My love it falls in waves
Crashes over you
Who?
You - lovely angel, standing in front of me
Reading the screen
Lucky thing
Political Economy
13 years ago
Sunday 18 January 2009
Tuesday 13 January 2009
Diary of an unborn writer #12
I enjoy a daily commute of three hours. Really enjoy. Time to sleep and read. I'm redeveloping a passion for erudition, worming my way through all kinds of serious books.
The commuter trail is hilarious. Train stops and there's an orderly swarm of faces tap tapping down steps so they don't miss the onward transport to the office. It's so polite and so frenetic. Elbow barges by way of refused glances. An attempt at personality sees you shunned.
In the office too I'm perfecting the steady stare of pretending you haven't noticed the other person as they pass right by you in the corridor. Sometimes you see them looking and you look but too late so they look away and by that stage neither of you is going to admit to looking at the other by looking back again.
Though I naively hope for this. I walk towards them staring across their trajectory. That way if they glance they catch my eye. But there's a problem. By prolonging the gaze, my eyes settle into an accidentally intense glare so if they look it'll seem as if I'm staring them out, they look a little freaked and look not just ahead but away. The pain of missed spontaneity is not worth confronting as this oft-repeated ritual clearly displays.
~
Martin Buber was a clever Jew from early 20th century Vienna ; one of those firecracker conflations in time and place where every thought seems to spark a revolution and proving - with 1776 Philapdelphia, several Parisian decades and 18th century Scotland - that intelligence is a collective fragrance aside from the gigantic personalities to which it is attributed.
Buber had Freud, Wittgensstein and my favourite Karl Polanyi alongside him. In 1919, radicalism flew along Red Veins, while these men, great men, sang finer tunes and ideas yet to be fully absorbed.
Buber was an existentialist but not the navel-gazing, wistful type that make his cousins so attractive to me. Like Heidegger he spoke of an authenticity but felt this was found most effectively by connecting with others. Disitinguishing between 'I-you' relations and 'I - thou' relations, the commuters painful walk is a dearth of thous amongst too many grey eyes.
I-you's are conceived as if to an object, an acknowledgement, the corridor avoidance, the shop counter lady seeing fit not to return the warm morning greeting (I even said it in Dutch...). It's the connection that populayes 99.8% of human connection.
To 'I-Thou' relations, Buber gave a designation almost holy: the tender inexplicable when all shutters blow apart and we find in the other all the meaning and serenity of human existence.
By reaching into the other, the divine in you can emerge.
Imagine the fate of civilisation, leave alone that of its discontents, if Buber had had a few more morning strolls with Freud along the Graben.
~
Looking at a photograph of Martin Buber you see the relaxed gaze of a man that cannot help but Thous all round. The Immortal in man stood nakedly before him, whether blankly gazing back or avoiding down corridors - the Buber boddhisattva enduring everyone to be free.
I take his eyes and fix them with an inward glance, the better to see my depths in the other. Two fade to one, as if it could be any different.
~
Love kept it slyly for a time but now repentent seeps it back trace by trace into gaping mouths and stifled hearts drip by drip we're coming back
~
The eyes and corridors and Buber ruminations melt to nothing in the face of the horror in Palestine. There's no fact to this I can add to make it more real just look on in disgust as politicians play parlour games with situations they well concocted long before.
Can't remove this from our own plight. Please don't place it over there but see the I-I that made this so - Ishmael and Isaac - one brother not recognising the other. And you pretend it doesn't matter to ignore the other as they pass you by again.
You play out this horror every day.
Only the Palestinians cry.
The commuter trail is hilarious. Train stops and there's an orderly swarm of faces tap tapping down steps so they don't miss the onward transport to the office. It's so polite and so frenetic. Elbow barges by way of refused glances. An attempt at personality sees you shunned.
In the office too I'm perfecting the steady stare of pretending you haven't noticed the other person as they pass right by you in the corridor. Sometimes you see them looking and you look but too late so they look away and by that stage neither of you is going to admit to looking at the other by looking back again.
Though I naively hope for this. I walk towards them staring across their trajectory. That way if they glance they catch my eye. But there's a problem. By prolonging the gaze, my eyes settle into an accidentally intense glare so if they look it'll seem as if I'm staring them out, they look a little freaked and look not just ahead but away. The pain of missed spontaneity is not worth confronting as this oft-repeated ritual clearly displays.
~
Martin Buber was a clever Jew from early 20th century Vienna ; one of those firecracker conflations in time and place where every thought seems to spark a revolution and proving - with 1776 Philapdelphia, several Parisian decades and 18th century Scotland - that intelligence is a collective fragrance aside from the gigantic personalities to which it is attributed.
Buber had Freud, Wittgensstein and my favourite Karl Polanyi alongside him. In 1919, radicalism flew along Red Veins, while these men, great men, sang finer tunes and ideas yet to be fully absorbed.
Buber was an existentialist but not the navel-gazing, wistful type that make his cousins so attractive to me. Like Heidegger he spoke of an authenticity but felt this was found most effectively by connecting with others. Disitinguishing between 'I-you' relations and 'I - thou' relations, the commuters painful walk is a dearth of thous amongst too many grey eyes.
I-you's are conceived as if to an object, an acknowledgement, the corridor avoidance, the shop counter lady seeing fit not to return the warm morning greeting (I even said it in Dutch...). It's the connection that populayes 99.8% of human connection.
