much easier to get your mind around slightly more probable things such as reincarnation, Martians, parallel universes, etc.

In fact evolution is real, creationism is real and any other way you can imagine life started is also real.

Maybe life didn’t start, hmm; maybe we have always been or maybe we have never been.

Existing on speed (the legal kind) and alcohol and an occasional bowl of 2.50 an ounce Honey Bee or a good cheap cigar is becoming a hard way to go.

Unless of course you throw in a glass of good scotch or tequila once in awhile and then hey, it’s all good.

The Enemy Is Us

08:02 am - Can you see the time running out?We all want things, different things for different people but it's still the same. Because we are all different, the scope of our wants, materially speaking differs greatly but the depth of our desire I believe is equal.There are those "beautiful people" in the world, the so called "rich and famous" or prostitutes of such; that desire a new house in Cabo, or a new Yacht, or a new "Benz". Then there are the average folk that just want a new pair of shoes or a new watch maybe just a recent book from your favorite author.But the desire is the same. Your brain fixates on this new desire and you cannot live a normal life again until you get it. You cannot sleep or eat or think of anything else until this object that is totally overwhelming you is yours all yours. Have you ever wanted something so much that it hurt to not have it and it hurt to think about it and you knew that once you possessed it it would change your life if only by taking away the reason you've had to live.Have you ever started talking about this "thing" this object of your desire to the one person that could grant it to you. Choosing your words carefully and trying not to sound too needy but at the same time conveying the urgent desire.Have you ever been engaged in just such a conversation and suddenly recognized that you've won it. You have achieved that which you have sought after for so long. That very moment in the conversation when your vision narrowed and it became hard to breath the unusually thick hot air that was filling your nostrils and that pungent and bitter metallic taste in your mouth made you become unaware of what was being said because all you could hear was that little voice in your head telling you that you've won. That moment in time when you knew you had done it. It was yours!And then for some reason that little voice in your head was replaced by the distant but ever increasing sound of babble. Noise that at first was incomprehensible but slowly became very familiar once again.Have you ever been in just such a moment in time when you knew you had something that you've wanted terribly and then for some inexplicit reason you couldn't shut up. You just kept talking and talking and talking when all the while you were at the very same time telling yourself to stop! To shut the fuck up! But then realized that at that very moment when you talked yourself right out of it!That moment defines us forever. That moment brands us as "normal", "average" it explains to the world why we wear old shoes with a new coat of polish, why we have that tarnished Timex strapped to our wrist and why our "new" book already has dog-eared pages where we've not yet read.Life seems to get better once you've given up all hope.Current Mood: melancholyCurrent Music: Train

Oscar for "The Best Phrase"

As the days grow shorter the darkness seems to bring on a feeling of nostalgia in me. Maybe it’s this time of year, maybe it’s this time of season, whatever it is, it seems to be buried deep in my soul.

The air takes on a chill that recognizes my need to feel safe and a desire for everything to slow down.

There is both a yearning for rain and renewal and a longing for the summer that is just gone and the warm nights under twinkling stars and the endless opportunity in the Universe.

Although the growing darkness limits doing, it encourages thinking. Mostly of those things I could be doing were it not dark outside. But then there are those ever present thoughts of the past and how things used to be. It’s very hard to just let go.

One of my all time favorite manly man movies is the first “Lonesome Dove”. In this there is a scene where the “guys” Woodrow, Gus, Newt, Deets, PI, and Dish come upon some dead “sod busters that have been shot, hung and then burnt. The site of their death shocks the guys and then there is the line that Gus says that I believe is very good, he says “the best thing to do with death is to ride off from it”

Not a normal work day!

