big. fat. ugly. disgusting. the blood. the wine. the water.
    when we at one time might have remembered. when at one time it might have meant something for us to have remembered. but we forgot. we have forgotten. what would it have meant? what is it we are now missing? can anyone remember? can anyone search back along the way we came and see it? was it ever there? did we ever have it? did we really lose it? or is it only something we have forgotten? where and when did we forget?
    a thousand flags on the battlefield. who are we here to fight? whose side are we on? who is on our side? or are all of us all together alone? is there any common purpose to this? or is it just to survive however way we are able? who can find the questions to ask? who does one ask them to?
    there is no dilemma here, there is only chaos. the dharma of chaos. the garden has returned back to the jungle overgrowing the ruins of all that has passed. this is the end of time. history is no longer written and the future vanishes. no names of the heroes or the villains or the victims will be remembered. here is the place and now is the time. and in this place and time is all who we are without what has come before or what will come after.
    all the characters of myth. all the stories of the human story. all our human desires and human fears as he sits in the cafe writing. another cigarette in the ashtray. all the madman's dreams he had forgotten he is now remembering as he gazes out the window. as he writes some of it down. parts of them into a whole. a whole of parts. a whole of holes - sometimes gaping holes. that is where and when one needs to use one's imagination the most.
    he cannot explain this to anyone however much he might try. try to explain being thirsty and drinking a glass of water. try to explain wanting to go somewhere and walking there - or deciding not to. maybe tomorrow. try explaining to someone how one feels, what one is thinking and where and when one experiences oneself being. we can explain the facts, not the things themselves. try explaining that there is nothing to desire and nothing to fear in oneself.
     he is alone in the world. he is the world alone in the universe. he is the universe alone in the void. he is alone except for them and their world and their universe and their void. as he is light, they are darkness, and as he is darkness they are light. a light he never sees in his darkness, nor their darkness in his light. he is not aware of it or them.
    he might as well be alone whether he actually is or not. they will always be nothing whether they actually are or not. he will always see them as a figment of his imagination acting directly opposite as he would wish them to appear as though they are acting of their own free and independent will. he has slipped into this world of duality and found himself as someone else - as one of them - standing in front of himself. that is how he knows himself as being not them. when he says this, they say that. when he says that, they say this. when he says it, they say not-it. all as a puppet in a mirror would do.
    which came first?

    the madman sits here and now laughs at his joke he is playing on himself. who else is there to play it on who will see it as joke as he does and understand it and laugh? certainly not them. they will feel the joke is on them and will get angry and cry out. they will expect him to feel sorry for all the cruelty of this joke that has been played at their expense. he will only laugh all the more. is he to feel sorry for upsetting someone who feels nothing as he feels it but who only acts and pretends as if they do? he falls rolling on the floor with wild guffaws gasping for breath his sides aching. his laughter rattles the teacups the good people sip from and causes their pretty cakes to collapse into gushy lumps and drowns out their buzzing whispering storytelling amongst themselves. his laughter makes them lock up their doors and windows and huddle together comforting themselves from his being out of control while he is free to hunt for prey on the city streets and climb over fences and over walls and join with the others who have broken their leash in snarling barking growling howling packs all quite rabid in their new found delightful madness. a dog alone can be scolded or beaten. it rarely bites the hand that feeds it. but the wild dogs who come together and have lost their taste for flavored biscuits and now hunger for the flesh and blood of the kill.
    that is the sound of his laughter. visualize the end of history and the end of time and the end of all obligations. visualize no more deals. visualize cavemen with assault rifles and rocket launchers and genes that fought and won 10,000 years of the bloodiest and most savage wars. visualize no mercy and no holds barred and no referees and no more fears of the judgment day and big daddy with the belt strap.
    he laughs and listens to those around him speak of utopias. but he is not known as the madman for no reason. what may or may not happen he doesn't know more than anyone else. he feels what he feels. he feels that he is no one. the others seem to feel that they are chosen, that they are the elect. but he sort of feels that way himself in his own madness. here he is separate from the others - separated by the others who wish to have nothing more to do with him. he thinks, if they only knew. but knew what? he doesn't know. he knows that they are enemies to each other. enemies as far back as time can be remembered. he is their enemy because he is given no option to be their friend without total unconditional surrender and absolute submission and subordination to their will. they are his enemy because those are the only terms they will be his friends.
    he doesn't need friends that badly that he will agree to their terms, except they have taken all there is in this world to themselves - though they constantly fight over it - and only give it to one who agrees to those terms. in this he is the madman. the madman who refuses to surrender or submit and has to bribed to promise to contain himself. they feed him and provide him with a place to live. he takes it with the condition that they do not interfere with him. they agree as long as he does the same. he agrees. they both cross their fingers behind their backs and shake on the deal. the war is still on but for now there is peace between them.
    this is human history. those who are sane against those who are not. of course it those who are sane, who call themselves such, who define who is and who isn't sane. they are those who have wrangled power for themselves. and because they have power they can keep themselves well behaved. what do they have to fight for? what do they have to scream against? they have it all. they are well mannered behind the walls they have built around themselves. they do not need to shout to get what they want. they barely need lift a finger.
    these are the dividing lines. these are where they fall no matter wherever else they are drawn - sex, race, class, money, politics, religion. it comes down to who is sane against who is not. and it usually falls that is it between the group and the individual. how does one know one is sane if not by gaining approval of the group - worship the gods the group worships. if one speaks against the group then one is insane, if not worse. how can the group be mad? they all agree with one another. the group decides who is right and who is wrong. the majority, or those who control the majority and speak for it.
    and a group is a group is a group. they all operate the same way. there are those who are in and those who are out. there are those who are on the top and those who are on the bottom. this is what made the madman mad. he trusts no one who is part of a group no matter whatever that group represents or says it represents. they make his skin crawl and his blood run cold. they put him in a high fight or flight psychotic state where he does one or the other, usually the latter unless they are standing between him and the nearest door or window. then he'll fight like a motherfucker and use any dirty trick he has to in order to get out and away from them. but he can't get far. they hold everything he needs. they own all the land and he is hardly equipped to live in the wilderness - if he would even want to. so the deal is struck. he promises not cause trouble as long as they let him sit by the door. they still need him after all. they keep him around so they can point to him as an example as to what they should never allow themselves to become. look kids, if you don't wise up you'll end up like that guy.
    he can get along with them one at a time away from the group as long as they try not to get him to join in all the fun they're having. he's having his own fun. it's fun to him watching them and what they do for fun. they are children feeding their senses. all he wants is his own self-defined sanity. as long as they leave him that then everything is fine. they can call it madness if they want. that's fine too. if they try to take that away from him then they will have a madman on their hands. the only option will be to kill him because he'll be coming for their throats and will drag them out and shoot them first if he can.
    even if he has to form his own group in order to do so. and doing that would be easy. he knows what they want. he's been watching them long enough. he knows what to promise them that they will have if they cooperate with him - power and wealth. he knows the true leader does not have or desire these things for himself except as he can arrange to have them given over to him in order to accomplish what he needs to accomplish for himself. the true leader has more than all the power and wealth in the world can give him - his individuality. and the only thing that can take that away from him is a bullet between the eyes. but he knows any and all who may face him to take that away from him are individual cowards needing the group to support them and maintain their identity. alone they are no one and nothing just as he is.
    one who has such a group mind cannot put themselves in the mind of an individual. they will always be outside of it and judging it - and judging incorrectly. that is how and why it is a piece of cake for the individual to to take over the group and get them to do what he wants while they are oblivious to his true motives and believe the lies he will need to tell them so they will continue to believe they are acting of their own free will following the carrot he holds out for them down the path of least resistance as long as they see others around them doing the same thing as they are. and as he presents himself as a symbol for the group and what the group stands for - which for most is only to remain a group. a symbol for those of the group to focus their energy toward, he is home free.
    hallelujah!
    praise the group god and pass the ammunition.
    hail victory!
    he is their uniform. he is the step they march to. he is their flag. he leads them up the side of the mountain toward his vision he has told them about and how they will all share in it. he wants nothing for himself. they do so gladly, singing songs of hope and freedom and overcoming all obstacles. he is a man with an idea.
    this he thinks about not so much in terms of himself. what does he want other than to be left alone and only deal with people on his own terms? but in terms of understanding what inspires and drives other madman who become someone - sometimes major historical someones.
    the madman sits in the cafe and listens to those around him. their simple desires he could grant them. their simple fears he could protect them from. if he straightened up his act just a little bit how easy it would be to get them eating out of the palm of his hand all the promises he could come up with they would willingly believe he and he alone can fulfill because he is such a good and noble person willing to sacrifice himself totally to their cause - what they would believe was their cause. he could paint a portrait of himself as one who puts aside his own desires and his own fears in order that he best serve their interests. the true leader is a servant. and it could work. he's seen it work time and time again in his own lifetimes and in the history of lifetimes before his. he sees those around him trying to work it but their attempts are clumsy and pathetic imitations from books they have read of what true leaders have done before. one cannot imitate. one must be.
    and here he is dreaming his delusions.
    he's been cracked open. he's been shattered to pieces. he tried to prevent it. he tried to stop it. but he could not. he begged others to help him, to save him, to get him out of it, but they turned away and left him to deal with it on his own with his own devices by his own means - for who was it but himself he was struggling against anyway? and this is perhaps what he wanted, what he needed, however much it terrified him at the time. it was, nonethelessly, what happened. it is far too late to blame others or to look of cause or reason. it is what is and he is who and what he is. what was once is no more. there is no putting it back together. from here there is only one direction to go in - ahead and forward. but that is only a direction. there are many paths that lead in that direction. but there is only one person who can choose which of those paths to take, and that is who he is here and now. and this person listens only to what his own madness tells him, and what led him to this madness tells him. whatever he might listen to is heard only as it speaks to him with that voice. all else is false and speaks only lies to trick and deceive him.
    it is now primarily their voice he no longer listens to. it had become shrill and shrieking like fingernails on a blackboard to him. and always nagging and demanding that he do this and not that and crying and complaining when he has not done as they ask as perfectly as how they expected him to do it. he wonders now how he was able to tolerate listening to their voice before. was there ever a time when it didn't sound that way? he remembers it being pleasing and soothing. he remembers being comforted by it. but that must have been back when he was insane as the rest of them and he was delusional and saw nothing but hallucinations instead of the reality he sees around him - now that he is mad and not insane.
    reality as stark and raving as can be seen by human eyes and imagination. the veneer has been stripped away. he sees now the rotten structure that once supported what is all around him but is now so weak that it is supported by the veneer. one good push and down it all goes. all that is needed is one straw, one drop, one grain, one word spoken. and he knows what that word is and sees ahead the time to come when and where it is to be spoken. until then he need only to keep himself alive. that word, needing to be spoken, keeps him alive by its magick and power and authority. and it is not this word alone but with all the words spoken before it that will bring it all down - this mighty fortress of usurpers. one drop cannot fill a bucket. but one drop can make it overflow.
    ha!
    that is the word spoken after all the others have had their say.
    ha!
    he practices it.
    ha!
    ha! ha! ha! ha!
    with that shout all will tumble down because it is too weak to stand against it - a puff of air.
    ha!
    that is the name of his god. the god of all who are strong and brave enough to face the reality their madness revels to them and do not turn away no matter how ugly that reality becomes to their opened eyes and no matter how many others may turn away from them as their faces reflect the image of that reality and that madness. that reality cannot be bargained with or argued with or bribed or chased out the door with a stick or be seduced into one's bedroom. that reality stands before one naked with blemishes and pox and bruises and wounds and missing teeth and open running sores and protruding starvation belly and covered with flies. and one wants to turn one's eyes away and puke and return to the good life of the everyday world of common belief shared by everyone who minds their own business. this is the messiah and savior who knocks on the door, not the beautiful purple robed radiant son o' god painted by artists to please the masses. and only those who are mad can hear it and open the door without hesitation and step outside into the paradise of that reality.
    ha! one says to this beggar upon one's emotions and sanity. ha! i see you and you see me and i still say, ha! you lose. i win. tough fucking shit, pal. take a hike. don't bother me anymore. i see through your disguise you wear to confuse me.
    and it is only those who see this reality and look at it with no idol or image in one's mind placed before it who are then mad enough to say, ha! when it appears to the others in all its disgusting glory. it is these who are mad who can command this reality to go away and leave them alone and in peace. go and knock on someone else's door. someone who will fall on their knees weeping with guilt and shame or who will take up a sword to avenge you and your kind.
    he will not. he does not. only when he is you will he do so. he will go house to house and he will not be knocking. he will kick the doors in and shout, ha! you thought you'd seen the last of me, didn't you? didn't you hear your dogs barking? didn't you hear the shouting and the sirens and the explosions and the screams and the gunfire? or did you just turn your tv or stereo up louder? or did you just curl up in a comfy chair with a good book? or did you just go back to the kitchen and try a new recipe? or go to your workshop and saw and hammer or take wrenches to your hot rod car? or play that new computer game everyone is talking about? or hide under your blankets with your latest squeeze in your big brass bed? or what? how could you not hear me coming?
    and he would say, what are the lies you've been telling yourself or you've been told and have been listening to in your head that made you believe you could lock me and my reality out on the other side of your door and ignore us because you were convinced that you were covered and protected and safe behind all you depended on to guard you against me? and now here i am standing before you stark raving mad. ha! now what do you have that is real and tangible and in your hand that will make me drop to my knees as i once used to when i thought you had something hidden away as a secret weapon to be used against me any time you wanted or needed to? if you have it you would be best advised to bring it out and use it now because i have not come here to forgive you. that's someone else you were dreaming about knocking on your door. it ain't me, babe. oh no no, it ain't me babe. i'm not the one you're looking for, babe. not the one you would want to come walking through your door this time of night.
    and he would say, i remember when i thought i was that one, and you thought i was that one? and you were so sweet and so kind to me so long as i kept my mask and costume on - the mask and costume of a fool - and sat quietly and sipped my tea and spoke only pleasant thoughts of far away places we were going to run away from all of this together to. but my madness wouldn't let me go and i said unkind things you didn't want to hear. so you found another to dress up and run away with to somewhere where you thought me and my madness and the reality of my madness wouldn't be able to find you or get to you. this other who swore to serve as your protector and would never let anything come to harm you. yet you made one mistake. your protector is one of us. you are quite surrounded. ha!
    and he would do all that if he were you. but he is not you. he is not afraid of you. come knock on his door. he has nothing to hide. he has nothing he is ashamed of. he has nothing to protect he cannot replace if it is taken. he is immune to your guilt-inducing pathetic existence. go away. there is no one at home here. just a madman with his own delusions about this and that and everything else that may or may not be.
    like any of it makes any sense...