To 'I-Thou' relations, Buber gave a designation almost holy: the tender inexplicable when all shutters blow apart and we find in the other all the meaning and serenity of human existence.
By reaching into the other, the divine in you can emerge.
Imagine the fate of civilisation, leave alone that of its discontents, if Buber had had a few more morning strolls with Freud along the Graben.
~
Looking at a photograph of Martin Buber you see the relaxed gaze of a man that cannot help but Thous all round. The Immortal in man stood nakedly before him, whether blankly gazing back or avoiding down corridors - the Buber boddhisattva enduring everyone to be free.
I take his eyes and fix them with an inward glance, the better to see my depths in the other. Two fade to one, as if it could be any different.
~
Love kept it slyly for a time but now repentent seeps it back trace by trace into gaping mouths and stifled hearts drip by drip we're coming back
~
The eyes and corridors and Buber ruminations melt to nothing in the face of the horror in Palestine. There's no fact to this I can add to make it more real just look on in disgust as politicians play parlour games with situations they well concocted long before.
Can't remove this from our own plight. Please don't place it over there but see the I-I that made this so - Ishmael and Isaac - one brother not recognising the other. And you pretend it doesn't matter to ignore the other as they pass you by again.
You play out this horror every day.
Only the Palestinians cry.
Diary of an unborn writer #12
I enjoy a daily commute of three hours. Really enjoy. Time to sleep and read. I'm redeveloping a passion for erudition, worming my way through all kinds of serious books.
The commuter trail is hilarious. Train stops and there's an orderly swarm of faces tap tapping down steps so they don't miss the onward transport to the office. It's so polite and so frenetic. Elbow barges by way of refused glances. An attempt at personality sees you shunned.
In the office too I'm perfecting the steady stare of pretending you haven't noticed the other person as they pass right by you in the corridor. Sometimes you see them looking and you look but too late so they look away and by that stage neither of you is going to admit to looking at the other by looking back again.
Though I naively hope for this. I walk towards them staring across their trajectory. That way if they glance they catch my eye. But there's a problem. By prolonging the gaze, my eyes settle into an accidentally intense glare so if they look it'll seem as if I'm staring them out, they look a little freaked and look not just ahead but away. The pain of missed spontaneity is not worth confronting as this oft-repeated ritual clearly displays.
~
Martin Buber was a clever Jew from early 20th century Vienna ; one of those firecracker conflations in time and place where every thought seems to spark a revolution and proving - with 1776 Philapdelphia, several Parisian decades and 18th century Scotland - that intelligence is a collective fragrance aside from the gigantic personalities to which it is attributed.
Buber had Freud, Wittgensstein and my favourite Karl Polanyi alongside him. In 1919, radicalism flew along Red Veins, while these men, great men, sang finer tunes and ideas yet to be fully absorbed.
Buber was an existentialist but not the navel-gazing, wistful type that make his cousins so attractive to me. Like Heidegger he spoke of an authenticity but felt this was found most effectively by connecting with others. Disitinguishing between 'I-you' relations and 'I - thou' relations, the commuters painful walk is a dearth of thous amongst too many grey eyes.
I-you's are conceived as if to an object, an acknowledgement, the corridor avoidance, the shop counter lady seeing fit not to return the warm morning greeting (I even said it in Dutch...). It's the connection that populayes 99.8% of human connection.
To 'I-Thou' relations, Buber gave a designation almost holy: the tender inexplicable when all shutters blow apart and we find in the other all the meaning and serenity of human existence.
By reaching into the other, the divine in you can emerge.
Imagine the fate of civilisation, leave alone that of its discontents, if Buber had had a few more morning strolls with Freud along the Graben.
~
Looking at a photograph of Martin Buber you see the relaxed gaze of a man that cannot help but Thous all round. The Immortal in man stood nakedly before him, whether blankly gazing back or avoiding down corridors - the Buber boddhisattva enduring everyone to be free.
I take his eyes and fix them with an inward glance, the better to see my depths in the other. Two fade to one, as if it could be any different.
~
Love kept it slyly for a time but now repentent seeps it back trace by trace into gaping mouths and stifled hearts drip by drip we're coming back
~
The eyes and corridors and Buber ruminations melt to nothing in the face of the horror in Palestine. There's no fact to this I can add to make it more real just look on in disgust as politicians play parlour games with situations they well concocted long before.
Can't remove this from our own plight. Please don't place it over there but see the I-I that made this so - Ishmael and Isaac - one brother not recognising the other. And you pretend it doesn't matter to ignore the other as they pass you by again.
You play out this horror every day.
Only the Palestinians cry.
The commuter trail is hilarious. Train stops and there's an orderly swarm of faces tap tapping down steps so they don't miss the onward transport to the office. It's so polite and so frenetic. Elbow barges by way of refused glances. An attempt at personality sees you shunned.
In the office too I'm perfecting the steady stare of pretending you haven't noticed the other person as they pass right by you in the corridor. Sometimes you see them looking and you look but too late so they look away and by that stage neither of you is going to admit to looking at the other by looking back again.
Though I naively hope for this. I walk towards them staring across their trajectory. That way if they glance they catch my eye. But there's a problem. By prolonging the gaze, my eyes settle into an accidentally intense glare so if they look it'll seem as if I'm staring them out, they look a little freaked and look not just ahead but away. The pain of missed spontaneity is not worth confronting as this oft-repeated ritual clearly displays.
