Thee escape journal pt. 2

We arrive in Jersey where everything has frozen over. Swans dead frozen in ponds and common men standing as statues. I pulled my jacket up over my head, forcing me to bend over while walking slowly through the slushy and slick black ice like some headless hunchbacked monster. We go into the diner, all twelve of us wet,cold and tired. J. grabs a cup of a coffee out of an old man's hand and drinks it down in one fair swoop and throws the mini tea cup at the wall which then shatters into pieces. We all laugh, we expected a show and we got one. The phone was ringing off the hook, long and insesant rings. I followed the sound to the phone and picked it up, it was my mother and she was crying. She said it was my dad, he had died. "Was it the floods? The fire? The scavengers?" I asked. "No" she said. I did not want to have this conversation I slammed the phone receiver into the phone smashing it to bits and then I threw it at the wall. The boys laughed. I examined my bleeding hand till my eyes locked with a lemon danish, I reached over the counter and grabbed it and swallowed it whole.

Winters beach

Winters Beach

Richard Bram awoke on the beach. The sun sat upon him and the winter's beach rhythmically reached for his dampened shoes . He rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face into the sand. The cold covered him in spite of the sun and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into the earth. A great cough filled his throat and forced him to roll over and sit up. He looked out towards the ocean, sand still crusted into the side of his face and white beard, as if the earth had tried to decompose him not knowing his body still breathed. "Bram..b..b..bram..." he said, practicing his speech. This was a consistent practice for him, repeating his name so he could hear it. It was a reminder that he was a part of this world, that he was present amongst the people scenes that he saw. His head pounded as if a church bell was inside hitting the walls as it swung side to side.

He needed a cup of coffee. The sky broke.

He walked down La Rambla stumbling, stinking in the spring rain. His body had developed a coat of nature's elements and whatever other fluids had dripped or leaked from his body . He found a covered cafe and sat down. His smell followed him, a smell he detested. It was his smell and it sat upon him like a virus. It made him hate himself, as if he was his own uninvited guest. He could not separate from himself. It was a shadow that hovered over his every move.

A group of waiters whispered to one another in the corner looking at Richard til one finally sheepishly and relunctantly made his way across the room.


"Buenos dias."

"English?"

"No."

"Espresso, double."

"Si."

Slowly the damp molecules of H2o that where embedded into his skin and clothes evaporated into the air. The coffee warmed him and the corpse had been resurrected. The workers of his head began their day, and the machines went into effect. From his seat he watched unfortunate homeless men walk to and from nowhere . Doing their daily dance. He hated them, they called him brother, look at what they had done by doing so. They are pathetic. They beg before they even speak, they may be his mirror image but inside he was wealthy, he was on an adventure, and they wanted nothing more than to steal the fruit from his tree.

It had been six years since the old man "retired." Once a successful lawyer in Texas, he had accumulated a small fortune and with a small amount of fame, a general disgust for his surroundings, a family he did not know and an unfulfilled secret life as a homosexual, he decided to disappear. One day, six years or so ago, he walked into an airport, closed his eyes, spun in a circle and walked toward the closest line. The plane was headed toward Barcelona.

The beard sat upon him as a proud ornament, his yellow teeth a blinding shield to those who knew him. He refused to learn Spanish or Catalan. He wanted to be alone and become mute, deaf, and dumb. Just view the world as it truly is. Language became the enemy, along with the weight of material things. He wanted to wake up a child everyday and erase himself every evening. One thing kept him from this: he believed his son was looking for him. He also knew his mind was cracking and could not be trusted. He could not remember his sons face and therefore did not know when it may be peering upon him.

He walked towards the train station. As always, the policer officers study him with their eyes, waiting for him to slip up. He cursed them silently in his head - they were puppets working for another mans ideals, he thought. He kept a locker here where he kept clothes and notes about his old self, pictures of his family, his kids and his parents. He kept a stash of nicer unworn clothes just incase a situation should call for them. He grabbed a white button up shirt and some slacks that now smelled of moth balls. He made his way to the train station's wash room, packed almost wall to wall with tourists. He carried some scissors, a razor, a bar of soap and a change of clothes. He spent about an hour dragging the rusty razor across his face. His hair was spotted as he cut out small chunks till it left a look that was manageable. Then he undressed and bathed himself in the sink. Standing in his soiled briefs he kept his gaze forward, ignoring the tourists as they came and went. He put on his new clothes. He was handsome, still young and exposed, he thought. He packed up his things and walked out into the station. He walked toward the security guards.

