Apocalypse 2D

Dark clouds gather as people stop and look towards the sea. The mind does not see what the heart can recognize.

A deep pothole masquerading as a shallow puddle, they all wait for rain.

The storm blows with all its might - nature's calm show of force; a hint of hidden violence yet to be unleashed.

Scatter! Run for shelter! They scream with impotent rage.

Around the corner, alone in a green field, a man at peace smiles.

The Four Pillars of Life

Maslow would be proud. His hierarchy of needs stand as firm as the pyramids they're drawn as. Damned be you perpetual optimists, I have seen what life is. When you witness what I have witnessed, live what I have lived, you will believe what I believe. Everyone is rational, given what they know.

There are the fucked up things in life. These you despise. These are the ones that make you wonder what you did if there's any justice in this world. They make you regret having ever existed in this miserable plane.

There are the wonderful things in life. Few and far, but they're there. Like mangoes, hot showers, fast cars and the smell of aloe vera. The fucked up things far outnumber the good things in quantity and frequency. The good things, well, they're just good enough to make up for all the fucked up shit that goes around.

Then there are the fucked up things that can happen in life, do happen to others, and may happen to you. The possibility of these is enough to ruin some days.

Then there are the awesome things that can happen in life. These sometimes happen to some people, and may happen to you. Or you may go through life and never have one of these happen to you. These are the things you see in dreams, in sunless cloudy dead-silent places. We make movies about them, yearn for them. The possibility of these happening is what makes us get out of bed and face the day.

Damned be these dreams with their foolish hope. They will be the end of me.

The Death of Sleep

Sleep is pointless.

Life over death on a whim. Sitting with my back resting on the trunk of a content Oak, the air filled with a green smell as I watch the sun set. Orange and yellow, a gentle breeze blows into and over my face, the familiar patterns emerge twinkling in the dark blue sky.

When one night's sleep gives enough strength to withstand the next day's burden. When you realise eternity is not just for the afterlife. A moment alone, to be aware of all our senses. To become them, to forget them, sets us free.

When sleep is the only escape, like water quenches thirst. When you can count on the finger tips of one hand the number of thoughts that keep you alive. The weight of two whole universes - not coincidentally the distance between your dreams and reality.

Sleep is pointless, we only wake up to our troubles again.

Wasp's Pride

A bit more narcissism and self righteousness today. We all do what we must to survive.

The stars twinkle with sharp clarity in the cold, crisp winter sky. Contrails in the moonlight, slight frost in the grass. A giant TV billboard bathes the army check-post around the corner in cyclically patterned light. Sirius shies away from the moody artificial sun. As Orion lazily reaches over the meridian through the thick amorphous cloud of double apple smoke, death occupies my mind.

Do not hate or love that which you do not understand. You cannot hate what you truly understand. But to love is not to understand. Beware, he says; to understand me is to become me. Save yourself with hate.

I fight my battles in another place, far away from the sound of your dreams. Here, I have only the warm, sweet embrace of madness. I whisper in its ear; "Not yet".

To My Dreams

There are times when there is a disconnect between what we were, and what we are. I speak with no authority because in front of the leaves that fall from trees in Autumn, I am ungraceful, simple, judgemental. Glory may find a more deserving victim, I am but a pawn whose delusional intentions are judged; meaningless deranged harangues, occasionally heard.

Hate is a powerful thing. Like acid, it corrupts the mind and the soul. Unchecked, it has the ability to mirror its effects in those who see it embraced. The fundamentals of strife are expressed in the units of faith. If we could measure courage, we could measure hate, but maps never tell us just how lost we are.

I will not be loud to be heard. I will not be obnoxious to be noticed. I will not be rude to be feared, I will not be feared to be respected. I am not proud of my ignorance, nor am I disgusted by reason. No, I am not dumb, I choose to be your 'disadvantage' because I have seen what you have not. Your cars and your hypocrisy, your blindness or your misplaced patience.

I use words to reassure myself of things that did not need assurance before. In hating what is reprehensible, I am becoming that which I hate. I'm sure mankind's been around long enough to thoroughly document such things within its Literature, but knowledge that was my friend has long been made my enemy. Like a gun in children's hands, they play with it for their own games.

The game of life will tell you (and it is right), people do not change. The behaviour may be complex, but the rules are simple. All you have to do is know the current state well enough. I know I write with many gaps in my explanations, in funny words that only make sense to me, but I write what I see as truth. I am still at the crossroads, and insanity still a far away cave, warm and inviting in the bitter winter snow.

We are all given a reason to hate, but our science will not lag behind our religion forever. Know this, then; peace is better than war, serenity greater than strife, love greater than hate. These are the foundation stones of our universe, or how I see it has come to be.

Friends

Darkness visits my room at night. It chooses to keep me company when there is no light.

The little girl with snakes of hair comes to me at night. She sits at the corner of the ceiling and the walls and cries. To haunt people’s dreams, to make them cry. She cries for those who cannot dream.

Death comes by my room at night. Next to me, on the bed, it sits and cries. Unrequited love is sad, but for death itself to be loved? It cries.

The world and everything therein, twice over. Arrogance beyond measure, an oil spill in the sea of tranquillity. To want what you cannot have is not punishment enough. To be deceived by the fabric of reality; a touch of finesse. The Great Poet waits for His words to be understood, but the deaf do not hear their own celebrations.

A million light years away, floating in the wind. The ornaments of the sky are yours. In the silence of the night, how is distance different from the longing in your heart? Subtle is our existence, the universe balanced on the point of a needle;

Words mean more than you could possibly imagine.

The night turns to day, let there be light. The darkness stays with me, inside. An old friend, an old enemy, I don’t think we care. A strange friend to keep me company in the absence of light;

Arrogance goes hand in hand with faith.

The Sweet and the Warm, The Cold and the Harsh

Intense heat. Smothering humidity. Sweat dripping out of every pore on your skin. You try to breathe to calm yourself down but it feels like breathing hot steam - only thicker.

From a place you spend much of your time in dreams, a thought snowballs into something more; wrestles itself into reality. No. Reality willingly lets it come through, matching its grace and thoughtless, solemn sense of purpose.

A cool breeze gently caresses the back of your neck. The slightest movement of matter so small it cannot be seen by your eye. You stand on the brink of awareness.

When you are lost (beyond all hope). When you turn to the Universe and say, "Now there is nothing between you and me; I am completely lost and there is no hope". You stand on the brink of awareness.

When a man roams a great harsh desert desperately searching for water, or sits in the silence of his prison, searching for reason. It is then through the hazy fog of reality does the glimmer of Truth reveal itself, momentarily. We search for it in the four corners of the Earth, but it is buried deep within us, woven through the fabric of our existence.

I can only see what I cannot see. The peripheral vision of the soul. This life is nothing but an illusion. Every molecule we believe to exist only buries us deeper, wrapping us, leaving us entangled ever deeper in the sweet and the warm, the cold and the harsh.. the illusion.

I can see but I do not understand, the regression analysis of skill. There is only one source, of that I am sure. What the nature of that source is, I haven't the clarity of mind to know.

The source of all suffering is our arrogance; we think we understand reality. We think we see cause and effect. The real questions about reality are much more complex, and the answers much simpler.