Pavlov's Pendulum

Sit! Shake hands! Roll over!
Play dead!
For when the show ends,
All actors must beg

What use is coin or
Splendour of tress
Our soul is weighed
Ignored distress

Cast beyond!
The shadows ride!
That urge which leads to genocide

For when we march
Tall and proud
With the lepers are
Our standards found

So choose carefully where you strike
For your enemies are you alike.

The Architect

Each night I wake and dream anew
Try to decide what's best to do

Doors beyond I try to find
Gambling with my fragile mind

Jacob fell, his ladder broke
For he was not the wheel,
The spoke

From where he lay he woke and saw
Babylon, that sacred whore
Who loves us still, her raiment tore
A Beast crawls forth,
From scarlet, War

Yet to choose a side
Is to destroy half
Better to worship
The golden calf

Babel fell, hewn from stone
For daring to reach the golden throne
No punishment did It intend
Our common language did She rend

The palace is not a house to reach
Impossible thus, to find a breach
Paradise cannot be revealed
Within the suffering, is it sealed

So for those with carefree lives
Lie in wait Hell's steely knives
And those that grin with foolish pride
Be full of Worms that spawn inside

Know this then, your every thought
Can be salvation for thou neighbour's draught
Ask them, what you can do?
Bear creedence,
In your mind be true.

Dark Dreams

     Having mainly dreamed pleasantly since childhood (which was plagued with fear), I have had two nightmares for two nights. The first is barely remembered now, save for the recollection of an imprint of a green spider, it's body bulbous on my index finger, the body turning out to be a black hole into my finger, from which a green branch suddenly grew out. I remember finally breaking the twig before tiny spiders started to pour out of the hole, jolting me into waking.
     Last night was more intense. I was back in my home town of Scarborough, and I was aware that there were no laws anymore. Canis canem edit. Everyone was entirely motivated by pure self-interest. There were no controlling forces except the strength of will, and the people around me smiled knowing evil smirks, the expression of those who take delight in suffering for it's own sake.    
     A good friend of mine was at the park near the bottom of Plantation Hill, it was practically pitch black save for a few phosphorescent bulbs that steamed up our breath. He was wearing a bandanna around his mouth like an old-time cowboy, though he held an electric drill in his hand.
     A series of still images then: His eyes squinting black against the night, focused on drilling into a forehead of some helpless stray, a long-distance shot of him shouting out for me (I think I had ran away in terror from the lunacy) while I watched from a hidden vantage point. He wasn't trying to kill me, only thinking it funny, and wanting to share the experience.
     Things are a little more confusing as I try to recollect, the scene had suddenly jumped to a room in an unknown house on a street where I used to walk to school, small yet homely and I was sat with five or so people, strangers, and I somehow knew they were all killers even though they were talking in a friendly manner around a table.
     Every time my eyes locked with theirs I picked up their murderous intent directed at one of the party. They were all aware I knew of their intent, and also aware that despite the capability I had no desires myself, seemingly powerless to do naught but watch. Perhaps that is why they revealed themselves to me, a safe venting point. I think I was trying to talk to them about why they wanted this, I remember a man in his fifties glancing down and away from me, smiling a crooked grin.
     The dreams worry me not necessarily because of their content (though I did awake several times throughout the night; probably due to sleeping outside a garage; my limbs constricted by my bespoke sleeping arrangements) but because I was aware somehow remotely, and considering the implications. The implications you see, they are the things that cause terror. My mind may be spiralling, though I feel the natural conclusion of lack of cooperation and Self above Others is, for want of a better word, psychopathy - an inability to consider the feelings of others.
     I was awoken about half seven this morning by someone driving out of their block of flats. I stood up and pressed myself against the wall, waving the woman forward. She reversed her car having seen me, and the shutter closed again. There was more than enough room for her to get past me and my belongings, I can only assume the sight of me was repellent.  Most of my essence still in slumber, I managed to pick up everything and stumble out into the daylight. Her red car passed by me a few seconds later, her face turned as far to the right and away from me as she could manage as she drove to her daily work.
     My bag is ripped at both ends, my possessions ready to spill at a moment's notice, though through some creative knot tying I have managed to keep it together for now. I walked to a nearby shopping precinct, and write after ordering a coffee. The barista puts out a tray of broken croissants and pain-au-chocolats, fresh from the oven, and I devour half of them, thankful for small blessings. I'm tired though. Not so much physically, that can easily be remedied. The fatigue is not strictly mental either, as one would be after trying to solve a complex mathematical problem, or reason out some logical enigma, more a spiritual tiredness. My world is getting darker, and my isolation more complete, despite the cold electronic replacements we have embraced. I try to think back to the time I have last touched someone for more than a second, and the realisation hits me like a thunderclap to the brain, and it takes all my self-control not to collapse at the table where I write.
     I think I'm going to wander on now.