"Hola," he said. "Hola, English?"

"Little," said the fat one.

"Have you seen my son?"

"I do not know... How would I know?"

"He looks like me, but his teeth are not yellow."

"I do not understand. Do you need help?"

"Not from you."

The old man stomped off triumphantly. He had passed the test. He was unrecognizable to his present enemy but now exposed to the old.

He rented a hotel room. He sat in front of the mirror, perplexed by the face he had left hidden. Memories flooded at the sight of this face, a face he counterattacked with expensive whisky. He stood naked - he had just taken a bath. His stomach strangely swollen, his penis stained with dirt. The dirt that had clung tight to him, his new friend. His uninvited guest. A penis he wanted to clean for the expected company. He took 5 naps in the next 12 hours and 3 showers, drinking whisky in between each. He modeled in front of the mirror his nice clothes. He got the the hotel barber to finish off his haircut and give him a clean shave. He ordered room service and ate a steak that hurt his teeth while sitting in bed without his shoes on watching an American game show in Spanish.

He awoke at 2 a.m. His alarm going off this time. He got dressed and began to walk. He walked down La Rambla. Drunk tourists stood like bowling pins that would not fall. Watching the streets performers and listening to the heckling of every language's tongue. He felt no longer exposed, his smell no longer calling attention to him. The prostitutes emerged as the bars let out. A beautiful African woman reached for his hand, but he stared forward. He found the bar he wanted,and spoke to an older African man about his own age. Within 10 minutes, he was back in his hotel room. Lying on his back smoking a cigarette. He thought nothing, he felt nothing, and if he was nervous it did not show. The phone rang. "Gracias, send him up." He sat cross legged and bare foot on the bed. He reached for his cracked glasses and put them on. He lit another cigarette, staring forward. There was a knock on the door. It opened. There was a teenage african boy, wearing bright street wear and bright make up,with his ears pierced holding tiny little diamonds.

"Sit down," he motioned to the boy. The boy did so. "You speak English, yes?"

"Yes," the shy boy whispered, not sure if he should look at the man.

"How old are you?"

"Um... seven and ten."

"Oh, seventeen."

"Yes, seventeen."

The man felt strange and could no longer look toward the boy. "You are from Africa?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been here?"

"Two years."

"Ok, how did you get here?"

"On a boat."

"Did it take a long time?"

"Yes ."

"Is your mother beautiful like you?"

"Yes."

"Does she carry buckets of water on her head like the woman in magazines?" The old man let out an awkward laugh.

"No sir."

"If I give you three hundred dollars will you kiss me?"

"It is fifty. You paid my father already, yes?"

"I know, I just want a kiss."

The boy leaned forward and kissed Richard Bram. He closed his eyes and then opened them. He got up and reached into a drawer and pulled out an envelope. He counted some bills and came and handed them to the boy.

"I have one question."

"Yes."

"Have you seen my son?"

"I do not know? Is he in the streets?"

"He looks like me but his teeth are not yellow."

"No, I do not know."

"Ok thank you, you may leave."

The boy did so. The man took a bath and began to cry. He could not make love to the boy because he was ashamed of his dirty penis.

He awoke early determined to find his son. He wanted to go home and he wanted his son to take him. He dressed himself up, pacing between bathroom and bedroom. There were mirrors in both rooms but the angles and the difference of portraits they left discouraged him. In one he looked like a father, in the other he didn't. Their was no doubt that his face had changed. It had rearranged itself beneath the beard. His teeth yellow, face thinned, and the power he once held now stripped of him. He looked like a man. Like an average man and he liked this, but he was afraid his son would not recognize him. He put on his cracked glasses and lit a cigarette and looked himself up and down. He pounded his chest. "You're still alive, boy!" He shouted. He closed his eyes and opened them to make sure his words were true.