~
Martin Buber was a clever Jew from early 20th century Vienna ; one of those firecracker conflations in time and place where every thought seems to spark a revolution and proving - with 1776 Philapdelphia, several Parisian decades and 18th century Scotland - that intelligence is a collective fragrance aside from the gigantic personalities to which it is attributed.
Buber had Freud, Wittgensstein and my favourite Karl Polanyi alongside him. In 1919, radicalism flew along Red Veins, while these men, great men, sang finer tunes and ideas yet to be fully absorbed.
Buber was an existentialist but not the navel-gazing, wistful type that make his cousins so attractive to me. Like Heidegger he spoke of an authenticity but felt this was found most effectively by connecting with others. Disitinguishing between 'I-you' relations and 'I - thou' relations, the commuters painful walk is a dearth of thous amongst too many grey eyes.
I-you's are conceived as if to an object, an acknowledgement, the corridor avoidance, the shop counter lady seeing fit not to return the warm morning greeting (I even said it in Dutch...). It's the connection that populayes 99.8% of human connection.
To 'I-Thou' relations, Buber gave a designation almost holy: the tender inexplicable when all shutters blow apart and we find in the other all the meaning and serenity of human existence.
By reaching into the other, the divine in you can emerge.
Imagine the fate of civilisation, leave alone that of its discontents, if Buber had had a few more morning strolls with Freud along the Graben.
~
Looking at a photograph of Martin Buber you see the relaxed gaze of a man that cannot help but Thous all round. The Immortal in man stood nakedly before him, whether blankly gazing back or avoiding down corridors - the Buber boddhisattva enduring everyone to be free.
I take his eyes and fix them with an inward glance, the better to see my depths in the other. Two fade to one, as if it could be any different.
~
Love kept it slyly for a time but now repentent seeps it back trace by trace into gaping mouths and stifled hearts drip by drip we're coming back
~
The eyes and corridors and Buber ruminations melt to nothing in the face of the horror in Palestine. There's no fact to this I can add to make it more real just look on in disgust as politicians play parlour games with situations they well concocted long before.
Can't remove this from our own plight. Please don't place it over there but see the I-I that made this so - Ishmael and Isaac - one brother not recognising the other. And you pretend it doesn't matter to ignore the other as they pass you by again.
You play out this horror every day.
Only the Palestinians cry.
Diary of an unborn writer #11
So I'm into the new job. Faces aren't so grey, lunchtime conversation not so bad.
Actually I'm loving it - suits and stimulation from the latest corporate development - a buzz about where we're going, what happens next, how it impacts the bottom line and wonderful serried excuses about our contribution to the human cause.
And oddly they may not be all wrong.
The many cornerhouses of civilisation require strange bricks and stranger folk to man them. Take the techie - the wizard solving the problem of the everyday and depositing it consumer-sized ready-solved and underestimated. The amount of work these guys do on brilliantly complex problems. And there we pick up a phone, send an email from an elegant graphic interface and muse on simplicity. The techie knows otherwise.
My job is to offer people advice on the fitness area of their life. I'm constrained in what I can say because it's new but I've become an uncommon cog in vast apparatus. No job has ever existed like this before. But there I am. Bathed in the suit a thousand generations have worn, spilling tales to frustrated strangers - an outlet for their concerns, in the tiniest way, offering hope.
Of course things haven't always been this good. I write a lot outside the diary - sudden spasms of frustration that don't make it to the keyboard - and too many events for a man to describe - but this I wanted to share from 12 December - happening to be on the midpoint on the numerical scale to the current entry...
~o~
Diary of an unborn writer 5.5
The disillusion muddies on – a life so empty I’m having trouble speaking in anything below abstract.
I have established the unnerving habit of flinching every time I see clock. What’s the countdown to?
Somewhere inside is the nervous knowledge that things aren’t going as planned.
I’m out of bed at 10am.
Gayatri mantra
Shower
Breakfast ~some days I’ll read and stay in bed a little longer – but days are feeling more productive. I apply for two jobs per day.
Write, communicate with friends, attend satsang, meditate between times. Variety’s increasing. Theatre last week, concert this.
I’m having trouble seeing what does what. What calls or relaxation would help make the turn. I have very little energy for anything and the effort required for the smallest thing is immense.
I eat well, sleep too much but health doesn’t improve. Dry eyes, consistent cold, nerves at touch point, even in sleep.
The miners and Sheffield steel workers had whole communities of malaise. Now we hide ourselves in scattered city apartment blocks, the edge of squats, cups of tea to punctuate the day. Industry’s an underrated thing – personal or wide scale.
I’d like to get it back.
I fear the stiff overtake of obsolescence.
~o~
I’m tired by the look of pity
Patronising negatives when I’m trying to get by
Bored of observations of my red and yellow eyes
Scruffed appearance and condemned to compassionate inferiority
I’m tired of people noticing the panic in my eyes as another door slams shut
For a guy to taking simple steps, this community has the shortest arms
~o~
Alma Mater folded her arms and gave me the heave ho – withering idealism in the boil of a continuous “NO!”
Forming a boil actually; the packet of pus that sits on my ass threatening to burst each time I sit down. Move on, weary son, despite the screams and threats to rip it off and spray its contents in the face of naysayers (praysayers).
“You’re raging in a dream cage”
they sagely say as the yellow scab forms and dries stinging ten times worse than before.
