outward appearances cellar door

Unless you are a student of people, versus a voyeur, we would seem ordinary people enveloped in an extraordinary bond as friends.

He said; “I think we are going to be fabulous friends!” This was after I had spoken in a meeting of Adult Children of Alcoholics.

And so we are: Mentor/Mentee, teacher/student become friends. And he, like M, are two trustworthy people I can call at any hour, day or night, for a 'reality check.' While standing upon the crumbling cliff of suicide, or other matters of lesser extremes.

I betray myself for I have not had such a relationship with the several friends and peers who took their lives, or died by disease, or accident, before I began this long journey from darkness into the light.

Surprising! This spooling out cobwebs of words finding oneself naked and real; loving and loved. Especially when I consider that I never listened to my heart before the beginning of keeping a journal. And, obvious now, between secrets and agony so profound it seemed a poison to speak I refused to even listen to myself.

She, M, said yes to my request that we have coffee after cardiac rehab. So began not only the saving of my life—i was suicidal at that point---but making a life possible for me. Transcendent; no longer fearful to live or die. There seems no parenthetical boundaries to describe or enclose love for another as the best for them.

130423 03:33

“It is customary these days to ignore what should be done in favor of what pleases us.” - Plautus

At lunch yesterday – M seems to favor public places curiously – surrounded by young men and women attentive to electronic devices, instead of one another, we swapped anecdotes indicative of the criminal consequences. The Plautus quote I discovered as I am now want to do, at times bouncing between my thoughts and the thoughts of others. Or should I say weaving? Conscious, now, of my firm attention to serendipity, or synchronicity; vastly more frequent now. Could be merely coincidence? These collisions between concerns and potential answers; but not divination as a magic trick. We, all of human kind, use so little of our minds otherwise endlessly seeking pleasure instead of joy.

Sleeping as a wolf, or, sleeping when tired, I returned to rest and dreamed again of resources from childhood. Which, in truth, was not entirely bad. Mother did read to me early on and I remember snatches of stories that mystically beguiled and delighted me. Otherwise I should have ended my life long ago.

Periodicity has little meaning to me; suspended between a sense before and after times measurement. Less and less daily now. Plautus predated the common era by two hundred years. Again and again I return to the collective consciousness I sense common to all ages, races, creeds. If not actual at least potential.

05:33

Would I be a savior, or champion, of women? Or as we all need, both genders, to be saviors to ourselves. I speak not of one woman but many, all loved, in ways uncommon for themselves--WOMEN. Who seemed to have been touched by violence; enslaved for being gentle. Kind. At heart, or by my expectation? And they not for themselves but as object/subject of lust; a convenience raped and soul murdered. The rub being we all have towering within us something that is hidden; creation stronger than destruction. Ill defined and traded away for what? Safety? Or is it covenant, convention or delusion. Men have never interested me. Seeing them, like my once self, as puppets to their rage over being separated from Mother or never having one. Courage is in neither gender but both; always potential. In too few realized, manifest or published.

Happy Birthday Willy Shakes! (William Shakespeare)

"To thine own self be true." - Polonius, in Hamlet

“To find the point where hypothesis and fact meet; the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality; the place where fantasy and earthly things are metamorphosed into a work of art; the hour when faith in the future becomes knowledge of the past; to lay down one’s power for others in need; to shake off the old ordeal and get ready for the new; to question, knowing that never can the full answer be found; to accept uncertainties quietly, even our incomplete knowledge of God; this is what man’s journey is about, I think.”

- Lillian Smith http://www.sayingsnquotes.com/quotations-by-subject/life-quotes-proverbs-sayings-32/

Beauty, like God, is not a thing, but a feeling inside. An experience

remember the chrysalis

thank you Wendy Gold; creator of the globe

130422 23:02 outward appearances cellar door

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/cellar+door

© 2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved

Family Issues

In a few instances I can recall having had dreams as complete short stories. Some I can remember and now wonder if they are amongst the many early ones I destroyed or abandoned kept in journals. The first several hundred, possibly near one-thousand, were screeds filled with angst. Attempts to make sense of chaos. Finding reasons for being abandoned and trashed physically and emotionally.