10:17, 15th May, Barcelona, Spain

Farewell to France

     I worry. Not about myself, for I have seen the Maktub before me. Yet all around I see others within their minds doing anything in the name of Money. They say everyone has a price, mine it seems is nil. A good prix, I think.
     We watched the Classic Grand Prix here, old cars roaring their song loud and proud as they careened around the track, spectators and commentators alike watching to enjoy the purr and the roar, I spot the cars on one lap then focus on the growling around me, eyes all focused on the mountains in the distance, where I should be, cold but content, actually sharpening my mind rather than sharing my thoughts and giving away my esprit to the collective.
     Spent the weekend at Pau, duped by some police acting as Russian gangsters on the lam like me, I made them early but they were still fun, using their old tricks to keep me walking with them, false camaraderie, a bruise I can't help but stab gently with a needle of longing.
   
     Things happen the way of The Way, and it was pleasant to see this old city, it's rich heritage the pride of everyone within, even fellow tramps and vagabonds cannot clutter the clean streets. Cleanliness is not always a virtue - slim pickings even for the dog-ends that others cast aside, over-zealous cleaners before me wasting the leftovers from society.
     Waiting to head back to Bayonne and still further West before breaking South to Espana, my mind recycles and re-sees events from the last two days, sat on stone stairs under starry sky, passers by tripping literally while mine remains internal. One shame-faced retiree, smack on his back before me, a moment before I could reach and catch him. He waved his ache away and stood and talked, saying whatever was on his mind content he would never see me or the others with me again: How he wished he could talk to his children, to pass on information to them, what information that was he could not say. I looked at him, weighing up the gold he had hoarded over the years - his occupation in finance taking him all over Africa, working for conglomerates squirrelling away their gold in the havens. They had paid him off handsomely and he was living the American dream in France, his eyes as sad as any other who has devoted their lives to the money God.
     He ended up giving Cabu, a fellow from the Congo who had joined the other three Baltic people a 50 euro note.

Good man Cabu!

I remember Cabu's face as he stumbled up the steps towards me, waving the paper at me like it was the Last Will and Testament of Christ, eyes as wide as a child's. "You money money man! This you! You money money!" in his Anglo-Parisian drawl. I said nothing, only shouldering my pack with the others and reclimbed the steps, once more rich people in the eyes of the world, able to walk into a shop without shifty looks and downward glances. We bought vodka, drank the bottle between us and then slept in the park. Ah, but that was the day before last, and in my reverie I forgot how I woke alone again this morning, and my train arrives in four minutes.*
     Onward, such is my dharma.

*five minutes later*

     Chagrined, I return to the waiting area. I make it to the train as it pulls in to the station, and politely wait behind the people queueing for the train. As the train stops I focus my attention on the hair of the woman in front of me, my eyes intently taking in every detail, the colour, the style, the few flecks of dandruff. I glance up and the train departs, the people still stood in place, in a line on the platform.
     As I realise they were waiting for the train after mine, the woman turns around and smiles at me. I close my eyes so as not to accidentally spread anger, and stride back, my English politeness seemingly the recipe for anguish.
     After receiving a number of messages, some public, others private, all pointing me towards Leckter (e.g. Facebook, Christine, "Remember Hannibal Lecter", apropos of nothing), I watch the first episode of the new TV series sat in the station while I wait. I enjoy it, notwithstanding the touch of the marketing department, that ensures a mass appeal to the largest demographic possible. The scene that stands out is the noble stag in Graham's dream, steam billowing from it's nostrils as black feathers start to unfurl around it. The pop psychology of labelling him as Autistic/Asperger's for being sensitive is the same paradox as labelling the cannibal as a sensitive psychopath - an emotionless person with strong emotions. The very term psychopath is merely another label to try and neatly categorise a person as an outsider to society.
     As a layman, I would say that Lecter cannot find love with anyone, regardless of gender or appearance, as the fundamental desire is  not that of lust, but of mutual interest, appreciation of the mind before the physical. Why can he not find love? What person can stay with him happily without feeling the energy he gives off, the penetration of the soul that sees too deep, repels that which is meant to help, and in it's rebuttal turns the love to hate.
     A naturally healthy interest in the physical insides of bodies is regarded as a danger sign by society, instead of nurturing this instinct towards the sciences, he finds greater love alone, his own mind the playground for happiness, but as any child knows, an empty playground is only fun for so long before loneliness sets in and the child will wander looking for a playmate.
     If the child is spurned, he will learn sadness as a reward for kindness, and is pushed onto a different path, where cruelty is key to a whole new world of pleasure.
     Remember Hannibal, they say to me? An interesting case study, no more. Ten minutes to the train. Enough catharsis for now.