As I drove into the parking lot the rain appeared to be coming down quite hard but that is always misleading when driving because it could just be the forward motion of the truck. However after getting out and walking toward the door to the back of the building where I work; my first impression was correct, I was drenched by the time I reached the door.
While I fumbled for the key in the small plastic pouch that I kept in my pocket I was transformed into a drowned rat.
The back door that I went in is actually the door to the loading dock and once inside you have to go through yet another locked door to reach the inner sanctum. As I started to unlock this door the handle moved in my hand and I realized it was not locked. I thought this a bit odd but passed it off as an oversight by one of my employees and went on. I opened the door and stepped inside and then felt something sticky on my hand, the hand I had opened the door with. I brought my hand up to my face to make sure it wasn’t something gross and immediately saw red, blood, and then stopped in my tracks.
What the hell, I thought someone must have gotten hurt somehow, great! Now I’ll have to fill out a mess of accident forms and the whole administrative thing. I started past the forms room where we put forms packets together as well as print documents and process mail. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at first but felt something wasn’t quite right.
I went into the room and walked around the large shelving unit that also functioned as a room divider and saw my forms clerk sitting in his chair slumped over his desk in a pool of blood. I ran over to him thinking it must have been him that was injured and saw that his head had been split open exposing his brain. He was quite dead.
My gawd, I thought, who in the hell would do such a thing as I turned I noticed the bloody footprints on the carpet leading first over to the shelf where we kept the folding machine and the paper cutter. The large razor sharp blade of the paper cutter was missing, it had been removed and was almost certainly the murder weapon.
I picked up the phone to call 911 and could not get a dial tone. I turned and ran out of the room turning right toward my office. Something caught my eye and I looked to the left to see another one of my employees lying on the floor in the isle between the shelving units. She was also lying in a pool of blood and her body seemed to be in an awkward position. I went to her to see if she was alive but found half of her face missing and the one remaining eye staring blankly at the ceiling, the light gone from it and knew she was also dead.
For a moment I was paralyzed, I didn’t know what was going on but this hadn’t happened long ago and the killer could still be in the room.
I stepped over the file clerk and walked softly to the other end of the isle by the wall. I slid quietly between the wall and the row of shelving until I got to the front end where I could peer out and see the front of the room as well as the cubicles that were against the far wall.
More carnage, the employee in the corner unit had been hacked to pieces. There were blood and body parts everywhere. Blood was still dripping from the file cabinets and the work surfaces surrounding her. I have seen a lot of death in my time and usually did not get squeamish but since I knew and liked these people it was hard to keep my stomach contents in my stomach.
I looked down the row and tried to determine if someone could be crouching down behind the cubicle panels, but couldn’t be sure. I stepped out into the isle and walked slowly toward my office at the far side of the room. As I went I peeked over and around each partition to see if someone might be waiting to leap out at me. But like the rest I passed one dead employee after another until I reached the supervisors office. I looked through the open doorway and seen her drenched in blood lying backwards across her desk, her head flopped over the end close to me and her normally blond hair a dark red now, was dripping into a small puddle on the carpet beneath her. Her eyes were wide open looking back at me. She had a frightening shocked look froze on her face as though she had been surprised and couldn’t believe what had obviously happened to her.
I turned to look at the mail person’s desk, which was on the opposite side of that area in the room but to my relief did not see her.
I moved to my office and as usual my door was closed the way I left it. I put my hand on the lever and slowly pushed it down and then pushed the door open just far enough so I could let go of the handle and peek into the room. It was dark as it should be but that meant I had to slide my hand inside to the light switch and in doing so risked having it cut off by whoever might be inside.
I decided against that and quickly pulled my hand back. I took one step backward and then brought my foot forward and kicked the door the rest of the way open. Hoping if there were someone inside it would either hit them or at the very least startle them so that I could see what I was up against before having to deal with them.
The door shot open very quickly and slammed into the adjoining wall and then just as quickly slammed shut.
Damn! I slowly put my ear up to the door to see if I could hear any noise from inside the office. After a minute or so I once again pushed down on the lever and pushed the door open, this time more slowly so that it wouldn’t slam shut. I starred hard trying to see in the dark and didn’t see anything. I reached in and hit the switch immediately bathing the room in light and allowing myself to breath again.
I rushed into the office and picked up my phone only to find it was not working either. I slumped down into my chair and for a moment wasn’t sure what I was going to do. The whole thing seemed too surreal, how in the hell could this have happened. How could my employees and friends be dead?
I mentally took an inventory of my employees that I knew were dead and realized that three were missing. The mail clerk, the senior storekeeper and his assistant were not in the room. I stood and retrieved a pair of scissors from the bin above my desk and then started out the door. My mind started searching for excuses and reasons but I knew there couldn’t be any reasonable excuses for this. I thought for a second that maybe the three missing employees were somehow in this together but quickly dismissed that thought. That didn’t seem possible, but I had no idea what was actually going on. I opened the door that led to the hallway and into the rest of the building.
I stuck my head out and looked both ways as if I were about to cross the street and didn’t see anything. I stepped outside in the hallway and listened to see if I could hear anyone else in the building. There were normally over a hundred people in the building at this time in the morning so there should have been other noise, but there was none.
I hurried across the hallway to the IT area and using my key card swiped the lock, opened the door and stepped inside. I moved toward the work area passing a room on either side as I went. I looked in and saw nothing in either room, but as I came around the corner on the left there was a pile of bodies on the floor. They had been hacked to pieces and pulled to that location judging by the bloody trails on the carpet leading from several different directions.
I moved around the pile and went to the manager’s office. I looked through the window on the door but it was dark inside and had to once again open the door into a dark room.
Thankfully there was enough light in the work area to illuminate the interior of the office and I immediately ascertained there was no one inside, alive.
The manager was leaning back in his chair staring at the door and me upon entering. His eyes wide open. His forehead had been split open and his eyes were now much further apart than they had been.
I turned and left the office and then walked out of the area as well. I went into the hallway and looked up and down the hall but saw nothing. I decided to go outside and look to see if the vans were in the parking lot. This might tell me where my other employees were.
As I stepped out the door I noticed the blue cargo van was still in it’s space and moved over to look inside. As I came near the van I noticed blood smeared on the drivers side door and on the window. My Storekeepers head was laying face down on the steering wheel, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. I moved around to the other side and found my assistant storekeeper lying halfway in the van and halfway out onto the ground from the side cargo door. Blood was dripping off the bottom edge of the van and I knew there was no point in checking for life.
Ah, I seen his cell phone still clutched in his hand. I reached down and tried to take it from him but it wouldn’t come free. I had to pry it from his sticky fingers and wipe the blood from the keyboard so I could see the numbers.
I walked back toward the building while pushing 911 and just I started to push the send button I heard the familiar ring of the radio function on the phone.
I stopped in the middle of the fire lane that runs the length of the back of the building.
I keyed the radio button, “This is Don, go ahead”.
“Mail delivery!” came the voice back through the radio.
I heard a motor and squealing tires and turned just in time to see this older style VW Vanagon painted up like a circa 1967 flower power hippy van coming straight at me with no indication of slowing. I dove out of the way and as the crazy mail lady in a car that could have only been inspired by Timothy Leary, flew past me and threw a mailbag out the window as she went. She had this maniacal look on her face as though she were on a European Holiday.
The mailbag that had been thrown from the flower power wagon landed in my lap. It seemed a bit too heavy and lumpy to be full of letters so hesitantly I pulled on the drawstrings and opened the bag.
There were several heads in the bag along with some mail, which led me to believe that the heads may belong to postal workers. All except one of course, the one I recognized, the dark one with the shiny head.