The dream I have just awakened from is so bizarre that I can hardly contain it regarding my sister, her husband and their family about whom I seldom dream.

In which their children had adopted children certain to die. And in one instance married one to collect the insurance. Perhaps this was suggested, I am not sure. The disquiet I had in the dream and now is better placed in my thesis that we all are one family global. (Added later: Nothing is for Naught and nothing is as judged.)

Being fully human and well acquainted with joy and sorrow, my devils and angles, little surprises me save the on going receipt of confessions regarding those amongst us victimized. There is a significant difference between the original journals I kept and now. Where there was outrageous behavior I now tend towards forgiveness, understanding, mercy; instead of vindication or retribution. A personal choice. Not what I advocate for the confessor. For whom, if allowed, or indicated, or requested, I have labored to aid their peace. If not absolution. Knowing too well being possessed by rage towards those who did persecute me.

Possible now only after long effort to understand the what, why, when, where and how integrating both my responsibility and my parents. (Added during rewrite: I sense in all cultures extreme views and behaviors that plague us all.)

Nothing worked for me. And the commonly sought remedies were unavailable due to the secrets it seemed that I must keep. Adapting to circumstance now redefined by M through her vast experience with criminal behavior.

The impact upon a child regarding abuse, sexual or emotional, is equal in consequence. The source of predation is as often extreme religious, political, economic views as drugs such as alcohol. Many of us, the abused, turn out well and at the very least are able to cope. Tempted here to use the the term “NORMAL” but nothing is normal except a setting on laundry appliances. Instead I will simply say that on average we are born, live, then die without causing harm to others. No one escapes life all die. Death being the great democracy.

Suicide is a constant companion near always mentioned as an alternative by those who share their intimate lives with me. I sense this is the motive behind rampage acting out. The costs to the commonweal is staggering and growing through the Population Stress Syndrome. Which by investigation is largely attributable to natural consequence by over population in Earth Science. My inquiry is far reaching beyond the bounds of good and evil. Which I believe is fundamentally sentimental and wishful thinking. Or worse, projection upon the behavior of others, that which we deny in ourselves.

11:54

In another dream, at first I thought the dream rude and salacious; about men and very young nubile women. Something appropriate for Literotica. But with my next cup of coffee began integrating it into my sense of what is above, earlier written; an abiding concern.

There is no school for parenting. Of those in my memory none have proven ineffective. To the contrary they seem responsible for harm. There are far too many cases of incest unreported. And like my secret regarding my parents difficulties with alcohol, one of the lies I lived by far too long. By my experience we the victims presume responsibility as a defense mechanism—being cute, literary, what I call preemptive damage control: “I am bad and deserve nothing better” or “I am to stupid to live” . . . or learn, or become healthy and whole . . . to be a completely real person sincere. Not exclusively defined by race, gender, gender proclivities, creed or anything outside my choice; given that I am, like all of us free, to meld within the global community responsibility participating and doing no harm.

Recently I remarked to a friend, while discussing our choices of mates, the advantage/problem with pornography is it never talks back. To which we both, in chagrin said, 'neither did our mates.' The absence of response equals no affection. A passive-aggressive rejection. Abandonment. No trust possible. My compulsion, addiction and fetishes have been a curiosity forever. Understanding finally that what I sought from others was impossible since I always chose those who most closely resembled my most dysfunctional parent. Why settle for fleeting minutes of pleasure when limitless joy can be yours eternally? Sexual gratification is the lesser part, glorious in and of itself, but minor to a lifetime of friendship.

130422 04:59

What loves us is ourselves, finally, and then the fear and hatred leaves. Self-Love is not “Hey Look At Me!” but being a friend and parent to the child we—really it was merely me who remained childish for a very long time, growing up and old, never 'mature.' Lending me a small urgency to share the process, the miracle. Neither this nor that; but the whole megillah . . . unique to each of us individually.