He decided to buy a suit in the lobby of the hotel. He was in a hurry, and it was a nice suit but slightly too big. Walking down the street he felt like Charlie Chaplin walking as a cartoon in his oversized suit. This dance lasted in his head,the music played, and he forgot himself.

He sat down at a cafe. The waiter came over. He looked up and realized he had been to the cafe before. It was the same coward from a few days ago.

"American? English?" said the waiter.

"Yes."

"I would like double espresso."

"Yes sir."

The waiter walked away. Yes, it was definitely the same young man. He returned.

"Double espresso."

"May I ask you a question?"

"Yes sir."

"Have you seen my son?"

"I do not know, is he suppose to meet you?"

"You speak English now, I see."

"Yes sir."

"You did not used to speak English?"

"I dont understand?"

"I am very respected and rich."

"Ok, sir."

"He looks like me but he is even more powerful."

"Im sorry sir, how can I help you?"

"You have no idea what you see right now."

"What?"

"Go away. You've already caused me too much grief."

The waiter left. When he finished he skipped out on the bill and walked to the beach. He stood looking at the waves and lit a cigarette. A young Spanish boy pushed an apple cart down the empty beach. He yelled "Apples!"at the old man. The old man waved him over. He pulled out a 10 dollar bill and handed it to the boy.

"Sit down."

The boy did so,examining the money.

"I can't eat apples." He pointed to his teeth.

"One bite and they're all gone, you understand?"

"Yes," and the boy laughed.

"I want to tell you something. I have not been using words lately. I want you to know apples have a taste that is sweet and some are red and some are green but it is only an apple because we call it an apple. You understand?"

"No."

"Thats ok. I'm not done though. I've been isolated and now I cannot even taste the apple because I have had no one to take care of me. Is that your father's cart?"

"Yes."

"That's nice. I got dressed to find my son today but I don't think he's here. I think Im mad and no one is looking for me. Is that sad?"

"Yes."

"I will buy one apple."

"Ok."

The boy ran to the apple cart and brought him back a bright red apple. The old man waved him goodbye. He bit into the apple and surely their were three or more bloody teeth stuck in it. He spit blood out into the sand. He threw the apple in to the ocean. He was jealous of the apple as it bobbed over the waves, away from here, away to somewhere else. It was bitter and sour and it held his teeth. He laid down in the sand. He curled his frame and closed his eyes. He tried hard but he could not sleep.

Thee escape journal

Day 1

Our journey began as we escaped New York. The rain was falling thick as nails. It was as if the buildings had all been filled with water then jabbed with pins and they all exploded drops of rain. We flipped our collars to our thick black winter coats, this awkward black thing hugged me with each of its arms over mine as we swung through the city. For a moment I was warm,for this moment I felt safe. I found a small child gliding down 2nd ave, lost in the streets flood. I lifted him up into my arms. Its naked pale body was lighter than a balloon, I almost through it into the air surprised by its lightness, I mean lightness the boy's pale skin shined like a white bulb. I dropped the child and let it be swept by the surge of water.
"Jesus" I said, realizing I was actually attempting to speak to the man.

Dry spots/ Success

Snow in slow motion
cold quiet air
sweating with the drunks
trying to find a dry spot
I had something to do
but I forgot and I should eat first
two dollars in quarters
I can try to call her eight time
till the money runs out
then who knows
I may have to go over there
but it's dry here and I should eat

If the snow covered me with the phone pressed
against my ear my hands stuck in solid liquid
my chest held like a hands punch
slowly crushing my bones
digging into my chest
If I died slowly in this cold
creating a ringing sound in your warm empty apartment

I could say I died trying

it doesn't take much to try these days
and death is the only thing we all definitely do succeed at
but I wouldn't call it success

