Scarcely do I at times know myself; who or why. It is as though looking for footwear, finding only the left flip-flop or Crock, then wondering why Annie likes my rubber shoes; all her teeth marks on the left and few to almost none on the right. 

Then I dressed lurching blest that I'd remembered my 'going out-of-doors-shorts' disheveled orangutan hair unshaved to pay the rent; last day tomorrow; then in consequence attention of the now assistant-property manager. Whose attentions have cost me so much; that were I to die to escape his authority I would consider it a blessing. 

Depending upon the sincerity of the observer; I look ten to twenty years younger than I am. Of men I never ask but of women near always. Then following on with; "Do you like older men?" Leering. 

Factually there is only one woman in whose embrace would I find any peace. I'm having lunch with her meaning M today having set the submarine dive klaxon to awaken me should I nod off prematurely. . . .

. . . May I, or should I, forget my anger towards Bill Gates? Instead of killing him, merely suggest that someone -- after all he is the richest man in the world -- concoct a key command that would reverse two letters; my most frequent typo. That's what I adored about Word Star word processing software and company he submerged in bankruptcy. 

Not not intended -- this endorsement: Jarte is what I use everyday to write with and I love it; my love affair enhanced if only it had Word Star's key commands enabling me to never leave the keyboard; meaning no mouse at all required. A free version is available on the net. 

As I crossed the parking lot traveling the block or so towards the check drop in the rising sun there was a neighbor I know but not well. He was carrying a bass guitar, Latino but his English is more than adequate. I asked him is it "buenos dias" or "buenos noches" = 'Good Morning' or 'Good Night' since I want to be one of them, my neighbors . . . had I the time I'd study not Spanish; but "Spanglish" . . . I love my neighbors and wish to be able to better communicate with them; that is until the then property manger (a Gringo or Anglo, like me) -- the initiator of monthly "home invasions" . . . the women hide their wash, especially undergarments and other things they fear being evicted for, A torment and torture for us all. I ceased to participate in any functions he might attend; including the distribution of free charity food -- I live in poverty. In consequence of my new absence my neighbors, mostly women, asked me why whenever I ventured our during daylight hours.

Federal Law mandates semi or annual inspections.

This is the warp and woof; a mini tapestry of my ordinary life here in the Boarder Lands between Mexico and New Mexico aka Mexico and The United States.

The man carrying a bass guitar is named Benny or Ben, I knew that, but had to reorient my attention to recall it. What ensued, simply, blew me away and apart. I am able to sight read on between nine and eighteen different musical instrument unable to name the key of the music or the various Italian emphasis words but know which key or fret to press playing/performing the music. Which is one of the only bequest my father gave me. Though he never interceded between mother and myself while she beat, kicked, threw me out-of-doors naked, he taught me to fix, repair, rebuild musical instruments. All except keyboards: piano or organs. Benny tunes pianos, is a lay preacher and now a friend. Who in this brief encounter reminded me of the only real peace at the behest of my dad; while fixing musical instruments I went away into my head and there discovered a host of things, actual blessings, that he would deny me otherwise. Though he called when dying and was otherwise a friend with no benefits: any part of his estate that I in, slave labor, minimum wage; to the extent of; when married with child we had to look seventy five miles distant to find a home we could afford. 

I, like Mom, was subject to his intentions and destinations; taken to places he wanted to go. That plus furs and cars were mother's only payment for 24/7/365 care taking his dependencies including bookkeeping for the family business. 

I loved and still love them both now forgiven and not forgotten. 

As a male I am shy to proclaim myself a man, much less a musician, painter, draftsman, wannabe priest, photographer, writer/author/poet since I remain in exponential awe of those who do so much better than I could ever dream of becoming. They are the artist and I merely the audience. Perchance a good one; as I am of God. Possibly my only claim to talent or genius knowing God as real.

As a man I've become less shy and/or isolated from friends I trust, few and precious to me. I now belong to a community in the more than loose abuse of the term; in that I while volunteering at hospice know more than the dying. I know their friends, their spouses, siblings, children. All before and after the soul departs and know some better long after their bereavement commences . . . in some small way embracing their grief; a topic I know too well. 

I tend to trust women for they give me the straight skinny about everything. While men tend to beat about the bush, so to say (pun intended?!) Males tend to talk about, or to, issues; seldom creatively, regarding what they will live and die for above and beyond the cult of Patriotism; in the bumper sticker sense. Like my cute nursery rhyme name, chanted, I tend to ignore those who use common and obvious phrases regarding anything.