21:14

Apropos of nothing within this post but the parenthetical expansion of time when with M. Her name and birthday coupled with a plethora of other personal to me mythologies expands our time, precious, beyond the beginning and ending of either us or it, itself, time. Our times together are fewer now due to a host of reasons. No three times a week but once a week if I am lucky. We seem oddly fragile and resilient physically. Yet as from the beginning, so now, we bask in one another; silence within cacophony. I cupping both ears to hear her lilting lullaby of voice.

This post it getting over long and I will swiftly close with the following. I began to suspect myself a “dry drunk” given my parents problems. Then began a number of 12 Step programs ending in Codependent issues from which I conclude myself graduated. Astonished that the process goes on expanding and discovering issues to which I clung, mostly people, who rehearsed my parents behavior, destructive to my marginal sanity. People incapable of loving themselves lending equality to anyone or thing outside their rigid defenses.

Returning to M. I was thinking she had, in her manifold gifts to me, constructed a scaffold, or enabled one for me to build myself a life exclusive to my needs and intentions. However, for now I, will advocate that should you be a victim, as I once was, seek help. Stop isolating within the stew of secrets kept. Find peers with whom you can identify taking ownership of your self.

I think my greatest gift is friendship with that which most call “God.” Neither faith or belief but experience.

130421 06:24 MDT Family Issues

© 2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved

stillness

Arising or falling there is a stillness now. Freedom from superlative or preposition relative to nothing but freedom to be as I am. Surprisingly, the question arose, within: 'do fleas have fleas?'

Expanding from the events surrounding the Boston Marathon and the noise surrounding it. Invoking a certain hatred of broadcast journalism; as like a carnival freak show. Cacophony lending thoughts of “You Bet Your Life.” Taking the average Joe and selling him on the ideal of being hunted to death while paying his survivors a living wage. For the the edification and delectation of the bored, the specious, the vacuous of those with no life save for entertainment until they fall over dead themselves.

Day times spent in soapy mental enemas for the mindless.

Do I sound harshly judgmental? Of course I am, since I apply the same standards to myself. Remembering being there, doing that, as a vocation. Wondering, had I found myself legless, blind, or splattered against the nearest stranger would I have the mercy or grace to forgive? To recognize that the thought was sufficient proof of life that the loss would be inconsequential?

Adapt, improvise, prevail.

When in doubt; make it up.

Suck it up.

Deal, with it.

Not what you were, will be, but are.

Be Here Now

The stillness I experience is in darkness, bereft of the mirror maze I found myself in, then calling it life. Seeking to be seen as adequate or good enough to be allowed to live--not merely exist.

I sense myself being birthed. Altered from what I was to what I am. This is a daily, or near so, experience. Another day? No. The First Day.

06:08

Imagine yourself in an euthanasia clinic, awaiting your turn to die, being sucked hollow by commercial broadcast television (additionally I am thinking of NPR yesterday--eclipsing the world other than what happened in Boston, making myself ill the memory) then add the pontifical posturing and menace of the Police. Recalling the pontifical harrumphing blow fish checks of the wanna be king from Arizona expelling methane orally. Ah. Yes. McCain the only republican I once thought myself capable of voting for.

My point being that while all the nattering goes on about specific crimes nothing is said of the serial rape of the world, its inhabitants, the economy by the gangsters on Wall Street.

10:11

. . . and then the savage longing for revenge exorcised upon the perpetrators. Astonishing! An eye for an eye leaves the entire world blind.

Do I eulogize my self or the world broken?

As I, we, the world, were, no longer.

OMG just realized that I had forgotten what year it was!? Having served the demented and those with full blown Alzheimer's I wonder if I am not in the beginning phases? Possibly a “senior moment” but then equally or, more better yet, merely me writing from within that place I go when creative. Writ large or small upon the sand storm of time.

