inspiration. lack of. handwriting. notebooks. words. as he was trying to figure out and remember what happened. what was happening? hanging out in cafes. he thought that maybe he was supposed to be doing something else. what? he couldn't remember much of anything too much of what he maybe used to do before. or maybe he did. he didn't trust his memory. like static on the radio that's playing in this place now. watch repair. cellular phone. misspelling. a wonderful life. but that wasn't true much. not much caused him wonder except the plain and ordinary.
    he had smashed his computer that he had been writing with. took it down into the basement and went at it a few times with a splitting maul. inspiration again. he didn't know why he did that. he needed to destroy something. he destroys lots of things. he hangs out in cafes drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and writing. and sometimes just staring out into space and time as it's called. he used to do other things. he remembered doing other things. but this was all there was now.
    this is his life now. finding places where he can hang out and pretty much not be bothered by anything or anyone. he didn't know if this was what he wanted or not but this was what he had. some blues playing now. piano. he always wanted a piano. he doesn't know how to play except in his own abstract sense. playing in the key of x.
    he writes nothing anyone wants to read. they want stories. is this a story? beginning and end. he doesn't have any stories to write for anyone. he's tried to write them before. he didn't know if they were true or not - or represented something about what was true or not. it was just something he would think up - imagine. maybe some idea he got from someone else. how much of what he thinks and imagines is something he got from someone else?
    newspapers.
    and maybe this is a poem. it sort of could be a poem. chairs. though what sort of poem it is he doesn't know. it's now coming up on noon. a journal? everybody and their monkey is writing a journal of some sort. just ongoing thoughts and events of the day.
    the breakdown.
    what was the breakdown.
    he remembered different things though what exactly they were different from he didn't know. it went nowhere. something like that. he didn't know. he divides himself from it. he divides himself from himself.
    and there's this elf-looking guy who he runs into once in awhile around places he hangs out around town. and this guy tries to talk to him about some sort of leftist anarchist political business or another. maybe that's not what it is. he really didn't think he understood what leftist anarchist politics were - or any other politics for that matter. it seemed to be against whatever the establishment or system was doing. though it seemed that those on the right and conservative political side were against the same thing. he didn't know whether he was against the establishment or system or state or whatever - government - religion. he did know that without it he wouldn't be where he was today - wherever that was. the establishment system state was supporting him and making his just hanging out possible.
    and something had happened. something had gone wrong somewhere along the way. or maybe it didn't. maybe it just seemed that way to him. he was insane. he is insane. he was/is being paid to be insane though to him that was insane. but everything was ok - right?
    maybe.
    maybe not.
    the end of the 20th century. and here he was though he felt as though he didn't belong here. something had gone wrong. he didn't belong here with these people. or maybe he did. how was he supposed to know? he searched for someone to ask but everyone he talked to said it was up to him. everything was up to him. but he didn't know anything.
    people who come and go. everything that comes and goes. elvis. art. trash.
    garbage. everything was garbage. but maybe not.
    what is he writing about anyway? what does he have to write about? he doesn't know anything. maybe he shouldn't be writing. who taught him to write and why? what did they expect him to write about?
    actually the state taught him to write in their schools. taught him to write so they could ask him questions and he could write down the answers and they could decide if the answers were right or wrong and give him a grade depending upon how close his answers were to the answers somebody wrote in the books they gave him to read. he was supposed to bring these books home and read them and and figure out and memorize the answers in them. he didn't like doing this. answers to questions he wasn't asking but that they wanted him to ask. he wasn't sure he had any questions. things were the way they were. what was the big deal?
    but other people asked and answered these questions and seemed to argue about what they were - about which were right and which were wrong. all proper questions and proper answers. it seemed set up for them to continue arguing. but maybe not. maybe this is just a theory. his theory. someone's theory. people only agreed in terms of coming together to agree to disagree and argue with someone else.
    is it that simple?
    what was simple?
    what was complex?
    which is which?
    and so on like that.
    and what is there for someone to find in anything he is writing? what is he writing? maybe he should be doing something else. maybe. but this is what he is being paid to do. well, not really. he actually gets paid to do anything he might want to do as long as he leaves other people alone and not bother them. this is just what he happens to be doing - writing. and he gets paid. he'd get paid no matter what he did. he'd get paid to sit here and pick his nose. he'd get paid for just staying home and sleeping all day. so why does he bother with this?
    radio static. he didn't understand that but he didn't think he could explain what it was he didn't understand about it.
    he had some other whole way that radio - and television - should be used. but it didn't agree with the way others wanted it used. they wanted stations that broadcast one coherent signal or program all centrally controlled and regulated.
    static.
    he noticed how much people seemed to be on edge and uncomfortable. but he knew that this was probably wrong. he learned early on that what he observed - thought he observed - and thought about what he observed was wrong. it usually went against what others observed and thought about what they observed. what they agreed on. like stations broadcasting only one coherent signal. and what they agreed on what to argue about. if they thought anything else they kept themselves silent about it. for the sake of agreement. for the sake of the coherent signal.
    or something like that.
    he also knew that what he thought about and tried to write about didn't make sense.
    belief.
    he couldn't go against what others believed though he saw it moving them toward self-destruction.
    he tried to ignore this. he tried not to care. like them. he tried to act like them. act like nothing was drastically wrong with the whole fucking picture and how fucked up everything was and how it was rapidly chewing itself to pieces. because of them and their silence. their silence of agreement. their one coherent signal.
    how it was chewing him to pieces. this was how and why he had divided himself from himself. this was how and why he knew he was different from the others. but maybe he wasn't. maybe he wasn't any different from anyone.
    a big round thing.
    and something like a kiss.
    truth.
    how did he tell the truth? how he tell the truth to himself or anyone else? did he need to? did he want to? was there truth? wasn't there by now only theory?
    anyone can come up with a theory.
    he has lots of theories. most of them contradict each other. all of them contradict pretty much everything else.
    but there was something else that maybe the truth had something to do with or not. maybe it was survival. he survived. he didn't always tell the truth.
    sometimes he wanted to hurt.
    sometimes he wanted to destroy.
    sometimes he wanted to kill.
    to cause pain.
    to feel pain.
    all or none of the above.
    never mind.
    forget that.
    forget everything. it's not happening anyway. he's just making this up.
    and he's written this before. and he's written this a thousand times.
    he lights another cigarette feeling frustrated that none of this is coming out right.
    there was something else. something else he was supposed to be doing. something else he was supposed to be thinking about.
    the theory.
    the story.
    a poem.
    about black. about darkness. of the mind. phrases. becoming.
    i never understood poetry, said the clock man.
    i don't believe that there is anything to understand, said fred who sat in a chair on the stage of the burning theater.
    this theater, this burning theater, is maybe where everything here is happening. the whole world is a stage and like that. what is understood and what isn't.
    what is meant to be understood and what isn't. what is left to be mysterious and what is left to be argued about. to be agreed upon. war. not war.
    in the middle of the war he sits in a cafe writing this out. it's the only possibility left. it is what is to be believed - to be doubted.
    these are the books left behind. questions and answers whichever way one wants it or needs it to be. this is it. this is what he leaves behind. this is what it is. take it or leave it.
    so here goes nothing.
    words of translated thought. thoughts of translated experience.
    not for everyone.
    but maybe there is no cafe. maybe it's just on the stage of the burning theater. the theater on fire. it's burning down. everybody out! soon there won't be anything left. soon there will be no reason for there to be anything left.
    this happens when it happens.
    but this is the poem - a story sort of. a poem because it doesn't make any sense.
    a poem probably no one will read. he's been writing this poem for quite awhile. does anyone remember?
    does this mean anything?
    something to allow one to go screaming and spinning in one's mind. these people are weak. they won't make it. they can only survive in a world of order and belief. all one world of order and belief. a world in which people agree to argue and to keep any disagreement silent within themselves to fester and infect them with a terminal disease.
    they will die.
    this isn't about death though everything is about death. a poem about death. die die die, baby. a play on the stage of the burning theater about death.
    and this will go on.
    he will keep writing this over and over until he dies. there isn't anything left. this is what he's always done. this is what he does and will do. until death.
    he doesn't care about the others' world except that part that keeps him alive. the rest can rot.
    people in the theater that is burning without even knowing it. watching the play.
    he is in hell.
    he watches them in hell. he watches them suffer and die through meaningless and pointless lives. he doesn't care.
    he is amused.
    sort of. not really. maybe not really. it goes moment by moment. nobody cares. nobody seems like they care. destroy it all. around and around in these circles.
    circles of words.
    words of circles.
    it doesn't matter.
    live or die.
    money.
    money from the state. the state of war. what goes up must always come down. maybe.
    what do you mean it's not supposed to be understood? asked the clock man who was walking around in circles.
    this isn't your normal situation, said fred.
    and it becomes what it becomes and it avoids what it avoids. circles. again and again. something the same by not being the same. hero. candy. a bag.
    shit.
    a word among words.