Well Fuck You if I can;t see the cage and fuck you twice for not showing me the way out
Maybe I like it here
You’re right. It sucks and depresses me more than all your achievement and smug art of mediocratic life.
“You should put down roots”
Another wise thumb sucker
“Want some savlon for your ass?”
And all this in halting English, acerbic with blame for our miscommunication. For a narrow-minded continent, the Dutch are its doyennes. Unprepared to embrace that which lies outwith their network of understanding.
The famed liberality I’ve heard summed up thus:
Drugs? Homosexuality? Suicide? Go Ahead!
Leave your bins out on the wrong day however....
~
There’s a point in the listening – a dead drop in the eye, you can almost see it click - when you’re judged to be not worth the effort.
The point at which they offer you the savlon.
And so are my frustrations living in Holland.
Actually I'm loving it - suits and stimulation from the latest corporate development - a buzz about where we're going, what happens next, how it impacts the bottom line and wonderful serried excuses about our contribution to the human cause.
And oddly they may not be all wrong.
The many cornerhouses of civilisation require strange bricks and stranger folk to man them. Take the techie - the wizard solving the problem of the everyday and depositing it consumer-sized ready-solved and underestimated. The amount of work these guys do on brilliantly complex problems. And there we pick up a phone, send an email from an elegant graphic interface and muse on simplicity. The techie knows otherwise.
My job is to offer people advice on the fitness area of their life. I'm constrained in what I can say because it's new but I've become an uncommon cog in vast apparatus. No job has ever existed like this before. But there I am. Bathed in the suit a thousand generations have worn, spilling tales to frustrated strangers - an outlet for their concerns, in the tiniest way, offering hope.
Of course things haven't always been this good. I write a lot outside the diary - sudden spasms of frustration that don't make it to the keyboard - and too many events for a man to describe - but this I wanted to share from 12 December - happening to be on the midpoint on the numerical scale to the current entry...
~o~
Diary of an unborn writer 5.5
The disillusion muddies on – a life so empty I’m having trouble speaking in anything below abstract.
I have established the unnerving habit of flinching every time I see clock. What’s the countdown to?
Somewhere inside is the nervous knowledge that things aren’t going as planned.
I’m out of bed at 10am.
Gayatri mantra
Shower
Breakfast ~some days I’ll read and stay in bed a little longer – but days are feeling more productive. I apply for two jobs per day.
Write, communicate with friends, attend satsang, meditate between times. Variety’s increasing. Theatre last week, concert this.
I’m having trouble seeing what does what. What calls or relaxation would help make the turn. I have very little energy for anything and the effort required for the smallest thing is immense.
I eat well, sleep too much but health doesn’t improve. Dry eyes, consistent cold, nerves at touch point, even in sleep.
The miners and Sheffield steel workers had whole communities of malaise. Now we hide ourselves in scattered city apartment blocks, the edge of squats, cups of tea to punctuate the day. Industry’s an underrated thing – personal or wide scale.
I’d like to get it back.
I fear the stiff overtake of obsolescence.
~o~
I’m tired by the look of pity
Patronising negatives when I’m trying to get by
Bored of observations of my red and yellow eyes
Scruffed appearance and condemned to compassionate inferiority
I’m tired of people noticing the panic in my eyes as another door slams shut
For a guy to taking simple steps, this community has the shortest arms
~o~
Alma Mater folded her arms and gave me the heave ho – withering idealism in the boil of a continuous “NO!”
Forming a boil actually; the packet of pus that sits on my ass threatening to burst each time I sit down. Move on, weary son, despite the screams and threats to rip it off and spray its contents in the face of naysayers (praysayers).
“You’re raging in a dream cage”
they sagely say as the yellow scab forms and dries stinging ten times worse than before.
Well Fuck You if I can;t see the cage and fuck you twice for not showing me the way out
Maybe I like it here
You’re right. It sucks and depresses me more than all your achievement and smug art of mediocratic life.
“You should put down roots”
Another wise thumb sucker
“Want some savlon for your ass?”
And all this in halting English, acerbic with blame for our miscommunication. For a narrow-minded continent, the Dutch are its doyennes. Unprepared to embrace that which lies outwith their network of understanding.
The famed liberality I’ve heard summed up thus:
Drugs? Homosexuality? Suicide? Go Ahead!
Leave your bins out on the wrong day however....
~
There’s a point in the listening – a dead drop in the eye, you can almost see it click - when you’re judged to be not worth the effort.
The point at which they offer you the savlon.
And so are my frustrations living in Holland.
Diary of an unborn writer #11
So I'm into the new job. Faces aren't so grey, lunchtime conversation not so bad.
Actually I'm loving it - suits and stimulation from the latest corporate development - a buzz about where we're going, what happens next, how it impacts the bottom line and wonderful serried excuses about our contribution to the human cause.
And oddly they may not be all wrong.
The many cornerhouses of civilisation require strange bricks and stranger folk to man them. Take the techie - the wizard solving the problem of the everyday and depositing it consumer-sized ready-solved and underestimated. The amount of work these guys do on brilliantly complex problems. And there we pick up a phone, send an email from an elegant graphic interface and muse on simplicity. The techie knows otherwise.