130421 01:12

Awoke sieving the desert of my mind seeking something magnificent. Then realizing I'd been equivocal about this post. Merely for my loathing of all things Mass Man: Crowds, Wars, Riots and the many times I found myself imperiled thereby. Recalling my vocation as called to 'the temple of truth' or so I called then newspapers and journalism; a knight errant.

Too aware the fabric of culture rent with avarice and indifference to the value of what happens to one happens to all.

And then there is my head-long plunge into an education attempting to train my sense, thinking and feeling near equal to my intuition. Discovering instinct fearless seeking the meaning of chaos. Turn, turn again, twist and shout I can find nothing but meaning everywhere I seek. Then the poverty of language to speak of it in any terms vernacular or all the other forms obvious to me.

Emergent within is a sense of stillness and silence odd to my assertions. True of all change it takes a while to integrate the truths self evident.

Therefor this may be folly to let go. A tearing of another sort of bread, sourdough, spread upon the vast waters of the Web.

I love people but distrust crowds.

130420 04:13 MDT stillness

© 2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved

ok 2 b U

As archeologist/self-biographer I am amused to tell you I am certifiably insane. There is a history, like toilet paper spooling from the cuff of my left pant leg, trailing me hither and yon. Detailing all the past medical history for which I have spent thousands of wasted dollars for medications I did not need. The misdiagnosis, bipolar, seemed to fit. Invoking a sense of relief. Having long wondered what was wrong with me; verbatim, my mother's response upon first hearing.

There have been other cases of misinformation and consequences. Only yesterday I heard a doctor explain why my son died; having been x-rayed in his mother's womb four or five times over. A fact that the AMA did not approve at the time. In general doctor's have a license to practice medicine and are not miracle workers or gods.

My abiding concern is for people. Why we do what we do. Healing that in myself makes it less mysterious in others. Retrospectively it explains my entire esthetic to me. More-or-less equally divided between the art/craft of writing—something previously impossible to me—then reporting the facts of my experience so that, perhaps, just one other might be encouraged to fight for themselves in the face of 'authority.'

I find it bemusing the number of medicos and politicians who treat us with humiliation, indifference and as cyphers towards their bank accounts. I do have a prejudice for the servant of servants, obvious to and among the poor.

140419 03:53 Ashamed

I am ashamed that I've lost my mother's bequest. Conscious of her labors, oblivious to her former husband , my father, for who's ambitions I prostituted mine, at the end he left me bereft of his company as well as his fortune I helped to amplify and invest.

Equally, possibly more so, I am ashamed of what American Free Market Economy, has become as terrorist to the world.

Then swiftly spiraling downward, awake, I discovered a new sense for 'insanity':

“We painters use the same license as poets and madmen.” ~ Paolo Veronese

. . . then rediscovered my sense nothing is lost in eternity. All will be well, in all things, all will be well. We are held in memory by choice, chance, creation or evolution . . . lending my recall, that to be kind is to define what I am convicted of: mercy not rage. Love made possible for all, in reality.

Startled to recognize that I am held in confidence; wherein the past I was terrified that it was all an illusion. This that I write is nothing but notes on a life becoming something else as we all are. And ask merely for patience to see what we become. And become of us. A blossoming new creation or merely rendering ourselves extinct.

Could it be that the real insanity--doing the same things expecting different results--is what those who pretend to be most sane, the governors and rulers of sacred, secular empires do. Applying more censure, closer examination of everything we do. Following us everywhere knowing our every thought. House arrest for the entire world?

The promptings of my heart, sought and apprehended, lend me fear of nothing and envy of no one. To live as I did, once, was a living death: no life at all.

Sanity for me is to be wary of those who claim to have absolute, definitive, revealed answers for all.

Inherent within each of us is that which was before the beginning and will remain at the ending of everything. Attend that and be your once and only wildly precious self celebrating life, this day, as if it were your last.

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."

