Friday night in, the day knocked me out
work stripping energy from me, too much
this is not a good place to be, my eyes hurt, my heart tired
holding out against the feeling inside that this is so wrong
it's a time I recognise
time to change
time to free-fall into space
into the fear
into the void
all the voices of my fathers and teachers in my head
'dont be such a damn fool. you need stability, you need security'
but my heart is being crushed here
a death zone growing harder each day
starving the spirit
killing me softly

I cant stay in this
I just cant
I tried once before 7 years ago
and it did for me then
rewired my brain
in to the mistake
I cant do that to myself a second time
it has taken too much work to bring myself back
to try to learn from that time
when I should have moved, shifted, changed but didnt know how
it is that same feeling now
and I am afraid the same

I hear the quiet voice inside me tonight
I see the cliff face I have come to
another dead end.
I know it could be death down there
destitution
loneliness
pain
the end
down there on the rocks
but I have to believe
that so too it could be salvation
rising on the thermals that might catch me
blown by the gods
as I relinquish control
and they take me higher into the stratosphere
closer to the place I belong
to the paradise
I saw in dreams
so long ago

Its been a long journey
one I must have chosen even at the beginning
to be this way
forever facing darker depths
forever facing this moment alone
with the hounds of hell still upon my trail
and no one to share the solitary decision
the last goodbye
to leap or die
it is leap or die
If I stay in this
I will become like stone
and forever regret not being true
to that voice inside
that no one ever taught me how to trust in
but myself
how do you trust yourself?
and the energy I knew I had hidden there somewhere
if I could only let go
that made me run at the wall
and jump
in faith
knowing
that none of it ever really existed at all

The Other Side

I wont say things are looking up, but you know what, things....you know the rest.

beautiful...strange.....I REALLY do love that tune. by bedrock if you dont know it. download it. shut your eyes. feel the power. it is there. I remember where it began. I was in some club in London, Turnmills. it was 6am I was off my tits and so was everyone else. it was the early 90's. it was ecstacy. it was tribal. I found the vision. it dropped down on me. I looked down. on the floor was this vortex. going down. I wanted to step on it but I knew I would disappear somewhere. so I turned to my pal. Chris was his name.

'can you see that'
'a whirlpool'
'fuck! you can see it'
'yea what about it'
'what you had'
'pill and some acid'
'oooh got acid'
'yea, here you are'
'cool'

and so began the 90's for me and I can hardly remember most of it. but I know it was beautiful and it was strange and though I came back down. eventually. something remained in my heart. the dream. the vision. the opening to something else, a way. of seeing, of being. something beautiful, something divine. something magical. a new world free of it all.
and it is here still
available
and though hell is all around me
and the solitude of this time has nearly killed me
suddenly in the dark I see a light
it has always been there. I just forgot to look
distracted by the madness , the coldness, the aloneness of it all
the life, the death, the travelling on. the endless moving on through people and towns and time and places. the sadness of it sometimes too much to bear.
the endings the beginnings I am so afriad of
because I know they will end, they always do.
and yet such amazing people who come into my life
like you Parmella despite all that pain we went through and probably still will,
fuck. I wouldnt miss this for the world.
and as I rise, because I will. it is what I was destined to do
death is nothing
loss is nothing
love is everything
and when it is beautiful and precious and strange
that is when I love it all the most
and for this life I will be
eternally grateful
fuck
I am feeling it tonight
I hope you all are too.
because it is times like these, I know we could change this god forsaken world
into something worth living in
and I dont mean disarming the nukes or saving the poor and the pandas,
I mean evolving into the beings we should always have been
beautiful...strange....
and full of love and vision that goes so far beyond the walls they keep us in, they taught us to exist in.
it is no surprise we are afraid
and so unable to just let go
we know of nothing else
and yet
we have some of us seen the other side
and though it hurts to remember
to be honest I will never be able to forget
its in my heart and travels with me
on wherever it may be

put on your favourite tune
put it up loud
and let go
I'll be there tonight
on the otherside

and so the dust starts to settle at last
the roller coaster slows to a halt
and I get off
and have a quick vomit, because I never was much good on those rides.
but I feel better for it
not sure I want to go again for a while though
just gonna sit over here for a minute and let the world spin
and watch
and catch my breathe
and smile some