Red hotel

I was wasting my time
gleaming in the piss light
Somedays I can't believe I made it out of my red hotel
I thought had to live with the lion
I thought I had to if i were to live
but one day I asked myself
What's the point?
If everything you love makes you sick
What's the point?
We had no noble battles worth fighting for
So we turned against ourselves and try to bully out the nobility
What use are 2 battle ships
if were both lost at sea?
When will the dogfight turn against us?
The dollars laying in the dust wont strengthen us
I was afraid it would kill me
So afraid I stayed drunk for 18 months
never leaving my red hotel
What's the point?
If all you love makes you sick?
What's the point?
When I checked out of my red hotel
I walked out on my own two feet
walking through the lobby
not looking to either side of me
Is was all I could do
to save me

Chants

I do not listen,to what I hear
Mouths sculpting,sounds so queer
Why do they need me? To join in the their chants and their cheers?
To them,my ears go deaf
To them,my lips go numb
To them,my body limp
To them,my voice grows dumb
Oh no I will not meet you halfway:
I prefer you stand where you stay
When you meet me with another face
and with a different name
I will greet you on this day.

Palms

There is another me who lives in the room next door
I often hear him beating against the walls trying to find a way out
Sometimes I beat back to comfort him and let him know he is not alone
Lately he has taken up to screaming, so I now scream to comfort him
Both of us banging are open palms and screaming in harmony
Lately he has not given me much rest
So on we go screaming together till one of us drops and then the other may have peace

My children

I awoke at dawn. It took me a minute to come to focus but I soon realized I heard a tapping sound . I followed the sound down the stairs. Through the kitchen I looked out the window toward the grey morning , in the window's corner I saw a child's hand crusted in dirt that looked as if it was born from coffee grounds. It slowly tapped a rusty coin leaving a scratch in the glass. It occurred to me the hand could not see me and soon it would tire. I could return to bed but I didn't. I opened the window and I looked down,I saw about 8 children both boys and girls all under 10 years old look up at me. They were beautiful, dressed well but covered in the elements, beautiful blue eyes, natty hair reaching in all directions,they smelled of hell but stood with a sense of grace. It was as if they got lost months ago walking home from Sunday school. Little boys still wearing their ties and jackets with the elbows worn threw and the girls with their hair still held in ribbons. None said a word they just looked towards me with those soar, hungry eyes. I found half a loaf of bread that I handed to the boy with the coin, he accepted but did not look away from me. I closed the window and turned away to return to bed . I awoke a few hours later,I found my little friend had left his rusty coin on the window seal. I walked out to the yard. The girls had tied their ribbons around arms of one of the trees and wrapped it as if it was a gift to me. On another tree the boys had tied their ties intricately as if they were cryptic birds. I found the bread torn to bits but uneaten,some pieces had even been chewed. Each child had left their shoes in a line as if they had stood waiting at attention. I turned away, I found myself crying. I returned to bed and hid beneath the covers. I wondered what would become of my children?

Ocean songs

"It's all kind of some kind of ocean of some kind"

Animal song # 115

I am no longer angry.
My limbs are now docile,
and when I return from jumping over the barricades
I go to the man who broke me.
Each time he pats his hand
against my snout,
and I bat my lashes
as he compliments my obedient grace.

A men.

I never thought loneliness could kill but here I am staring into my television night after night between these four walls with my body full of disease and I have no ears to scream into. I went back to the hookers I had slept with and they told me they were clean but I couldn't find Suzy. "Suzy," I thought "your killing me!" I asked Tiff (the black girl with the weird ass) if she knew what diseases Suzy had she laughed (can you believe that?) and said "Oh honey you poor thing she's a mixed bag she's got it all from the little warts that don't matter to the worst ones"

"The worst ones ?"

"Yeah, she gets real sick sometimes"

I went home and I killed time.

Staring into the tv I knew I wouldn't find Suzy nobody had seen her in weeks.

She was most likely dead somewhere, maybe they were holding a funeral for her somewhere in Kansas or where ever the hell she's from, where they call her Susan or Susanna and people went to school with her.

The television has turned to static.