    the beast and the whore walk the streets of this brave new babylon together. they are the protectors of the world as it should be and all who reside in its fantasy and illusions they create so they will be happy. and no expense is spared and no cost too high for the beast and the whore do not pay the bills. they just make them up and send them out to those who do. those who work for pennies and whether they spend them or save them they all go toward the same thing - the care and maintenance of babylon.
    and there are those who worry. and there are those who do not. the beast and the whore know that to worry is to foolishly waste one's time, but they also realize there are those who beg to differ. so the two provide these ones with more than enough things to worry about. like, who's that knocking on my door at this ungodly hour? and, why can't i count on those who are supposed to be protecting me from just anyone coming up anytime and knocking on my door? isn't there a law against that sort of thing, or something? if not, there should be. maybe i should move away to someplace else where there is. but where? that's why i moved here. what the fuck is going on? isn't anywhere safe? jesus goddamn christ!
    and the beast and the whore ask, did we promise anyone anything? and, if we did, did anyone expect that we would be able to deliver? all we wanted was everyone's obedience to our will and that is what we have now. even non-obedience is obedience. it fits into our plan. pit one against the other. and offer protection for both.
    and the madman is both and neither. he can put on one mask as well as any other. - whoever he needs to be for whatever he needs to get at the time. he can give a look that says come here or one that says go away - quick. and sometimes both at the same time. let them decide. he can appear to be one who has come down from heaven or one who has risen up from hell. or one who is as human as anyone else - more or less. he can amaze others with his genius or his stupidity.
    he is everyone and no one.

    waking up with a vague sense of having been dreaming.
    something maybe too complicated to remember.
    it's still too deep.
    and maybe it's you, my beautiful child.
    about you and those who desire to do you harm because they cannot tolerate your beauty.
    it reminds them of their ugliness.
    is he one of these too?
    it would be safer for you to assume he is and to stay away.
    do not come here for a thousand years after he is gone.

    in the land of big-sholdered women with small tweeky heads - or big heads with big hair - who are all on the move going places and getting things done. the new housewife no longer content with keeping her own house in order, she is on the march to get others' houses in order as well, and others on the move going places and getting things done. no more lounging about with feet up on the furniture drinking beer and watching the game or listening to tunes or catching a nap. wake up dagwood! she's handing out lists of all that needs to be done and right away. so, get with it, or get out, you no good bum.

    it's the same old story and the same old lies we've been telling each other for all these thousands and thousands of years. the emptiness of it all hits home and rocks the very foundation of the house which turns out wasn't founded on anything all that solid but just something that was slightly less insubstantial as everything else around it. but it's all coming down now. that foundation and each and every house built on it - which is pretty much all of them. but we know this is old old news. how long have the prophets cried out in the wilderness?

    the burning of the heart against their thick freezing ice. this is their world divided apart into who has what. and it's not so much a matter of who has more or who has less as it is that we ourselves are divided. he does not want another's possessions. he has enough of his own. but to be aligned heart to heart with another along on our paths together however briefly we may meet. to move through this world and encounter someone other than strangers.
    but it does seem to come down to possessions. if not for him, then for them. he tries to hang out on some whatever open common ground. this cafe. anyone can come here. anyone can come sit at his table so long as they don't act like some stranger toward him or like someone who owns him - or act like that toward others he knows who do sit with him.
    in the cafe no one need come in with possessions or any indication that one has any. just the price of coffee which he would cover if need be, though he thinks it's not to hard to come up with that for oneself. so that is not the problem. the problem is why is there ice around so thick? he sees people frozen in it never changing. on and on it goes passed from one to another. that is how one learns to behave from generation to generation. children born into ready made blocks of ice.
    and there are those alive and strong enough to burn through it. has he burned through it? or is he just as cold to others as they are to him? it's hard to tell which it is. he does not become familiar with those who wish to remain strangers. he has no use for strangers, except what possessions he can trick or steal from them.

    but whatever nonsense or whatever. faced with a thousand and more contradictions. no wonder they don't see any way out - or think there isn't because everything leads to a contradiction which they interpret as being a dead end. it's out beyond the contradictions, once one has learned to ignore them, that it all opens up into this free space. contradictions only matter to those who are logical and rational. be irrational. become mad.

