Clean Start sometimes when I think about giving up, it strikes me how much effort has gone into my life. to start from scratch-- no, more likely, give it up seems colossally inefficient. but if clean starts could be made--if one could start over with a fresh page and all the ideas intact-- but then, if we could do that (if it was actually possible) why doesn't everyone? Deep Blue Soul Deep blue soul a vision of an inner self and the serenity that knowing brings seeing yourself gives you power to control your own reactions and ultimately your destiny. Some say that souls have no colour; I say they have no melanin, but brilliant colour, all the colours, the spectrum is wide open. Souls are energy power is energy, light is energy colour is light. I want to know my soul colour. If I could choose, I would pick deep blue, a radiating indigo royale. Not dingy seawater or too-pale sky or even fancy peacock; no, I want a deep blue that doesn't exist in nature but that can exist in ourselves. Over Extending A Few Metaphors Dedicated to Germaine Greer, in her infinite wisdom and ability to open my eyes and wonder why the hell I've been walking around blind-folded and most importantly, how I haven't managed to walk into a lamp-post like this. I'm looking at magazines. They've gotten me thinking. Thinking about magazine women all of them, plus-sized models, minus-sized models, even the "real" people who only went in for the free make-over. It got me thinking about women, and women's beauty in general. (careful, this is free-form.) pulled down, teased up, pushed together, spread apart told to behave itself indefinitely permed, brushed, fluffed plucked, waxed and shaved, shaved, and stubbly, too yet no more bristly than a peach which is quite a bit furrier. Such are women, in the media and in ourselves, unfortunately, too tall, too thin, too short too fat--oops, I shouldn't have said that fat being the new f-word now-a-days. They're not overweight they're under tall as though there is some perfect height and size lurking behind and around you, like a shadow "slinking" being too suggestive a word. And yet, the women who are not too-- too short, too tall, too skinny, too broad-shouldered, too large, too whatever, and especially not too fat--there I go again, using that goddamned word, you must pardon my vulgarity the women who are (for all intents and purposes) fine they way they are... are what? are admired and appreciated? Don't think so. Look closer, look deeper, and tell me what you see. Ah, beauty. Beauty is fine, beauty's okay, as long as (and this is the kicker) beauty doesn't have brains on its side or worse still, ambition for beauty and a purpose can only mean bad things later on femme fatales are always beautiful and always resourceful--coincidence? They cheat The System, using their beauty to distract and their brains to plot and their ambition to go somewhere in life and everyone fumes. Femme fatales = evil. They're the bad guys. There's nothing worse than a woman that knows what's she's doing, where she's going, and what she plans for when she gets there It's survival of the fittest, babe, and don't you forget that but if they use beauty then it's cheating no fair and in the wrong (two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do) So, you could say, the fewer brainy beauts there are the happier every one is. Right? Uh huh. I thought so. So perhaps women, when they make themselves look as fake as possible, are not afraid of being ugly-- they're afraid of being really beautiful. Beauty has consequences. Truly homely people are jealous (and appearently jealousy is a terrible thing.) Beauties get manhandled on buses, bars, wherever there are less mannerly men. Talked down to, gossiped on. And of course, nothing they do is ever taken seriously or is thought of note "oh her, she just slept her way to the top". It's much safer being ugly. Best of all, is being average and blending safely into any crowd. Then why is so much time spent on padding and poking and prodding and dying and colouring and falsifying and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera when all we have to do is show our true beauty and dazzle them all senseless ("them" being those in power) and then rush in and whack them over the head with our handbags and purses and seize the reins? This, I still haven't got an answer to. I'm a writer, not omniscient. I know Germaine Greer knows, the trick is getting an answer out of her in three chapters or less. Every answer that I think I get (which, admittedly, is few) I am left with more questions. Fortunately, the questions (myriad and all) seem to boil down to something simple, so that if I could solve this little one, I'd have the key to it all, and fame and glory and a book circuit would be mine (although not necessarily in that order) but (of course there is a but, and on a line by itself, too, naturally) the question doesn't appear to be that easy after all. It's sorta kinda like opening a door with a credit card or bobby pin-- it looks easier when others do it. Here's the question. If you can answer correctly, you win today's quiz. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? who beholds us?