My job is to offer people advice on the fitness area of their life. I'm constrained in what I can say because it's new but I've become an uncommon cog in vast apparatus. No job has ever existed like this before. But there I am. Bathed in the suit a thousand generations have worn, spilling tales to frustrated strangers - an outlet for their concerns, in the tiniest way, offering hope.
Of course things haven't always been this good. I write a lot outside the diary - sudden spasms of frustration that don't make it to the keyboard - and too many events for a man to describe - but this I wanted to share from 12 December - happening to be on the midpoint on the numerical scale to the current entry...
~o~
Diary of an unborn writer 5.5
The disillusion muddies on – a life so empty I’m having trouble speaking in anything below abstract.
I have established the unnerving habit of flinching every time I see clock. What’s the countdown to?
Somewhere inside is the nervous knowledge that things aren’t going as planned.
I’m out of bed at 10am.
Gayatri mantra
Shower
Breakfast ~some days I’ll read and stay in bed a little longer – but days are feeling more productive. I apply for two jobs per day.
Write, communicate with friends, attend satsang, meditate between times. Variety’s increasing. Theatre last week, concert this.
I’m having trouble seeing what does what. What calls or relaxation would help make the turn. I have very little energy for anything and the effort required for the smallest thing is immense.
I eat well, sleep too much but health doesn’t improve. Dry eyes, consistent cold, nerves at touch point, even in sleep.
The miners and Sheffield steel workers had whole communities of malaise. Now we hide ourselves in scattered city apartment blocks, the edge of squats, cups of tea to punctuate the day. Industry’s an underrated thing – personal or wide scale.
I’d like to get it back.
I fear the stiff overtake of obsolescence.
~o~
I’m tired by the look of pity
Patronising negatives when I’m trying to get by
Bored of observations of my red and yellow eyes
Scruffed appearance and condemned to compassionate inferiority
I’m tired of people noticing the panic in my eyes as another door slams shut
For a guy to taking simple steps, this community has the shortest arms
~o~
Alma Mater folded her arms and gave me the heave ho – withering idealism in the boil of a continuous “NO!”
Forming a boil actually; the packet of pus that sits on my ass threatening to burst each time I sit down. Move on, weary son, despite the screams and threats to rip it off and spray its contents in the face of naysayers (praysayers).
“You’re raging in a dream cage”
they sagely say as the yellow scab forms and dries stinging ten times worse than before.
Well Fuck You if I can;t see the cage and fuck you twice for not showing me the way out
Maybe I like it here
You’re right. It sucks and depresses me more than all your achievement and smug art of mediocratic life.
“You should put down roots”
Another wise thumb sucker
“Want some savlon for your ass?”
And all this in halting English, acerbic with blame for our miscommunication. For a narrow-minded continent, the Dutch are its doyennes. Unprepared to embrace that which lies outwith their network of understanding.
The famed liberality I’ve heard summed up thus:
Drugs? Homosexuality? Suicide? Go Ahead!
Leave your bins out on the wrong day however....
~
There’s a point in the listening – a dead drop in the eye, you can almost see it click - when you’re judged to be not worth the effort.
The point at which they offer you the savlon.
And so are my frustrations living in Holland.
Actually I'm loving it - suits and stimulation from the latest corporate development - a buzz about where we're going, what happens next, how it impacts the bottom line and wonderful serried excuses about our contribution to the human cause.
And oddly they may not be all wrong.
The many cornerhouses of civilisation require strange bricks and stranger folk to man them. Take the techie - the wizard solving the problem of the everyday and depositing it consumer-sized ready-solved and underestimated. The amount of work these guys do on brilliantly complex problems. And there we pick up a phone, send an email from an elegant graphic interface and muse on simplicity. The techie knows otherwise.
My job is to offer people advice on the fitness area of their life. I'm constrained in what I can say because it's new but I've become an uncommon cog in vast apparatus. No job has ever existed like this before. But there I am. Bathed in the suit a thousand generations have worn, spilling tales to frustrated strangers - an outlet for their concerns, in the tiniest way, offering hope.
Of course things haven't always been this good. I write a lot outside the diary - sudden spasms of frustration that don't make it to the keyboard - and too many events for a man to describe - but this I wanted to share from 12 December - happening to be on the midpoint on the numerical scale to the current entry...
~o~
Diary of an unborn writer 5.5
The disillusion muddies on – a life so empty I’m having trouble speaking in anything below abstract.
I have established the unnerving habit of flinching every time I see clock. What’s the countdown to?
Somewhere inside is the nervous knowledge that things aren’t going as planned.
I’m out of bed at 10am.
Gayatri mantra
Shower
Breakfast ~some days I’ll read and stay in bed a little longer – but days are feeling more productive. I apply for two jobs per day.
Write, communicate with friends, attend satsang, meditate between times. Variety’s increasing. Theatre last week, concert this.
I’m having trouble seeing what does what. What calls or relaxation would help make the turn. I have very little energy for anything and the effort required for the smallest thing is immense.
I eat well, sleep too much but health doesn’t improve. Dry eyes, consistent cold, nerves at touch point, even in sleep.
The miners and Sheffield steel workers had whole communities of malaise. Now we hide ourselves in scattered city apartment blocks, the edge of squats, cups of tea to punctuate the day. Industry’s an underrated thing – personal or wide scale.
I’d like to get it back.
I fear the stiff overtake of obsolescence.