---------------------------------------------------------
12:45, 13 May 2013, Pau, France

* On the train to Figueras, felt the need to write more. The morning after the vodka in the park, I awake with Edgar, Jean and Yvetta, Cabu having disappeared in the night. We head to the Supermarché and take a wholesome breakfast - baguette, salt butter, Camembert, herring, crisps, chocolate biscuits. We eat heartily in our previous bed for the night; nestled between some trees, and wander around to the station, to charge my laptop and their phones, and while away the day before we should head south to Spain together. I already know this isn't going to happen, but I feel it to be in everyone's best interests if I pretend to be ignorant.
Cabu wanders in after about an hour, smiling and clapping. "Let's go let's go! Mange!" swigging from an coke bottle. "Whiskey!" We pass the bottle round and take the lift back into town.

View from the Cable Car. Not taken while having one of my turns.

In the lift I sit with Cabu, a mother and her two children enter next to us. Cabu starts talking happily with the children, they respond, happy but shy. I say bonjour to the mother who tells me she lives in Espana.
"Donde en Espana?" I enquire.
"Lyon."
My head hurts. I haven't slept the night before and my isolation feels total. "Lyon es en France." I say, rubbing my temple. "No no, Lyon en Espana. Near Orleans." I feel my anger building, yet once again powerless to direct it outwards I turn around and stare out the rear window of the cable car, trying to focus on the panoramic view that would cheer me normally, although this time I find myself speaking something to Cabu. I don't remember what I was mumbling but I remember him urging me in French to remain calm, that we were nearly at the top, etc. Normally I would laugh at the treatment but I hold on to the rage, striding out immediately as the car reaches the top of the hill next to the grand prix course. I still don't know why the woman said what she did, or why it had the effect it did.
Perhaps because I wanted to shout at her, don't treat me like a infant, I'm not as stupid as you all want me to be. I pull the straps of my backpack deeper into my aching shoulders, the pain a welcome distraction from the uncomfortable emotion. We wander for an hour, me picking cigarette butts off the floor and emptying them into my pouch, the rest bumming them off random passers by. We head to another shop and buy some wine along with some food, then back to the jardin for the afternoon.
After our meal Yvetta rolls a joint and passes it round, me not getting any after everyone else has smoked. I think so that's how it is, and decide to climb the tree we are sitting near. I climb for 10-15 minutes before jumping down and wandering off. I sit on a bench next to two guys from Georgia and have a joint to myself. Eventually the others wander over and they all talk in Russian. I follow some of the conversation but get bored of their gang music, different Russian prisoners and the stuff they have done apparently.
I walk out the other way leaving them all behind and see a man in the shadows of a bus stop and a heavy set French woman talking and smoking. After the typical "You want to buy?" shit we start talking and eventually the woman goes into a car opposite and brings out a box. "Gift for you" she says. It's a French army 24 hour ration pack. I can hardly believe my luck, and thank them profusely. The man gestures over the road. For the first time I notice the building is a prison.
I say goodbye to them both with hearty goodwill, and walk over to the prison, leaving my pack at the bus station, my head full of gratitude to the extended family. I hear shouts of "Salaam" from within the walls, mixed with the rest of the shouting. I shout back whatever springs to mind, the cries intensify. I start knocking a beer bottle against the wall in time to my steps around the perimeter, "Salaam" "Salaam" "Salaam". I pause for a few seconds then continue, changing the shout to "One love". One prisoner shouts "It's right!" and I laugh and dance down the road, feeling the anger at being caged up, at being treated like an animal. I smash the bottle to cheers, and walk down the centre of the road. A black car screeches round the corner, heavy bass pounding from the windows. He stays in the centre too, I'm high as a kite on the night itself and think pouillon!
Spinning round, singing and dancing the car swerves around me at the last second, the driver leaning out the window and shouting abuse. I flash the international sign for metal and kick at a railing like a muay thai champ. I walk around the block unknowingly, following my instinct, a cop car drives past and I leer at them, hood pulled up. They stare back stone faced, but drive on. I walk back to the bus stop, empty now, and see my pack with the rations still sat on top. I put away the supplies and walk back to the park. On the grass I start spinning around, my pack's inertia spinning me faster than I could normally go, and I circle strafe back to where we slept last night, thoughts of Sufi's in my brain.
Only Cabu is there, snoring soundly. I put down my pack and prepare to sleep for the night, not much to prepare since losing my sleeping bag and using a towel and two jackets as a makeshift duvet. A short while after, still awake, Cabu wakes and says something groggily I don't understand, before getting up and dressing. "Eau! Aqua! Come on let's go!" I rub my eyes,  telling him that it's Sunday night, all the shops closed at damn near lunchtime and there is no drinking fountain/tap in the park. "Gare! (station) Come on let's go!" I tell him I'll wait here for him and he walks off. I wake early, alone, and return to the station. On my way I find the pocket knife/corkscrew I lent them at a water tap next to the station, and smile briefly. Hmm...quite an addendum.