    o' babylon, you will fall. and with your falling he will rise without moving at all. he just sits and smokes another cigarette.
    o' babylon, mother of us all born into your swirling confusion you spin to create the illusion you are great and mighty and all that is that makes sense and is reasonable.
    o' babylon, he has come here out beyond the reach of your lies and deception. he sees the beast that all fear on your leash, you whore to all the kings of the earth.
    o' babylon, he imagines taking control of the beast and sending it tearing at your throat. he would send it to take off your head with one bite. its mouth inside which you put your head to impress the crowds. he knows it is a trick done with mirrors. the beast is only the image of the beast. you would not actually take that risk.
    o' babylon, he would smash your mirrors and turn up the house lights bright so all may see this made up old drag queen whore for who she really is. are you the beautiful old woman you should be? or some hag the doctors have had their way with who has lost the power of her youth she brews up potions to restore?
    o' babylon, he has always loved the beautiful old women who have lost physical beauty but have gained the beauty of wisdom. he loves the women who do not hide behind veils of mystery to hide their cheap ugliness that only gets uglier with each passing year and more and more layers need to be applied to keep it from showing through.
    o' babylon, this is who you are and who he has taken a vow to destroy, if only in his own mind - if ever he is given the power do so otherwise he would not hesitate.
    o' babylon, he remembers you. you once were lovers, young and naked in the springtime meadows. you used to laugh then. have you any memory left of this?
    o' babylon, now he walks through the autumn forest kicking through the leaves alone looking for your fabled house where he will find you bent and withered as he is. he seeks to gaze into your eyes and see the sparks of the eternal fire that knows no age alive within them. he longs to hear your ancient cackling laugh and for your words to say, ah, my dear pretty boy, you've returned to me a man after all. step inside. i've just baked a fresh batch of cookies, something sweet after all you've been eating of late that has been so bitter.
    o' babylon, he comes to sit at your kitchen table as an old friend to trade telling adventures you've both been on and all the town gossip and the secrets you have learned and to sigh and worry together over these kids today. how are they ever to find their way to their own future when they are the ones who sit here and look back over a good life well lived?
    o' babylon, you were young as as they are once. but it is time to let go. put your make up away and wash your face. let him see how time has sculpted you into the most beautiful woman he has ever seen now that the smooth surface of youth has been worn away to revel the soul that lay hidden beneath it.
    o' babylon, he searches for you, for you are the only one he will bend his knee to and lay down his sword for. but not if he is being tricked into it so you may shout, guards, off with his head! and add his to the pile of skulls at your feet.
    o' babylon, you will feel the blade of his sword at your throat if that is the face you show him - the screaming avenging bitch from hell. and it will be off with your head.
    o' babylon, enjoy your reign over the lands of the earth while it is given to you. will it be his son and your daughter who meet in the end?
    o' babylon, he wishes to end this between you. he is tired of war - especially after returning from one in a distant land he still has to fight his way through your city gates.
    o' babylon, you will fall and all will weep and morn for you except for him. he will take your ashes and scatter them and begin again. maybe this time without you or the need of you or anything from you. he's learned his own tricks from the places you've sent or driven him to.
    o' babylon, he will chop off your head and replace it with a machine of his own design and device.
    o' babylon, he will forget your name. he will forget all your names.

    at a time with and without laughter and a sense of distant screaming, he did not answer the phone. every word possibly carefully selected by misshapen memory, he was transfixed by his own imagination. are there any more who mourn? are there any more who hear the nagging voice of justice? dead rotting babies crawling with bugs and filled with worms. he picked up one for his collection.

    and what wars are continued by those who will not forget? and what peace is enforced by those who remember only happy times from their youth spent joyously among parties of friends?
    which is cause and which is effect? and why do not others think of such things until their bubble worlds collapse?
    why did he not think of it? but who was to remind him of such things but his own self set upon thinking to delve into the core of thought?
    we worry about such silly things as what is proper for ourselves to wear or not to wear upon our bodies that might revel our diverging from a particular party line.
    he would not dare expose himself thuswise to be not steadfastly true to his cause against all causes. not even a button with even one word printed on it that would identify him with another.
    a big mistake. a rupture in hell breaking loose. and the rains from heaven.
    to bend and kneel. to pick up the bloodied sword from the battlefield. to find no honor in this as once days long ago, but to fight against the shame choking one's throat and twisting one's gut as they, those one would defend by this action, are free to throw insults and laugh and walk away from the carnage holding their noses back to freshen their senses smelling roses in their gardens one is now forever banished from.
    no more pretty pictures in a scrapbook. no more letters to save and read again. no more chatting by the fire drinking tea or brandy. no more soft beds lying next to a warm body. no more strolls on a beach under a full moon.
    one is now chosen to kill until one dies. there is no coming back to those who forget there still is a perimeter to their world and a no man's land beyond it. those who demand that these now chosen uphold their belief that they are free in a free world and nothing should reach them that would indicate otherwise.
    but those walls are breaking down being chiseled away by those within who seek the promised land. are they to be protected too? are the predators to be driven off somewhere else than where these might wander? is a disneyworld created for these who seek excitement and thrills where everyone is their friend? and how is this done without becoming more savage than the predators themselves with the push button mass killer weapons? are they asked just to behave themselves? and if they do, what is offered to them in exchange? what do they want but to kill? what do they need but to kill?
    what does one do with one's enemies?
    but what enemies? are we their enemies? do we oppose them and fight them? not us. we are done with war. will we even fight to defend ourselves? maybe, if we are forced to. if they force us to. if they become our enemy.
    we look back at what we once called home and see no one and nothing there we feel worth defending. we have what we need and want. let the plunderers have the rest. the city gates are wide open and they are dancing in the streets. it's all theirs now. they can knock themselves out. as far as we are concerned, they've won - by default. we've got better things to do and better places we'd rather be.

    and he writes these words over and over again seeking some way out of them. but they return to the source each time with deeper meaning found in the journey.
    he sees this happening. he sees it in all those around him who are deaf to it and speak without speaking.
    patterns. patterns within patterns. a chaos of patterns. patterns never repeating any pattern except in the most broad generalized sort of way which may not be a pattern at all. like how there is you and how there is him. like how there is us and how there is them. patterns that repeat themselves endlessly until one is able to step outside of them and see that they actually do not except as how one might choose to see them as doing so in order to interact in the same world with others of one's kind. a pattern of patterns of communication. a communication of experience. our selves and our actions as phrases of the patterns ordered just so as to transfer meaning from one to another. a meaning beyond the phrases of patterns of order words which, though part of the overall phrases, are also singularly removed from them as being meaningless on their own. just noises we make and scribbles we draw.
    or something like that.
    whatever.
    nevermind.
    it is it.

    the way it seems to be with mothers and fathers who hate their children and children who hate their mothers and fathers and with mothers who hate the fathers and fathers who hate the mothers and the children who hate each other. this is the core of what we would set right in the world following some philosophy or another when mothers and fathers are seen as oppressive and abusive and children are seen as wild and rebellious. when fathers are seen as beasts and mothers are seen as whores. this is the cornerstone of the foundation. this is the keystone of the arch. if it cracks and crumbles a thousand repairs in other places will not stop a thing. this is the heart that when it is wounded and bleeding bandages applied elsewhere will not save anyone. all else can die and be amputated and the body will live. amputate the heart and the body dies.
    the heart wishes only to continue. it beats over and over supplying the body with what it needs for whatever the body wishes to do. the heart only asks the body not to do that which will inhibit or prevent the heart from serving in its given function. and the body should follow this - needs to follow this. the hand, for all else it might do, if it does not serve the heart it does not serve the body, or even itself. this goes for all. even the brain. the brain rules the body but still must serve the heart.

    what whichever.
    spin it around again.
    this ongoing process of free thought that reaches out and grabs what it will to bring in together and try to organize into what is comprehensible. but it is not free thought in a vacuum. it seeks the vacuum. it seeks to be uninfluenced by external factors and forces - even the ones it has internalized - the trickiest ones of all. but though it may reach this, it is always reaching it from a particular source and with particular intentions and motivations that it cannot escape as this source is itself.  that must be included in all its thinking - free or not.
    it is not the true answer that it seeks but the answer it wishes to have that it seeks. the answer that is comprehensible to all else that is comprehensible. many times it must expand what is comprehensible in order to include the answer it comes up with. it must go beyond its boundaries and borders. this is the growth of the mind. the mind that when faced with the incomprehensible chooses either to ignore it or work it out and expand what is comprehensible in order to incorporate the incomprehensible into the comprehensible. this is irrationalogic. when the mind comprehends the incomprehensible, the mind goes mad.
    the madman is mad. the madman comprehends the incomprehensible though what use is it as he cannot explain any of it to those who cannot or will not comprehend it. this is not because they are stupid and he is smart. it it because he is insane and they are not. who among them wants to be insane?
    oh well.
    so he sits in the cafe and surveys the scene around him. he walks the city streets and explores all that is incomprehensible - that he comprehends in his irrationalogical mind.
    he laughs at it all. it laughs back at him. he and the incomprehensible laughing at each other together. others avoid him as they walk by. the beast and the whore arm in arm strolling through babylon as it continually destroys itself and recreates itself forever following some design that appears reasonable to him now. he loves it.
    but is this true?
    the madman may imagine this but as anyone can see for oneself the madman sits and walks alone.
    and he writes.
    all this that no one or few will read. but no one needs to read it. it changes nothing if anyone does or doesn't. it's just a part of his madness - his wonderful delightful joyous madness of contentment with all things, even that which causes him despair and rage. it changes nothing. he writes for himself. he is an obsessive/compulsive scribbling down thoughts that won't leave him alone. if it makes sense to someone else - fine. if not - fine.
    it's all in some other space and time - in some here and now. the dreamtime. he, the dreamer, is dreaming and that comes and goes. and it changes as it will but nothing changes from it. it is only that which enables him to comprehend the incomprehensible. his madness is his comprehension as his comprehension is his madness.
    this is his understanding. his understanding is with or without knowledge. knowledge is limited to that which is comprehensible. his understanding is beyond that into the incomprehensible. he weighs knowledge against his understanding, not his understanding against knowledge. he decides what he understands. he does not allow knowledge to decide this for him. if knowledge cannot explain his understanding then the knowledge is incomplete - not his understanding.
    he watches and waits for those who follow knowledge to catch up with him - here and now - as they dig out books from the archives and from the bestseller shelves and try to translate them into reality, or reality into them - whichever.
    ho-hum.
    he is tired. though he is filled with constant energy he looks out and sees nothing that is not begging.
    he survives. he survives to watch and wait. this world turning around him from his subjective axis point. wheels upon wheels. wheels of the machine he and the others of his kind have designed and had built for this purpose of their surviving - though he does not know if there is anyone but himself. he doesn't even know if there is himself besides this fictional character he has imagined himself to be, as he imagines others must be too. all else lives or dies as it will. that is no nevermind to them. they are all that there is to themselves. they are fathers and mothers to it all. they are the imaginary inventors of the machine they designed and had built out of the necessity of their existence. they who survive in this wilderness of mind outcast from the minds of those who serve the eternal babylon and the beast and the whore who are its creators, though they in turn are created from it - by the machine of it. it all turns in and around itself continuing as it is continued and will continue all around each subjective relative axis point in each of their minds - our minds. it is called this by one and called that by another. it is those who are mad who understand what it is and that calling it this or that changes nothing about what it is. they are the ones who designed the machine and had it built from ages long ago. they are designed and built from it as well. the machine is organic as well as mechanical. it is also not a machine at all. it just is what it is - a product of the mind. they serve it, but in serving it they serve no one but themselves. they and the machine are one coming from and going into one another.
    this turns in his mind.
    this is his mind turning.
    this is the madness of his mind.