I can be and am charming, capable of scintillating conversation on/of/about/regarding an astonishing variety of topics. That describes not dependence but a persona who knows how to meld with and manipulate a crowd. I am not extrovert, at least to my degree, considerable, of understanding the implications and clinical definitions. Meaning, to me, that I derive no energy from the activity and merely used the ability to gain access to one President, a King and his family, Senators & Representatives and any number of hostile subjects I was assigned to photograph and an overwhelming number of excellent artists/celebrities in their vocation of choice. 

Now that I am redundant and awaiting death to be replaced by the next generation; or merely retired. Left to my own devises I seek solitude. Only knowing myself a solitary though the generous gift of M, an expert forensic psychologist, who being a solitary herself would, reasonably, distrust, or at least be suspicious of my request for a kiss; much less laying within her embrace like two kittens in a pile of comforters innocent. 

The day after tomorrow I will learn if I have cancer rampantly spreading thr0ughout my body. She is facing the same issue. 

Coincident?!

I love this woman, the only one I've ever completely trusted. Should she request that I stab myself in any part of myself: eyes, heart or groin -- with an ice pick she handed to me -- I might briefly think about it. Or like the Sufi's say of the 'Devil,' a fallen angel, who in conversation heard, "Be Gone," left now residing in Hell. Eternally loving the last words of God to him.

Then do it. 

She is that near and dear nearly so as to God to me.

It is she who said I could heal, curious three years later I asked who, why, how, when or so my thoughts were flowing; to which she replied; "you will," simply. 

I write inappropriately using slang and my personal life (self-knowledge as in "Know Thy Self") as an example of what healed me. 

Her. 
Obviously. 

Yet in resurrecting me from my tomb of depression, anger, despair; akin to Arthur with drawing the sword from stone; the once-and-future-king is within me; this sovereign kingdom of one -- of no consequence least my paltry talents enable another to cease from suicidal ideation. 

In short what I'm about is far better said by Rumi:

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

Amen.

120904 06:42 estrangement 
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

In a world were words are worn out by liars, Advertisers & Politicians, Inc. 

Coupling with their minions enslaved, bought and paid for to prostitute their brilliant minds -- both buyer and seller, absent any discernable, or viable, Ethical or Morals. They in my concern being indifferent Materialist -- Let me now praise, with sincere and profound gratitude, Johanna Mackey for her gift to me reminding anyone who may, or can, read this; that in my lexicon: 

Amateur means a person who works for the love of work. 

Professional means a person who has no love and works to purchase it. 

Love is more powerful than hate, indifference or death . . . to me as I write.

Preface 120904 03:53

"Comment by 120903 Johanna Mackey + reply 9 hours ago 
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Sitting in a congregation, amid people of beautiful hearts and minds, becomes a contagion toward a brand new paradigm of thinking shared.  You already possess a healthy portion, Jack Spratt, so keep the Faith and rid all the rest -- making room for a whole new world to be given thee.  Good authors, good books, good people reading those books (like those here on Cutural Book) will shut out all the ugly aspects of the world made known to you by painful experience.

You write really well when your anger doesn't seek to destroy your work and wisdom.  Let the anger portions go, release them into nihility or fiction.  Substitute something else for those, transfer your focus away from those dark destructive emotions and your voice -- your writing voice -- will further deepen into the well of your own soul.

Keep up your good writing, and reading of great literature.  The rest will all fade away, Friend.   (It does for everyone).     :)"

Not copyrighted by me but stolen or used without permission in prayer that she will not mind.

&&&

Of all the things I might want to be the least among them is a woman.

Each time I return home from hospice i more often then not fall exhausted in bed 
instantly asleep and in that sleep am transformed from what I was upon entry to what writes these characters across the infinity of white. My, for now, universe of delight moving from zero to the speed of light years. Traveled in my dreams, delight manifest, not unlike writing myself into existence wherein looking back I sense myself no more consequent than a fruit fly's life of; but one night and two days consciousness.

Yet consequent to myself since one mystery was explained (potentially) on a recent broadcast of New Dimensions. About and of which I refuse to define further; overwhelmed with what my son said of me more than once; "you glow" 

. . . What. In my sleep? Did he see this only in the dark? Possibly when he or I are awake? Me. Metamorphic?

I have built from my imaginings, of what he implied, a host of images: myself pressed asleep nose pressed against the ceiling levitated.

LOL 

Or zooming around the universe like a party balloon farting helium inflamed, a wake of galaxies dancing behind me. 

The former some what pretentious and yet oddly, dare I say 'divine?' 

The latter scatological -- obvious-- since of my family born; scatology was the norm. 