"It is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations." - Nietzsche

130418 01:24 Okay 2 B U

© 2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved

Grand Slam

Awoke thinking of her. Her bequest. The gift of her 'travel Concordance Bible'. Small, worn, pages wet (I thought by tears and/or sweat oddly) the New Testament spine broken mended taped.

Void, coffee, playing with Annie waiting at the lavatory sink wanting me to leave the water running for her to play with. Then. Wikiquote: First Up this day: “Man is not an end but a beginning. We are at the beginning of the second week. We are children of the eighth day.” ~ Thornton Wilder

Ode to Joy; my cheeks wet with it!

Words from beyond the beyond; after the grave she speaks still and I am renewed beginning again. My once and only? life is fabulous, wealthy in ways and measures immeasurable. Irrelevant but to me precious and from which I write. Om. Humming.

Me, the flea, howling at the moon, and laughing.

“We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” ~ Thornton Wilder (born 17 April 1897)

. . . she, of course, like M, read me like a book, naked, obvious, what am I to do with that, what it was for?

Coatings: as child, then vital adult, a carpenter, and now older, not necessarily, wiser I am thinking of what I know as; “Boxing Paint”: To take many, or several, or merely two gallons of one color and mix them together in one vessel making hue and value uniform . . . then thinking additionally; I once paced the confines of a coffin I'd put myself into early after birth. A living death that I then called “life.”

Now, as then, I think myself a Legionnaire in the Legion of the Lost. The many of us. Even those who overtly seem successful also lost for the want of such love: The All of Us.

And for that I will march through the pathless stars forever more.

In gratitude.

Yes!

(Note: As overwhelming as the cause and effect seems in my dreams and conscious life. I seldom consider the process as implying institution, fixed and immutable, but a symphony, the end of which, like love, is endless. . . .A having and having not. Add. Always follow the threads however gossamer.)

Rogue realization from experience: Illicit resources drug/alcohol etc. enable the departure but disable the trip . . . maybe, maybe not, becoming a form of dreams invoked but terrifying. Do I think of dreams as divination? Obviously, yes!

My thesis: nothing is lost in the universe, seems more true than ever now. The dialog between us, the giver of her missionary bibles traveled to China and Equator, continues to redefine what she implied in “Keep the Faith” her last words to me.

My grief healed, after thirty-fives years, of presumed guilt for the death my children by some personal fatal and evil flaw. I will flounder and lurch onward being extruded of similar inverse conceits. To what end? When in doubt make it up.

To close: I am not oblivious of the events in Boston: violence and carnage. At the same time I recognize the same events, small scale, in my life and wonder if we, the family of all mankind, remain oblivious our mass suicide? Amongst the great anarchist, Jesus comes to mind first, and then following by my personal discovery, all the others, stemming back, historically, and forward until now: upon the cusp of what I sense the end of all freedoms, aborted politically, expedient in the name of reelection or “safety.”

I have no answers for us, only for myself, born in chaos accustomed to change, minute to minute. Thus at peace with the sight of blood & death—birth as well; external or internal. Real or imagined. Inferred or implied.

My peace is not the absence of hazard or plain. I know no guarantees, save in this: Love is preemptive and law remedial. For love, I am conservative of the origins of it, freely given. Orthodoxy now seems retroactive abortion of our freedoms into slavery for the profit of the few so selfish to remain in power and wealth.

Expect more, not less, violence.

It is the way of Power and Force. Rampage seems only one form of possible protest.

For myself, and for you, I advocate: Fear no one and envy nothing.

"The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar."- Michel de Montaigne

I am tempted to quote what initiated this dream, and what I have initially written, but feel impelled to use my own words and the sense I have of their meaning: What you value for eternity is within you, both intrinsic and extrinsic, there is no way around it but through it.

For now, for ever?

Success seems the way of death, while freedom is a joy forever born of adversity. Not freedom for the few to exploit the many, but freedom for all equally. Bliss is responsive, generous, participatory and responsible doing no harm. Convicted by love, the greatest power and force I know.