19:32, just passed the Spanish border, en route to Figueras

A Slice of Paradise

I feel I am no longer alive. This is the afterlife, and I am wandering between Heaven and Hell, Ying and Yang.

I was driven out to La Chapelle (The Church), a village out in the countryside. Their I met some friends of my hosts, a mother, father, son and daughter. I don't feel comfortable writing their names for some reason. Their house is surrounded by verdant fields, and I stood and gazed in wonder at the Sun slowly setting, beams of light filtering down from the heavens, happy chatter from the table behind me, where our company is sat in a spacious garden.

We sit down to eat, and the boy punches me in the arm, to mock outrage from me and general laughter from the rest of the table, and says "You  KaKa Buddha!", flicking a ball of weed away from him towards me. I am staggered by his intellect, and Savouin reminds me, smiling: "Kaka is French for shit." I remember later Ka is a wheel. Two wheels?

The father invites me to ride his classic motorcycle, a rare C5000 1975...something...damn. He warns me that the back end is very loose and slippy, and to ride carefully. I cackle maniaclly and push the bike off into the neighbouring field, along the border path. I hop on and ride, exhilirated at the feeling of simultaneously feeling like I am flying while wanting to crash and roll off and laugh. I remember that the bike should not be damaged and slow down, and wheel the bike round at the end of the field, racing back to the house.

Stepping off the back I practice kung fu with the boy while the father wheels the bike back to the garage. We sit down to eat and the boy picks up some potato Duchessé, passing 3 on to my plate. "Mange tout! Mange tout!" he says happily. "Eat all," Savouin translates. I wolf them down and the children giggle. The boy takes another of the circus tent shaped potatoes, and holds it up between his thumb and forefinger rubbing them together between his eyes. He is saying something but I can't understand it, although I recognise the gesture as "Open Your Third Eye".

Later, the children are put reluctantly to bed, and we light up after a meal of lamb ribs and some form of sausage made from pig intestines. We talk more on a variety of subjects, and when I start to talk of Egypt a beetle lands nearby. "A scarab!" I urge it on to my hand and walk over to the table. (http://youtu.be/4TvZJbcN9os - The Scarab Messenger)

We sit and the talk turns to vin, and we consume red (rouge), white (blanc), and rosé. He brings out an alhembric he uses as a bouilleur, a wine-maker (I think)http://youtu.be/scqhnT6WdUo - Des Bouilleurs. We use a cork on a bottle and I think about the purpose of tools as I think back. I mention how I love cidre, and he laughs and brings out a gallon jug with a piece of handkerchief stuffed in the top, resembling for all the world a molotov of Pavlovian proportions. "That looks tres formidable!" I explain, wrecked beyond belief. "Looks like scrumpy - we drink it pretty strong back home." I harrumph, full of faux-patriotic bravado. 15-20% is pretty strong for a cider,right? This stuff is a spirit. Imagine the strongest Sambuca you have ever tasted flavoured with apples instead of whatever the Hell Sambuca is flavoured with.  I shudder as the alcohol courses through me. "Oughabjsyhuyba" I say, or words to that effect. We down the drink, and another is poured. I try to explain a drink should be savoured, and dilute it with water. I am called The Devil, again.  A common trait on my journey so far. I laugh, looking at my feet.