Self pitying sonovabitch but tonight I can't be bothered to hide my ugliness

I saw the headline in the paper on the way home tonight -

‘Mel Gibson being divorced’

and it seemed such a silly thing and yet behind my shades I felt tears well up that had been held at bay. The ocean of my soul wanted to break free and I didn’t know how to stop it.
I felt a shame shiver through me for it. And tried to smile to myself.
Self pity. I always fall for it eventually. Dark horse in the heart stirring again.
So I sat there as the rail car rattled and people read and people thought about things.
And it seemed finally I was facing something I hadn’t really faced these last few weeks and the more I thought about why I was crying the more I realised this was about a lot bigger time than just this week. And I let it come in to me. I let myself remember and the sadness of my life overwhelmed me. And I have to explain one threaded tale of why I am often such a miserable wretch.

I was glad for those shades.

I always knew I would come to Australia. When I was a kid I knew when I used to run about my grandparents garden in the English summer in a sleepy village called Bampton where church bells rang out on Sundays and cars went by every now and then, I’d smell the honeysuckle in the mornings and chase a few wasps with a stick then run in for breakfast to watch Skippy the bush kangaroo on TV. Those blue skies and a talking kangaroo. I wanted to be there one day.

When I saw Mad Max years later that blew me away too. I ended up growing up all over the place. Someone gave me a guitar at 15 and then it was rock and roll all the way. I could hide in the dream.

I moved to Oxford got in a couple of bands but we just got wasted and managed about 3 songs in as many years. I can’t remember half of those days. The girl I got engaged to left and I went down a bad rabbit hole until an opportunity came my way out of the blue. I was never much good at being stoned I couldn’t remember a thing.

I left Oxford for London on a whim. Got offered to sing in a band called Romeo Suspect and it felt right. Kipped on my brothers sofa knowing dreams of rock stardom would be mine. That journey up to London, leaving the mess of my teenage life behind was such a beautiful thing. I knew I was free again in that moment. Like Dick Whittingtons cat, maaaan I was going to find the gold.
I saw a rainbow over Notting Hill as the coach drove up the a40 entering the city and I made a wish –

‘Don’t make me famous until I can handle it’

I’d already crashed on acid, speed and glue, probably smoke too but like I said I never remembered anything when I smoked. I knew what I was like and I was hungry for it all. I hadn’t even got near the cocaine, ectascy and designer drugs by then.

Maybe something heard me. Heard my wish.

10 years later and it wasn’t happening. It hurt for years as age took me away from all that I could have been. Man that hurt. Slow and agonising. I know the meaning of Defeat. I know it in my bones. I had owned the dream for a long while; the drugs, the women, the excess for years and yet I never got that stardom I so longed for. I felt so robbed, couldn’t understand it. I had trusted the signs and trusted the Gods and followed them at the sacrifice of all else.

In the end I was forced to give it up, I joined the rat race. It was fear. I was broke. Beaten. The band wasn’t happening. Music had been my world. It was over. I didn’t know how to end something I had invested so much of my life and love in.

So I tried to settle down. Got with a beautiful office girl, got a house, a job that could have been for life. And sat there one day. Old. Alone, cocained out of my brain staring at the wallpaper that I owned. I finally owned something. She was out. 7 years we had been together and I just knew in an instant that this was it for me. This was the happiness normal people longed for. I was in it. And I was lost. I didn’t know what this was. It fucked with me so much that day. She came home drunk. I lost it. I left. I never went back.