    but it those of the world - of babylon - who are within the parameters of the machine. they do not know or understand its existence or its purpose. what they know and what they understand from what they are given to know and understand by the machine itself as the machine decides if they are ready to know and understand more. it then drives them mad with understanding.
    this is the way of a parent whose role is to protect but without restraining those it protects. it protects them mostly from themselves as any parent knows. a parent also gives of oneself without making one's children dependent upon one for everything. one encourages them to explore the world for themselves.

    a skewed view from a distance. come closer. a patchwork world falling into pieces that will then be patched together again into another pattern following from the old pattern. the pattern of the machine. a place and a time. a here and a now.
    when words lose all meaning except for casting vague shadows on the walls that can be interpreted to mean anything. when the poet's word is law and these pied pipers call the tune leading all who follow toward some mythical greener pastures the sheep hungrily long for as the wolves equally hungry await for them in the forest.
    and as the city walls are breached, not from outside but from within. and those go running out to the surrounding armies shouting, the war is over.
    and as we sit upon a nearby hill resting from our long journey home, we look down upon this scene before us and we shake our heads and remount our horses and turn them back the way we came.

    bringing it around and out or up or in or down. the central issue. the central cause and effect.
    go out in the woods and live off nuts, roots and berries.
    the city begins at point x. x is a place where the immediate environment is sufficient for human survival and occupation. it provides food, clothing and shelter. there are those who find point x and decide to stay and live there. these are people x. people x is a group composed of men, women and children who have brought to point x only that which they could carry with them from elsewhere they have been wandering.
    nearby or far away there is another point - point y. point y is similar to point x except it is in a different location and settled by a different group of people - people y. near by or far away are other similar points where other groups of people settle. this gradually happens all around the world.
    there is also territory between these points that is not quite so sufficient at any one spot for people to settle. the people here must continue to wander in order to survive. they remain mobile. these people are limited by how much they can carry with them while the people who settle at the various points can have as much stuff as they can drag there over time, including great big stones to build a city out of.
    thuswise, roughly 10,000 years ago the human race dispersed and settles itself over most of the land of the earth. but, of course, it was never that simple. this is just a general description - more or less. these groups of people were in contact with each other, at least with those in the local area of what could be reached with the transportation at the time, horses and sailing ships. there were many who knew nothing about each other, though people knew a lot more about people far away than one might expect. at least they knew of their existence. and this more or less stayed as it was for thousands of years until some uppity europeans started exploring the world coming into contact with nearly everybody, who they then enslaved in some form or another. they had the technology to do this - also the god given christian will.
    and that comes up to modern times where there is few, if any, people untouched by this new world. remote hunter gatherers wear t-shirts with corporate logos on them. most of the world operates on one time system of a 24-hour clock. mass media clues everyone in on everyone else. most people can talk or send messages to anyone in the world in real time - in the same moment. people now have weapons capable of destroying most of human life on the planet, if not all of it. this is the first time in human history - in human existence  - that this has happened. it may mean something, or it may not. the human race, for the first time since the early hominids on the african savannas, is one unit - as divided up into many units along whatever lines it might be. everyone is in the here and now however much else they might disagree on.
    and its all a house of cards.
    it could collapse at any moment, as civilizations have always collapsed. knowledge will be lost and knowledge will be regained and new knowledge added from the mistakes of the past. humans being humans, we'll somehow put it back together again, as people have done with collapsed civilizations before. maybe many times. even if it takes us another 10,000 years to do it.
    but here we are now.
    and in the middle of it is a madman scribbling away in notebooks - and now transcribing some of that on his computer and putting it on line. he need not explain anything he is thinking or has thought of or is moving toward thinking. if he knows it then it is already out there available to anyone the same way he accessed it - books, tv, radio, music, movies, drugs, etc. - his own imagination. but everybody has imagination. what does he imagine that others cannot? nothing that he is aware of.
    whatever.
    whatever.
    whatever.

    he hears voices. he hears the voices of those around him everywhere he goes. they are all saying this or that about whatever. he picks up bits and pieces and adds them to the mix already in his own mind - his own mad mind. and he sort of hears voices of people who are not there. these are the various voices of his own thoughts. he knows what they are. they don't come from ufos or microwave towers. they have conversations and sometimes arguments in his head. sometimes he imagines what a particular person he knows out in the real world might have to say about something. they join in too.
    when he quiets these voices that are all babbling away, sometimes trying to shout each other down, he hears one voice that does not need to shout or babble. it waits until he is listening. and unlike the other voices telling him what to think, say and do and disagreeing  and contradicting one another, this voice does not tell him what to do and contradicts none of the others. it will take each and tell him the consequences, rewards, losses, gains that will result from following that particular voice. then it lets him decide what to do. based on that information.
    the other voices are loop echoes from what other people have told him over the years, from his parents and brother and sisters onward. they are the noise of the mind in dialogue and argument with itself between the various ideas and opinions it has absorbed and collected. but the one voice as far as he has been able to determine does not originate with all of that. it comes from what he calls the vanishing point like the vanishing point in two dimensional paintings or photos depicting three dimensional space. but this is the vanishing point of space/time itself. it is the singularity point that everywhere came from. it is the center of the universe that is everywhere. and when he is able to quiet himself enough to listen it talks to him - sort of. it thinks to him. it feels to him. it imagines to him. he calls it his god voice. and not a god voice like in some charlton heston movie, but a god voice in its being ever-present and still and calm - reassuring even, when he needs that.
    there is a projector and a screen with the projector shining upon it. on the screen images are projected - a dog, a goat, a snake, a cow, an ear of corn, a lotus blossom, a phallus, a cross, a five pointed, or six or seven pointed star, an equation, 42, a woman mother goddess, a man father god, a swirling yin/yang.
    all images.
    now take away the images and look away from the screen and gaze directly into the projector with its bright undiluted white light. turn away before you go blind from its power. now look at the back the screen that lessens the glare and diffuses the light from the projector. now slip a slide in of whatever it is that pleases you - that inspires in you great feelings and thoughts and being within oneself.
    if there is a god, that is what it is to him.
    the ultimate author of the machine and all that comes from it.
    or not.
    forget it.
    nevermind.
    this is nothing.
`   it is the one transmission in all transmissions. it is the carrier wave that brings to one all that is confusing - the images that are supposed to be real.
    look at the noise where there is no station broadcasting its show of shows. that is its true nature.
    it is the one voice that is heard when all others are silent. yet it is the one voice heard when all the voices are shouting over one another until all is legion. it is the voice of legion. it is the voice of all voices. it is everything at once. it leaves one's mind deaf and ringing, blind and burning.
    play a flute in the space of echoes. bang a drum in a factory where it cannot be heard. realize it is such a joy - a joyous joyful joy that makes one jump for joy.
    jump out a window without a thought of either falling or flying.
    it continues in whatever it is that continues. the continuing pain and suffering and agony. the continuing strife and conflict and war. the continuing hell. the continuing oppression of the evil tyrannical unforgiving overlords of the earth. the continuing defeat and despair and hopelessness.
    no one said it would be easy.
    be the one who continues even if one is not one who continues. continue not continuing.
   ha!
    let that be one's first and last word of the moment now continuing or not from or toward whatever. that moment now continues now.
    ha!
    bullshit.
    dada.
    nonsense.
    stupidity.
    horseradish.
    dog doo doo.
    42.
    x
    hike!
    bingo.
    bongo.
    bungo.
    crash.
    ka-boom!
    woosh.
    zap.
    it is it.
    nevermind.
    forget.
    not even zero.
    the end.
    the beginning.
    somewhere in the middle somewhere.
    a bullet right between one's eyes that never quite arrives on target.
    a trick done with mirrors.