My mind goes numb with an echoing pain,similar to when you hit your funny bone. I held my chest like a child about to cry, my eyes riding the wall searching for a friend to call out to, one who will recognize my pain. I think about my mother and my mothers funeral and how my dad fought his buddy Danny cause a couple weeks before she died he found out they had been fucking for years. My Daddy and Danny cried then they got mad at the sight of each other and they began to pummel blows there and then. The dead woman didn't stir just silent and cold like she was amongst the living. Woman are bitches, my daddy had to grow old with that shame, I don't know how long I got but Im gonna be living in shame as long as my balls burn.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Jackie

The sky was held up so high above him
his face pressed into the grass
the bottle nearly empty
Jackie had jumped the high line
with just the bottle
that he stole
he was so tired
from all the running
he could feel the bones shake in his skin
slept all the way from mississippi
to new york city
the same sky held above him
closed his mouth
and held his breathing
in the grass
he laid low,
his stomach completely empty
they saw his chest rise on a breath
he had no way of knowing
the same sky still held above him
his face pressed
into the grass

Poor People

All of us are poor,
some of us just have nicer clothes.

Gospel # 4

With my hands reaching
and my voice raised
with nothing to hold onto
I will pull the curtain down
I will resurrect the ghost
I will hold her toward the light
till we eclipse the sun

With no sense of purpose
we stomp
just to raise the dust
my white, thin fingers frailing
shape to fold a fist

I will resurrect the ghost
I will pull the curtain down
I will hold her toward the light
till we eclipse the sun

The ghost had been put away
now no longer in the dark
my body will be her host
I will guide her
through this dance
till she finds her way

I will pull her
toward my chest
I will fold her legs
with mine

and lay my head
on her breast

A reaching hand

I will not scrub my chapped skin with ivory.
You never know the new colors you will lay in that will
dry and dye and live in your skin.
When I walk through this desert and gleam
down these endless streets looking wondering where I will rest,
I lose control.
If my nails can be scraped down to jewels
just to return to claws why not accept
that my hands are tools made for digging and cutting and protecting myself in this jungle?
If my once handsome boyish face is pushing hair
from the inside threw theses tiny holes why not accept I am a wolf?
Mother are you weeping?
Your little boy is now a cub with knots in his skin.
I will lay down in the road and scrape at your heels.
Mother I now know hunger
and I can no longer tell your ankles from the others running in the herd.

Outro

With their hands reaching toward me
I don't know how this will end
I like you cause your lucky
and I need luck now

My face pressed up against the window
but Im not ready to scratch the glass
How is it one become one of them?
With their gleaming hooves
and shiny horns?

Well we sacrificed a lot
was it the wrong thing to do?
We lit our belonging
just to watch them burn
dancing around the fire
we each had our turn


I who spends his time running
not trying to understand
for now my legs are tired
and my bones are damned

I've been on your trail like a lion
about to swallow his lamb
I like you cause your lucky
and I need luck now

press your self up against the glass deer
make my choice clear

Star Island finale chorus (Is their a cure for this restlessness?)

We run with wolves
but we don't run in packs
racing against
the sweat dripping down our backs

Oh! there must be somewhere
that is everywhere
it is here/so I go

Essay trashed version

The common thread between me and any "scene" I have partook in has been people who are restless, self-reliant, well traveled and are mainly self-taught on any skill they have inherited.

In my "adult" years travel, music and literature have all dictated moves I have made in my life.

At a very early age I began to grasp onto the stories of musicians and artists. I searched for obscure films and writings to validate that there was a world out side of the one I knew, I became obsessed with the lives of artist and others who had forced new ways of living for themselves often in spite of comfort or notoriety.

When growing up in Durham, NC my friends slowly began to drop out of high school and leave town. A collection of group houses had opened up that were made up of traveling kids that came and went, the occupants of these houses seemed to all be temporary, they were in crusted in dirt, seemed self reliant and fearless of expectations. They were my age but of a different breed, they had traveled, worked, seen things, experience highs and lows and my face was just pressed up against the glass. Out of a wide circle of friends I was one of the few who finished high school, I went to a film school in Winston-Salem, NC for a year but the stories I heard from my traveling friends made my peers screenplays seem pale and shallow. I had to leave to go travel.