    from him to anyone. all of us watching this. he writes it out through his imaginary self sitting in this imaginary cafe on the imaginary stage of the imaginary burning theater and one who reads it through what he writes.
    and no one quite understands.
    this is as close as it gets. reading what he writes won't get anyone closer to him. he isn't anyone. he is just someone he happened to come upon who plays himself in this world of worlds. someone who was open. someone who didn't want to have anything to do with anyone anymore. someone who took the way out we provided for him and his kind in some sense of rapture. someone in third person. the only way out that the others leave him. out of his mind. into his imagination. insanity. madness. what the others call insanity and madness. what others do not know of their imagination. whatever else is filled in the blanks on the forms he signed for his release. to survive in the others' world without becoming one of them.
    but he is one of them. one of them that they left for dead. because he didn't agree with them. agree with them to argue endlessly with the others. us and them. he argued with their agreement. their agreement of silence.
    and none of this will matter. none of these words will matter. they will go against what one believes - even what one doubts. these words will be passed by as though they were not even written. he will be passed by as though he did not even write them - as though he did not even exist.
    we found him that way. we took him into ourselves. what the others rejected.
    and who are they? where are they going? they are destroying each other and themselves and don't even know how or why. they haven't a clue. but they'll argue about it the whole way.
    as we have tried to tell them. as we have spoken to them in the past about it. and they chose to ignore us. they chose to turn the other way from our other way. and they wonder why what is happening to them is happening to them.

    6/19
    and today another day in the cafe. the blue tables. blue like neptune is blue. funny about that unless there was some mistake. people talking about different things about this and that. pay no attention. fragments of whatnot.
    coffee. cigarettes. good or evil. as though there was such a question. reading the comics like they were some mysterious revelation.
    and he's going to the doctor today. this afternoon. trying to think of what to tell her. maybe he's just faking it. maybe it's just a lie. the brown oxford. and there might have been something he was going to write. something. more or less. whatever. what is he trying to get around to? so much to explain. no way to explain it.
    just hanging out in one cafe or another. another cigarette. and it's sort of funny. he thought it was funny sometimes when he wasn't so frightened. he becomes frightened a lot. when he becomes frightened it frightens all of us. he frightens himself. he frightens himself in third person. who is the second?

    quickly eased steps in mind as we entertain ourselves through highly disordered type of species with laughter on the side.
    a balance of measurements thrusting elements dampened with red opening and closing of little doors in the kitchen.

    that's how it goes. the strange nature and workings of this language and the people and the minds of the people who developed it among themselves. perhaps it developed them. the infection of the virus. and one believes anything at this point.
    so he keeps on writing here as he's been writing for years before this. decades. no meaning or purpose to it. not too much. not much beyond the writing in and of itself.
    writing.
    communication. but communication from what to what? from who to who? is anyone out there? is anyone in here?
    who exists beyond this existing? what is this that exists?
    no one reads this but himself. and he is not alone. he is himself beside himself.
    another cigarette.

    leaving this behind. the city of fools. maybe not fools. maybe he's the only one of many. who or what is a fool anyway?
    he feels like a fool. he feels like he's been tricked. but maybe that's not true or even doubtful. maybe he's the one who tricked everyone else and made fools of them. he didn't mean to. he doesn't think he meant to. oh well...
    the situation is that they are working while he is not. except for this. is this work? and why not? who knows what this is? does anyone? and who is anyone to say? what does anyone know? maybe one knows something and maybe one doesn't.
    maybe he is explaining something and maybe he isn't.
    if there is anything then it probably can't be explained.
    maybe.
    a lot of maybes.
    his life has become and may have always been a lot of maybes. maybe this and maybe that. but he's survived it so far and the plan is to keep on surviving it for quite awhile to come and go through all the possibilities of it.
    it.
    break it.
    amused.
    play.
    rewind.
    play it again.
    science fiction.
    he forgets what he was trying to write. write just to write. write to try to figure out what he is thinking.
    too much thinking.
    not enough drinking.
    so it goes.
    he has a lot to hide and he hides it with his writing. lies to himself.
    and today and now nobody was here in the one cafe he was in now today except the people who worked here and he sort of liked it like that. not so many people broadcasting all their psycho-drama bullshit putting him on edge making him think about killing them.
    and not much more than that.
    and so we watch him.
    he watches himself. that's his assignment. somebody has to keep him under control. no one else is doing it. he's got them fooled. he looks harmless enough, though somewhat strange enough to make them keep their distance. so he can sit among them and watch them. watch them tearing each other to pieces. bite-sized chunks at a time.
    and there's this place and time in the here and now that we showed him how to get to that's beyond all this humdrum and let's him sit back with us and laugh at all the nonsense watching their world destroy itself.
    so it goes.
    oh well.
    ho-hum.
    nevermind.
    forget it.
    this has nothing to do with anyone else. why would anyone want to read it? go away.
    another cigarette.
    downstream.
    shake it up now, sugaree.

    blue boy with a wig on with no other gods before him.
    and this old guy's talking on about his drinking days.
    too much thinking.
    just rambling and babbling on about whatever happens to be coming to mind as it just so happens.
    direct.
    ego.
    nothing.
    something.
    fuck it.
    buy the gun.
    it's easier.
    direct.
    ego.
    art for art's sake.
    dead.

    life and death.
    life, sex and death.
    birth, life, sex and death.
    something like that.
    oh boy.
    ho-hum.