    and the great cosmic dada of all dada both real and imagined and otherwise slipped across the thin ice melting one early spring day of sunshine while we sat upon our thrones in deep shit.
    i will take anyone's advice, shouted the madman to himself, but i will not take anyone's orders.
    he fell thuswise amongst the fallen who had given up hope.
    who are you, jesus? asked the jester.
    am i? asked the madman looking at a painting on the wall of the asylum. a painting looking like a sentimental greeting card for a non-descript occasion to be sent to a generic friend to wish them luck on their next endeavor.
    the jester dressed in voodoo beat his drum and hooted, are you not here to save the world?
    i do not believe that if i were jesus that saving the world would fit into my job description, the madman replied.
    you are here to save anyone? squeaked mary lou who was a top of the line expensively educated political activist who drove around organizing rallies in her daddy's car subscribing to the issue of the month club. she was a dog. a cute dog. but nonetheless a dog.
    i would save those who asked me to save them if it was given to me to have such power. what the world does from that point on is up to itself. it can save itself if it wants or needs to.
    after you send all the rest of us to hell, the jester chuckled.
    send you to hell? the madman chuckled himself, i'd say it was more like leaving you in hell. but who am i to judge? but i am leaving. if you want to go with me then this is the time to go. this is the knock on the door, so to speak. if you stay, then you stay. i do not care. those who i may happen to send to hell are only those who oppose me and what i am here to do. stand in my way and i will destroy you and all memory of you. if you're lucky, you'll just get yourself neatly knocked on your ass on my way out the door.
    and he left.
    no one came with him.
    he's crazy.
    but he's happy.
    joyful.

    acting out moments and sequences of love. acting out desires and passions. reaching out and grasping nothing. an escape plan to paradise. a logic scheme of emotion drawn to a conclusion. something is misplaced. a error in the program. all poets are dead. a glitch with an itch to bitch about which.

    when we become removed from ourselves and who and what we are. when others decide for us.
    he is a father. he has children. others decided to act in his place and eliminate him and prevent him from acting as a father to his children. he had left it open. his decision as a father was to act as minimally as he felt he should. this was acting as a father. he had  been a part of bringing his children into this world but he was not going to tell them how to live their lives or to live their lives for them. this is why he left it open. he gave them room to discover while he was always nearby. perhaps he left it too open as others, seeing this as being open, saw an opportunity for themselves to enter into it and act in his place as they felt it was a father's place to act. they felt the father's role was to make rules for his children to follow and obey and to enforce that obedience with a big stick. they used that stick against him when he attempted to stop them from doing what they were doing. they drove him out. they were the ones who called him the madman.
    now the madman works with riddles. he works with codes to command and program the machine that had been designed and built for his use if he can only master it. if anyone can master it, it is theirs. but he is the madman with a madman's ideas about things. the madman has been told this over and over. and he believes it. he was told this as soon as he understood the language he was taught - the language of babylon, as opposed to the language of the people.
    what people?
    that's what he asks himself as he looks around him and and sees few of his people among the people of babylon. and those he does see he has no way of speaking to them. he weirdly penetrates through the layers of illusion around him. not only around him outside of him, but around him inside of him too. then maybe some day he will be able to speak.
    ideology. dropping it. he wants to drop it. he attempts to drop it. however he is not willing to drop it only to be sucked up into another. ideology is a castle fortress. it defends. it provides. it attacks and rapes and plunders other ideologies with its ideas. it trades with other ideologies. it steals from them. it infiltrates them.
    so maybe he is not dropping his ideology. he is building his ideology independently from others as much as he is able to - though he too steals what he needs from them. it defends him and provides for him as much as the others. but it is his. he makes it up as he needs to.
    ideology x.
    x ideology.
    ideology of the variable. variable ideology. insert x and see what happens. does x hold up? does the ideology? which should be kept and which discarded? or maybe they just need to be adapted. and whatever follows from that. x is something, anything, nothing. x has some value, every value until its value is set. x remains above and beyond all. x is x. but also x is not x. the first locks one into reflection of the self gazing at one's own reflection until one is only a reflection gazing at a reflection. nothing should equal itself. it is only when x is not x that one can turn away from oneself and seek what is x in the other.
    x seeks y. why? why is the other not x? or, is the other also x? y is x. one is what the other is not.
    with this one we have one becoming two. and from that all else follows. but where did one come from? it comes from x. x being x. one being one. one being one amounting to zero or resulting in two. one can turn either way here in nowhereland. all things are possible. oblivion or existence. zero or one or two. the two being the one that is nothing and the one that is something. one is the axis. all is x - the variable. and whatever follows from that.
    the madman has seen x. the madman gazed at x until he became x gazing at x. he was almost lost to the echoes calling out his name that almost became silent. he turned away. he ran away.
    he came back to this. he was driven back to this. from the point of light from the projector direct feedback into out of his mind. the light he saw was the light he generated. the more he desired to see, the more his desire created to see. he comes back to his people sitting around the fires. there is his family, his friends, his enemies. he is here among them. there are those who enjoy him being here. there are those who do not know he is here. there are those who seek to destroy him and make sure he does not return in any way, shape or form. he is not sure any of these people are really his people - or even his species. they are a bunch of homo sapien sapien dumb fuck yahoos. he laughs.

    it's cracked and it's broken. a world shattered into billions of pieces held together with bits of string and chewing gum. is there integration in it? is there something woven into it stretched to any possible limits and not coming apart from itself though there is that which comes apart from it? who knows? we shall see.
    at the point when one is about to explode, or does not explode, one looks and sees it right in plain view where it has always been, theoretically. if it had been there before would one not have seen it before? so what has changed except one's perception?
    a blankness. a space of neutrality of energy. the elders sit in silence almost not breathing. the children run about pushing and pulling and shouting. life goes on. what is born? what dies? what continues otherwise? and those who wish to stop and never change and never move - to become as rocks and stone. but this is nothing. meanwhile, back on the farm, cows moo.
    how many clues does one want?
    how many clues does one need?
    how many clues are there?
    this is asked around among us.
    us?
    what clues does one have for us?
    what is one trying to tell us?
    what that we do not already know or suspect?
    who is fooling who here?
    are we fooling ourselves too here?
    is one fooling oneself?
    what is it this one of us who is him knows or suspects that we are telling though him?
    who are we?
    do we even know?
    do we even exist?
    or are we only products of his imagination?
    it.
    what else but it?
    if it isn't it, then what is it?
    not it?
    this?
    that?
    the other thing?
    is it over the hills and far away?
    how do we know?
    what does it taste like?
    does it smell bad?
    did we step in it?
    is it a joke?
    how far does it go?
    is this a birthday cake?
    is that a pile of dog shit?
    is one it and one not it?
    what is it being it?
    being it is being what it is - it in itself. it is the focus of our attention. yet being it is also being nothing. something to be ignored.
    let's dance in circles with ourselves and each other forever. let us never tire of the game of illusions we play. a game none of us wins and none of us loses - not really. not when it's added up in the end. how can it be that way when it begins with nothing and ends with nothing? that's part of playing the game. when the game is won or lost the game is over. who wants the game to be over - except those who win? so we win for a while and then we lose for a while and it remains in unbalanced equilibrium between this and that, between winning and losing, between that which we desire and that which we fear.
    or so it tells him. he doesn't know.
    all these strangers in a strange land. all these orphaned children. all these who have nowhere to go home to nor anywhere to run. all these trapped in this world itself trapped between heaven and hell. to find the here and now within the fantasies believed in but in 10,000 years have yet to materialize into reality and remain the delusional visions of utopian dreamers. bah humbug and a pox on them all. they have betrayed us and stolen our lives and the lives of our fathers and mothers and continue still to steal the lives of our children born and unborn.
    all the kings and queens, all the popes and christs and anti-christs, all the generals of armies, all the leaders of mobs, all authority and all rebellion, all the prophets of doom, all the gurus, masters and teachers, all who speak from great stages or from soapboxes, all who build monuments, all who tear down monuments, all who put on chains, all who take chains off, all who would enslave and oppress, all who would overthrow and liberate, all who have power, all who do not but lust for power. may each and every single one and all of these be damned to eternal fire and the bottomless pit. these, the adversary to ourselves who want only to be left the fuck alone and no longer be forced to listen to their mad ravings about this and that none of which is even remotely real to the here and now or to those who are able and willing to perceive the here and now which is the tree from which all has taken its fruit. it is the tree of life and its fruit is life. but if its fruit is eaten too early in the season it is not ripe and the taste is bitter with the knowledge of good and evil and makes one sick with cramps and vomiting and fevered nightmares. but later it is sweet and becomes as wine to bring one pleasant dreams as one sits after the day to enjoy it.
    what else does one seek? what drives everyone to the ends of the earth constantly chasing the horizon which constantly remains the same distance away no matter how far or fast one may travel? what is in everyone's minds that makes them feel so ill at ease everywhere they are and go? what is in their hearts that aches and causes such longing agony? do they know? do they have the first clue? this is what makes them fools for every promise held out to them they will give over everything they own to strive after. and what promise has ever been fulfilled? here we are the same as always - in the here and now - facing ourselves as who and what we are.
    but as old p.t. is rumored to have said, there's one born every minute. one who will march whenever a drummer beats a drum. does it matter where one is marching to as long as one is marching somewhere - and marching with as many others as possible? and where is this somewhere but the here and now? where else can it ever be?
    but this is our nature to be on the move toward greener pastures to graze in. such is the nature of sheep as it is the nature of wolves to be on the move for the easy kill. both are slaves to their nature and both equally unable to change. both never free from their hunger and quest for the good life - to be free.
    ha!
    we laugh. those who are free need not go anywhere. a prison cell can be built around them and chains attached to their hands and feet and gags put over their mouths and blindfolds over their eyes and waxplugs in their ears and red hot pokers up their ass and they are still no less free and far more free than those trapped within these reptilian level stimulus/response action/reaction knee jerk minds. they go around and around free to go anywhere they want but never arriving anywhere.
    ha! - and ha! again. right in their stupid glazed-eyed faces. ha! ha! all who come to the cry, hail victory! and will crawl to kneel before anyone who promises them that. all who fear the image of the enemy - the adversary - and worship the images of the savior - the deliverer.
    victory over what?
    do they ever think of that?
    fools. fools and more fools. but our lives would be far less amusing without them and being able to sit here eating the fruit in the evening and enjoying their absurd antics. those bent over holding their bellies and puking their guts up and dancing about in fits and seizures swinging at phantoms and rolling twisting on the ground wrestling with their own shadows.
    ah, to be young in the springtime...
    to see the world needing saving and oneself as the savior - or at least on the side of the savior. to be all that is good opposed to all that is evil. to ride into the sunset when the job is done into one's eternal reward. all for one and one for all. not like these do-nothings who sit about and laugh about everything - laugh at us and all we believe in. those who tell us we will understand in time what it's all about. fuck them. who needs them? off we go to brave new worlds. follow me, guys!