Thinking now of, the truly divine to me, Ms Ella Fitzgerald and her scat songs singing in tongues!?! Helpless. My attention/mindfulness leaps to The Magnificat 

. . . Were I to describe my thoughts, in terms taught to me by one, the other wife seldom spoken of, who described Word Wheels & their use in literature. Well. Suddenly my frame of reference a blank white piece of paper; or what defines writing with light: photography. Well -- then the frame is no longer blank but beclouded with black on white markings between and into which I delightfully play watching them propagate; a child's delight? Of course it is to me for I giggle then laugh taking my breath away with joy of the creation apparent across the night become day obvious. Darkened by characters no longing banal but celestial?

Being a woman of course my first wife, upon my leaving her, changed her name from Mrs. Jack Spratt to something I will not, can not, repeat. Since I still love her unreasonably. 

If you might consider, or become mindful of, what I'm about to say -- then follow me closely: to be called Jack Spratt with a giggle and smirk is boring since it describes nothing but a label tattooed across my face telling everyone who so calls me merely a nursery rhyme saying nothing of or about the experience of being myself. 

So it seems to me, on one level, she scraped me off the sole of her shoe. Seldom high heels; one of my prime sexual fetishes since I adore all Women indiscriminately and high heels are but one symbol of them whom I dare not touch but what she scraped of the sole of her, actually beautiful naked feet or otherwise, was dog dodo -- that was a bird now extinct and what I intended is do do; or shit. 

Without entering what for me is THE THEOLOGICAL TANGO sometimes thought of as mumbles or Mojo or Juju, or merely a thorny thicket into which someone, at birth, placed me: a sticky black tar baby for others to giggle, smirk and poke; like a horde of fire ants now covering me in agony.

Well aware of my real/insanity as I was informed by some of the first words I heard and began to understand as describing me to myself . . . Repeating the same thing or action repeatedly expecting different results is INSANITY! At least to the man who I adore, admire and would if allowed follow from a great distance since by nature I am unworthy to inhabit the same universe as he. And He is but one a now legions including Women whom I have equal if not greater reverence for.  

Laughing at myself is a prime pleasure since I take myself not seriously. Except when I write since in writing I am defining myself as some one or thing not INSANE. 

. . . She was extraordinarily beautiful and intelligent, at least more so than me, and I adored her. And her mother was a GAS explosively so much more than her daughter (jazz term of my era; "you are a gas; that riff you just blew!)

. . . is anyone there? I mean does anyone read me? I am alone in the night with Annie sleeping peacefully near me . . . 

Between the metronome of time the tick-and-the-tock I hear, "Do you want to live another moment or not?!"

. . . otherwise alone in space -- the void of my mind. 

Apparently the girl, whose name is, or was, when I speak of or about her Nancy. She married a man I intuited a sadist but Nancy seemed to adore not her mother but her father and the man she married wanted to be call FATHER! As or so I imaged then and now only the devises change in my dreams conscious to me: toothed nipple clamps twisted and she ecstatic?! I adore intelligent women who think and speak and teach me about living and thinking and being. It was she who said; " . . never ever use the same word twice in one sentence and if you want to be a real writer don't use it more than once in an entire paragraph . . " She, before marriage, was a book editor.

What follows: this string, or stanza, is a distillation of many slanders accepted -- describing me to my self: "You are unworthy of life!"

I've never been able to understand apprehend/comprehend why I've drown five times over? And yet I still have 'life!?' Five times five thousand nights (metaphorically) I entered what I now call 'merely rest' but then it was: "Now I lay me down to sleep" -- ideally the rest is -- "I pray my soul to keep should I die in the night." My subtext or back story, unconscious then but conscious and mindful now was; "I hope never to awake."

Thus I think, I never wanted to be born, any more than any delight a woman could/can provide me otherwise. So pain filled did my mother seem consequent to my being ever born. 

Rage. 

Rage unimaginable even to me who was enraged at the defamation of me.

. . . wandered off there/here . . . coffee, etc. . . . 

Nothing it seems can distract me from the real chaos of creation -- or -- THE BIG BANG! . . Through which I at times soar and at others am simply evaporated, not death but, in ecstasy. 

Then too there are times the dragon of my rage (so large I can see neither the beginning or end of it)in whose mouth belching flame, vaporizing my fingers, do I attempt to bridle and thus control it's flight dragging me through mountains of stone or transparent night the plate glass shattering; and fully conscious I'm in the FARGO SHREDDER not dead but feeling every nick the severing of every nerve attempting to avoid the pain. 

Impossible agony like being burned alive never dying no escape.

By Her witness and verified on my birth certificate: I was born November 8th at 11:59pm. Or, as is my common practice, this being a 24/7/365 global time experience of life: 401108 23:59. Not on the certificate but as told to me by her: I was born after 58 hours of dry delivery during which, implied, inferred or told; she wanted to die frequently.

By publication, choice, chance or dedication I fear nothing. But those times when I awaken and there is a poem or psalm complete upon my lips I am terrified but have learned to live with my fear/love of God & Women. 