When I first encountered this young traveling culture they seemed to embody all I was looking for. They did things often blindly and were obviously naive but they seemed fearless and accepted failure. Their life style guaranteed obscurity, discomfort but also was exciting, their lives were built on experience and constant movement and escape from the mundane. Suddenly the characters in the books, the musicians were all real and with will power and endurence everything was attainable. Of course it was not all this simple but for my young naive mind everything had just been rewritten.

I spent a summer hopping trains after leaving college, I was impressed at how much the community overlapped. We had gotten our hands on guides that had been compiled by other travelers that held infinite helpful information. Starting as broadly as where the trains go, to places to stay and where to find free food to where a plank of wood had been placed to help cross a creak. I was amazed, here I was apart of a community that existed with structure and thrived on its own world. These became the same reasons I left this community. It was too isolated, too cut off from society and like the community I left for it, I began to find it too isolating and overly controlled by a ideaology that was not my own.

I wanted to continue in the direction but I didn't want to get lost in a scene that held to many standards, I felt it was counter productive to the independetence it hinted at and too much was done in spite. I had my problems with society but I was not ready to turn away from it completely.

When I returned home I searched out other parts of D.I.Y.( do it your self) culture eventually I fell in with a wherehouse space in Winston-Salem, Nc. It was a small town but in this building held a art gallery, art studios, a music venue, a bakery and a coffee shop/bar. The people involved have put the space together from scratch and learned how to do things along the way through a process of trial and error. It was a community of people who had done things their own way but it was still about the greater community as well. I got involved with playing and recording music, starting a bike co-op and showing films. Though I have not lived there for a few years the space still has established a standard of hard work and a fearlessness of learning. Though I have not held onto much of the astetic of the more extreme train hopping community I have continues to travel off the cusp and the knowledge that if you want to go travel a lack of funds need not be a handicap. I have also continued to read literature through all of these phases and now that I’m older and some of my restlessness has eased I would like to spend more of my time writing my own stories and devoting more time to the medium that had inspired me to began what I would call my education witch was started in travel.

SWINE

SWINE

By Dylan Angell




The pig came stomping his great hooves down the dirt path leaving a cloud of dust that hovered with the moments behind.
His shirt missing half of its buttons exposed his expansive stomach, bouncing and creating a tide as his stomach motioned with the unnecessary pounding of his two legs through the dust. The birds squawked at the beast like trumpets blaring as if preparing a town for invasion. It was barely midday and the pig was already drunk on champagne, busy yelling his curses to the birds and damning the sun. The taste of vile entered any mouth that bared witness to the beast. A strange power of hypnosis was released from the pig's belly as it jiggled, pointing in all directions inducing sea sickness or food poisoning from a food uneaten.
Soon all who bared witness became impotent, love became lust, all wants or needs soured perversely. Old people felt wrinkles scarring into their skin and teeth loosen. As the sun brightened, all became soft,pale,yellowed and old. The pig's brown rock hooves shook the town and nostalgia hit all the people--feeling as if an era had ended and a new awful day had begun and would not end.

In a small garden, four retired school teachers sat drinking their afternoon tea. The day had began beautifully and they sat among exotic flowers when suddenly a cloud of dust hovered upon them. Their tea turned the color of mud. A small swarm of dust found its way into their eyes and skin and they began to cough wildly. The women gasped as the beast appeared and the smell of shit and vile permeated the air. The beast reached with his giant, thumbless hands and grabbed the one named Pearl by the collar of her flower print dress.
His claws tore into her and he began to slide his mucus-drenched muzzle on her bare, wrinkled breasts that lay defeated like rotten fruit. The same bosom which many children had rested their heads in their darkest moments  now was taking part in its own moment of terror. The other women froze like cowards and then ran leaving their brittle little friend to be engulfed by the great beast twice her size. He stretched Pearl's skin. Her eyes rolled back into her head, refusing the moment.
Pearl's lungs released a sound she had never heard before. It broke through the chords in her throat, layer by layer,finally releasing a banshee wail. This was not a cry for help for any human ear; no human could help her. To them this scream may well have been silence. This was a prayer. She waited and waited and no mercy came. Her silent prayer grew louder and louder until her voice collapsed. Her lord had gone deaf to her cry and she was now orphaned and mute.
When the eyes opened to the wrinkled body, its face swollen and legs weak, it stood naked. The pig gone,her clothes gone, and her mind elsewhere trying to come back. The body composed itself and began to move. It walked down the empty streets taking small steps. No eyes spotted it. People walked by but did not look towards it. " Why?" it asked looking towards the sky.