    6/20
    an entry of things. words. are words things? in the sense that they might be marks on paper. in the sense that they might be vibrations of air. energy. words as energy. is energy a thing?
    energy.
    matter.
    things.
    words.
    the word.
    thoughts for the day.
    thoughts into words.
    we come to it here as we've come to it before as we will come to it again.
    while the music plays. while he tries to figure it all out. some impossible task.
    white shoes. don't get them dirty.
    television.

    what is found and not found. what is expected and not expected. like white shoes not to get dirty.
    and a face.
    and a face among all the many faces we see every day although we haven't quite figured out who we are or what we found or what we expected. here we are in our dirty white shoes.
    or we are them.
    we are divided out by those who make divisions and categories among us. who is us and who is them? those who keep their shoes clean and those who let their shoes get dirty..
    and that doesn't really go anywhere. not quite as we have been taught and/or conditioned or have reacted to teaching and conditioning. up or down. and we are both and neither. and there is no we. there is only either him or himself. and then there are the others. they who think of themselves as us and divide and categorize others as them.
    not us.
    but maybe they don't do that. do they? maybe it just seems that way to him divided apart from them writing this nonsense.
    and if one is reading this and expecting it to go somewhere - expecting it to have a point - forget it. as if one hasn't figured that out already...
    he only expects to die.
    the only point to this really is that he will die someday sooner or later and then he will stop writing this.
    besides that for now he keeps going ignoring pretty much as much of everything else they do around him that they seem to find to be so important.
    what is important to him only is his own survival.
    perhaps that is with them too.
    he wonders what will survive with him.
    perhaps nothing.
    perhaps everything.
    he has lost his passion but not his hatred. he doesn't really care as long as they leave him alone.
    his comfort.
    his safety.
    he is just like anyone else.
    easy.
    he is just like everyone else in that he thinks he is better than everyone else. he wants to look down on them. he wants to be right while they are wrong. he wants victory. he wants to be able to bring them down. he has these feelings and desires like everybody else. he wants power. he wants it to be his finger on the button.
    and what else does this communicate? and to who? and why? and do we really need to tell anyone anything? not really, but we are. maybe or maybe not.
    what else does one want to know? what else does one need to know?
    bringing it together or taking it apart. just things and not things.
    and we tried trying to figure out how to write this before. we tried trying to figure out if there any point to writing about whatever this is.
    and this is it whatever it is or whatever it isn't.
    and neptune is blue for some reason.
    and right now what it is about is that a spoon is a spoon and about how a spoon is not a spoon.
    let those who are foolish understand.
    but that is not important.
    one may wish to remember it or forget it as one will.
    the dividing line. the dividing line is important. that's where it's at. we forget that. we forget that we are the ones who divide. we assume that it has already been divided.
    like the division between a spoon being a spoon and a spoon not being a spoon. like the division between clean white shoes and dirty white shoes. like dividing between here and there though one cannot get there from here. or maybe one can't get here from there. because of division. the division between us and them and between garbage in and garbage out. this and that.

    red #2:
    cosmiconsciousness and trash like that.
    sometimes it's depressing.
    sometimes it's euphoric.
    sometimes it's not.
    but we come back here. there's him and himself and the dividing line between the two. who is us and who is them? and what about all the others we haven't gotten to yet?
    it's simple and complex. the unity is simple. the division is complex. they make it complex when it should be simple. this is their game. we play by their rules. we are here to serve them.
    that's why we brought him into it - to get in the way.

    it is the center. the middle. the common ground. it's where and when everything comes and goes. it is to be avoided at all cost if one wants to remain as one is divided from it. dreaming.
    and this has nothing to do with people starving to death. there are lots of people starving to death. there have always been people starving to death. there will always be people starving to death.
    chances are he may kill himself though the chances are slim. chances are that he will kill other people but the chances are slim. that is what we are here to prevent.

    it is time for him to be awake. he doesn't like being awake. he thinks too much. and what he thinks he tries to write down even though he knows it's not worth it. ugly. beautiful. chaos. order. napkin. and remember a spoon being a spoon or not being a spoon.
    like everyone else he wanted to be somewhere else.
    strange and stranger. alive or dead. here or there. what comes and goes from the center of it.
    and the darkness comes around him and he fills himself with as much light as he can. self-generated somehow or another. he doesn't know where either comes from - the darkness and light. divisions of his existence. his existence divided between what exists with him and what doesn't. with him. inside him. outside him. and it's not just him. is it everyone?
    before the beginning and after the end. and what comes and goes in-between.
    in the center.
    in the middle.
    in the garden.
    in the imaginary city.
    maybe yes, maybe no.
    and what is this? asks the clock man.
    and a play.
    and a play of words. a setting for a play of words. the whole world's a stage.
    and the play maybe begins.
    a cafe. and in the cafe next to a window sits a man. the man has become a ghost.
    and maybe this is a new idea of it. maybe this is a new beginning of it. maybe it is the same. one more thing as we go through it trying to figure out how to describe it. but that is the description in itself.
    how the other half lives...

    and a play.
    a play of words.
    the setting of a play of words. and what is expected or not. the description of what happens. the ongoing thing of it. what is understood or not.
    have you ever had this experience? asks the man on the radio. have you ever had this experience? he repeats.
    and this is something from our experience. or maybe it is something that is not. it's not finished.
    and this is the play. the play is happening as it is read. and what is read doesn't have much to do with anything that is happening or not. that seems to be the point of it somehow.
    the whole world is a stage. the stage is set. the stage is in a theater that is burning. fire. and that may or may not have anything to do with the play or not. it may have something to do with what may be being read or not.
    this may also not be a play at all.
    it opens. and as it opens something else closes. this is the way it is as some of us understand.
    it is written and not written. it is what it is whether it is written or not. what is understood is understood whether it is understood or not.
    what is described out of what is understood. this is maybe the moment and maybe it is not.
    dislocate.
    instruct.

    and the setting for here and now is the cafe. any cafe. and a man sitting at a table. any man. usually by the window. he comes in here pretty much every day. there are many cafes he can choose from. but in most ways all the cafes are the same. one all-encompassing cafe.
    and this man has made a ghost of himself. he has divided himself from himself and others. pretty much all this man does is sit by himself and writes in notebooks. and smokes cigarettes.
    he's been doing this forever. one may see him and maybe one does not. crazy words and smeared ink. and he should be doing something else. but he's set himself up - or he's been set up - so that he doesn't have to do anything else but this. not now anyway. besides, what else is there for him to do than this? school's out. the man on the radio screams.
    nothing else happens.
    we're not sure what is happening. jesus saves. buddha squats on his fat ass. people walk by the window out on the street.
    and he moves from one cafe to another. there's things to be avoided now and then.
    just another notebook filled with words.
    just another day in the cafe.
    just another cigarette.
    time out.
    more songs one does not want to listen to on the radio.
    and maybe we're trying to make this more than it is. what is it?
    anybody can do this. he has his doubts. it's just a goddamn notebook with words in it. bored.
    maybe.
    a world of maybes.

    and so for what this is maybe worth or not. whatever is so funny about it or not. ha-ha. whatever.
    a place to hang out.
    and out of a hat - the dada-ananda.
    through some open door somewhere no one was looking at the time. everything on pause while it's still happening. on and off.
    everything that we make up about him sitting in this cafe on-stage in the burning theater.
    assumption.
    the dada-ananda comes bopping in.
    out of a hat.