2 years later after living in a van for a few months then getting a small room in the middle of Harrow I realised one embarrassing day that I was in fact just waiting to die. I also realised I needed to leave London to do it. And again out of the blue opportunity came. I thought that was my last walk. To Australia. The dream I had as a kid came back to me, my first dream. I was going to Australia to die. It all made perfect sense. It was kind of tidy in its play out.

So I spent my savings on a touring bicycle and cleared off all my debts and so as not to make a mess somewhere people would find me I headed off up to the Northern Terrority to meet my maker. I figured it would be less of a concern for my family there. I don’t quite know why. I didn’t know what else I could do. Let the devil come to meet me and make it there out of the way where people can make assumptions about what happened but never really know. I was ok with it. It had to happen someplace, right.

He came on the third day.

48 degrees heat passing out sick on the side of the road somewhere between Katherine and Broome. I have no idea where I was. It got dark and I could smell death. I was heat struck and delirious and ready to go to the devil. Fuck it. I had nothing left. I let it go. And waited to experience that final thing. I had no idea what it would be but it would bring relief. Then something kicked in. A fucking survival instinct. I wasn’t ready for that. Some stupid part of me thought I had something to do. It seemed so obvious. So without choice or volition, I did all I could to fight what was coming and next thing I know I made it to Broome. About a month actually but again. I don’t recall much of it.

I felt refreshed and excited, like god gave a shit and had plans for me once again. So I hit a bar to celebrate, pulled a girl , went home with her , fucked her, and promptly got in a fist fight with her flat mate. I had to leave Broome the next day. I fucking hated myself again. Things were back to normal. I was too chicken shit to do myself in, so I went back to Sydney instead to get a job, figure out what to do next and try to stay out of trouble for once. What the hell were the gods up to, I was supposed to be dead?

That was a year ago.

Here I am.

I still have no idea why.

The train rattled into Bondi tonight.
Tears dropped down my face. It is amazing how much passes through your mind in a short space of time. Mel Gibson getting divorced and splashed all over the paper. The whole fucking world knowing his business and as my heart was breaking, or maybe starting to recover I have no fucking idea right now, I was just so glad of those shades and being anonymous. Being a fucking nobody was suddenly very ok in my book. I couldn’t imagine what this moment for me right now would be like if every fucker knew my name and who I was and saw me crying. I thanked the gods in retrospect because they saved my sorry ass again and I had no idea all this time. They never let me be famous. They had honoured my wish when I showed up in London. I wouldn’t have survived it at all. Too much of a dumb cunt. They were doing something now. I didn’t know why but it obviously was for some reason.

I don’t know why I spilled it here, or to who, or for what. Glimpses into gold. Glimpses into the truth. Glimpses into the self and the dreams and the lust and the death and the perception of a man. Brothers and sisters and sufferings the world over. No respite, no sanctuary, no hope in many ways. And I haven’t done much to help any of them, only my selfish self and I didn’t help me much either in the end . Dark. Painful. Cold and Lonely is stuff we just have to experience every now and then. Remind ourselves how fragile we are. And remind ourselves who we are and where we have been. Become humbled again by the immensity of it all and the meaninglessness of us as individuals. Fuck famous, it makes the kill so much more complicated and so much crueller. Try and die and they wont let you. It is a mystery.

Come back to the centre. Look around and see we are just here right now and we have no idea what for, not really. Just to be. But anonymity suddenly makes a lot of fucking sense. I could cry and no one would know who I was. No one could care less, so I cried. It was for myself, not Mel, but that was ok. It had to happen somewhere. Thanks Mel.

I walked out the station hopped on the bus. Breathed the air of the ocean as I reached my small room down the North end of the beach. Yea I was alone again but this recent lost love, my first in Oz, would heal and the devil didn’t seem to know my address. Not yet. Not yet. And I may die tonight as lightening and thunder breaks outside, and on my last breathe I may wonder what it was all for. But if I don’t get taken tonight then tomorrow will be the future and something will come along.