    everything has begun. everything has ended. everything is in the middle. everything is nothing but what it is.
    this neither causes happiness nor sadness. happiness and sadness are independent of everything and whatever everything may or may not be. happiness and sadness are generated from the self and are then applied to everything in the surrounding world. this is usually forgotten. everything would have us believe that it is the source and cause of happiness and sadness when it is not. it does not contain that ability - unless we allow it to. but one can find that the source and cause is within oneself. when we stop saying this makes me happy and that makes me sad, we become the master instead of the slave to our emotions. the control becomes internal instead of external.
    he has done this - though not entirely. his computer freezing up on him still pisses him off and he wishes he had a button he could push that would make it feel pain. and other things as well.
    but for him this too he enjoys. he enjoys everything as it comes and goes. he enjoys happiness. he enjoys sadness. he enjoys being angry. he enjoys being calm. he enjoys being here. he enjoys being there. for him it is all a surprise. he expected none of it at all. this is all new to him though he's been here for more than a lifetime.
    he does not edit his emotions between what he prefers to feel and what he does not. he experiences them each in their fullness as they come and go. he finds that he can choose among them and feel them contrary to the context of the situation he is in.
    and he writes this while the world around him goes steadily more and more insane twisting and churning through a whirlpool of emotional confusion and band-aid fixes tearing itself to pieces in the process of attempting to heal itself but ripping open more and deeper wounds and opening old ones that haven't properly been treated.
    before old bandages are removed, new ones are put on. splints are put on splints, crutches are given crutches, wheelchairs are put in wheelchairs, seeing eye dogs feel about with white canes. the diseased treat the healthy with potions of viruses and infection. the criminals enforce the laws written by the corrupt and the greedy. lovers are attracted by mutual hatred while murderers kill those they love. the unlearned teach. those lead who cannot lead themselves. it all makes a bosch painting look like a day in the park.
    but this is nothing new. stop in at any point in human history anywhere in the world and see the same, if not worse. but few seem tired of it though all complain. they wallow in it and rejoice. and we few cannot say that they should not. we few can only leave them with it to do as they please, or what we only can assume is what they please since they make little attempt to change except to make matters worse. and there are those who point fingers of blame toward others as they do the same things they do. they often blame others who are blaming them.
    we blame no one but ourselves for having failed to come up with anything to actually change the state of affairs of the world at large such that this misery each inflict upon the others and themselves is ended. we cannot force it to end. if it is to end it must come from a general lack of interest in continuing it - even for one more day, or one more hour, or one more moment. but who is interested in that? who is willing to walk away from it? to do so one admits defeat instead of victory. and they all love victory. they would walk away if they could do so victorious. that is easy and as common as shitting. as common as getting in one last lick and kick and spitting in the other's face before turning away. one last, fuck you! but if it cannot be the last and the best then they turn back into it and struggle against it all again until they can have that final fuck you with their enemies cowered and trembling at their power.
    and we are no different. this is our fuck you.
    may it last a thousand years when we will return to say it again.

    and let them who would silence us rise up and do so now as we speak. fuck you to all who oppose us. fuck you to all who stand in our way and expect us to walk around them, which we do, but fuck you all the same. we will live to see the day you are dust and in ruins as others in history have become who were once all-powerful while we remain alive, well and kicking out the jams, baby, oh baby, can you dig it? can you come close to it? here we are, like it or not. we've made our way through all the hoops and obstacles and mazes set out to stop us - or at least divert us from our path. but our path was not known - even to us. we did not know where we were going or even who we were who were the ones going. we just went. so how could anyone stop us?
    we had no manifesto.
    we had no agenda.
    we had no master plan.
    we seize each and every moment as it comes to us and take from it what we will however way we will and there is no one to stop us. no one has stopped us yet. we are here and now living proof of that.
    we support every manifesto.
    we support every agenda.
    we support every master plan.
    no one opposes us because we oppose no one else.
    which side wins or which sides loses we couldn't care less. we are on both and all sides. we cannot lose even though we always do. someone loses and there are always some of us among them. and in the same way we always win. where there is a crowd cheering victory look around and one will see us among them laughing. yet we are laughing because we know it means nothing. we are just enjoying the show. we laugh at those who believe that this will go on forever - that this is the dawn of their thousand year reich and a new age for all who have believed. we've seen it all before. we've sat at these tables at the feast before. we eat our fill knowing that we have also been left to starve before too.
    but mostly we avoid the crowds of either the winners or the losers. we sit in the cafes or such. we watch the show all around us. it's all the same and doesn't matter as long as we continue. fuck the rest. they are only to be used for our own self-interest whatever else they believe they are doing. we don't care about that. we serve them or they serve us as each situation presents itself. other than that they are to be ignored. and if they cannot be ignored then they need to be destroyed. and we have the means to do so. we have the machine.

    a very bad poem by a very bad man

    the coo-coo clock.
    the clock gone coo-coo.
    tick-tock, bing-bong - twang!
    he giggles
    this tickles his fancy
    a slippery slidey shivering feeling.
    almost something, but not quite.
    he gets his gun.
    he points it at her head.
    he pulls the trigger.
    why?
    why not?
    who?
    who was there to stop him?
    no one.
    no one but himself.
    he remembers once when he would have stopped himself.
    but those are the old days now and the old days are gone.
    no more.
    these are the brand new days.
    no more pencils.
    no more books.
    no more teacher's dirty looks.
    school's out forever.
    no more doing what daddy says to do.
    his daddy said never ever hit girls, nevermind shooting them.
    fuck daddy.
    daddy, daddy you old prick bastard son of a bitch motherfucking asshole fascist patriarch.
    the villagers have stormed your castle and dragged you down and are stamping and dancing on you.
    he doesn't have to listen to you anymore.
    this is what the villagers have told him.
    so he got his gun and found a sweet young cunt and took aim and blew her pretty little head o' hair off into a cloud of blood and bone fragments.
    he is now free to do what he wants.
    he is free to express his long repressed pent up emotions you told me to control, daddy.
    fuck you daddy.
    he is a new man.
    he is open naked and exposed no longer hung up trembling afraid of who and what he might be inside.
    hello?
    is this who one was expecting?
    or did one have the idea that the new man set free was going to be the noble savage and be polite and gentle and one would pet him and he'd lie down and purr?
    surprise!
    but it's not a surprise to him.
    he knew what was happening all along.
    he knew the nature of the beast that was going to emerge once the walls of tyranny and oppression the fathers erected were torn down.
    he could have told someone, but no one asked.
    oh well.
    if no one saw it coming then that's their problem, not his.

    now he has his own words of advice for his own son.
    hey son.
    yeah dad.
    if any girls give you any trouble, knock them upside the head a few times like you would anybody else until they leave you alone.
    ok dad.
    welcome to the land o' freedom.
    it's wonderful, isn't it?

    he sits at his table eating until he full while others starve. he'll grow fat while they grow thinner. because he is in the valley of death and he fears no evil. and he has yet to fall. and now he is the meanest baddest daddy of them all.
    the killer awoke before dawn. he put his boots on. he smashed the faces in the ancient gallery and he walked on out the door. now what are they gonna do? the boogieman is alive and well. what happened to the hero? what happened to the new age man? what went wrong? this isn't how it goes in the liberation song. why is he wearing that crown on his head? doesn't he know the god/king of the fathers is dead?
    yes he knows - far better than anyone else. because he went out and did what everyone else was afraid to do. he wandered lost in the wilderness until he found the source of the voice that doesn't utter a sound but commands anyway. and he and he alone, though full of fear and dread, where zarathustra himself feared to go, overcame himself as the monster he was and always will be. and now he has returned and they all can kiss his ass. and he has come back empty handed. there was nothing there to claim. no grail, no golden fleece - nothing. just this crown of thorns he fashioned on the way. he has nothing to show them, but when it hits it will be something. will they understand?
    so, make a guess as to what it is or what it might be. guess and guess again. and guess how one might make him one's friend. what does one have to offer? he's nobody's lover. he's nobody's fool - except his own. he's just come back from blowing up the old school.
    he's here for himself center stage. the house lights dim and finally go out. the shit hits the fan in the form of a shout from the center balcony box seat. while the others are confused. i am not amused, the voice says. this is bullshit, it cries out. i've seen this before. how long will it take to get your act together? another 10,000 years? i've got places to go and people to meet. let's go people. i'm not staying all night to see garbage like this before i gather up my entourage and exit this babylon and leave you with your ruin while we meet the dawn where my home awaits with the streets paved with gold and i close the door and leave you out in the cold and dark of some bottomless pit that i squat over when i shit.
    so what more is there to do?
    he shrugs and walks away.
    even if he sleeps in the gutter as they pass by and look down at him. what will he do? will he attack them? will a knife be at their throat if they turn their back? will they have to beg for their lives? so they leave him gifts. things they think he might need.
    and it's the new life. a new wife. not like the one who married dear old dad. no more credit cards. no more mink stoles. not even a pillbox hat. and if she complains even once he'll knock her flat. like it was in the beginning is how it will be when civilizations fall and the new stone age begins. and we will forget what we all came here to know. daddy's not coming home from the war and living with mommy is such a bore. how many fresh baked cookies can one eat in a day? things will be different when i find my voice and have my say. if daddy were here he'd kick my ass but it's only mommy and me and she tries to fix it all with hugs and kisses and says don't do this or don't do that but who doesn't say anything when i pick up my baseball bat and give her a stare that only a son can give.
    i'm out to seek my fortune. i'm tired of having to beg for treats held from her hand while she lets me hump her leg and calls me her sweet little baby boy. and she'll squeeze out another one to replace me who will do everything she says to her heart's content as she paints up her face to make herself appear young. and i've seen what she looks like before and it was the nastiest thing i've ever seen. i'd rather be out to wherever it was my father went off to. i've been told only lies about him and who he was. i'm off to the wars. and i understand now why he left too. it's better than living in a rotten hell covered over by perfumed air freshener.