--ourselves... okay, you're still with me so far... good, good, you're doing fine, and now for the skill-testing question: if we are the beholders, then why don't we see the beauty there? God Logic I have trapped God. The Big G. The Thing Out There that pretends not to exist. (for simplicity's and grammar's sake I will simply call it Him.) To trap a Heavenly and Divine Presence one must have only one weapon: Logic. That is how I trapped God, in a logic puzzle. A maze in which there was only one route. The Shroedinger's box of divinity. I now contain all that belief creates within a single word. Therefore. From a word came creation, and from a word came the truth. Here is the part where I must, embarressingly, become technical and abandon the high-handed metaphors and lyricism, etc. that I do enjoy using but, when telling a story (as opposed to an idea) become rather cumbersome. I'm sure you agree. Here is my tale, stripped down for the purists among you (and among myself)... I have a neighbourhood print shop. Being a graphic designer, I frequent this location, so that they all know me by name and ask about my projects, etc., and it's all very friendly and so on. I have a problem with my computer. It dislikes Macs. (As do I, truthfully, although I would never say so to their face.) Every time I have tried to hand in a project to be printed from a PC disk to a Mac computer something has gone a'gley (which means wrong, for the non-Scot-quoters out there, although I'm sure you could have guessed that) and I have had to rush to correct this grevious formatting error and panic has set in and it's all very frustrating. Then, I had it. Simply put (as this is the purist version) there was nothing that could go wrong any more. I had a list of all the problems. And I know that they were all the problems, because each time I corrected them, the project worked out fine. Therefore, there could be nothing wrong, as long as I followed the checklist. All you engineering types are snickering, I know. But the thing is, the crucial piece of vital information that makes this poem accurate as opposed to meaningless drivel is that I had documented proof that nothing more could possibly go wrong with out divine intervention. Aha! The plot thickens. That's right. In order for a problem to present itself, God would have to do so first. I handed my Mac-Formatted disk to the printer. I had created the file on a Mac. I had saved the fonts as outlines. It was all complete. The printer opened the file. Of course it opened. I had done everything right. Ah, I thought. Finally, everything will go according to-- The computer crashed. No reason given. No error message. No blackout. No lack of RAM. One moment the Mac was putting along, and then the next-- You see? This proves everything that I have been saying. Everything that you believe yourself--God is out to screw things up. And I saw the proof, before my eyes, as though the angels descended on a fluffy cloud to point and laugh. I trapped God. I forced the hand, I called the bluff. If nothing can go wrong without divine intervention then there is only two alternatives possible. One, that everything will work out, and two. Two, that it won't. If it doesn't, then it proves that I am right. And I am. I trapped God within a word. Not that it means anything, naturally. He's still capable of turning the computer off every time He feels like it, or when it's most inconvenient, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is personal. Rescue oh save me I want to be rescued I know that my pride won't let me I know that it comes with a price I know that shining armour and gallant steeds don't exist I know this and I know that I still want a rescue. Return Trip I'm on the way home it's like I never went at all only I remember it all but that doesn't mean it happened because I remember dreams vividly too. The only reality is the present, everything else is potential or past and perhaps the past hasn't happened. Maybe we are continually dreaming and waking in every instant the black space between film frames happening so quickly as to be a blur and undetectable. Truth Truth is the ultimate lie misleading and seductive its entire purpose is to lead one astray. Truth is in everyone, there is only your truth, only your story and you cannot be told anyone else's. There are facts and then there is truth: the plot and then the story. Whoever tells it adds themselves, and so truth is flavoured by everyone who touches it, like greasy finger prints - soon you can't see out the glass. Thought Channels How can I say what I mean? Is this word right? Is the idea one that I should be saying? Perhaps I should keep it too myself. It's too silly. No point. You'll think worse of me for it. Best to forget I mentioned anything at all. The words that we strive for are the ones that express not ideas but feelings, captured emotions that we can vocalise but not verbalise. How are articulate are humans when monkeys can say it better than we can. Ode To Grace's House I was in Grace's house today. I haven't been in ages. And it felt like I never left. As I walked up the stairs I expected to see my belongings-- well--belonging. But the room was just Grace's. Coming downstairs, hands on the bannister, the clock chiming, I had never left there. Here. There. It seemed that the rest of my life was a dream and on that stair I had woken. Going into the kitchen, wondering how I could be thinking of other places when only Grace's house exists. All else is the illusion. It is a bubble, a photograph, the image in the mirror-- its own reality, in time and space. I was in Grace's house today. And I wish I had never left.