    dada-ananda: so what's happening?
    him: i don't know. not much.
    dada-ananda: you still writing?
    him: it looks that way, doesn't it?
    dada-ananda: when are you gonna give up on that and get a life?
    him: a life like what?
    dada-ananda: a life like anything besides this.
    him: what's wrong with this?
    dada-ananda: it goes nowhere.
    him: and how would you know?
    dada-ananda: i know.
    him: so where else is there to go? i don't see anyone else going anywhere except around in circles.
    dada-ananda: like you're not?
    him: i didn't say i wasn't. i don't care. if that's what it is then that's what it is. what difference does it make?
    dada-ananda: did i say it made any difference?
    him: no.
    dada-ananda: then what's the big deal?
    him: no big deal to me.
    dada-ananda: besides, you're sitting here talking to yourself and not saying anything.
    him: and?
    dada-ananda: doesn't that bother you?
    him: who else is there to talk to? what else is there to say? i'm just an imaginary character as much as you are.
    dada-ananda: who?
    him: him.
    dada-ananda: him? who's him?
    him: the one who's writing this.
    dada-ananda: i thought you were writing this.
    him: i am.
    dada-ananda: but you said someone else was writing this.
    him: sort of.
    dada-ananda: just what i said, this goes nowhere.
    and the dada-ananda blips out leaving him alone again - if he ever is alone. he was hungry and wondered what he should get to eat. almost anything would do. his stomach filled with coffee he'd been drinking all morning.
    he left to get some pizza slices.
    famous.
    disappear.
    nothing.

    smooth it out.
    with some idea that he was writing a book once and this is the book he would be writing. he has given up. perhaps one can understand why.
    rough it up.
    what survives out of this. drawing a picture. photographs. what makes sense and what doesn't.
    and actually that wasn't how the conversation between him and the dada-ananda went though it could have. we're just making this up.

    and it was a dark and stormy night. he was on board this ship. or he might have been on-stage in the burning theater that was burning down.
    his mother was in the audience though she had been dead for over 10 years. he stayed in character. the ship was sinking. he was on deck wondering what to do.

    o' great ones beyond this world who look down on us and laugh to themselves at our folly.
    take him up.
    take him out of this place and time of great suffering among the many and confused.

    and the ship went down. or maybe it didn't. maybe he was washed overboard. maybe he died in a flaming car wreck. maybe he was only dreaming. salt and pepper. play another same old song.
    he tried to remember what had happened. he tried to remember how it had happened.
    he remembered once he had this sort of life married with children, a boy and a girl. how real this was he couldn't always remember. it didn't seem any more real than any other part of it.
    he couldn't remember how, when or why he got on this ship that was sinking on-stage of the burning theater.
    he could remember how he got into this world that he was in. he couldn't remember why he was writing any of this or who he was writing it for. if anyone.
    to whom it may concern.
    to whomever may find this someday and read it.

    and in the next scene in the play there's some sand on one half of the stage. it's supposed to be a beach. it looks like a beach. to him it is a beach.
    he wakes up. the sun has dried his clothes. they are stiff and salty.
    he stands up.
    the other half of the stage is a cafe. or maybe it's someplace else. a kitchen of a house. he sits at a table by the window. he is writing about himself washed up on the beach. this is one of those places and times that it happens like that.
    jesus and the devil and the deep blue sea.
    rat hairs.
    why are dollar bills green on the other side?

    6/21
    another day at the cafe. it was sunday. he hated weekends. expectations. he hated mostly sundays. too many people trying to cram as much into the two days as they can. pushing and shoving.
    he lights another cigarette.
    art.
    he no longer believed in art.
    hung on the wall.
    look at me!
    standing in a corner.
    played over and over on machines producing sounds and pictures.
    dead.
    something had happened. he was trying to remember. what was left? what was there to begin with?
    he spends most of his life dreaming. up in his room. down in basements.
    and this was pointless. a new baby crying. bringing new people into the world.
    a character he invented for himself out of himself. none of this was happening to him.
    the web of chaos.
    the mind shift/ship.
    debris. broken and thrown out pieces of things no one wanted anymore. like himself.
    boo hoo.
    and he wondered about everything he was holding onto anymore. flotsam.
    he was on a beach. the beach. an island. there was a forest. in the forest was a house. by the house was a garden.
    he walked up to it. this was happening again. it happened before.
    in the house lived an old man who sat next to a fire. he came in a sat down with him. he forgets about what but they had a argument and he ended up killing him with a fire poker.
    as he was leaving the house he heard his name being called. behind him was a green cube about a meter wide moving along the floor.
    special effects.
    where are you going? the green cube asked.
    i don't know. i'm just leaving.
    are you going to kill me like you killed the old man?
    are you alive?
    i think that i am.
    yeah, that's what the old man said.
    is he?
    it doesn't matter. he's dead now.
    maybe you could bring him back to life.
    maybe if i wanted to.
    why don't you want to?

    when he came into the room where the old man was, the old man told him to sit in the other chair before the fire. to his right.
    he offered him a cigarette from a silver case on the table to his left.
    where am i? he asked.
    on the island, the old man said.
    what island?
    the island in the eye of a storm raging on an otherwise calm sea.
    how did i get here?
    you made it up.
    did i make up you too?
    perhaps.
    perhaps?
    it seems to me that you made yourself up too. this character you're playing is a figment of your imagination. though it is based on yourself, it is not yourself. perhaps i am the same.
    the same how?
    a figment of your imagination based on someone you know.
    i don't know anyone like you.
    no?
    no.
    no one?
    you're just some old man i thought up.
    like you thought yourself up?
    i guess so.
    so who are you?
    i am who i am. i'm me.
    but that is not who you are.
    not entirely.
    i can also say i am who i am.
    but are you anyone?
    what do you think?
    i think - i know - i just made you up.
    like you made yourself up.
    sort of.
    then i am just like you.
    not really.
    we're both someone you made up.
    so? what are you trying to say?
    i'm not saying anything. i'm suggesting ideas. i find it interesting that you are here.
    if i wasn't here you wouldn't be here either.
    maybe. maybe not.
    what do you mean?
    i said what i meant.
    you're saying you could be someone else - someone from the world?
    the world?
    where i come from.
    ah - the shores of the sea.
    i suppose.
    and that is real and this is not?
    maybe.
    and you are real and i am not.
    perhaps.
    and if i am real?
    you mean if you're from the world?
    perhaps.
    i know you're not.
    do you?
    what difference does it make?
    it makes a lot of difference.
    well, are you?
    i could be.
    i would have to see you in the world.
    that is not possible. i only remain here anymore.
    then this is only where you exist and this is all in my imagination.

    he farted and and then thought about what he was doing.
    back in the cafe sitting by the window writing a made up conversation with someone who was trying to convince him that they existed as much as he did. who?
    and it hasn't changed much since then. blue skies. he farted again. maybe i have to shit, he thought. he got up and went to the men's room and pulled down his pants and sat on the toilet and he was right, he did have to shit. and as he did he thought more about this whole thing.
    he didn't know what to think. remembering. fragments. trying to remember.
    high school poetry.

    back on the island he lit another cigarette.
    are you back? the old man asked him.
    i guess so. i don't know what i'm doing.
    you're recreating an event.
    i wouldn't call this an event.
    what is it then?
    daydreaming.
    perhaps.
    you know it was that vagueness of yours that made me kill you the last time.
    kill me?
    yes - kill you.
    when did you kill me?
    the first time we met.
    oh yeah - i remember now. you going to kill me again?
    i don't have to. you died on your own later after i brought you back to life.
    so what is this now?
    just some sort of memory which proves that you're just someone i make up to amuse me.
    oh.
    yes - oh.

    back in the bathroom of the cafe he finishes shitting, wipes his ass, stood up, flushed the toilet, pulled his pants back up and went back to the table.
    and by that time the dada-ananda came out of the ceiling and hovered over the table.
    maybe you should read for awhile, the dada-ananda said. i think this is getting to you.
    what do you mean? he asked.
    you're not going to figure it out.
    what's to figure out. it is what it is, right?
    right. so why don't you leave it alone?
    i'm just writing. what's wrong with that?
    there's nothing wrong with it. there's nothing wrong with anything. but it's all you do.
    so?
    so, why bother?
    i don't know. maybe it helps me think about it.
    but what are you thinking about except new ways to drive yourself nuts?
    look who's talking about being nuts.
    and the dada-ananda, the one true bogus guru, disappeared again.

    and he'll remember how this all goes together someday. a rooster crows. the cows come home. rockets to mars.