If thy father is no hope, the children must work. All life leaving her, as a body that is no longer her own, she laid on the floor of her little home. Pearl stared to the ceiling, thinking of all the children she had known. There was not a child in the town that she had not touched. In fifty years of teaching, most of her children had grown up and become important people in the city and she had taught their children's children. That night with the last of her strength,she wrote many letters since her voice no longer functioned. She called her children together to seek revenge to express the scream she could not manage. The characters were in place, everything was moving forward. That night she died in her sleep unable to see her plan hatched.



Walls of the city were splashed with glue. A stickiness floated threw the air. One's breath could get stuck to one's own throat. Young boys on bicycles rode through the city throwing posters up on the walls. Posters that read "Elect the beast!" and "The pig is the new way!". The whole city was drunk on champagne; people were fornicating and vomiting in the street. Children of all ages were out burning and looting the city they had built. All marriages dissolved and no rules or rights were respected. All men of business dropped their life's work and devoted all their time and energy to the beast. The street was filled with trash and human excrement. It went on for months. 

With the election just weeks away people stopped celebrating, for they were not sure if the beast was real. There had been no sign of the beast. They began to clean up the streets and neighborhoods. The law was restored. Then one very quiet day the beast emerged into the town on a small platform in the city square and announced himself. He stood alone with just a microphone staring into a invisible crowd. 

"My people show yourselves"! Lights flickered inside the homes.

 Silence.

 "If you are my people let me see you"!  Suddenly the sound of windows breaking, women screaming, and humans shouting filled the square and a crowd of people exploded onto the street. "Shut up!", he yelled, and they followed his word.  "You are all pathetic." He grinned. "You ask of me but ask nothing of yourselves.  Look at you.  You have clung too tightly to your pathetic lives. You have all married into mundane routines and empty rules stemmed from no truth! You worry about money and status but nothing that will cause you true death. If you elect me, don't elect me! Don't go to the voting booth! Stay here and burn the city! Break the windows and take the shards and smash them in the eyes of the statues of our former leaders! Loot and empty the banks, bring the money to this square and create a huge fire! Drag your clothes and your furniture, your precious antiques and burn them all! Paint your faces black! Don't elect the beast-- become the beast! "

Hundreds of jaws dropped in blind laughter and a marching band tread through the square. That night the city could have been seen from space it burned so bright. The city chanted all in a choir as one voice. As if a switch was flipped and all humanity left them  they drank and screwed as animals, flinging shit into the fire. It went on like this till the first light of morning. 

In a small dark corner a lone man emerged. He was well-dressed in a suit; he was a reminder of the days of order. He walked out on the platform and toward the microphone. The crowd was silent as if they were all children waiting to be scolded. The former mayor began to speak.
"Hello my city" he said with tears in his eyes,"I would like to share some final thoughts. First off I would like to congratulate the beast." The crowd was silent.
Second I would like to offer him the key to the city!"
The pig laughed.
"A key  for a door I've already kicked in ?"
The mayor cleared his throat. His voice shook as he tried to find the words.

"I would like to say one more thing to my people before I bid farewell. You have spoken that the beast is the new way and you have acted on this, and the beast now acts as man. So we must make him feel vulnerable as he has made us as men feel".
The pig sat confused. The mayor looked towards him.
" I have one more gift I would like to give you."
"What?"
" An apple."