~o~
I’m tired by the look of pity
Patronising negatives when I’m trying to get by
Bored of observations of my red and yellow eyes
Scruffed appearance and condemned to compassionate inferiority
I’m tired of people noticing the panic in my eyes as another door slams shut
For a guy to taking simple steps, this community has the shortest arms
~o~
Alma Mater folded her arms and gave me the heave ho – withering idealism in the boil of a continuous “NO!”
Forming a boil actually; the packet of pus that sits on my ass threatening to burst each time I sit down. Move on, weary son, despite the screams and threats to rip it off and spray its contents in the face of naysayers (praysayers).
“You’re raging in a dream cage”
they sagely say as the yellow scab forms and dries stinging ten times worse than before.
Well Fuck You if I can;t see the cage and fuck you twice for not showing me the way out
Maybe I like it here
You’re right. It sucks and depresses me more than all your achievement and smug art of mediocratic life.
“You should put down roots”
Another wise thumb sucker
“Want some savlon for your ass?”
And all this in halting English, acerbic with blame for our miscommunication. For a narrow-minded continent, the Dutch are its doyennes. Unprepared to embrace that which lies outwith their network of understanding.
The famed liberality I’ve heard summed up thus:
Drugs? Homosexuality? Suicide? Go Ahead!
Leave your bins out on the wrong day however....
~
There’s a point in the listening – a dead drop in the eye, you can almost see it click - when you’re judged to be not worth the effort.
The point at which they offer you the savlon.
And so are my frustrations living in Holland.
Wednesday 7 January 2009
Amsterdam
For you I cry bulbous aubergine tears
As if you'd take me seriously!
*
Tonight I was chatted up by a gay gentle man. The kind of come-on where he lingers his hand as you shake (hands) goodbye. For the first time it didn't feel too bad. I could feel his affection, also a little from my side but nothing more.
I've had some strange experiences with gay men seeking a deeper connection, which one day I will describe but not now. It's long and a little painful.
*
Amsterdam at New Year was a warzone. Kids (up to the age of 35) stand at the street side and throw fire crackers at your feet, light rockets from champagne bottles, explosions ripping through and not just on the outskirts - from the outskirts to the main drag of town. Everywhere you go boom crash laughter. It quite frayed the nerves until the third beer and fifth joint kicked in.
We found ourselves a bridge in the red light district. Safe, full of middle class types and not too many tourists. To our left, a Moroccan kid lit a whole crater of bangers and jumped back delighted showing his friends - as if they could miss it. Echoes and ricochets to our right - another side street packed with revellers who, in the way of revellers finding a decent spot before midnight did not look in the throes of revelry. More bridle path stroll and negotiating a barbed wire fence (for which read revellers, bangers, possible standing place).
In front of us were the great exploding flowers of the main display, framed by neon signs and houses of ill fame. The Dutch allow fireworks one day a year and the people go crazy at the opportunity, hence the makeshift displays we could see surrounding and throughout the city. Even the main display begins at 10pm and then at midnight it really takes off! Cascading an amazing - there's nothing like a firework, even when you've been cowering from their hastily planted little brothers for most of the night.
From a distant, as you can imagine they were spectacular. We could calm and sing Auld Lang Syne even as a rocket-in-a-bottle tipped and flew horizontal over the canal. It was a multiple one, exploding green and purple, showering over boats and firing directly at window panes. On the scales of beauty and public damage, we pronounced a not guilty.
We made it to a bar - "Wonder Bar" - that had lifted the smoking ban for a night. Smoking joints and playing games with rizlas on our foreheads, it could have been any one of a million previous nights. But it was in Amsterdam, New Year 2009 and walking home we found red debris from fire crackers moving round our ankles in drifts - a gunpowder autumn after the heady days of summer - and ladies of the night tapping windows four our attention.
Getting home there was an Evelyne in my bed. She hadn't made it out because the conditions like Bosnia (cold and exploding). So here she was - warm, fragile and sleepy.
Things with her going exceedingly well.
*
In five and a half hours I have to leave the house, take a one and a half hour train ride to Eindhoven and begin a new job as a life coach for a large company hoping to raise the activity of its employees.
Green bohemia I'm leaving fair behind and the hours and job description delight me not at all. Though the pay is good and after all isn't that what we're here for...
I'm being over cynical. It's part of a move to give my life legs. I enjoy free time but it's run me up a fair amount of debt and my art - the great anamolous which we prepare to line our grave - has yet to flourish in the way of a Steinbeck.
Though of course between train journeys and midnight coffee houses - I'm hoping it still will.
Sobriety is how I feel. It's not a big deal and in some moments frightens the life out of me - grey and yellow walls and the military hum of serried computers, greyer faces and deader conversation. But perhaps not.
I came to Amsterdam in Autumn
Where leaves fell on brown canals
Drunk cafe houses dry
Of all their dim delights
Imagined myself in picture books
On stage and on the scene
When a woman with a level gaze
Sat me down and touched my knee:
"You've built yourself a prison cell
While pretending that you're free"
So I got wet in participation
Office meetings and stifling air
Water cooler conversation,
Conservatised my hair
Goodbye green blue pink bohemia
Golden sunset hues
I'll see you in another year,
Bank account with more zeroes
For you I cry bulbous aubergine tears
As if you'd take me seriously!
*
Tonight I was chatted up by a gay gentle man. The kind of come-on where he lingers his hand as you shake (hands) goodbye. For the first time it didn't feel too bad. I could feel his affection, also a little from my side but nothing more.