    6/22
    from sleep to waking. another day in the cafe. another day watching and waiting and writing things down about writing things down. all the logic that never fails has failed. and now here it is. and here now it is.
    left alone.
    and he doesn't know too much whatever to do with it. exciting. bits and pieces. just one way of looking at it whatever one is looking at. self theory.
    the auto club.
    whatever is applied to it. but the monobelief thing happening which has on the surface broken up but beneath the surface has remained the same. people still believing in one thing and one thing only. thing and anti-thing. and maybe that's just how it is. how we are. what's happened is the breakdown of homobelief. the one and only for all. the breakdown up into many monobeliefs that are set one against the other along lines of good and evil.
    and there's this garden at the center which isn't really at the center even though it is. the center of each and every heart which logically doesn't mean squat to a dead tree.
    and the people come and go.
    and it's difficult to put any of this down. how to state the obvious?

    6/25
    something like that as another day comes into the picture and the race of those who would be the grand oompah of the empire perhaps collapsing in sometime of dreamtime not the past, present or future. the island.
    and the man who is sometimes known as himself by many names now sat in the cafe among the others. unwound.
    unwound.
    something like that.
    something like a hat.
    mithras.
    isis.
    not know what anything is anymore than what anything else was now as it becomes into itself moaning with grief as if a circle spiraling itself around itself as it was and is. as we were thinking once or twice. don't look back.  she screamed (whoever she was). and with her screaming everything is born. or maybe not. how are we sure about anything we see or not? how are we to know what we know? we think about it once or twice. from one absurdity to another.
    and he is noticing something about how it must never stop. as long as someone has hope. desire. the fear invoked. the light in the darkness.
    but this is too simple.
    he begins to try to describe it again. no one pays attention. there are those of us who continue this. we sacrifice ourselves from it. as it becomes itself. searching for the pure form. as jesus buddha reads the local newspaper and/or the computer printout of complex designs. diagrams. the meeting place. the state of mind. the mystery involved in the words of it. another cigarette. as he came to wonder how he became a ghost while still among the living. a flaming car wreck. so part of the rumor goes. known as the magick hand. pieces of himself in pieces here and there. until he saw an image of himself washing dishes or watching himself as an image on the television or a still pond with a pebble tossed into it in meditation of the events of his life.
    and he could not remember what happened. there was some amount of theory involving space/time ships controlled by the delusion of the mind.
    as it was between the two. each clear cut and opposite to and from each other operating at once positive and negative realtime relative relationship with as much to fear as a pair of shoes.
    as he sits in another cafe trying to figure out and/or remember what the fuck happened.
    and each part of it is the same and different. what is explored and what is left unknown as he sifts through the contrast of his own madness. and the screaming scream. no mouth. no voice. just the pure scream.
    and these are his thoughts translated into this simple language. and he is unknown to himself as he is almost starving. and he thinks back. and he is alone. a few of his kind left. none other. as the diagrams unfold. as he sees it all being torn apart toward his own lifeless death or deathless life as he watches the decay of birth. as he eats what is provided for him. as he wanders away as the voices are calling to him through the agony involved to reach the height. tin can. eyes opened. tribal. mass. continue. he looks back and sees what is right and wrong.. developing what operates. to reach the height of becoming aware. as he rests now. power. abolish. another cigarette.
    a shot in the dark. power. and one more down. the cell. brains. fire. and what becomes of that. out of a hat. he felt cold in the heat. beer. delight. and people talking on the radio and television. decentralized central control. he looked into what was coming. the dawn's early light. another day. the cafe. a table by the window. and he was pretending he was alive. or he was pretending he was dead.
    and he looked around himself and everybody was fighting for a piece of the pie. the pie of maggots. for death is all one gets. (is death relevant? is it out of fashion?) make more room. cracked ice. frogs. cop killer. distance. up or down. flute. an idea that we had once about an idea. the idea of the theory. the theory of the idea. mish mush. cracked mirror. the nonsense of words that do not fit into within the scope of those who bow and worship the power. surrender themselves to the names of gods who defeat all whether by love, wisdom or justice. the flames of hell still await. the bugs in the system. chaos. apathy. entropy. slow it down. dance puppet. on with the show. lasting light. out of space. out of time.
    he sat thinking the impossible. he sat thinking the probable. he brought it in and out. he surrendered to it.
    he thought this was his genius. it was only the firing of caffeine.
    another cigarette.
    as it is itself. to formulate the highest objective. thinking about the decay of hope. thinking about the birth of dead children. to be able to go into and come out of it. he was surprised. he laughed to himself as this was the rare moment. he felt sleep. he was told stories about it. and the stories were lies. the bigger they are. falling forward. falling backward.

    are you back again? asked the old man. and this might have been the dada-ananda. anyone could be the guise of the dada-ananda. out in the cold and dark. pure space. pure time. nothing having to do with this dream of human flesh which is transformed by the idea. the word of the idea. the theory of the word.
    yeah, he answered without knowing quite exactly why. books. bringing it down. bright light. and what is communicated? not quite what is now believed. the thought. the action.
    dreaming. forgiveness. revenge. something on his mind about this. and years later he might remember because it had been years now. he owed nothing to anyone.
    what do you want now? asked the old man.
    there doesn't seem to be much time left, he said. i...

    6/26
    you what? the old man asked.
    i don't know what i was going to say about something. about something happening and not knowing what it is.
    life.
    yeah, i guess.
    does that frighten you?
    something frightens me but i'm not sure quite what. maybe i just frighten myself.
    do i frighten you?
    no. you're just imaginary. but then, i suppose, so am i. but there was something else...

    sometime ago. it was a trick. in another cafe. sitting with death. skeleton in a black robe. classical.
    we've been looking for you, death said.
    me? why?
    we want you to show us the way to the island.
    there is no island.
    there is and there isn't.

    it was lunch time. he ordered a cookie. chocolate chip.

    a cookie.
    a word. a thing in space and time. a thing in mind. whose mind? his own or another's? he writes more words. more words all the time. words to no one. there was no one to write them to.
    he observed.

    the thing of mind. exploding. thinking too goddamn much. on/off. the idea and the theory of the idea. darkness and light. reality and the illusion of reality.

