Surrealist gesture

Around again, familiar faces (of my own) staring vacant and soulless.
Insulted by self inflicted insubordination, semantic irrationalities; malignant, yet spry.
Insert date and time.

It is difficult, summoning the strength to continually attempt circumventing these attractive and petite circles of hell I’ve designed for myself. Helplessly dramatic excesses press against my face, the heavy, sweaty, smothering pillows of troubled sleep. I’ve been here before, this exact consignment… in fact it seems I’m always here, this all too familiar place, a perpetual déjà vu, spaces formed to my shape. It has all become rote; a truly ridiculous cycle that deserves sharp ridicule. A drive by derision, if that’s all you can find the time for. It is so much bread left out on the counter, stale and unsustaining, yet still somehow substantial. A still life that’s so predictable it seems to have, somehow, become abstract.

So you’re constantly swallowing down some bitter compromise into that big pit of nothingness you always seem to feel you’re carrying around – and the lightness of it all is so damned heavy that you’re consumed by dreams of egress, of alleviation. In desperate flights of fancy you conjure slashing up your face or your throat with a straight razor, just to rebel, escape… ridiculous and cowardly advances and retreats, silly, lame, one-legged dances performed for an absent and apathetic audience. If you look out from your stage, beyond the lights beating down a violent and burning white, you see only a wash of vast nothing _____________________________________________________ an endless night of warm silences. It’s been said before but it begs to be said again. You hunker down for the billionth time on your broken, bleeding knees to plead for something real, genuine and substantial beyond appearances. If you want release can you just let something go? If you want collapse can you just let something die?
Taking flight, catching fire and burning a continuous vibrant light.
The book(s), the script(s), the song(s), the film(s)… the love(s)… all at once and all defined yet confused. Action and re-action, pomp and circumstance. Belief and doubt. Skill and cheap imitation. The grey matter in between, thick like porridge, dribbling from your seams… filling up an empty chalk-drawn room you’ve continually dreamt since you were young… filling up and almost full.

I’ve been in hiding… even trying to throw myself off this well worn trail I’ve hacked through the jungles of my heart and my head, but the emergency beckons. Rebellion and death:

So now, truly a new year for me, and a toast designed for fiercely tolling that tired old bell that’s gone green in the humidity of past disasters:

So here is to good scotch and thick dry wood for the fire. Here’s to turning the pages of a book because you have to and being reminded why you want to write (thank you Ken, even though I’m still not done), being reminded of the POWER of words. Here’s to the pages that you read then re-read, then re-read again. Here’s to staying standing. Here’s to having a choice and exercising the freedom’s we are afforded. Here’s to Gabriel Voltaire and everything about him. Here’s to Allison and everything about her. Here’s to a family that actually makes me feel at home. Here’s to constructing a perfect little world, then being surprised when you find yourself enjoying seeing it all torn apart. Here’s to building up something new and watching it sway rhythmically in the breeze and knowing that it will. Here’s to new worlds and fresh fields ahead of you. Here’s to the center and the edge, to stretching out your arms and grabbing both at once. Here’s to old acquaintances being forgot. Here’s to a view that takes your breath away, even more so if that view isn’t man made. Here’s to not only having your expectations met, but having them exceeded. Here’s to fighting what you know you have to and fanning the flames for everything else. Here’s to telling people where to find you. Here’s to being unashamed. Here’s to worrying over what you want and finding it when you’re not. Here’s to crumbs in the carpet and stains on your shirts. Here’s to the perfect time that always passes and then waits to be reclaimed. Here’s to intelligence and language rejecting abbreviation. Here’s to doing it all for him. Here’s to faltering, but being aware and wiser.

Here’s to the image being pure to the point of horror.

Here’s to shining the light right where it hurts. Here’s to good art; the kind made by other people; the kind that opens you up and helps you understand. Here’s to the kidney, the liver and the lungs. Here’s to coming down off your cross.

Here’s to the dreams.