16:39

I am going to let this end as above. Further thinking hasn't revealed anything new, merely a reprise of ancient wisdom. There is no good news, it, otherwise wouldn't be “news.” I am not too shabby when it comes to consoling having done so for myself, for a lifetime.

130417 04:04 MDT Grand Slam

© 2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved

flow of time

between now and then flowing adored

are moments of dusk encroaching hovered

promise of dawn's loom celebrated a bride's dream penetrated

dancing swaying incarnating the sway of creation

At least in so far as I can see, and experience, in the foreground of my life, the horizon is the edge and end of everything. Tho I see differently in the solitary night silence delight. Wherein there is an audience of one. Permissible what before seemed impressionable, not license, but conversation. No answers per se but responsibility and participation; an opening to beyond the beyond and more: new territories and vistas. Bliss. Joy.

Confessionally I will admit idolatry, closeted with quotes, the authors of words and creation combined dancing; accomplished finished and fine.

Whole or Holy?!

Then finding myself fragmented, shards upon the ground of my perceptions. Seeds scattered. Growing new things thoughts or something else. New.

The authors of my disaster and destruction are as venal as I (laughter) variegated various variety motley crew rowing towards the unknown/unknowable.

No coxswain am I, but one of the oarsmen thrashing stars; groaning lubricious and fecund. Trembling desirous. Galley slaves weeping blood, lives filling the bilge, laughing, shred by the grape shot of love. Laboring towards the origins of what was immeasurable before there was time.

Me thinks the author of us is not silent but still speaking the menu of life. Suggesting not bananas versus cumquats but perchance a bit more salt or less. Or would you believe, fasting sometimes? No more six o'clock news for you little boy, keep rowing the night away. Yes. I am more like Ruth than ruthless; whether thou go go I; a flea on a dog comes to mind but I am less than the flea. My sustenance excretes kindness now boundless. Can I be so bold, or a fool follish, to say: 'what I give is endlessly replaced by more'?

Could it be that books are not suppositories, nor palliatives, but doubt, sugar coated? And libraries, temples or churches, if you will allow, inhaled, consuming me.

I, simply, must stop ogling women librarians as temple whores or oracles. Flirting. Wandering the stacks randomly stroking the spines finding what has recently blow me away. The gods upon my pantheon have feet of clay. Tears of mirth. (“Writers Gone Wild” by Bill Peschel)

Slurry, desiccated, returned to dust, twirling above and about, a desert dust devil, once a water spout. Ah! Sweet Jesus diving with a bungee cord I'm in love with words.

Dear Coxswain, never allow me to lose my awe of thee.

SIDEBAR:PERCEPTION

I have be found by what I sought.

We humans tend to see everything initially through a filter. Our favored point of view: thinking, sensing, feeling or intuition. Why should I fear what I will never ever take for granted?

The thought invoked another: the sensing functions (listed) cover a primary: instinct. Fight or flight, friend or foe; threat assessment. My reverent awe is another way of saying fear.

The flea circus I am, my test object/subject, is linging up in chorus saying YES!

And it is wisdom to fear God, in Whom I, unlike the dollar currency, do trust.

Always, in all things, nothing for naught.

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”

- Henri Bergson

130416 02:25 MDT flow of time

© 2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved

credit capture: Mike Brodie A PERIOD OF JUVENILE PROSPERITY

light years to travel

Light years, of needs, travel before I rest as dust upon the desert.

Perchance to arise in another form or merely lay decayed, finally mute.

If now I depart it is fine with me for I trust the process leading me to this moment.

All seventy-two years of it.

And in that trust is my peace, the only I've ever known, alone or together, in the world. . .

this that we call “life.”

Neither life nor death is my enemy.

A lover once asked that I never change. It was the death knell between us. More killing than her telling me herself pregnant with our child. At which point I fell silent, the tryst ended, the friendship never. My son dying after his sister was compelling me. In a sense or way to kill us both; the lover and me.