    6/28
    another day. oh boy. another night. what we are now and what we're not. another person writing down words in another notebook. dime a dozen. no replacement for what is not missing. pounding on the piano. pounding on the pain. the pain doesn't go away. and there is nothing here. there is no one here. just people speaking words to each other like rain. a flood of words. the variations of all the words spoken and unspoken.
    he writes this down. another moment for prosperity. there's nothing to it. forget. forgotten. wondering why he exists. a god creating creatures to torment in biblical fashion. separate with no bridge between. he's looked but there's no one there. no one he can touch and be touched by. it's cold and any sign of life is so very far away. all he has are these words.
    the sky and the sky. broken. somewhere in-between. the formulation. the emptiness. the anger and hatred. the villains and victims. the pain exchanged. what else does one do with it?
    he is tired of this game. but he is caught in it. only one way out. if that is even a way. another cigarette. another cup of coffee. distance. planning and unplanning. opposites attract. it's just a disease. they say this and they say that. they say anything and nothing. they say what they need to get out of it. pin it on someone else.
    he does the same.
    the words written are the words written. nothing to it. he can write them forever. now and forever more and such and such like that. the motion of the hand. the pressure of the pen.
    he goes to sleep. he wakes up. everything is the same. the hollow emptiness. animal. cigarette.
    nevermind. forget. to be held in the arms of death. never to be let go. never to be allowed to be taken to this world again. kidnapped. innocent. unjudged. nothing having to do with forgiveness as there is nothing to forgive if one has never existed.
    a beginning and an end. a foul taste. put one word together with another. just words like the words spilling out everywhere. high art.

    and something that means nothing. as one thing becomes the other and whatever else may or may not happen or not. and pointless meaningless statements written down by themselves out of one's mind.
    alone in the cold and dark with a bunch of monkeys and their stupid world and all that they do that doesn't amount to squat.

    6/29
    the newspaper. the window he sits next to in the cafe. shots in the dark. out of things. the things. mute. and everybody saying that someday it will all be different from now. and what it's always been. and they said that yesterday. no surprise. benefit of the doubt. trying to understand. shaking.

    it. and it dividing itself. something to think about while this madness surrounds us. while the music plays over and over. unforgiving. unforgetting. a possibility among possibilities. earth. a possibility. and death (let us not forget). when we are dead. when we awaken.
    and how could he understand? how could he know the truth - or the theory of the truth? when did he remember? what did he have to hold onto? who did he have to turn to?
    he could not explain. he felt empty and alone. no one recognized him as himself. he endured this. this was his life. and the words he wrote down. he had written down. the words he did not believe in anymore.
    is he alive or is he dead? does anyone know?

    as time moves by in time. as he thinks about death and destruction. as he sits by the window in the cafe. as he tries to believe in something besides himself. on thin ice. as he tries to believe in anyone.
    as he feels himself to be useless. as he feels himself to be hanging on. as he doesn't know how he feels. how he feels. an edge of it cutting through. the nonsense of it. all that's left is to die. he lives day to day waiting to die. having nothing to say to anyone who aren't listening anyway. they're too busy listening to themselves speak.
    another cigarette.
    to come and go. a sphere. it's cold still. words and words.
    and a shoe. and a note in a song played too long. and a spoon. nothing like a spoon. without spoons he would be mad.
    and the chase. and the worthlessness. and the message. and the song that's played too long.
    and the instant euphoria.
    paradise.

    abandoned along the lines of possibility.
    trying to play the song too long. nothing to celebrate when it's over.
    he practices the lines of possibility. over and over.
    obscure. meaningless. the faith of the dead gathered together for lunch. he sits among them and smokes another cigarette. conversation. a brown truck. life is life. who says it can't be boring? no more and no less. what sort of statement can be made? what kind of thing can be spoken? matches. he is tired of doing nothing but sees nothing needing to be done.

    money and the designs of money. when we used to trade. when other things were important. or maybe not. how was he supposed to know anything more than what he has been told?

    6/30
    translation. predominate. a theory. buy new ones. traffic. the people. the folk. a proud nation. a state of mind. another theory. poetic nonsense. drivel. eyes. birthday. mother and father. falling away from sometime until now and then. undiscovered. bald faced lie. letters. words.
    and here he is wondering what may or may not have happened at all. a more common theory. a place and time. a space and time. a mind. in mind. a mix and match of a bunch of theories incorporated in a near development of truth. drooling.

    martians invading the scene. dear mr. president. cutting up men. violence toward women. anti-mother. lord and father. the holy goddess with a sword of justice in high castles of visions of a world ending. typewriter. direct madness. laundry piling up everywhere. dirty dishes in a sink with a clogged up drain smelling sour stench. as we lick our lips. as we lick each other. as the theory further informs us of our demise from the future population of war heroes. the time on the clock is pointless. and that again is nothing new. the state of maine. vatican. wheelchair. fucking.

    7/1
    butthead. and by the obscure development of incomprehensible fate repeating stupidly without reservation at the paranoid level of hot sweating arms and thighs generations immune to the propaganda disposed by the strange dear men who cower thoughtlessly with spoons and not spoons clutched in their swollen tiny teeth exclaiming the fact of a bemused glance directed toward the valiant efforts declared with cigarette ash becoming the new beast feared most by those with plenty unless without further circumstance we enjoy our new dismayed hope disguised as if it were quite ashamed.

    our becoming with wings on our hearts is dead before its birth. he now sees himself as a traitor to his own kind though what that kind may or may not be he does not understand. he waits for someone to tell him.
    he is the other.

    there are those who confuse the entire issue. he dwells in the disenchanted house. he becomes his own though he possesses nothing. ringing in his ears. the deception. recognize. maybe there are too many people. too little time. or, for him, too many time and too little people. and now we're going back and now we're going forward. and now we're going this way and that way. organized. and there are those who will not confuse the entire issue.
    manipulate. people. crazy.

    7/2
    mutant shock test #16
        something to do.
        something not to do.
        what there is to do or not to do.
        dealing with it.
        correct or not correct.
        direction.
        here now.
        now here.
        tip-toe.
        honking.
        breaking the law.

    and as this possibility of possibility exists as it exists as he still comes here to the cafe to sit by the window at the table by the window. all the pretty boys and girls who prove nothing. torn clothes. fabric. pump up business. and at home he watches tv. black and white. as he smokes his cigarettes. as he feels himself to be totally useless. as he thinks about buying a gun to test the theory. life and death. no one to turn to. no reason to turn to anyone for anything. what would it be? sex? drugs? rock and roll? he exists. that's it. just existing. the world and universe exist with him. music. sound and light. idiots. mind over matter. night and day. up and down. purple. interesting. mission. a disease.

    another page. begin it again.
    and what fred says about anything. and what is believed and not believed. ego. time and time again. and when he was a boy. male child. as it is the rage now that everything male is wrong. what else is new? join the investigation. no shit. blah blah blah. sky. earth. an adventure. easy reading. and what he meant to write and/or not. and people starving he thinks about once in awhile. and this record which is a record of nothing. just as it is or isn't. and anyway when he was a boy. such an odd thing to write. shin. and it's too little too late. born every minute.
    and he expected everything. the world owed him a living. why else was he invited here? that's what he thinks about it anyway. the final solution. another stranger in a strange land. and he keeps his face stuck in his notebook. head buried in the sand. everything's ok. nothing is real. just pain. pain is real. pain is all reality has to offer of itself to prove its existence. and he cares but he doesn't care enough to do anything about whatever. what should he do? march in a parade? whose side should he join? wandering gurus.
    and the dada-ananda explodes from a particle dancing within a moment.
    are you still here? the dada-ananda asks.
    yeah - i guess so, he replies.
    why?
    not much else to do.
    there's lots of else to do.
    well, if there is, i don't feel like doing any of it.
    lazy bastard.
    yeah. maybe. so what?
    so you're just going to sit here and rot for the rest of your life?
    maybe. why not?
    why not? because you should be doing something useful.
    fuck you. who are you, my parents? my teacher? my boss? fuck off. i am doing something. i'm writing this.
    what's so useful about this?
    probably nothing.
    then why are you doing it?
    because i feel like it.
    and that's a good enough reason?
    i don't care about reasons.
    i don't believe that.
    well, i don't believe you.
    no one said you should.
    well they say i should believe something.
    what do you believe?
    i believe everything will be destroyed except myself.
    ha!
    laugh if you want. i don't care.
    you are a fool.
    tell me something i don't know.
    i don't think you really know that.
    you're right, i probably don't. you are so much wiser than i am. but then a dog turd is wiser than i am.
    you're hopeless.
    and the dada-ananda imploded and was gone in a puff of smoke.
    he lit another cigarette.