If The Wind Could Speak

If the wind could speak it would speak of me
It would blow through the cracks in your soul
You couldn’t escape its bone-chilling noise
Roses strewn about your world would wilt and die

As the wind hardened against the still
Dragonfly wings would crack like glass
Air would be sucked from the lungs of ill men
The Sun would set on a blood red moon

Orange Dolphins in an emerald sea
Would dry themselves in rays of flesh
The heavens will twinkle and then go dark
As the inventions of man crumble like broken teeth

Freedom Flight!

She wondered through life as though it were a rain storm
With direction only once in awhile
But could she see to the end of the road
Yes, that is the question she answered

She seen herself flying down the interstate
Her rocket was a white convertible
The cool red leather of the seat made her smile
Face framed by radical sunglasses and a red scarf

The signs that flew by had no meaning
She was going that way, the way the car was pointed
She had some money and a half pack of cigarettes
A half bottle of beer precariously hung from her hand outside the car

As she flew low over the desert she often wondered where those unpaved roads went
She kept seeing half filled bottles sitting on the side of the road
It was five minutes of someone’s life too busy to stop
She thought about the snickers she kept in the glove box next to her .38

She wasn’t sure what to do with this newfound freedom
Free to go and free to stay, a bird with wings
With no agenda and a full tank of gas
And of course the full bottle of Tequila between her legs

She smiled at the thought
She would pull over to the side of the road
Sit in a lawn chair with her top off
It was daring and a little nasty, she liked that and slowly pushed on the brake pedal

Badge of Honor

How well can you know someone before their bruises become your bruises and after time has erased everything good and when only evil remains, the sky turns to burnt ash and is heralded in on coughing wings of dread, then your bruises become their badge of honor.

Honor, where is it when silence stops singing to you and though no sound is carried on the breeze, the cacophony in your head drowns out your better judgment and all reason vanishes in a fog of self -doubt. Your mind becomes the only room you recognize, sterile, clean, and dull. There is no character, no color, and no art. Only the knowing that you cannot break anything in this place.

This place, if that is what it is, is pale green and pink made of thick plastic and glued down. Sunshine comes through blue frame painted windows as strands of yellow yarn taped to walls and stretched to a white spot painted on the floor.

Everything shiny that sparkles and gleams has been removed to a place you no longer dream of.

Dreams are for those with hope and hope no longer rides beside you but hangs from a stick in front of your face like a carrot that you will never taste. Forever chasing and running out of breath until the pain and heat in your head becomes intolerable and you can actually see the fever that consumes you. The fever that burns with a rage behind your eyes painting everything you see in the glow of uselessness.

When the fever breaks and sweat beads on your forehead clammy and sticky all that’s left are those bruises. The ones that others wear on their lapels to show the world their pride.

GOD IS A PUNK ASS BITCH!!

03:15 pm - GOOD QUESTION? WHY, GOD?
why have you done this to me
what have I ever done to you
are you so scared and weak
you have to bully us around
why can't you tell us you exist
what are you hiding
are you so afraid of our reaction
you can't show us the truth
why do you kill our children
what have we ever done to yours
are you so bored and tired
you don't acknowledge us
why do you allow other gods to exist
what are you thinking
are you imperfect afterall
you cannot do what you promise
why do you pretend to love us
what do you want are you evil
you lie
why do you play these silly games
what do you believe in
are you actually a child
you play with creation as if it were a toy
why do you lie, you're a liar
why do you kill, you're a killer
why do you ignore, you're mean
why do you hide, you're a child
why did you kill my son, you're a bastard!
Current Mood: numb

On The Precipice

Standing there on the precipice in the dark a feeling of floating, staring down at the dirty city. Lights glowing like beacons calling those that linger longer then they should.

The grey stones, everywhere with their varying shades of that which is neither white nor black, warm and cold at the same time.

Am I really here or am I imagining it? Or is someone else imagining it? Questions flow through with no beginning and no end.

There is no purpose, no purpose, no purpose. This keeps running through my mind like a video loop.

Did the “who said of the greatest magnitude” forget to come back from a coffee break?

A chill runs through me as though it were a living thing warning me to settle back to earth before memories of a time unable to fly catch up to me.

Are those clouds that I pass through or times in my past that are not clearly remembered?

Feelings accompany my thoughts but they are unrecognized for their true emotion just some out of place sense of something.

Light grey and orange now fading into yellows and reds as I move through pockets of warm air and sweet smells. Sweet so thick it nauseates me and makes my mind hurt.

All the while a sound playing in the background too muffled to understand but set as static to wash out the distractions.

Glimpses now of skeletal remains of dead angels impaled on black stone spires sword in hand above mounds of sand blasted skulls.

There is a storm brewing and I feel that it’s going to RAIN!

The Rain

It’s raining every day now, the air is clean and everything is washed. The trees shed their litter like snow. It’s everywhere; these tiny “things” like special K accumulating into a nightmare of cereal all over the ground.
As I leave the car and walk toward my building small puddles reflect my past, my feelings, and my every thought.
The ribbon of my life is wrapped so tightly around this reality that I sometimes forget this is all an illusion.
I believe if I could find the source I would realize and understand the grand prank that has been played on humanity all these eons.
After all we could be nothing more then a virus attacking this living orb that has been sent hurdling through the dark insides of something much larger then we can imagine.

Soul Locker

SOUL LOCKER
The dark place in my soul is growing
Some days it wants to consume me
I need the tools to keep it at bay
I also need a map to find it
Afterward I will use it to find my way back
Back from that dark place

I believe that dark place is a barrier
A barrier to a place beyond
A place we are not allowed to go
A place we’re not permitted to recall
Occasionally there is a break in the fabric
As delicate as gossamer and as strong as iron

Where is the alarm, how is it triggered
Who watches it
Who responds
Is there a greater power
Or is it us in another form
The penalty is madness and despair

Depression, real depression is the sentence
The transgression is much too easy
There is no warning except for the illness
I’m not even aware that I’ve gone too far
The pain hits me and then I know
The sudden denial and rejection of feeling

I hear myself thinking
Don’t go there, don’t go there
Stop thinking about it, STOP
But the pain is already here and it’s real
Have I avoided the sentence
This time as in last, I’ve escaped the blackness

But it’s growing ever stronger
It tries to consume me
There will be a next time
I won’t see it coming then either
Even knowing doesn’t help
Its insidious, unrelenting in its mission

Maybe I can stop it
But when it’s been vanquished
I’ll be gone

Purpose of Life

When the magic window, always in front of me; flickers and wakes first going from a blue unknown world of atom charged frenzy and then settling into this familiar cycle of beams rotating too fast to perceive I sigh with anticipation of once again entering your psyche.

At times it seems we connect on a level that is too far to reach out and touch but so close it sucks the air from me.

What wonderful picture will you paint for me today? What story of everyday existence will I see through this window?

Will I meet the challenge and respond in the same fantastic language that has become the way we choose to communicate our personal tragedy or will I fall short and fail to create for you the same image that I see?

Sometimes without thinking I watch as my fingers paint out images on these lettered caps and see the flashes of who I thought I could be fly out the window on it’s way to a seemingly endless universe of windows all abuzz with the magic.

I’m amazed at your world. The world you have allowed me to see. A world that satisfies but always leaves me wanting.

Where does your inspiration come from? Is it simply borne out of life’s experiences? I think not, you’ve not enough of them. Where then, repressed memories of another dark void where like all of us you cannot tread? It’s rare that you can feel it. So few of us can, or at least will admit to it.

Does the entire Universe and all that has ever been as well as all that can ever be hinge on a creator who allows the chosen one to spawn a child that is called Bastard for all time and allows another to be born and called Savior! NO!

GOD DID NOT CREATE MAN, MAN CREATED GOD!

The winds of change are blowing across our souls and the truth will shine in all the dark places and bring light to those that would be taken advantage of and there will be nowhere to hide for those that would menace the weak.

When the world learns that there is no one to default to then the answer will be ushered in on those winds.

The real purpose of life – is to end.

Growing Up

Tortured as I am about the in congruencies of this world I can only focus on colors that do not rake my mind as certain flavors come together in my breast pocket searching for meaning like truths falling from atop an old Ferris wheel stuck rusted in memories of caramel corn and cotton candy freshly picked in the sweltering heat by old brown callus bony hands that could have at one time gently caressed the soft skin of youngsters longing for their carnival.

Then I recall a small framed mirror with a brightly painted mostly naked girl sitting on an old convertible which was my hard earned prize for having spent fifty dollars to throw a million darts at tiny balloons tacked to a wooden board.

Reminding me that I too have operated a cotton candy machine before in just such a carnival in Germany, where the machine was plugged into a transformer which in turn was plugged into the German electric utility company at the end of a frayed cord which always shocked me as I plugged it in, getting my attention once more for only a tiny portion of my life.

There were no cotton candy machines that I recall in Florence when I bought those tan leather sandals with metal studs that reminded me of Roman Gladiators. These I thought would go rather well with the black nylon pullover shirt with the leather lace that tied the front together which was cheap and seemed to be the rage in Barcelona at the time.

I don’t recall buying anything in Rome except Gelato in front of the Coliseum and then beer that night in the Italian campground, overlooking the ancient city; filled with brightly colored tents of all shapes and sizes.

Then there was the beer at the little sidewalk café in Venice, all of which was bought for me by my underage older brother because he looked older than I and because he could.
We would sit and drink under the green and white umbrellas and stare at the huge Russian ships docked not more than 100 feet from where we sat.

It wasn’t until I called the front desk from my third floor room at the Hotel Linda just off Rembrandt Square in Amsterdam that I was able to purchase my own beer outside of Deutschland; Amstele as I recall. There was no refrigerator but the window ledge worked very well at that time of year to keep the brew cold, almost as well as the back of that old window box air conditioner in Adana.

Which puts me in mind of the nasty warm beer I drank while sitting on the filthy concrete floor at the airport in Istanbul watching a rather large German Sheppard angrily barking from a cage at the Turks who walked by and marveled in fear at the huge dog.
All of this is in sharp contrast to the small smooth brown Chihuahua that would bark as I stole cans of beer from my father and then drank them while hiding in the sugar cane fields as a kid in Okinawa.

Does it seem that drinking has tied my life together? There is much honesty in worn wooden barstools that have seen a multitude of asses in their time.
While held dear to me in that breast pocket none of these memories are as comforting to me as the bars I’ve sat at and drank in recent times. Like the one in Santa Cruz where I was served by a rather young witty Australian who drank as much as he sold while engaged in small chitchat with the Lesbians at the end of the bar.

Then there was that morning in the open-air café on the beach in Cabo when the Mexican waiter was amazed at my hard body, blond tipped hair and tattoos, saying out loud that he thought I was a movie star. He got a huge tip.

Or the cold Corona’s brought to us at poolside by Angel, who took care of us at the Los Arenas in Mazatlan. Where we also hung upside down and drank Tequila shooters at the Giggling Marlin or something like that.

How about drinking free whiskey while playing slot machines in South Lake Tahoe? Or the courtyard at a little cantina on Catalina!

Then too are the memories of the long hot ride on my Harley through the desert to Laughlin and then back to Las Vegas in which cold beer waited for me at both ends.

There was of course the time I sat on the bench in front of Bubba Gump’s in Monterey and I put my feet in the huge cement shoes stuck to the ground. And let’s not forget the little beach in Bodega Bay that I could only get to in my Kayak where cold beer was the reward for challenging rough seas.

There is of course the yearly trek to Mission Beach in San Diego where the beer is cold, the beach is warm and the Tequila flows much more smoothly than the old roller coaster at the end of the Strand.

Well baby’s I could go on forever but I must go and drink a cold one, all this recollection has got me quite thirsty.

MUSINGS OF A TROUBLED MIND

I was told they were pretty and there for me. Of course I am told many things and after doing what I do I usually find that lies abound when people know what I’m there fore. I think if you’re them it’s just really hard to give it up, after all it’s everything they have and everything they ever will have. It all stops when I arrive, it all comes to an end and even though they may have thought about it, imagined it even fantasized about it, when it’s there, in your face; it’s difficult.
Afterward I have to sit and consume something that may not be good for me but hey who gives a fuck after what I have just done. Certainly not them, not the done’ees.
Pretty? Yea very. Sexy, uh-huh too much so perhaps but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all.
These are the very same ones that were thrown into the volcanoes all those many years ago. The ones that lay down on the Mayan altars or stood in unbearable heat tied to stakes in the Coliseum. That’s their role over and over again life after life they were born to play that role and then do.
What of me, yes of course I am the other one, the one who plays the beast to their beauty. Sometimes things don’t always go the way they are supposed too. Sometimes things get crazy, loud and then confusion reigns. Usually only for a brief moment however, I’m usually very good at gaining control over chaos.
When they know but don’t want to believe, when they tremble and sweat and move in that rhythmic way with quick sharp little breaths that give away their pleasures. When everything heats up and their faces flush and their bodies burn with desire to selfishly squeeze out every last drop that can be had for that price, that’s when it really gets interesting; ah yes; that’s the time I live for, the moments I crave.
Can it be any different? Can there possibly be another way? I have given this question thought only briefly. But if I were to ponder more seriously I would have to go into that whole “other” thing and as you can guess, that is just not going to happen. In fact it can’t happen not now, not ever. At least not under the current contract. Now if I were to say, renegotiate; well then that would be an entirely different matter indeed. But I ask you in all honesty who is going to do that!
The red dot, the small cross at a distance, the sheen of hammered steel the things that go bump in the night. Can they really not see it, are they really blind to it or is it their egos, their arrogance that immobilizes them for that split second, that ever so tiny slice of time that gives me entrance through a gate, which I could never hope to gain access by any other means.
Maybe it’s just so awesome a thing that when it does happen they cannot do anything else except stand there mesmerized by the simplicity and the totality of the whole thing. Or, maybe it’s something they already know, maybe in those last seconds the story they read in the book of life before coming through the rye suddenly comes rushing back to them, and then they know.
Maybe.

Open Letter to my Son

Open letter to my son…

Eric, first I want to say how much I miss you. Missing you is like a dull headache that never goes away.
I also want to say that I am sorry for not protecting you better. There are things that I can see now that I didn’t know before. I guess when something tragic like this happens you have a lot of time to reflect and self-reflection is a powerful thing.
I never told you how proud I was of you and how lucky I always felt for having you as my son.
Let me just tell you now that you were a wonderful son and I wouldn’t have changed you for the world. I would if given another chance change some of the things between us however.
I would have certainly spent more time with you, and I would have told you how much I loved you and loved being your dad more often than I did.
I wouldn’t have trained you to drink. I didn’t realize it before but I know now that the little game we used to play, me yelling for a beer and you running to the fridge to get me one from the time you could walk and then giving you the first sip as a reward was stupid. At the time it was us sharing a moment, us bonding, father and son doing those father and son things. But I realize now that I was training you to drink from the time you were one year old. I thought it was great fun and you obviously wanted to please your dad. Eric I am sorry I didn’t know better.
I am sorry that I bought my first Harley in 1996. I didn’t realize it then because I was so self absorbed but thinking back I realize how close you and I were. How we always did things together on the weekends. We were always going fishing or hunting or camping and after I got the Harley that all seemed to stop. I was so caught up in the whole Harley thing; going on rides every weekend that I didn’t realize I was ignoring my best friend. I didn’t realize at the time how it must have hurt you to suddenly be excluded from my life. I was ignorant and selfish and I will spend the rest of my life regretting that happened and wishing you were here if only for a moment so I could apologize.
I’m sorry for not listening to you more and understanding your problems and being there to support you.
I know now that moving you to a different school was a very good idea and it was your idea and you told me a year before and I didn’t listen to you. I know now that much of the trouble you got yourself into could have been avoided if I had only listened to you.
Son, I never told you how proud I was of you when you graduated from High School. I never told you how really proud I was of you for getting your act together and owning up to your responsibilities and dealing with your drinking problems and the whole legal mess you found yourself in. I always thought it was unfair of the system to force you in to those programs but I was amazed by your positive attitude and your willingness to deal with it and put it behind you.
I was very proud of you when you went into the Army and I couldn’t have been more pleased with your accomplishments.
When I had my accident in “98” I was at first upset that you never came to see me in the hospital and I didn’t understand at the time but now I think I do. I think that we were so close that you didn’t want to see me like that and looking back on things I don’t blame you.
Eric I was always proud of you, and those times that I had to punish you for something or the times we fought wasn’t because I lost faith in you but because it was my job.
You always made me feel special by the way you looked up to me and always wanted to please me and get my approval.
From the first moments of your life when I took you from the delivery nurse and bathed your blue body in that warm water and watched you take your first breaths and feel comfortable in my hands I knew that it was possible to love another child as much as I loved your sister.
I never told you or her this but I was very worried that I couldn’t love another kid as much as I loved your sister. She and I were so close and we were such good buds that I just couldn’t see how loving another as much as I loved her was even possible. I use to lay awake at night and worry that you would be neglected and that I wouldn’t be as good a father to you as you deserved.
But then you were suddenly there and all that worry and concern just melted like my heart.
That last Christmas we spent together when I bought you the Fender “Strat” and started teaching you to play was absolutely terrific. Watching you hammer on that son of a bitch at night trying to play along with me and making such a racket that no one could stay in the same room with us was some of the best times in my life. I don’t know if you were truly interested in learning or if you just did it for me but either way it was great!
Eric that last week of your life seems now to have been a very special one. I know we couldn’t see it then and there is no way we could have known but looking back on it, it seems to have been an extraordinary week.
You and I spent the entire weekend looking for you a truck and then finally finding the right one and buying it. That was a very special week in my life and one that I will never forget.
As crazy as this sounds, I much regret making you buy your own lunch at McDonalds that Sunday during the car search. I remember telling you that because I was taking you all over Northern California car hunting that you had to buy me lunch. Although I couldn’t bring myself to making you buy me lunch I did however make you buy your own. I’m sorry for that too.
After finding and buying your truck I helped you study for your drivers license and when you got it I was extremely proud of you, but that is a double-edged sword. Since your death I’ve learned that you were a terrible driver. You were inexperienced and didn’t pay attention to what you were doing. Eric, I feel like I should have known that and should have done something but I guess we just ran out of time.
But because of your new truck you spent the last week of your life going to all your friends and relatives to show off the truck and managed to see most everyone.
I remember vividly that last night as you were leaving the house for the last time never to return. I knew you were going out with your friends and I knew you would most likely be drinking and I said the customary things, “don’t drink and drive” and “always wear your seat belt”.
As it turned out you chose that night not to listen to me on both counts. Hindsight is such a bitch. Could I have stopped you from going out? Would it have mattered? Is life predestined or is it really just a bunch of random decisions? No, I don’t think I could have changed things, at least not for long.
Eric you were a wonderful son and the time you gave me was priceless. I don’t know why you had to leave or where you had to go but I can only assume someone else needed you even more than me.
I just hope the transition for you wasn’t too traumatic and that you didn’t find yourself confused and scared in a strange land.
Since I believe that we have known each other before many times and in many different lives that when we do (if we do), meet again it won’t be me the father and you the son but rather two godlike entities once again in each others presence, familiar but non-spectacular.
Eric, I hope it’s otherwise because as painful as it is I hope you miss me as much as I miss you. I hope when we do see each other again you will tell me all the things I never heard and this time I promise to listen.

Object Lesson

Winged brilliance, awesome in their power and might. To look on one would be foolish indeed, but then how would you kill them?
Rather like dog fighting I suppose. Long before airplanes were invented of course.
Lure them in, make them over confident, they will come in swarms these Seraphim. Six wings and four heads known to some as fiery serpents, to others dragons and still to others the highest ranking angels in heaven sitting on both sides of the Thrown.

They are Heavens Henchmen these Seraphim. Two wings for flight two to cover the eye’s for even they cannot look upon HIS brilliance and two to cover the genitalia.

The mightiest and most popular one? “Lucifer” after he lost the Angel Wars as Satan of course.

Over confident they will come in low and fast breathing fire from each of four heads and their entire body ablaze. You will need a distraction to stop their forward motion only for a second. It will happen so fast it will be very difficult to keep up. With their forward motion halted and their attention distracted for only a moment they will fall to the Earth.

Where if you have done your job they will fall upon huge black pointed obelisks impaling themselves to die and rot to bone only their wings still feathery and full after millennia.

These appear everywhere on Earth after the last Great Angel War. Only the true, not blinded by faith can see them, only those that believe in nothing at all will the truth be revealed. Sometimes I go to my favorite place by a high Alpine lake where I sit next to large lake rocks partially submerged, atop which you can see through the clear pristine water into the depths of that particular graveyard and see the huge skeletons impaled there on those black stone monolithic weapons of Angelic destruction. Only their huge wings still heave and bob in cadence to the gravitational forces of the moon.

Of course this is not the work of man but merely an object lesson for times to come!

Past Moments

Star like blinking on intermittent rolling amongst the white beer like suds. Black and brown soft fluff descending into blue and green only to emerge slick and hard darker than before but hopefully satiated or it’s back up to try once more.

Hot pre-glass abrasion on skin softer now from years of sedentary grownup world fantasies then the once daring and carefree movement that once occupied my every thought.

Was this what pooky showed me, what I expected from years of inpatient quiescence?

The smell of black filled anticipation and the shiny metal ownership of my good time to come weighs me down so and moves me constantly backwards with the steady rhythm of forward motion into a familiar place I’ve never been before.

Thoughts of dread bringing smiles to my face wishing I was magic so I could occupy the same space and time of that distant day when leaving my most precious creation to the acrimony there in the depths of my soul.

I was once told that pain is just fear leaving my body; if that is true then this psychotic agony of my despair must be fueling the inferno of my nightly sojourns into the sublime world I seem to have inherited from that “other” me that never ever wanted to come here.


Color me transparent and DO NOT go outside of the lines!

Eric

ERIC
Since Eric left, my life
In every way has changed
But life all around me
In every way remains the same

Why does the Earth keep turning round
When my world has seen its end
Where can a reason for me be found
For my world to turn again

Although I love my children all
In Eric it was plain to see
All my children resemble one and all
But my son looked just like me

My father looked like his dad
And I look like mine
That’s the look that Eric had
In this Human assembly line

But now that look will die with me
For my son has gone ahead
No more the world, that look will see
But will haunt the afterlife instead

Although my son has gone away
He still seems to be around
For everywhere I turn to look
His presence can still be found

His things still lie on his bedroom floor
His pictures are on the wall
His coat and hat hang by the door
His shoes are in the hall

At night I sit to watch TV
And notice he’s not there
Where he used to sit and watch with me
Is now filled with quiet air

Where do these loved ones go
When they leave this place
Why are we left not to know
When we enter this Human Race

How much better life would be
If we did not fear its end
For I would truly happy be
If I was sure we’d meet again
Don Carothers-Eric’s dad

Sweet Memories

Running through sprinklers, slight chill as the wetness evaporates on a summer day. Slight breeze bringing the smell of Honeysuckle and freshly mown grass.
The noise of birds chirping, bicycles skidding, and lawnmower engines shattering the stillness of youth.
Great concern whether or not Dorothy will walk down the yellow brick road again this year or whether Peter Pan will see fit to make his way back from Neverland.
Ice cream falling from it’s sugary perch and hitting the hot pavement, chocolate chips left in the sun to melt into one big chip and the memory of wanting those and not having them but only visiting the bag every day and considering what’s been lost.
Carefully jumping over the ditch and sliding between the 2 strands of barbed wire while feeling the glorious collection of marbles in my pocket while heading for that place deep in the woods where the kids line up to climb the fallen tree and edge out toward the end where getting down is just a courageous jump and a rope grab away.
In my dad’s hometown we played red rover with a slight twist. Kids, strangers; from all over town would meet at this open lot, which had a large pit in the middle of it. The kids would line the edge of the pit with handfuls of stones and call a kid from the other side to risk running through the pit and a hail of rocks.
To play was risky and sometimes painful but to not play was worse than death.
The wonderful sound of cleats hitting the sidewalk as I ran down the street toward the ball field in my black and orange Baltimore Orioles uniform. Pants that stopped just below the knee guarding against the orange striped black socks from sneaking any further up the leg.
The hot dugout full of kids screaming and laughing and cursing like their hero’s did on TV, sweaty and filthy from the red dirt that sticks to every part of a kid.
The night air so thick you can feel it going down your throat as you breath while waiting and hiding in the access hallway underneath the apartments in the huge buildings.
Waiting for the beer truck to make its way to your street and then sneaking like a trained commando squad between parked cars and around bushes quietly waiting for the beer man to go inside to make an exchange. Then the signal is given and there’s no turning back, the squad rushes the truck pulling cases of beer from the racks and heading back to the rendezvous point.
These beers will be consumed in the woods in the dark and they will be good cold or not they are the prize, the booty, the loot. This is one of the rewards for being a kid.
The proud feeling of walking down the street with that electric guitar in hand past other kids that know you. It’s Friday night and there is a teen club dance which my band formerly known as Sacrifice is headlining tonight. Playing in front of your peers, some who think you’re terrific and others who thought you were a creep until this very moment. Throwing the strap over your head, plugging in and stepping up to the mic, “testing one, two, three, testing”. The young babes looking at you with adolescent desire while the boys wished they were you right then. Tonight your feature song will be “House of the Rising Sun” and you will nail it.
You will play and sing your heart out and you’ll be paid $5.00, a free membership at the teen club and free soda during your breaks. But it’s worth it, every minute of it!
At that time of your life you are unstoppable, unbeatable and indestructible.
Boarding a bus in Hahn Germany and heading for Bombholder to yet another dance. You’re alone but it’s something to do and you cannot stay home. You arrive at the dancehall and there are girls everywhere some you know and others you do not. It doesn’t matter; you dance with anyone that will dance. Afterward you get back on the bus, it’s dark and you take a seat in the back. Someone heads toward you in the back of the bus and it’s a girl, an older girl. You’ve seen her around usually with some other guy. Until now you really had no opinion but now she’s sitting down next to you in the back of that bus. Why you wonder, there’s plenty of seats open but she sits down in yours.
She starts talking to you which on one hand isn’t that unusual because although not the most popular kid in school you do run with a known crowd that isn’t despised. But still you generally do not consider yourself that lucky. Her name is Karen she’s quite pretty as tall as you with short blond hair and very slender. She has no hips to speak of but points up high all her own.
By the time the bus arrives back at Hahn you are making out like wild monkeys and you don’t really even know how it started or who started it. Her face is pretty smooth for a 14-year-old girl but you do feel a few pimples and for some reason you’re not sure how you feel about it. Why this gets your attention you don’t know and why it bothers you is to figure out another day because right now you’re kissing your new girlfriend. A girlfriend you didn’t have or even knew about just 2 hours ago. Life is good when you’re fourteen.
Through this new girlfriend I made a new friend, which will become my best friend until he leaves a year later.
He really likes Karen they are best buds even though he would like it to be more. Karen however likes me and so I become fast friends with him. The three of us make quite a team, always together through thick and thin. Getting drunk together, having sex together (in the same room) when he can find a partner.
We were always getting drunk in Mike’s house. He lived with his dad who was a bartender at the stag bar and was always gone so we had the house to ourselves and no supervision.
We partied on my 15th. Birthday, Mike and Karen got me a bottle of Cherry Vodka and a 45 by Alive and Kicking with their hit song “Tighter Tighter”. After a very drunken night in Denver 2 years later I don’t much care for Cherry Vodka anymore but I still have that song.
Was I really ever 15?

