The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul

I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all the time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.

Come and See

Well, it's official. The heat has forced me towards a movie binge where I am going to do nothing but imitate the lifestyle of a cocktail downing couch potato.....okay maybe just tomato juice with a celery stick thrown in.

Movies I am going to devour are:

• Natural Born Killers 
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• Naked Lunch
• It's all Gone
• In Bruges
• Lord of War (just because of Jared Leto)
• Blow (Depp, Cruz!)
• Point Break (because I miss Swayze)
• Pineapple Express
• Enter the Void
• Conversation
• Baraka
• The Butterfly Effect
• Hard Candy
• A Tale of Two sisters
• Following
• Kill Bill

Because I am in a trippy mood, not unprepared to be scared and lastly need some gore!

Early Morning Rain

It's the kind of morning which makes you think of an autumn evening. That somber, dulled blue-grey sky which comes right after a brilliant sunset. A stealthy sunrise and the rain clouds roll in immediately. A wayward gust of wind brings the smell of rain. A second gust later, it starts raining. For five glorious, glorious minutes, it's a green, cool, wet world right outside my window. The lawns outside stretch like a field and the man sitting right in the middle of the lawns is doing exactly what I would be if the world was ending and I knew it-sitting and reading in the rain. I close my eyes and at that very, very specific moment, I feel like I am home, on the hills, deep in the middle of a forest. It is, for a second, the kind of morning that gives you all at once an ache in your heart, a taste of sand and salt and a sense of endless time. The kind of morning you won't remember off-hand but unknowingly set as some measure of perfection-saying, to the utter irritation of everyone, I don't remember where but I've seen better.

I Only Know How To Be Young

I can be jealous, naive, mean and irrational
Right down nasty sometimes
I can put your guard up
With big words and a tailored super ego
And then break your defenses with
Some mad, glad loving
My blues will chase yours into hiding
I feel I never will reconcile
The should, must, need and want
I intend to have and to hold
To love and to flourish
To change and to keep forevermore
I expect everything
In a world which doesn't know my name
I am not afraid to prod strangers
And ask them if they are real
If there is a chance
I'll wrench it loose
From it's box
I have been promised change
Fed on revolution
And I'll hold them on to it
I'll pay my dues if they are worth it
There is no need to tempt me
I'll trade you for it, only
Let the deal speak for itself
Keep all pretenses in the casket
There is just no time
What with all the songs that must be sung
And the stars that must be watched
Come gaze with me
I'll show you a sunset
You've probably seen
And tell you a story
You never could have imagined
I'll square the matter
Of Reason's Circle with you
Pre-conceived notions may roam
Prejudices must be slayed
There is a brewery of eternal youth
Next door, if you can manage the walk
In a slim, straight line
Don't peer too far
I am the future
And I am a stark, dark soul
Leave the placebos behind
The truth takes up too much space
And memory
If you project life on life
Do you get more or do you get better?
Come, if you have no answers
If you have answers
Come all the same
Just remember
Doublespeak is Greek to me
I have all it takes
To fix a light bulb
And write a brief history
Of timely actions
I'll call you out when
You start thriving on War and peaches
It may be too early to get up
Although it's never too early to start
And when the night falls
And the sound of silence
Is all I crave
Humour me.

Panama Cut Boy, The Real McCoy

It doesn’t happen often
It seems very rare
That I come knocking at your door
And don’t find you there
You’re always sitting round
You’re always waiting up
And it would be too bad and oh so sad
If it didn’t keep cracking me up
You gotta leave, baby
You gotta run, baby
You better stop, baby
You know I am just having fun
And I’ll go on and on and on
You’ll be the last one in the line
And I’ll be the first one to leave
But while it’s on I’ll lead you on
Say what you want to believe
You’re just a little baby, girl
You’re just so new at this
I got you in my game before you knew my name
I’ll keep you forever with a kiss
You can’t run hard enough
You can’t leave soon enough
You can’t stop, just can’t stop
One look, one touch
It's not too much
It's just enough to make it tough
To ever, ever give up
On me.

Times and Travels

There are many reasons to travel. To get towards something, to get away from something. Or maybe it's one and the same thing. There are also many roads that can be taken. I, like most of my peers, generally take the acceptable one. Am I one to forge a new path? Or traverse a lesser known one? Is it brave to go down the path I want to? Or do I simply become a well-worn character in the well-thumbed pages of a sometime popular book?

I asked someone once: Why are we so hard on ourselves? When all we can hope to find is a bit of happiness and when beginnings and endings are universal and inevitable, then why do we wait, think, ponder, worry, hesitate? He told me: We are perhaps striving to connect with our own reflections. Hence the need for an alien other. All I am looking for is a bit of that alien soul in whose eyes I might see my reflection and understand for once who I am. I have been quite a few things but I have a nagging doubt I haven't been myself yet. I haven't quite found myself. Have I looked hard enough? Have I just moulded myself so well in the role handed to me that it's no longer possible to break the cast? People, places have come easily enough. Perhaps too easily? No, that can't be it. I wouldn't be struggling then would I? There would be some semblance of satisfaction wouldn't there? Sometimes at least?

It's not where you go, it's who you go with. It's not who you go with, but how you feel. It's not you, it's them. It's not, it is. Maybe, maybe not.

Every journey they say is ultimately a journey of love and at the end you find yourself. They being crappy Hinglish films of course. Even disregarding such oracles, I find myself hoping to undertake such a journey. We all do I guess? Generalizations from myself to the wider world don't generally work. So without boasting of the audacity of answering my own questions and without letting the miasma of vagueness swirl too strong, let me say this. Feel is one of my favourite songs. There are certain lines I think have been ripped right out of me after a rigorous soul strip.

I don't want to die
But I ain't keen on living either
Before I fall in love
I'm preparing to leave her
I scare myself to death
That's why I keep on running
Before I've arrived
I can see myself coming

Some things need to change. This might just be the time. Can I be the person I think I can be? Can I take the plunge and come back up? I might lose. Then again I might win. I refuse to give up without a fight. I refuse to keep myself back from fighting. It'll be blood, sweat and tears. Which war has been less?

Journey, Foray. Call it what you will. A tryst with destiny, perhaps?

He warned me: There's a time and place for everything, even for philosophy. I do not agree,as usual.

Bon Voyage et Au Revoir.

The Pleasures of the Damned

There you go
The deed is done
Many times over
Its too late to go back
Or to remember if there was a beginning
This path to hell
Was paved with the best of intentions
Like all others
Look at all those footprints and you'll know
Its better to hang frozen in mid-air
Than walk down there
Us, them
The feeling is the same
Meaningless yet endless
Another time and it might have been different
Isn't that what they all say?
And they are right
Another time, another place
And that relentless sorrow
Would have been breaking dawn
Over that sea you loved
And those very footprints
Of lovers running in the sand
And in that tilting light
We could have carved our names
Faster than the waves could wash them away
Another time and that walk through
That leery, drunken forest
Would have been a dance
A fine balance between a waltz
And an eternal search for the meaning
And definition of us
Another time and you would be strong
You would live alone if you wanted to
Leave if you wanted to
Not give up
Not give in
Now just say these words
And take pleasure in the break
Of those mirthless laughs
There are many beckoning fingers
And outstretched hands
A grasping, gasping ocean
There's nothing you don't know
Yet there's always a new depth to sink to
Celebrate the fall.