I've had some strange experiences with gay men seeking a deeper connection, which one day I will describe but not now. It's long and a little painful.
*
Amsterdam at New Year was a warzone. Kids (up to the age of 35) stand at the street side and throw fire crackers at your feet, light rockets from champagne bottles, explosions ripping through and not just on the outskirts - from the outskirts to the main drag of town. Everywhere you go boom crash laughter. It quite frayed the nerves until the third beer and fifth joint kicked in.
We found ourselves a bridge in the red light district. Safe, full of middle class types and not too many tourists. To our left, a Moroccan kid lit a whole crater of bangers and jumped back delighted showing his friends - as if they could miss it. Echoes and ricochets to our right - another side street packed with revellers who, in the way of revellers finding a decent spot before midnight did not look in the throes of revelry. More bridle path stroll and negotiating a barbed wire fence (for which read revellers, bangers, possible standing place).
In front of us were the great exploding flowers of the main display, framed by neon signs and houses of ill fame. The Dutch allow fireworks one day a year and the people go crazy at the opportunity, hence the makeshift displays we could see surrounding and throughout the city. Even the main display begins at 10pm and then at midnight it really takes off! Cascading an amazing - there's nothing like a firework, even when you've been cowering from their hastily planted little brothers for most of the night.
From a distant, as you can imagine they were spectacular. We could calm and sing Auld Lang Syne even as a rocket-in-a-bottle tipped and flew horizontal over the canal. It was a multiple one, exploding green and purple, showering over boats and firing directly at window panes. On the scales of beauty and public damage, we pronounced a not guilty.
We made it to a bar - "Wonder Bar" - that had lifted the smoking ban for a night. Smoking joints and playing games with rizlas on our foreheads, it could have been any one of a million previous nights. But it was in Amsterdam, New Year 2009 and walking home we found red debris from fire crackers moving round our ankles in drifts - a gunpowder autumn after the heady days of summer - and ladies of the night tapping windows four our attention.
Getting home there was an Evelyne in my bed. She hadn't made it out because the conditions like Bosnia (cold and exploding). So here she was - warm, fragile and sleepy.
Things with her going exceedingly well.
*
In five and a half hours I have to leave the house, take a one and a half hour train ride to Eindhoven and begin a new job as a life coach for a large company hoping to raise the activity of its employees.
Green bohemia I'm leaving fair behind and the hours and job description delight me not at all. Though the pay is good and after all isn't that what we're here for...
I'm being over cynical. It's part of a move to give my life legs. I enjoy free time but it's run me up a fair amount of debt and my art - the great anamolous which we prepare to line our grave - has yet to flourish in the way of a Steinbeck.
Though of course between train journeys and midnight coffee houses - I'm hoping it still will.
Sobriety is how I feel. It's not a big deal and in some moments frightens the life out of me - grey and yellow walls and the military hum of serried computers, greyer faces and deader conversation. But perhaps not.
I came to Amsterdam in Autumn
Where leaves fell on brown canals
Drunk cafe houses dry
Of all their dim delights
Imagined myself in picture books
On stage and on the scene
When a woman with a level gaze
Sat me down and touched my knee:
"You've built yourself a prison cell
While pretending that you're free"
So I got wet in participation
Office meetings and stifling air
Water cooler conversation,
Conservatised my hair
Goodbye green blue pink bohemia
Golden sunset hues
I'll see you in another year,
Bank account with more zeroes
Amsterdam
For you I cry bulbous aubergine tears
As if you'd take me seriously!
*
Tonight I was chatted up by a gay gentle man. The kind of come-on where he lingers his hand as you shake (hands) goodbye. For the first time it didn't feel too bad. I could feel his affection, also a little from my side but nothing more.
I've had some strange experiences with gay men seeking a deeper connection, which one day I will describe but not now. It's long and a little painful.
*
Amsterdam at New Year was a warzone. Kids (up to the age of 35) stand at the street side and throw fire crackers at your feet, light rockets from champagne bottles, explosions ripping through and not just on the outskirts - from the outskirts to the main drag of town. Everywhere you go boom crash laughter. It quite frayed the nerves until the third beer and fifth joint kicked in.
We found ourselves a bridge in the red light district. Safe, full of middle class types and not too many tourists. To our left, a Moroccan kid lit a whole crater of bangers and jumped back delighted showing his friends - as if they could miss it. Echoes and ricochets to our right - another side street packed with revellers who, in the way of revellers finding a decent spot before midnight did not look in the throes of revelry. More bridle path stroll and negotiating a barbed wire fence (for which read revellers, bangers, possible standing place).
In front of us were the great exploding flowers of the main display, framed by neon signs and houses of ill fame. The Dutch allow fireworks one day a year and the people go crazy at the opportunity, hence the makeshift displays we could see surrounding and throughout the city. Even the main display begins at 10pm and then at midnight it really takes off! Cascading an amazing - there's nothing like a firework, even when you've been cowering from their hastily planted little brothers for most of the night.
From a distant, as you can imagine they were spectacular. We could calm and sing Auld Lang Syne even as a rocket-in-a-bottle tipped and flew horizontal over the canal. It was a multiple one, exploding green and purple, showering over boats and firing directly at window panes. On the scales of beauty and public damage, we pronounced a not guilty.