There have been dreams without monsters but conundrums, puzzles, complete short stories and mazes from which after five times I escaped finding myself in a moonlight desert naked looking back and seeing a crenellated castle with banners waving indifferent my escape to wander the trackless eternity of life.

Life is, for me, sometimes, burning in Hell without respite -- helpless & hopeless. 

Endless pain. 

And now, or so it would seem, as I was blamed for her pain -- I experience someone who unwittingly or deliberately causes me pain. I -- sensing-thinking-feeling-intuiting -- I'd like to reach down their throat pinch their sphincter between my fingers and draw in up and over their head smothering them. Then resurrect them to do it all over again. . . .As suicide has been my constant companion. Now equally are visions/version of destroying the life of those who like mother caused me pain.

Writing is the only activity I've found, when in isolation, my preferred state, or estate, wherein I find peace, joy, or a reason to breathe again. To arise from sleep drawn and quartered between Heaven and Hell. 

I began keeping a personal journal around 1977, or 1978, after my son's death December 10th 1997 at or around 20:00. Or for those of you, presumptuous/pretentious of me to so say, time illiterate 8:00pm.

With various permutations, convulsions and convolutions; nearly all before now destroyed or abandoned -- as I was by my parents from beginning to end; their's not mine. 

Since in my judgement -- then and now -- retrospectively: all the products of my life, my love, my meaning have been taken from me . . . my macabre sense of humor informs me that I could delete these words and walk away indifferent as my parents were to myself. 

Or. 

Merely as will be my death, here-and-now. 

Sooner-or-later. 

All the furnishings of my life randomly hurled into a dumpster and buried in a landfill or burned. 

I have yet to successfully expunge or delete my life. That which I destroyed was a record of my life until the time of disappearance. Filled with rage against or for life itself. My continual poverty has better informed me -- being an empty cup -- filled again and again -- I've grown more so to not waste the filling. 

Upon close examination. . .  I am after all a sophist who since birth have attempted to not be killed by my mother . . . to not make love to or with her . . . but to argue the case for her loving herself as I do and did . . . in mercy forgiven. . . .In time I've come to see that there are others like me who really don't want to live: not one second more. And by word or deed inform them of my empathy and so to persuade them that it really isn't all that bad. . . .This life we need to leave.

If I could do so my life with all it's pain and joy might have some meaning to me. Lending me a moments respite against the starry night twirling above me meaninglessly. . . .my gnat's life in eternity. Pardon me while I disappear 

. . . and oh yes! Be well

PS after a lifetime being told I was 'too stupid to get in out of the rain;' I asked my mother if she thought I should or could 'write?' . . . after a lengthy silence she replied; "you don't need my permission . ."

. . . and for me being a Woman is more nearly to be God

PPS at times i become nothing but bifurcated perception: heat and/or threat This emptiness is filled with something I cannot now talk about. It is not time and i am unworthy both the sense and lack the ability to share it with you. Not in distress. Hovering between life and death. Alive or dead meat. You. Or. Me. I/Thou. . . .i neglected to mention i asked a question long ago . . . please dear god be real to me

PPPS I am certifiably mentally ill, having had two brief spans of voluntary incarceration, essentially  for drug reaction or the lack of medication. The history of those events I have an sober and accurate memory. And the consequence of which is obvious. Those I foolishly attack, mostly politicians and their providers, have zero knowledge of what "mental illness" is; therefore easily discredit my conclusions. My conviction, in the company of woman far better versed in the Bible, like M, lead me to conclude that the attention of those whom I attack, irking the ire of, are unworthy of my attention. I close my case. Ending any further mention of my half-brother or father; their theft of my life and emotional/monetary inheritance. Instead I will mine the values learned. Simply stated: I have enough and in that know a wealth they cannot, could not conceive of or pay for. A for such value I will live or die for. To be a complete person one must integrate and become tolerant of all thoughts and ideation's so balanced that all behaviors or deeds manifest what you/i/we want the world to be for our children. Thus did die Gandhi when assassinated express gratitude and blessed his assassin. Sometimes we do what we should Not. At others do what we Should. Only God will judge the truth of me and no other of woman born.

The only reason I am still alive, for now, is that God does not allow me to die yet. And, to me, God is neither man nor woman but possibly both equal. Asexual?

M & L know but won't tell me.

However Ignatius and St. Joan of Ark knew their own truth impossible in their epoch.

PPPPS I would if I could heal those who in rage and grief ignored by We The People and/or the perpetrator(s) randomly acting out in public fatal consequences leaving many wounded or maimed for their lifetime. They too would I heal if I could?!

120903 23:00 gratitude a reply
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved