Albuquerque

I always thought 'Albuquerque' would be a good name for a horse that one would take on an arctic voyage and had to end up killing to stay warm, and for food after the iron rations ran out, before being rescued by a monk that lived in a cave near the north pole.

The Elements of the Howling

It's nights like this,
That the winds howl.
My windows are sealed,
My door, locked.
The bedclothes wrap fever tight.
The darkness, still, like a blanket of silence.

But the winds howl through me.
Like a paper bird caught in the tempest.
I can feel them, blinding, shouting,
Begging.

They clutch at me like starving children.
They beat me and mug me, in the alleys off the streets of my own thought.
They claim to love me,
They rape me,
The ask for forgiveness,
As they mercilessly torture me.

They blow through me,
The winds howl like wolves gone rabid.
The winds none but I could hear.
I am their father,
Their brother,
Their lover,
Their son,

But never would I call them friend,
The winds that howl,
That chill my chest.
My lungs.
My throat.
Chilled to ice,
So that breath comes in ragged gasps.

Eyes are heavy.
But the winds blow on and on.
Rattling my bones.
Shaking my heart.
I beg them to let me sleep.

But to the hand of what man are the elements of this earth heedful?
So too the elements of madness.

Believing is Hard.

Every long day of our cruel, bitter and unlovely lives,
The bastard, the bitch, and the sinner survives.
He could be that random bloke with a gun,
Who shot up some local kids, just for fun,

Or it might be the girl who gives a self-sure sermon,
Before she goes out to give herpes to an unknowing virgin,
Or it could be that man who drinks instead of loves,
And ignores his wife and all the serving she does,

Maybe it's the kid who egged your car,
Or the boss whose shouting went too far,
Maybe it's your neighbor who lets her dog shit on your lawn,
Or that guy who you took home who left before dawn.

Those bastards, those bitches, those sinners survive.
And as much as the faith you had, you try to revive,
It gets harder each day to believe in the great, the good,
The hard working, honest folk, as you know that you should.

The bitter sad anger of humanity is surely clear,
We should go out each day, well dressed in our fear,
That some awful person will stab our backs,
And then walk away whistling to cover their tracks.

But then, as much as those people we might resent,
Would you or I, given the chance, do any different?

The only way to make the world sane,
Is to try, and try, and try again.
To believe in the wondrous things humans could be,
And right now, that greatness we should all try to see.

To say I'm not the best chap at the task, is fair,
But still, try seeing the good, even when it's not there.

Smoothness

The handle of my knife protrudes from beneath the pillow I rest my head upon. When an infant I had no pacifier, rather, my mother would give me some small smooth object for me to hold in my hand, to quiet me. My knife handle is hard, a dark brown wood, surrounding the cold fixed steel of the blade. A thing if beauty, as David once said, to see and to touch.

It was a birthday present from my father. I used to use it for carving, and sometimes when spear fishing to clean my catch. But I don't do those things anymore. I lost the will to carve after my rejection from the school of art, and one needs to be near water to spear.

Now its job is mainly for something comforting to grasp when the night is strange. I wouldn't use it to stab someone. It doesn't have a hilt, I'd probably just cut my fingers. It isn't really a weapon. It's a Bowie knife, clipped point. Long. More threatening certainly than my Swiss Army Knife, which I always feel would be a laughably stupid thing to use in a fight.

But I still get afraid at night, during the day too, but that isn't when I need to sleep. Just the smooth feel of it under my fingertips calms me.

I don't find it that strange that I do this. We each of us find solace in materialism, in what we can know is, "Really there". I like to feel the realness.

Mother Of Pearl

I've lived and loved with lovers,
Some I've even spoken to.
I remember many, and forgot others.
But they begin and end with you.

I'm a bitter old man,
And an odd little boy.
I'd forgotten my plan,
And been used as a toy.

But when you live so long,
And so briefly, yes that too.
The most tired endless song,
It's hard to decide what to do.

But you make decisions easy,
A smile from you and the spinning ceased
You don't care that I was sleazy.
You make an end to my vile inner beast.

I love you, lady, mother of pearl,
I love you with all of my body, and brain.
Though you were lost, my living girl.
It's always been you that kept me sane.

A Better Solution

I hate conflict. I hate fighting, arguments, war, battles, disagreements, and all that stuff. As childish as it may sound, I really do wish we could get along.

The very first Terry Pratchett novel I ever read was 'Sourcery'.

At the beginning if this book, Death, (the person) comes to the wizard Ipslor the Red.

Even at the time of his death, Ipslor is a powerful wielder of his art. Cradling his eighth and last son in his arms, he admits to Death, (the black robed, impassive, skeletal figure), "All my magic could not save her," He stares out at the gathering thunderstorm.

Death replies,

"THERE ARE PLACES EVEN MAGIC MAY NOT GO."

Ipslor looks down at his son, smiling. He says, "I would have done it all again. Children are our hope for the future." Even as he watches, the clouds darken, and roll in. The rain starts.

Death replies,

"THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE FUTURE."

"Then what," bitterly retorts Ipslor, "is the point?" Thunder booms above. Lightening cracks in shards of light, all too close.

Death replies,

"I'M SORRY?"

Desperately near to the end of his life, Ipslor finally says, "What is it that makes life worthwhile?" The rain is heavy, the thunder now deafening.

Death thinks for a moment,

Death replies,

"CATS. CATS ARE NICE."

Ipslor curses Death. And Death evenly responds that many have. The wizard is struck on the tip of his pointy hat by a stray bolt of lightening, and dies.


I am no wizard. I hold in my hands no great power, no great skill, any more than the talents that any woman or man may possess.

I, too, have cursed death. I have used any and all the powers at my disposal to make a life stay alive. Futile as it may have been.

One time, a friend of mine was sitting with his friends. I was there.

"People criticize war, y'know. 'War, what is it good for?' and all that pacifist bullshit. What wankers. After all, armed conflict has solved many more problems than peaceful measures! I don't know how anyone could justify being against it in the modern age." and he looked right at me, in the eye. Challenging me.

His other friends all nodded in agreement, 'So true', 'too right'

I replied,

"Yes. War solves conflict. You shoot a man, he can't fight back. But that's not the point. The point is, that it causes so much death, so much suffering, so much pain and horror and sadness."

And they all said, almost in unison, "Oh yeeeeaah..."

As if it hadn't occurred to them.

I, a person who is against such actions, was just as offended as my best friend, who is part of Australia's armed forces. This was because, in his words,

"It's me and my friends who are killing and dying for them,"

I see the reason why we have men to perish for us, I have only the greatest respect for them. I see why it is that we make war. One can't just throw away one's weapons and say, "Guns are BAD" and expect to survive.

But it doesn't mean have to be satisfied. It doesn't mean we can't try to find a better solution.

I don't want to believe that liberty is a bitch, that must be bedded on a mattress of corpses. And I won't.

Doing Magic

I only have one talent. Being able to learn tricks.

I'm really not good at anything else, but I've discovered that in every situation, there is always a trick you can learn.

There is a trick to getting girls to like you. There is a trick to turning strangers into friends. There is a trick to making people laugh. There is a trick to making people fall in love with you, just as there is a trick to getting yourself to fall in love.

There is a trick to dancing, painting, writing, surfing, and smiling.

There is a trick to coping with horror, there is a trick making people think that you believe what you're saying. There are tricks to saying awake, and going to sleep.

There are tricks to make yourself stay alive.

I was younger, nine or ten, and playing with a coin in my uncles apartment. I had just been informed that my mother was going to die, probably soon. If she lived, they said, she would be badly brain damaged.

I played with that coin. I could make it spin around my fingers. I flipped it up and around, in and out, with the dexterity of a boy who is yet to gain any cumbersome muscle and has just figured out how all the tendons in his hand fit together.

It was then that I knew, there is a trick to everything. My mother lived, in the end. She has no cancer, and no damage.

And now, as I lie here, flattened by the strange shapes that attack me when I sleep, and the crushing sadness that stays with me during waking hours. Transfixed by the weirdness of things, that the world is the wrong shape in my head, I wonder why it is that I am the way I am.

But, as with all things, there is a trick to living like this. I'm sure it is easier to learn than many other tricks, that fortunately I have never had to learn. And thankfully, it is a trick that I taught myself a long time ago, in much more terrible circumstances.

I was made this way, and my friends who sometimes worry about me, don't. Because I was also made with the ability to learn the tricks that make me able to deal with my problems so well that some people don't even realize they're there.

I'll always have a few up my sleeve. :)