    and meanwhile back in the burning theater another scene is developing. sitting on stools in center stage are 3 people (x, y & z) who are speaking while a group of others, about 5 or 7, walk around them shining flashlights on them. and it goes like this:
    x: without suspecting it the bourgeois world itself was inwardly infected with the deadly poison of revolutionary thought and its resistance often sprang more from the competitor's envy of ambitious leaders than from fundamental rejection of adversaries determined to fight to the utmost.
    y: all great cultures of the past perished only because the original creative race died out from blood poisoning.
    z: there were many symptoms of decay which should have aroused serious reflection.
    x: but even in such a case the prerequisite is again the recognition of the inner grounds which cause the disease in question.
    y: but you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might show humanitarian tendencies toward chickens as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice.
    z: but these are only individual elements belonging to the higher race or perhaps bastards in whom after the first crossing the better blood still predominates and tries to struggle through but never the final products of a mixture.

    do you see what i mean? asked the dada-ananda.
    no. i don't think so. i didn't know i was supposed to be looking for anything, he replied.
    you're always supposed to be looking for something.
    i get tired of looking for things. it's boring and pointless.
    ha!
    what do you mean?
    i don't mean anything.
    then what are you saying?
    i'm not saying anything.
    oh.
    and just then a hole in space/time opened and closed at once and the dada-ananda was gone.
    gone. meaninglessness. pointlessness. leave a message at the beep. and he wasn't sure what he was writing about. if it was anything. he kept losing it and kept trying to start over again. beginning. ending. and meanwhile life kept going on around him as if he wasn't doing nothing at all. and so it goes on like that. what is or is not described as what it is or not what it is.

    and just then a hole in space/time opened and closed at the same time and nothing much happened about that.

    he watches himself keep writing. he's left it to himself to try to figure this out. what is this? what is there to figure out? it's just life, isn't it? he has things to do. return library books, buy cigarettes and some pens, pay rent, buy some food, pay some bills, watch tv, go to sleep. writing this bullshit is the last thing he should be doing.
    what is known or unknown. what possibilities. the silence between us. our existence.
    decay. table. thought. frayed.

    7/3
    sitting around. dreaming of this nonsense. naked. history. nobody not thinking about much of nothing along about anything. someone leaps out the window shouting, freeblegrotz! while someone else stood with a gun in their left hand and a tomato in their right. computers. a dog barked next door. and to follow along these lines. disgusting. to the pain avoided. life and death.
    and it was from this day on forward. the despair. the flight. fright. and how does he describe how he feels?
    dancing alone. not even dancing. murky. dust to dust. more and more nonsense. the lines of ink. some of them smeared. disorder. the description of action and event. stoned. alive. living. death.
    is this how he feels?

    and it could be something. and it could be nothing. fart. burp. expelled. the blame for the sacrifice as the poets continue to write their words. as the mail gets delivered every day it gets delivered. he travels nowhere. this could either be prison or it could be freedom depending on how he chooses to view it. as he remembers something else. a time to overcome. and we could be inside or outside the walls depending on how we choose to view it. but either way those walls are not going to come down. they exist beyond us. they are the nature of creation itself. the walls of division between this and that. between what we understand and what we do not.
    and these people who are walking around confused. is he one of them? don't know who or what to blame. when god has deserted us or we have deserted god. as if it makes a difference. another argument about nothing. and we cannot change the actions of those around us. we can only observe the results of our predictions. these words scribbled down for nothing while now he waits for his laundry to be done. washing machines. machines everywhere. some that work and some that don't. some that get fixed and some that don't. just like people. idle. amused wondering about whatever crosses his mind. as simple as it may or may not be. and maybe he should call this friend of his. ask what's happening. there's nothing else to do.
    and it could be something like the blues. or it could be something like ice cream. and every day it's more or less the same. the king and queen. and all he's done is write. and he makes this up and he makes that up. and sometimes he doesn't know which is which. except he does. the control situation.

    a word like formulation. words put together that don't make no sense. an argument of the saints we choose betwixt the points we are allowed. he likes it unto itself. and meanwhile life goes on as if this weren't ever even written. the control situation again. tape loop. and nobody knows nothing about what he's writing about at all because he's not writing nothing nobody wants to read and then some cool and calmly out the window and we look back on it all and see how stupid it all was. books and books on the shelves. a comfortable place. a place of conquest.
    and the light between this and that opened up. cracked skull. there is no mystery except what we make mysterious. words. again, words.

    7/4
    at the undiscovery of nothing. at the points between points where and when it is it and it is not it once and for all as if that were possible as if it were not even our imagination. yet he is set in a world where his hand cannot pass through a table though neither exist. they are real enough. and he feels that he wants to go beyond that though if he could wouldn't everything fall apart? done. finished. dream. he is not sure of the way though he's read accounts of possible things of that manner or another. as it may be their understanding of how and why these things of this world begin and depart from one another. that they become separate from each other which is the way this thing works and perhaps he shouldn't be bothered by it. think about it. and maybe he's not really bothered by it. maybe it's something else.
    and these people amixed with one another who yet seek only their own kind in thinking and acting being estranged and unforgiving of those who do not fit their needs. others may be quite different though he cannot imagine that that he would have come across anyone who is any different from any other of the others in any sort of meaningful way though each imagines oneself to be different. like he does. yet this is one of the many factors or combination of factors that makes them the same. and how is this realized or not? though it is how human interaction - or non-interaction - works and has worked and will work so long as we are human. we gather still in the small tribes who acknowledge one another yet disregard all others. even those who boast all-encompassing love and harmony toward all who are in theory brothers and sisters. there is always the line drawn somewhere that divides us apart from those who we consider to be our enemy - all those without all-encompassing love and harmony. no peace will come between us and them.
    and he sits in the cafe still writing his goddamn nonsense as one has perhaps seen him or his ilk alone to whatever thoughts he may or may not have. and this he busies himself with from one day to another without one day being all that different from another.
    he does not know what he wants. he watches and waits though if it was watching and waiting for something of some sort he cannot remember what that might be.
    god?
    no. he is beyond all hope of god.
    he is beyond all hope of himself.
    all has been dismissed of what we have hoped for as being deluded invention. a magnification of ourselves and our desire and fear. if it is god it will be a god more than just a trick played upon the mind.
yet in certain circles of reasoning it is the world and universe that are themselves tricks upon the mind. how then to tell what is or is not god? is it not the mind of god which has gone quite mad that is the source of all creation?