The mayor handed him a plump red apple and the pig placed it in his mouth. He raised his frail, small hands and swung, pushing the apple deeper into the pigs throat. With jaw stretched, the pig began to choke. The people's smiles straightened and their eyes squinted as if they had business to attend to. Suddenly, four men came out with a rope and ran in circles around the pig and they dragged him into the square. Around the beast the city burned and people began to drag pieces of wood into a great heap and set it ablaze in the middle of the square. They slid the pig into the fire. The pig's silent eyes expressed true terror. His pink flesh burned black and he squealed with pain.
Soon every mother, father, and child came to the square with knives,forks,shovels-- whatever tools they could find and they began to devour the beast like ants on a fallen fruit.

As the pig screamed its last grunt and life left its eyes, a bearded man with blood around his mouth stood up. "We have tempted the pig, and sought revenge!" The crowd cheered. "Now we can rebuild our lives!" another yelled. The crowd cheered again. The mayor stood before the microphone.
"You fools! You fell too deep into the beast's ways! There are no homes! There is no food! We have nothing to rebuild!"
With this declaration, anger possessed the people. With no one to blame they all began to fight one another. Within twenty four days they had all starved or been slaughtered.  Only the way of the beast lived on.

THE END

Pulling from the table

Now that she's gone

I don't wait for her

There is

a new anticipation 

waiting for something

knowing nothing 

is on it's way

and knowing nothing 

will move 

 unless I make it move

so I go

A child's note written on the wall of the bath in soap

The world is a small, chaotic maze and we are all insane 
I, myself, have already lived through 3 wars and I am only 9 years old 
I want to live in a world where sympathy is not a muscle you exercise, but a basic function
(like eating and fucking)
Tell me a place where man is sympathetic and I will move into that house 
Until that day I will be homeless, cause no home built by man is safe
Man only builds structures that will eventually collapse on itself

I will sleep outdoors with my eyes tightly shut
(so the light of the stars do not keep me awake through dark nights) 

I have known many woman, they scrape my back with a bar of soap like fingers on a chalk board before I go to bed
They tell me time will move and I will stay still
My skin will wrinkle in the tub, but little more will change 
They call my mother and tell her how they are worried about me in exchange for ancient secrets I have forgotten
Terrible story that have decomposed in my memory
Secrets that are no longer mine and only live in the world of gossip

I try to turn myself off, I close my eyes and turn off my ears
Soon I awake gasping for air! 

My dreams are so heavy Im am afraid they will crack my skull! 
Though this world is heavy upon our backs I refuse to turn the lights off
I will leave them on so when I do come home, I will recognize it and go in

My Education

In the last 7 years of travel and many self inflicted fresh starts  I have bravely/foolishly found myself in place's I know little about.   I thought  a preface of history  may somehow inhibit me from a fresh experience.  Somehow the history would come to me if I just threw myself knee deep into the culture.   I felt strongly about going in blind and come back knowing just what I saw. I had a distaste for history books and used literature as if it was fact.  Personal stories held more truth to me and I thought if I went out and met people this would be education enough. 

  My distaste for  history books was a natural result of a hatred for public education,just as much as my restlessness that led to these travels were.  I try to put aside a bitterness that I was never in a class that made me interested in history and that it was never discussed in a real way.  Now I wished I had known more about the war in Croatia  that kept me from wondering off the path that led me to the beach because their may be land mines left over from a war that had ended 10 years before.  I walked through history to sun bathe. I wish I knew more about Ataturk before going to Istanbul where their are more pictures and statues of this man then there are trees. 

This past winter I began to look into volunteer work abroad for the summer,  I was willing to pay and do grunt work and put my love of travel into use.  Of course this would also further my education in the world but everything I applied toward rejected me for my lack of education.  Of course this is bullshit,but I began to understand that these are institutions and they where built with college students in mind.  Students who may have a sense of history and will be able to use this on their resumes. 

I  began to think about how literature had guided me to my travels and how I  wished to study literature further.  Literature and film opened me up to an interest in the culture behind the art and that lead me to traveling.  

As I prepare to go back to school,  I have to hold my breath, and put aside my restless tendencies  and not resist the order of a classroom so I can continue a education that began in chaos.