    greasy grimey gunky goofy zap!
    eat.
    kill.
    a vision of a vision. and a big ape. a man with a badge - or a woman with a badge. and someone talking to oneself. tired. beat. nearly exhausted. the days go on.
    to tell a story about what he's seen happen. and to tell a story about other stories he's heard. to tell a story that one would want to read. a story that comforts one as it is aligned with what one has been led to believe is the right thing to believe in.
    this may not be it.
    here we are at the end of a very long and complex series of events that arose out of our primal human nature. here we are believing that we are no longer motivated by our primal human nature. we are the children of god - or of aliens. whatever. we believe that we are guided by our higher thoughts and ideals and our social circumstances. we believe we have removed nature from our homes and houses and from ourselves. we believe that for the brief period of time we have been living in civilizations overrides the vast amount of time spent out in the wilderness with no more than rocks and sticks and no more organized than a street gang. now we have laws - some given to us by god. now we have the truth. now we have knowledge. now we have banks and churches and governments and armies and corporations. now we have nuclear weapons and satellite communications and computers and clocks. now we are the gods we used to to fear and grovel before and sacrificed to - sometimes sacrificing our own. the gods who once ruled us. now who rules us now that we are gods?
    the biggest ape with the biggest stick - man or woman. the biggest god/goddess with the biggest stick. these are those who rule all the others - just as it always has been.
    but not exactly that way. that's too simple. for more often than not, the biggest ape is also the dumbest who can barely rule oneself let alone rule others more than hitting them over the head. enter the smartest ape. the smart ape who realizes that if one were to befriend the biggest ape one can rule the other apes. the smart god who befriends or becomes lovers with the biggest god and rules over the other gods.
    then the many apes got tired of this and got together and overthrew the big ape who was the front man of the two. the smart ape recognized this shift in power and realized that the many apes were the stronger but like the big ape before them didn't have much going on to be able to rule themselves as anything more than a mob with a big bunch of sticks. so the smart ape befriended the many apes. he/she promised them all sorts of things if they let him/her tell them what to do. and they did.
    and that's where we are now.
    the smart ape/god designed and had them build the machine along the way too.

    zap!
    the attention men and women. they with a duty above and beyond all. the uniform. the code of conduct. the stiff hard look. the purpose for the sake of purpose whether or not it has purpose other than itself. follow the leader - the commanding voice on the radiophone. 10,000 years and they've been on the march. they'll be on the march for the next 10,000. they have their uses so long as they are kept busy and stick to the task. as long as they don't ask about what is really going on. they are cogs in the machine. they are given their simple paradise as a reward for doing as they are told. they maintain themselves in order. and, if not, there is the police.
    when the shit hits the fan the more of these men and women one has on one's side the better off one will be. they will defend to the death almost anything they are told to. there is one thing that they will not tolerate and that is being told that what they are doing is wrong and/or stupid. that is the one thing that will turn them against one. he had found that out the hard way.
    it is best to pat them on the back and tell them how good they're being and what good work they do and maybe give some of them a ribbon or something once in awhile. the rest will strive harder to be the one to get it the next time. they are always faithful. they believe. that is what they do. they are very good at it. they are the heart and soul of any organization - even revolutionary ones.

    i will not argue, he said, with what you have been told and led to believe about me. i am not that. who and what i am and what i said about it is very simple to understand. if one takes a look inside oneself and around oneself and sees what there is instead of applying images from one's imagination or from the world at large to it and thinking these images are real instead of just symbols of what is real one is using as a description of what one sees then one sees who and what i am.
    he said more than that but he didn't write it down. oh well.
    and the dividing line where the paradox lies. to bring back the dead, but the dead have gone to their gods.
    to keep what it is.
    to hold on.
    to not die - yet.
    to not sleep - yet.
    to not breathe - yet.
    to not move - yet.
    to not think - yet.
    to be in the middle. this middle of the night when shadows are everywhere. all the places of hiding peopled with those who feel they need to hide, who have something they feel needs to be hidden. and those who seek what is hidden. those who feel they are incomplete without something else added to them. they seek the occult in the dark.
    he has found it in the middle of the day out in the open.
    shall it ever be dark? shall it ever be light? light creates darkness. darkness creates light. shall there never be death? shall there never be life? and life and death create each other as well. shall we never tire? shall we never need to act? shall there never be pain? shall there never be pleasure?
    for there to be the absence of one thing there is the absence of its opposite. one creates the other. perception is the perception of opposites. there is no more perception here.
    to inhale is to exhale. and all that business.
    the absence of nothing is the absence of everything.
    a thought of thinking about a thought. point blank, a crack in the wall. the exact spot the chisel is placed and is hammered that splits the rock in two. but why split the rock in two? just because somebody invented a hammer and chisel? because somebody will give one money to go buy a hamburger. because one is human and to be human is to act.
    to rule the world on the same principle as splitting a rock in two. the rock is the world. the spot the chisel is placed is fate. the chisel is knowledge. the hammer is will. or something like that. it gets confusing. and whatever follows from that.
    and who speaks for the world? who spoke for the rock? who stands in the way of the hammer and the chisel? who is split in two instead? or does everyone stand to the side and say, how wonderful?
    and why this thought?
    how absurd and meaningless is it? why these hypothetical problems and situations and other made up bullshit? all about the sky turning green and comes tumbling down or some such. what if a spoon was not a spoon? what he was someone who actually did something besides sitting here and writing all this nonsense? but it seems someone has to do it - or ought to do it. maybe. why not him? what else does he have going on? he's been told to go away by the others. they set him up where he won't come around and bother them anymore.
    because someone invented paper and pen and language. because no one is standing in his way and telling him not to. it keeps him busy. it keeps him from asking too many questions, except the ones he scribbles down. but it all is such a slippery thing even though it appears as solid as a rock - as real as the world.
    but at the right point on the right line at the right axis the hammer comes down.
    that point happened to be his mind.
    the theory of theories. the game of games. the project of projects. the machine of machines. the god of gods. the madness of madness. all split in two in all directions and dimensions of directions.
    begin at the beginning that begins beginning at anytime.
    start at the starting point that starts anywhere.
    it comes around and goes around again. it's been coming around and going around again for as long whatever it is that has been coming around and going around again has been doing just that - coming around and going around again. this wheel and that wheel. space and time maybe. one amoebae, two amoebas, four...
    and, of course three and five and...
    and one half and one quarter and one eighth...
    and three fifths amoebae.
    and how long has this been going on? all the way coming and going around mixing it up brand new each time with something else and then some. and now where do we go? are we humans the first to come around and recognize this and that and everything else all coming around and going around again? so what of that? who are we? where are we? are we the gods now? is this all our own machine we designed and had built?
    we are still here. neither the aliens nor the messiah have come back for us. did we do something wrong?
    the rotation of all rotations rotating around in a perfectly straight line in three dimensional space. the line is three dimensional space - and time. the axis point is our minds. would any of this be here if it wasn't perceived? oh, heavy. don't bogart that joint, dude.
    zap!
    almost got it. but it got away again. around and around. will it come back again? maybe each time a little more clear. and maybe the next time he'll write it down.
    but about this guy who is this mad old dumb fuck who's sitting in some cafe writing down what skips through his mad mind that he can't get himself out of and into something else of more interest to these not-mad folk around him like this one guy, this young kid, who wanted him to read something of what he was writing based on the premise that if he were hemmingway and the young kid was fitzgerald and they were in a cafe in paris in 1926 that he would do so. he didn't. he wrote him a page reminding the kid that he wasn't hemmingway and the kid wasn't fitzgerald and this was not a cafe in paris in 1926 and they were in reality a couple of schmucks in a schmuck cafe in a schmuck town in the present. this wasn't a hollywood movie.
    besides that he's as comfortable as a middle class housewife - or a clam, whichever comes first.
    he doesn't even know if hemmingway and/or fitzgerald were in paris in 1926.
    maybe.

    and so he is still sitting here and still writing. is it a story of some kind? is that how it makes sense? maybe.
    or maybe he's not even here. he is supposed to be insane. what does he know? maybe the machine has him believing all of this. but wherever he really is it's probably a whole lot worse if this is his escape fantasy he's gone to.
    but the story would be about this madman who is sitting in a cafe writing a story about... well, he's not quite sure yet. so he continues writing about himself and his wandering mind.
    now one thing that should be understood is that the madman is not me. i am not mad nor do i plan to go mad. the madman is a fiction i invented perhaps to keep myself from going mad. but the madman in the story doesn't think he's all that mad either. it's only other people who think he is mad. but the same goes for me too. he is supposedly schizophrenic, or has a "split mind". maybe that is where this all comes from. we don't know which way around it is sometimes. maybe none of this is true.
    being mad, or being thought of as being mad, is the perfect alibi. it gets one out of having to work for a living if one plays it out right, which he did - and i did too. otherwise you're not working but you're also out on the street. that's no fun. we've been there. we know. one needs to be sane enough to work oneself through the system which involves a lot of paperwork and it's easy to get confused by it all. it takes about a year or more. but once you're in, you're in. they check on you once in awhile but it's easy to convince them that you're still insane. all one has to do is be honest and speak from the heart. they have everything and everyone narrowed down into tight little boxes that even most of the sane and functioning people would be insane to them.
    so that's that.
    most people do not want to be mad or be considered to be mad. that never bothered us - well, it does sort of. we're used to it. we've been told we were mad since almost the day we were born. it's our vocation, if we have a vocation. we were never much good at anything else we tried. it's fun being split minded. one always has a friend. you're never alone when you're schizophrenic - as they say. we don't know who says that but somebody probably did.
    so this is what being mad is all about. part of what it is about. there are parts we could never share with anyone. they really would think we were insane then. this is the tip of the iceberg - as they say again.
    the madman of this story is probably a little more mad than i am. he wants to kill someone. he wants to kill lots of someones. most of the fuckers in this damn cafe in fact and many more out on the street. this is how i started getting my checks. i told the doctors what he wanted to do and that i felt that i wasn't quite able to keep him from doing it. they signed me up right away. that seemed to appease him. he says he was just looking out for me. he was tired of people fucking me over and me not doing anything about it. i don't want to kill anyone. why would i? what have they really done to me except call me names, and tell me to just go away. big deal. he said he wasn't about to let them throw us out onto the street and forget about us. it was fine if they didn't want us around but they then had to support us. and now they do. so everything worked out fine. who cares if we're insane or not? not us.
    but he still has plans. plans on how to kill a whole bunch of people. and if he were to act on any of these plans he would probably be able to do it. he won't tell me all of it. he doesn't trust me. he says i already told on him once and that i'll probably do it again. i might. but i don't think he's really serious. he just thinks these things because that's what he does. he is crazy after all. that's what crazy people do. i tell him not to bother me about it but it's hard sometimes to keep his thoughts separate from mine. we are supposedly the same person.
    x=x.
    i tell him that that is not the way to go. even if people are the way he sees them, so what? what have they really gained with their pathetic lives by chasing around after a carrot on a stick? besides, they all work for us. we're doing nothing. they do everything. we're sitting her like kings. we don't even have to do that. kings have to work too. we're just a couple of bums on easy street. why rock the boat? so he says he won't. i don't know if i can believe him or not. what do i know? i tell him, let karma take care of it. he nods and then ignores me.
    the thing is that he has told some people about his plans. their reaction was to say, go for it. some help they are. and they're real and sane people who have jobs and everything. go for it, they say. i say don't listen to them. but who should he listen to instead? to him i'm someone he thought up in his head out of his imagination. he's the same for me. which one of us is which? who is the real identity of this brain in our heads? i think i am. he thinks he is. who's right and who's wrong? once he thought of getting medications to get me to shut the fuck up. i thought i was a good idea for the same reason about him. we never did it because each of us was afraid of who would be the one to disappear.

    here's a story. it follows on ursulla leguinn's the ones who walk away from omelas short story which you can read here.

    we sit together in a small cellar in the dark. we talk and i try to comfort the child who has been locked in here ever since anyone can remember. outside the locked door the daily carnival goes on.
    i had left this madness. i walked, taking nothing with me but my memories of it and all that it was over the hills and far away believing i could escape it.
    i could not.
    the phantoms of it danced around me every night in the light and shadows of the trees around my fire. it followed me everywhere i went. the fact that i left - that i could leave - was part of it. my freedom was dependent still on that child in the cellar as much out here as it was back there.
    so i had to return.
    it was dark and the village was sleeping soundly - happily. i unlocked the cellar door and entered. the child cried and i held it though it was filthy and covered with sores. soon it fell asleep. in the morning life awakened in the village. everyone was merrily going about their business singing songs on the way. i'm taking you out of here, i told the child. it started crying again. soon someone came to the door to throw in the daily slop for the child but i had blocked it shut from the inside. they pushed on it a few times and then went away. they came back with others and they all tried to open the door i held it shut. then they became angry and started arguing with each other. others came and they joined in. they seemed to have forgotten about the cellar door and instead were interested in airing old grievances held back for years and years. soon there was a fight. then another. i could hear them and heard as it spread though out the village. there was shouting and screaming and other noises i did not want to think about what they were. then there was silence. i waited. i then opened the door and looked out. there were bodies everywhere. none were moving, not even the horses or other animals. nothing stirred except for the smoke from a smoldering ruins of houses. i went back inside and took the child's hand. lets go, i said. the child laughed with joy. it had never been let out. that was the deal. as long as the child remained in the cellar and was mistreated the rest of the village would be happy. that was why i had left - to get away from that. but the child's laughter stopped when it saw the carnage. it began sobbing. what happened? it asked. i had no answer. i gathered up a few things to take with us and we left.
    now we sit by a river. the child is splashing in the water. i bathed it and put ointment on its sores. it is laughing again. i am not. what did i do? i wonder. did i change anything? i traded the whole village for the child's happiness. will i ever be able to leave omelas?

     and how much is this like real life? the people who set up everything nice for themselves that is dependent upon it being miserable for someone else. is there any way out of it? does one destroy it for the sake of those who suffer? and what does one put in its place that still involves human nature and how humans organize themselves? the worker's paradise? the second coming? what? if we were built that way we would already have it. there wouldn't be a problem to begin with. but we're not and it doesn't look like we will any time too soon.
    those who enjoy it are not necessarily greedy. who doesn't want a happy life? some at the very top are greedy, and not necessarily happy. they must have and control it all. more and more and more. this is the puzzle. this is the labyrinth we have gone through that may not have a way out. just more mazes. mazes upon mazes.
    we have found our way through it though past the guards and figured out the codes on the locked doors and found our way to the throne room. we found the throne itself to be empty with the crown resting upon it. we walked up and plopped ourselves down on the throne and placed the crown on our head. who was there to stop us? who is there to challenge us? we saw and see no one. who even knows this place is here? and where is here but in our vivid imagination?
     so let anyone come here by the same ways and means we have. let them begin from zero and start with nothing as we did. let them abandon all they have been given save their hearts and minds. let them become the child locked in the cellar in the dark who is fed slop and garbage and is kicked and abused every time the door opens. let them become mad as we are. let them come before this throne not to remove us from it - for we will fight to keep it - but to share in it with us all that it represents and holds - which may be nothing. this is too much for us  alone. there is so much we do not know or have not experienced or thought of or felt in our own lives. but if no one comes besides those who bring armies to over throw us and drag us down and out onto the street again where it is they feel that we belong, then we will rule from this throne alone and do with it the best we are able to divide the wheat from the chaff and all that business.
    business. a business. the business of survival to create a heaven for one person creates a hell for another. this seems to be unavoidable. it is not our responsibility to create either heaven or hell for anyone other than ourselves. are we to blame for what that results in for another? would they not do the same if the positions were reversed? if they are human, then the answer is yes. we are each on our own in this to get what we can and to accept not having what we cannot. if we find or create our own heaven while others find and create their own hell or are left with nothing more than their own hell as the result of us finding our heaven, then, well, that's really too bad and we really feel for them and all that but we didn't invent this system, we just took advantage of it. we do not intend for things to be this way, they just are. in our minds there is plenty for all. are we grabbing more than our share? we live far below poverty level income. how can that be too much? and what we mostly have is purely imaginary. other people have imaginations, don't they?
    and are we writing about anything that others are unaware of and do not know about? we do not feel that we are - perhaps some are unaware, but not all. we're just making this up. we've made up our lives to the shape and form that we wanted it to be, at least in our heads out of our heads. who can't do that? this is nothing secret. what has been reveled by anything we have written except for how mixed up crazy we are. and that's our own business. it has nothing to do with anyone else. who are we bothering? well, it may bother some people that we're getting a free ride out of all of it, but so what? at least we're not out on the street killing people. and it's probably cheaper to maintain us out on our own than it would be in a prison. prisons are expensive. and we're certainly not going back to work on maggie's farm again.
    and mostly it is confusing. if it's confusing for us it must be confusing for others. and confusion is difficult to communicate - except when the communication becomes confused. but that's not what we're writing about. and that's all about the problems with language anyway. that's a whole other topic and since we're not linguists we're not going to get into it. read some letterist manifestos or something. this is internal confusion. the confusion of the mind. or maybe it's not confusion. maybe it just seems that way because we were brought up to expect something else. there is contradiction between this and that. but there has always been contradiction between this and that. that's what has made most of human history - contradiction. you say this, we say that. let's go to war.
    we have tiptoed though that minefield and we didn't get blown up. we don't know how we did that but we got to the other side. we're not exactly sure where the other side is except it is here and now where and when it has always been. and we see no one around but us. and one of us isn't even real. we wonder about that - no one being here but us - and either we've done something right and everyone else has it all wrong, or we're wrong and we isolated ourselves from everyone else for no good reason.
    but we did have a reason. most everybody we saw around us was nuts. we couldn't deal with it any more, and no one seemed to be able to deal with us either. few people still are. we didn't get what they believed in and were fighting each other all about. it seemed to be a bunch of made up shit. so we made up our own shit. shit we wouldn't have to fight anybody about because who would want it. it was too confusing and strange. who wants confusing and strange? but we dove into it. we submerged ourselves into it. and somehow we're still here to tell about it. this takes a great amount of will and effort and time - though it seems to be just something all just thrown together - which it is too. how to go insane while still maintaining one's sanity. that was the trick. and we may or may not have done it. there was no other way for us. this way was decided for us by others, starting with our family, then school, work, friends, lovers, a wife. all played their part even in whatever small way. there seemed to be no doubt as to who and what we were. we were only a few times screaming insane. that was when our well being was being threatened - or we thought it was. most of the time it was mostly a matter of us just being a little bit off. we never said the right things. we never did the right things. and as far as we knew, we didn't think the right things either.
    so we turned away and away we went.
    good-bye cruel world.