Tomorrow I want to do something for someone else for a change. I’ve always wanted to I just have never known how.

I saw my direction today for the first time in years.

I just spent 3 days at Vipassana meditating in silence. It started off tough. I was frustrated because I meditate a lot and thought I would be ahead of the game. I was way off. Took me the whole first day to get my mind quiet and focused on a single spot. One frustrating fight with the self. but I got there.

that night I slept more than 4 hours, first time in weeks. I needed it and sprang up at 4am, first in the hall, into the silence. I love it. like a duck to water. no talking just going in somewhere and waiting to see what shows up.

that was my next annoyance.

spent most of the day with either the uncannily clear image of my new boss in my head. (A South African arrogant son of a bitch whom right now I detest because he holds my balls in his hand and he is squeezing.) So that was ...nice
and then it was...HER....when he wasnt in there, she was. doing whatever it is she is doing right now with whoever she is doing it.
you know
you really need this stuff in your head, crystal clear, when you are trying to meditate.

So about half way through the day and we break for lunch and I have to go lie down because this whole 'getting away' thing seems to have backfired somewhat. Everyone I wanted to get away from is beautifully emblazoned in my mind in glorious motion technicolour, all the clearer because I am in silence and meditating. fuckin a! what to do.

then as I lie on my bed watching a spider eat a fly which seems strangely poetic at that moment. It dawns on me. There is something I am missing here. The reason I am not getting past all this.

I guess I wanted to sit and chill and stare at stars and peacocks and have a beautiful Zen experience. I should have known better. It was time to get right into my shit and face the music. so I did.

I spent the next half of the afternoon locked up in a 2x4 cell with no windows and no sound and no light. Its the place to be, let me tell you. Terror becomes some kind of freedom in there. Ever seen Midnight Express? You get right into the pain. I mean. RIGHT INTO THE CENTRE OF THAT MOTHERFIUCKING PAIN. and you sit there. squirming. in the prison or your body and into the prison of your own making. knowing it is you and yours alone and you created it and only you can get yourself out, but you cant. YOU CANT. you cunt. YOU CUNT.
you hate yourself. you hate everything. you want to die. DIE DIE DIE. just fucking please STOP IT ALL STOP. But the door is shut and there is no where to go. no where to run. this is it. and you know it. it is time to let go to it.
and so
eventually
after 4 hours
and very fucking sore everything
it stops.

it
just
stops

it had to
eventually

and so

it

did



and right then I knew none of it really was that big a deal
none of it really ever had a hold on me
I just empowered it
for some reason
that would take too long to explain
and I breathed in
as the hurting stopped
and there it was
the way forward
for me
nothing changed
except maybe my outlook
the shit was the same, it wasnt going anywhere
it was going to be there and it was going to fuck with me as much if not more so
than it had been up til now.
but the single difference was
I now had a plan
I knew why it was there and of what use it was going to be to me.

so to my boss and to... HER.
bring it on
because in the end
you may well be the very thing that saves me

Diamonds

coal, soot, carbon, blood, spit, jealousy, anger, frustration, rage, fire, pressure
in the pressure of eternity. stood dying in my room, crushed in the unbelievable pain of it all. going into it, going into it, not letting go, not letting up
keep going in. deeper. into the pain. I have to know this now.
I have to feel it all this time.
tastes like coal and soot. dirty blackness inside, places where they began, this life
somewhere beyond this life, somewhere in the beginning, of me, of me,
keep going until there is no more pain
screaming into the night air
as it implodes
and all agonies start to change
I knew they would, I knew they had to eventually
turn to a sweet ecstacy
until there is nothing left to suffer, nothing left to feel
and I find myself lifting up, rising
coming up for air
breathing deep and hard
bursting through the veil
feel the sex in me
heat like fire,
getting hot like life
in the black
of being so empty
take a new form
and what was a lie
hid a truth all along
there are no words for this freedom
maybe love, but that doesnt describe it

The beautiful lie

I guess I am ready for this. I guess it has come into my life right on time.