A slightly drunken bottle of Cidrine

"You want a doggy bag?" the father explains, and holds out a pink bag, with Region Central and a Black and White recycling logo, I refuse  initially,misunderstanding, assuming I already had a bag. He laughs and fills it with fresh Tours goat's cheese, remarkably pure, wild boar stuffing or dripping (I'm not entirely sure, Sanglier it says on the label. As I pick it up I notice 2 more labels, SAVAGE PIG of chapelle in black and VERY SERIOUS in red ink. I'm pretty freaked out right now.), a bottle of Montlouis Rosé 2012 ("In memory of The middle of nowhere... "Les CHAPPELES" http://youtu.be/aozIpjsOFOM - Le Vin et Les Chapelles ), a rhoum (rum) bottle with the cidre, labelled "CIDRINE It's your DREAM (cidre)" , some toast bread, some cheuvre frais, and a film roll full of weed.http://youtu.be/v5VWVNgwWJE - Gifts for the Road I shall be in bliss for days. The mother gives me a shirt, inviting me to smell the sweet homely fragrance of the freshly washed. We wave goodbye and I say Bonne Nuit to Savouir and Sophie and head to the Jardin where my private room lies for me to write in peace.

06/05/2013 00:56 GMT+1

Theory

Haven't slept and had a burst of inspiration, felt the overpowering urge to write:

I believe that it's possible we were visited by Gods from Sirius and/or Orion thousands of years ago. The first use of the Holy Trinity to my knowledge is that of Isis, Osiris and Horus depicted respectively as a human woman (the Mother of Creation, not the Father as in Catholicism), a half-lizard that functions as both male and female, and a hawk-headed man.

These three deities are perhaps aliens, with powers comparable to that of Gods when they appeared to humanity. Helping mankind start on the long path of technology and guide us towards being able to reach their planet, communicating through people's minds (for example Ptolemy, who plotted their locations on a star chart). The Dogon people are another example, an ethnic group in Mali, West Africa; who are reported to have traditional astronomical knowledge about Sirius that would normally be considered impossible without the use of telescopes. These people believed that God was both male and female combined, and that one could only reach this God, whom they call Roog, through secret knowledge only partially known at best by their High Priests.

The Yoonan - a sign for Sirius from the Serer religion depicting the pentacle, or five pointed star

However much has been said of Sirius as 'evil' or 'wrong', as under its gaze the hottest months started, which would cause fevers for man, and perhaps it's influence is maligned from it's true purpose. Orion, on the other hand, is known as the great Hunter. Perhaps Orion itself is not a hunter, but merely a command TO HUNT, a slight misinterpretation of the myths handed to us by these beings, or messengers from the constellation, who wanted us to hunt for it first - from one of the planets orbiting the two brightest stars we have detected: Alpha (Betelgeuse) and Beta (Rigel). Betelgeuse seems to be first on the list for what I trust to be obvious reasons. The Babylonians refer to the star within Orion as  they associated with as "The Heavenly Shepherd", which clearly indicates that the Babylonians were told that people from this star were watching over them from the heavens, guiding us remotely on the path to reach enlightenment as a species, and thus attaining true Gnosis, the secret knowledge with which we may meet them.

Ascent

Heaven flutters serenely, displacing the raven's wings inside
A tumult of thoughts rises to the surface, devouring
Gold radiance floods me, the extended alchemy continues
What was  pitch is smelted
Prostrate I watch from beyond, with an ear-splitting crack my jaw distends, black clawed wings emerge and hold my mouth contorted at an impossible angle. I watch as my eyes roll back in their sockets as the other pulls itself from my body, growing as it rises to meet my gaze.
I lock eyes with the shadow within,  and stare into unflinching orbs that regard me with curiosity.
The shadow-bird-man floats closer, and tilts it's head, beak clicking in a steady rhythm.
Light fades, my peripheral vision watches the majestic wings curl around my back and hook into me, painlessly.
Sighing, waves of relief leak from my perforated back, staining the claws crimson. It rears it's head back, and with a Word springs forward and it's beak pushes through my temple, and once more I see all my past before me in an instant, and the manifested vision flows twisting through me, following it's proboscis.
Nestled comfortably within, the shadow realigns itself behind me, and my wings shelter me once more.
Aligned, the shadow waits patiently, focused. My wounds heal, past misery forgotten. An old journey continues.