    7/5
    the long type of poem. of nothing. nothing so important that it cannot be avoided. a remembering of it. of a life once in awhile lived. nothing so important that it cannot be avoided. while still living it. of course. and it is not that it cannot be avoided while he sits here in the cafe another day drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, reading and writing, spending the taxpayers' money. he could be designing and building new and improved weapons. there's something productive. he could be a secret agent sent to some country to torture unsuspecting citizens. he could be doing a million and 1 things that other people do. instead he pretty much keeps to himself out of the way and doing mostly nothing that cannot be avoided. some might say that that is being unproductive. but that may or may not have anything to do with anything. besides, he produces reams of shit written on the page. that helps keep part of the economy moving, doesn't it?
    and this is not a poem, except he calls it a poem. why not? he can call it a poem if he wants to. if he calls it a poem then that is what it is - though not really.
    another poem like all the poems everybody is writing and speaking whether they know that's what they are doing or not. and how!
    today is sunday. the lord's day. a day off. all his days are days off. all his days are the lord's day. because he said so. and so it is written. poem. not poem.
    he wants to write something great and wonderful. something that takes one away from their miserable existence. he doubts any of this that he is writing will do that. he has something in mind. he wants others to have it in mind. it is madness. or maybe not. this writing really doesn't do much for him except pass the time. except that he's gotten himself here and he wants others to be here too. here and now. he doesn't know if that's a good idea or not. one thing he likes about being here and now is that there's nobody else here and now with him. the others are so far away.
    laughing faces. opposite pattern what does he know? he wouldn't know a poem if one was choking him to death in a dark alley in the pale moonlight.
    he just gets paid to do this, that's all.
    this is not his madness though it's nearly driving him mad. taken away. following. hot and heavy.
    he doesn't want to be here. he does not want to be human somewhere between ape and god. between the two he'd choose ape naked and content in dark jungle green. forget about god.
    to be human is to reject paradise. hooked on how we were meant to struggle through challenges of hardship and suffering and all with some romantic image about how it makes us noble and on like that.
    as for himself - forget all that shit. he's out. or something. but he's still in it that he still sees it around him. how they needlessly hurt one another and create deliberate obstacles in each other's path so their lives are spent in need and want. how they create it and willingly participate in it. a system designed to create and maintain the maximum amount of frustration with glittering goals just out of reach. with those for and against it. it takes two to tango. inside and out. top and bottom. all the arguments and struggles unfold.
    the city that has been built and prepared for us remains empty. we walk the streets of it alone without realizing it is imaginary. which is maybe what we wanted? all designed by what will make us happy by what we cannot have. it is the other who stands in our way. but it is the other that we need. who else is there to care for and comfort and provide for? and all this exists in our imagination.
    he sits up. he remembers where and when he is - sort of. he has to piss.

    experience.
    experienced.
    experiencing.

    and what is his experience? what has he experienced? what is he experiencing? can we tell anyone? would anyone believe us if we could and did? possibilities. does it matter? does he even know? perhaps it is mysterious to him. perhaps it is only mysterious to others. the ways and means of mystery. so it goes.
    he is taking up space. he is using up time. how mysterious is that? so it goes.

    7/6
    to keep on writing and never looking back to read what's written but to fill up the notebook and leave it on a shelf with the others so filled with words and words and words for someone else to read or not. just the daily act of writing. not even thoughts he is thinking. he does not know what he is thinking except he seems to repeat in circles of what he's written before as he thinks in circles of what he's thought before. the state. the one world protecting state that protects no one from no one or doesn't protect anyone from anyone - whichever of those statements makes sense - if either - if they are the only possibilities. they should not be. there should be others. he cannot think of any. those two are already too many to think about right now. the possibilities involved in them are limitless beyond the limits he can think of them. and well beyond the limitless of the limit he can write about them - about what he thinks of them.

    anyone come up the words begins in school he remembers trying he doesn't know supposed to enough they told him simple rhyming expected to get he himself taking notes regrets instead this now desired him that was his own wanted could get to take away it plagued separate and alone make him feel his mind it was all he had.

    loyalty to the group. look for another. he could not compete with that. there were too many. he could not provide what the group provides. he had nothing but his useless idiot words that supported no cause but his own isolated madness.
    what is there to fear?
    ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...
    a dream he had. a common vision of a common paradise he could not bring into realization against the reality the group believed in and could make real. his hands were empty. he had nothing. it didn't matter how vividly he could imagine this world he saw on his own, it would never materialize. he didn't even believe in it himself. though the vision of it would never leave him. and he superimposed it, or saw it superimposed, on the real world of the group mind. it was coming anyway. they did not know. he did not know. and in their ignorance of it they brought it into being with their unrealized actions.
    maybe.
    maybe not.
    who cares?
    it was not for him to say as he came here every day to watch and wait while people went about their lives as they saw fit to do so.
    right as rain. as it should be. he used to think he was supposed to come up with something to change things. this was a common misconception people fell into. a trap. as he saw more clearly he saw that there was nothing to change from what was already happening.
    he was brought here from some unknown place. unknown to him at this moment where he was at. but he could feel this other place. part of him still existed there. home.
    no place in this world was home. he did not belong here. or so he felt. but maybe this was no different than how anyone else felt. but it seemed to him that the others - those of the group mind - felt at home here. this was their reality after all.
    but maybe he did want to be here. maybe in some other form of his existence he decided to come here. to experience this - this world. maybe he and others created this world to experience it. a theory.
    he waited. to see what would happen. keeping himself as much apart from it as he could yet still remaining in it. dreaming of it. the pain of not being one with what surrounded him. of not understanding.
    goddamn intellectuals! he shouted.
    everybody nodded their sleepy heads.
    and he was right. useless. worthless. always thinking thinking about shit there was no point in thinking about. not when there was work to be done - like washing the dishes, taking out the garbage, cleaning the toilets, etc. so what is he doing? what is there for him to do? will anyone let him do it? so much left undone. a world - a whole world - left undone. while we survive or don't survive in it. as it comes and goes. just as it is.
    this state of the state as it rises and falls. as it provides and doesn't provide. as it is fought for and against. as it imprisons and sets free. as it is within and beyond our understanding. as it is built up and torn down. as it is desired and feared.
    as he exists as part of it and it a part of him. he doesn't know what to question. he questions the questions as well as the answers. both are equally formulated. he is without wisdom. he questions nothing. he answers nothing.
    and here he is with himself. (i am i because my little dog knows me). trading places of identity. observer and observed. slip and slide. the relative positions between us. though the areas of gray. the gray area of consciousness between everyone else's black and white. between us and them. nowhere and everywhere. and in this cafe where we sit together with and apart from these other people and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and read and write. our existence contained in the possibility of these words.
    where have we gone? where have we come to? enlightenment? realization? what is realized? what light shines upon us? we are here now. that is all that is and was and will be for as long as it happens, is happening and will happen. there is nothing communicated in these words other than that.
    except a confession of ignorance. the knowledge of ignorance. how far it extends. how much there is.
    and we've written this before.
    and we've written everything that we are likely to write we've written before. there is no more.
    making sense out of nonsense and nonsense out of sense.
    the idea.
    the theory.
    the story.
    the joke.
    the phone rings. there is no one to answer it. therefore is it ringing?
    a suicide note left behind by the last person alive.
    restate the obvious.
    restate the confusion.
    or maybe someone else will come along. it doesn't matter. it doesn't happen now. not here and now. here and now there is no one. as maybe it should be.
    he's done what he's done.
    we've torn it down to see what it was made of. to see what we could live with and/or live without. were there any surprises? something we didn't in some way already know?
    did we expect this?
    does it begin or end here? which?
    and some day it will only be memory. we will be ghosts. and when that memory is gone?
    the lathe of heaven.
    jacob's ladder.
    one more for the road.
    and there really was, as it turns out, nothing to write about. just existing in the act of writing. fossil notebooks. and without them did any of this happen?
    and remember. remembering. remembering what others have forgotten. remembering those who have forgotten.
    the possibilities unrealized.
    the point is pointless.
    nevermind.
    stop.