What?

Everything in nature seems to have a purpose. Sometimes this purpose isn’t readily apparent or understood but if you look hard enough you will find the reason why things work the way they do.
We call the natural occurring things on this planet, “nature” but does that nature also apply to the Universe? Why wouldn’t it? Granted the Universe may not work on the same principles and physical laws we have here on Earth but are we really different or are we just a microcosm of a much bigger and more complex environment?
My point boys and girls is simply this, if everything has a purpose then what in the hell are stars for? What about the other planets and asteroids and comets and black holes?
They are not there just for us to marvel at. They were there before we existed, so what are they there for? What is the Earth for? Not us!
If the whole nature thing rings true then there must be a purpose for all that space junk that we just cannot figure out yet.
Our own pansy-ass little yellow star, our Sun; is there to give us life, isn’t it? Well maybe not. Again if it all existed before we did then it wasn’t here for us. And if we are the only carbon-based life forms in our Solar System then it wasn’t made for us. There is something else going on here that we can’t see. Something that has been going on for billions of years with us or without us. So that being the case, we are not relevant in the process.
Scientists have been trying to figure out how we were created and why and how we fit in to everything. Well, the answer is, we don’t fit into anything, we’re an anomaly and as such the how and why of our creation is totally irrelevant.
If a cow gives birth to a two headed calf, other than to stop it from happening again; we don’t try to figure it out or how the creation of a two headed cow fits in to everything, we just either kill it or sell it to a circus. Afterward we press on as though it didn’t happen. The two-headed cow is an accident not new life springing eternal. The fact that Earth supports life is also irrelevant because supporting life was not the purpose of this planet. Life on this planet is accidental and it didn’t start with humans. It started with something much different and for most of the time life flourished on this planet, that life was not human.
The only reason we believe human life is “special” is because of our intelligence and in our
Cognizance we created religion so that we would be separate from nature and spiritually headed for a higher reward than just returning to the elements.
But where in religion is it said that Dinosaurs walked the Earth? Where are the Wooly Mammoths and Saber Toothed Tigers?
If God created all things he would certainly have bragged about the giant Lizards! These creatures lived before us so they would have been created before us and it would be in the holy books of our various religions, but they’re not.
The Christian Bible says God created man and then woman and then the animals, birds, fish, reptiles and bugs. But we know all those things existed before us so why oh why don’t we smart humans get it?
The bible also tells us that Adam and Eve populated the Earth which can only mean that incest wasn’t the exception it was the rule. But wait, recent scientific knowledge tells us that not only do we all come from one female source, through the tracking of Mitochondria DNA but that females are twice as old as males. Hmm what?
The oldest female Mitochondria DNA which only women have is 170,000 years old, while the oldest Y chromosome which only men have is only about 84,000 years old.
What’s that mean? Well it means for a long ass time women were somehow begetting other women until they got really tired of plain oatmeal and decided to create apple cinnamon oatmeal (man), for a little sugar and spice. Or not. Who the hell knows what it means but it means something.
While I have your attention let’s go over one more thing. If God truly existed in the form that we have been led to believe then God is perfect, is [it] not? Well then babies, by definition if you are perfect you cannot make a mistake, you cannot create that, which is imperfect.
Are humans perfect incapable of mistakes? Could God have made Adam and Eve to disobey [it], even if [it] wanted too? No not if God were perfect.