At my most solitary, at my most vulnerable, at my most weak. When there is no one around to turn to and take my mind off it, just walls and oceans and long emptiness. The movie plays and she is the star. I have nothing else to do but watch. Is this the story of my own end? The tragedy of whatever I thought Love could be.

I realise I haven’t really been hurt by a woman in many years. It is long overdue. I have left a lot of carnage behind me and in seeing how one has finally gotten to me, I understand that yes, I liked the control it gave me too. I was in balance while someone else needed me, floundered, a little piece of them dying in my hands. Truth is, that felt good. Manipulation, control. Unaware even, that I was doing it so well. Feeding off it. It elevated me and I flew. Energy I didn’t have was suddenly mine. Vampiric almost.

I’d hate myself for it if I could.

But then here I am, watching the girl who managed to finally open me up somehow, put a blade in the wound and turn it. The sweet smile, the words of love she spoke to me before she left still echo as I fall away. I still believe her, even as I watch myself bleeding to death from the wound she has created. How fucking stupid we humans are sometimes. ‘I love you’. How deadly those words are.

It is not her, I tell myself, she is better than this. When she is finished with these other lovers she will come back to me. But she wont. I already know this. Or rather , she will but she was never really there, it was just her need to have something to hold, to pretend in too.

The beautiful lie.

It was always only ever going to be a beautiful lie. We both wanted to believe it. This result was inevitable. I knew this even as I started. And still I let go. Still I opened up. And still the pain came. Letting go totally, I hoped it would free me, I trusted.

It didn’t work at all.

The cruel part, and this is what could drive me to put a slap on her to be honest, is that I get to read all this shit going on via the internet. Indirect love letters of some weird kind to whoever is in her life at that moment, whoever is her love in the minute. Jesus! I would SO do that too if I could, but I am not a hooker, not a woman.
I meet a person of the opposite sex who actually connects with me about once every 2 years at best. She meets someone every time she steps out the door.

And she goes there with them.

I guess there is an honesty in that. Wouldn’t all women do it if they could. Would not all men?

And that’s when it gets strange. Because I would and I know it. So how come I am currently dying like a lost and needy bitch at the hands of this she-devil? I have no idea. I wake to pain, I fall asleep to pain. Heart pain. That gutting sensation that even other people can see in me. Something has been drained from my energy. A Loss. A depletion. I am as good as dead right now. That is what happens when you say those three little words to someone and they then turn and give it away. GIVE IT AWAY. Like it was nothing. Like you are nothing more than another blip in the moment. And you thought you were so special. You needed to be so special. You needed someone else to make you that way. That is what sucks.

There was another girl once, years ago I got like this with. There was something about her. She held me in her hand and she killed me quick. I hated her for it. Looking back I was too childish to handle such power in a person. Now, I just know that I have to. Somehow find a way. To keep that destructive power she has over me at a distance, yet not turn on her. Not hurt her back. Not try to destroy her, or wish her wrong in anyway. There are so many lessons in all this. lessons I could not even dream to face back then. I have become strong, but I have to be stronger. all the while trying to keep that pain at bay and not let her do more damage. She is trying to, whether she knows it or not.

This is the crisis of us all in the world today. We love and someone hurts us when we do. The one we love is the one that will hurt us. The one we let go to. Is the one that will destroy us. If we are lucky they will hide this side from us. This control they know they have suddenly, that feeds them and gives them power that they accept and take and play with. It is down to their nature. And if they hide it, which most people do, then we will never need to know and we can pretend all is ok and all is well, but truth is. There is no love, not that way. It seems we don’t really love the one, we love the many. I never wanted to believe it, but how can I deny it now? How? It is a truth and it is staring me in the face. I just cant deal with it yet.

And this is the pain for me today, and so far, I have no answer, but I don’t want to live anymore in the beautiful lie.