We made it to a bar - "Wonder Bar" - that had lifted the smoking ban for a night. Smoking joints and playing games with rizlas on our foreheads, it could have been any one of a million previous nights. But it was in Amsterdam, New Year 2009 and walking home we found red debris from fire crackers moving round our ankles in drifts - a gunpowder autumn after the heady days of summer - and ladies of the night tapping windows four our attention.
Getting home there was an Evelyne in my bed. She hadn't made it out because the conditions like Bosnia (cold and exploding). So here she was - warm, fragile and sleepy.
Things with her going exceedingly well.
*
In five and a half hours I have to leave the house, take a one and a half hour train ride to Eindhoven and begin a new job as a life coach for a large company hoping to raise the activity of its employees.
Green bohemia I'm leaving fair behind and the hours and job description delight me not at all. Though the pay is good and after all isn't that what we're here for...
I'm being over cynical. It's part of a move to give my life legs. I enjoy free time but it's run me up a fair amount of debt and my art - the great anamolous which we prepare to line our grave - has yet to flourish in the way of a Steinbeck.
Though of course between train journeys and midnight coffee houses - I'm hoping it still will.
Sobriety is how I feel. It's not a big deal and in some moments frightens the life out of me - grey and yellow walls and the military hum of serried computers, greyer faces and deader conversation. But perhaps not.
I came to Amsterdam in Autumn
Where leaves fell on brown canals
Drunk cafe houses dry
Of all their dim delights
Imagined myself in picture books
On stage and on the scene
When a woman with a level gaze
Sat me down and touched my knee:
"You've built yourself a prison cell
While pretending that you're free"
So I got wet in participation
Office meetings and stifling air
Water cooler conversation,
Conservatised my hair
Goodbye green blue pink bohemia
Golden sunset hues
I'll see you in another year,
Bank account with more zeroes
For you I cry bulbous aubergine tears
As if you'd take me seriously!
*
Tonight I was chatted up by a gay gentle man. The kind of come-on where he lingers his hand as you shake (hands) goodbye. For the first time it didn't feel too bad. I could feel his affection, also a little from my side but nothing more.
I've had some strange experiences with gay men seeking a deeper connection, which one day I will describe but not now. It's long and a little painful.
*
Amsterdam at New Year was a warzone. Kids (up to the age of 35) stand at the street side and throw fire crackers at your feet, light rockets from champagne bottles, explosions ripping through and not just on the outskirts - from the outskirts to the main drag of town. Everywhere you go boom crash laughter. It quite frayed the nerves until the third beer and fifth joint kicked in.
We found ourselves a bridge in the red light district. Safe, full of middle class types and not too many tourists. To our left, a Moroccan kid lit a whole crater of bangers and jumped back delighted showing his friends - as if they could miss it. Echoes and ricochets to our right - another side street packed with revellers who, in the way of revellers finding a decent spot before midnight did not look in the throes of revelry. More bridle path stroll and negotiating a barbed wire fence (for which read revellers, bangers, possible standing place).
In front of us were the great exploding flowers of the main display, framed by neon signs and houses of ill fame. The Dutch allow fireworks one day a year and the people go crazy at the opportunity, hence the makeshift displays we could see surrounding and throughout the city. Even the main display begins at 10pm and then at midnight it really takes off! Cascading an amazing - there's nothing like a firework, even when you've been cowering from their hastily planted little brothers for most of the night.
From a distant, as you can imagine they were spectacular. We could calm and sing Auld Lang Syne even as a rocket-in-a-bottle tipped and flew horizontal over the canal. It was a multiple one, exploding green and purple, showering over boats and firing directly at window panes. On the scales of beauty and public damage, we pronounced a not guilty.
We made it to a bar - "Wonder Bar" - that had lifted the smoking ban for a night. Smoking joints and playing games with rizlas on our foreheads, it could have been any one of a million previous nights. But it was in Amsterdam, New Year 2009 and walking home we found red debris from fire crackers moving round our ankles in drifts - a gunpowder autumn after the heady days of summer - and ladies of the night tapping windows four our attention.
Getting home there was an Evelyne in my bed. She hadn't made it out because the conditions like Bosnia (cold and exploding). So here she was - warm, fragile and sleepy.
Things with her going exceedingly well.
*
In five and a half hours I have to leave the house, take a one and a half hour train ride to Eindhoven and begin a new job as a life coach for a large company hoping to raise the activity of its employees.
Green bohemia I'm leaving fair behind and the hours and job description delight me not at all. Though the pay is good and after all isn't that what we're here for...
I'm being over cynical. It's part of a move to give my life legs. I enjoy free time but it's run me up a fair amount of debt and my art - the great anamolous which we prepare to line our grave - has yet to flourish in the way of a Steinbeck.
Though of course between train journeys and midnight coffee houses - I'm hoping it still will.
Sobriety is how I feel. It's not a big deal and in some moments frightens the life out of me - grey and yellow walls and the military hum of serried computers, greyer faces and deader conversation. But perhaps not.
I came to Amsterdam in Autumn
Where leaves fell on brown canals
Drunk cafe houses dry
Of all their dim delights
Imagined myself in picture books
On stage and on the scene
When a woman with a level gaze
Sat me down and touched my knee:
"You've built yourself a prison cell
While pretending that you're free"
So I got wet in participation
Office meetings and stifling air
Water cooler conversation,
Conservatised my hair
Goodbye green blue pink bohemia
Golden sunset hues
I'll see you in another year,
Bank account with more zeroes
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