Khalil Gibran suggests that our children come not for us but through us—for themselves. Obviously, if you know me, a problem for all of them lost. Regrets? No! Since the child who writes this is borning.

Change, or Process, is the true nature of Nature itself. Slow revolution. What some might call evolution. And for me it is the solar winds that I sail. Not being, a two dimensional cutout cardboard figure in anyone's ecstatic play. And those I love remain beloved, ferociously, savagely, in my silent regard. A conflagration of prayer. Not for me, or us, but they; the best of all the cosmos intentions.

I am not this body, these thoughts, those feelings, but gossamer, a spider web woven daily anew. Yesterday and all days before it, trivial. Future unknown—unknowable. Now is glorious and sufficient. What is blown away, apart, vaporous; not timorous any more, ever again.

Resilient/Resolved

Imperfect and unconscionably rude, towards many closest to me, I wander on seeking nothing discernible save that I give birth to what I am now. Caring not a wit about tomorrow.

Abuse?

Yes!

But that was then from birth until yesterday. Now levitated by a new understanding of who, what, why and when it happened to me; no one but myself to blame for allowing it. Thanks to M who, when asked, twined two fingers of one hand, indicating there is no effective difference between sexual and emotional abuse to the victim. In consequence a life bent, mangled, contorted by an on following attempt to define and evaluate the why of it. When, most of all, it is not because of anything other than opportunity for a moments amusement; entertainment for the vacuous and bereft of empathy or compassion.

Formerly I was intuitive to a fault. Not a flaw. But prone to magical thinking. Speaking/Writing before engaging the several other faculties available to all of us in balanced application. Requisite: to place phenomena in context of hard facts. What some call evil is often merely biological. My enemy is myself if I do not engage my antagonist learning his/her perception of me.

We are what we consume by food, air, water or information. About which I am indiscriminate giving credence to random associations within me. So I am not writing a gospel for anyone other than myself and understanding. Merely annotating a process available to us all, as refracted through our individual perceptions, understanding and capacities.

We are legion, myself included, abused, disaffected, disenfranchised, throughout our lives. Until we discover that the violence done to us is not always physical, penetrative, but emotional as well. Leaving us helpless in fear, attaching to smoke and mirrors; promises of safety. How our “rulers” manipulate us into voluntary slavery having never known what freedom is: to be ourselves unique. Unwilling to take responsibility or participate fully in this, once and only life, precious, our only wealth. As for those who “rule” most, if not all, seem now, from my point of view and perception, to hide behind pretense their fear of being inadequate.

“Let 'Miky' do it!” Or “Be All That You Can Be” Go to war and come home in a bag or scrambled emotionally and physically then abandoned by those who promised to take care of you.

"If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works, with all the misconceptions, the omissions, the failures that any finished work of art implies." - John Dos Passos "Looking Back on U.S.A.," New York Times, Oct 25 1959

Here I am thinking of advertising intended to sell you not what you need but what you 'want.' Topical but true throughout history. We have life that we be free and not slave to anything or one including the author of everything. (at the moment of proof, edit, rewrite I am equally compelled to examine my own words and at that, naked of the original enthusiasm clothing them.)

Hell's Bells and Twinkle Toes, I ain't even a slave to myself. But now attempting to close there is always a question to publish or delete. Thinking that like, prayer, words change nothing but the author; am I cynical or skeptical?

Conjecture:

Power: A mask that fear wears, and force, in proportion to inner terror, else why is God silent allowing free will?

Frauds passing in opposite directions, shouting equal salutation, hell bent for election; towards glory or perdition. Never say of another what could as easily be said of yourself. One is called projection the other self-possession. If the truth fits, wear it.

130415 03:27 light years to travel

© 2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved

credit capture: Mike Brodie “A Period of Juvenile Prosperity” about which I can only say I am reverent but not sanctimonious and inordinately appreciative of his vision.