The alarm goes off every three minutes, this morning we listen to it for an hour. Broni eventually getting out after a quick roll around and as she spreads the curtains open I simultaneously hide my head under the pillow to block out the light and go back in search of the Sandman. I play in my dreams for a half-hour or so til I stir to the smell of coffee, I sit up in bed and watch Broni get dressed. Soon she’s whirlwinded off for her last day before a week off and I sip my coffee and read another chapter of Burroughs. I don’t have half a clue as to what’s going on in the book but it’s strangely addictive. Each paragraph or sentence provides vivid imagery for the mind to play with and the story kind of develops in a series of snapshots. Unusual.
I’m disappointed this morning that the sun isn’t shining and as I write, now afternoon, it’s only just starting to peek through the clouds. With plenty to do, I ride on up to the post office, over the small park that is surrounded by busy roads, to be honest, this park offers no peace from the bustle and taking a picnic there would be ludicrous.
Next, down to the bank to deposit more money and I dodge in and out of the traffic, jumping on and off the pavement to avoid parked cars, needless to say, I make it down into town as quick as any of the cars.
The slight drizzle obscures my sight through my glasses but it’s neither cold nor really that wet. Back across Poole Park, now empty of tourists, the place looks tragic, reliant on sunshine for business, England’s tragedy (or maybe saving grace).
Back home Broni rings to tell me that our tickets are ready for collection at the travel agent. Back in town. Without complaint I, this time, just walk back through the park. A few more people now as the rain moves on, but no one out on the boats yet. I imagine rolling out into the middle of water and just floating, free. Read a book, read it aloud so the sky can hear.
On Sunday when Broni, Rob and myself came through the park we saw in the distance some kites in the sky, except one didn’t have the normal kite shape and from where we were stood it looked to me like someone had ripped a hole in the sky and the more I looked at it the more real it seemed. I was expecting time travellers to fall through the rip and bring us news of the future, but shit, it probably wouldn’t be great news would it? Or maybe they would tell us of a new life, a separate existence where things are good in people did coexist happily. I guess that theory is just a bit harder to imagine. See how poisoned our minds are by today’s bullshit. I can see it and I hope everyone else can but I think I probably credit people with too much intelligence. Still, the people I have time for are those that can see it (should I make time for the others?).
So I picked up the tickets and read a few magazines and pondered whether it was worth buying a huge box of chocolates, opting not to in the end when realising what other things you can buy for the same price. Our groceries for a week cost less than the box, but hell they also cost less than a bottle of good wine!
Back across the park, now warmer and brighter and therefore busier. I rode over the other side of the lake yesterday looking for good shots with the video and beautiful though the park is, from that angle the park is dwarfed by the high-rise blocks of the hospital and the nursing home and a million other buildings towering over the trees. Of course, on that side where most of the people gather you’re looking the other way, over the railway line and out into the harbour. And today as I walk over I suck back and choke on leaded octane sputtering out from some tourists car. Can’t someone come up with a better way to travel? And then try to sell it to the English public, hah! And back home the trains still roll by.
Hope is such a desperate emotion to cling to. But I wonder if there is any hope for the future. Not for my future, I have clear ideas about my future. For the future of the world? How long before God puts an end to the insanity rife in mankind? Armageddon is promised by most religions – can you say you will survive the cleansing?
Are you good at heart? Do you believe in yourself? Why do I ask?
Two men kidnap a 15-year-old female German student, drive her at knifepoint to an industrial estate where they both rape her, knife to the throat. You know the story, we’ve all heard it. It makes me hate. It makes me hate being a man, male, macho. I want to reject my sex. I want to cut the dicks of every one of those scumfuck rapists and molesters, tear out their burning eyes and wrench out their perverted thoughts, suck out their chemical imbalance, and I don’t want to see them in jail – I want them dead.
I want women to rule the world, no woman thinks with a dick. It seems like no hope for the future, will the rapists, the robbers, the killers, the connivers rule the world? I think they already do, the rule of fear, born in the 20th century. Armageddon seems appropriate.
What strength we need now, to show our children a better way. We all think we know best and sometimes you should listen to that advice your enemy might be giving you. They may have a point. What strength then to shoulder criticism. What insight to point our way towards the light. We can do it. We know we can, we’ve been programmed to forget how. Mickey Mouse told you to forget, Coca-Cola too. Now is the time to remember.
The Hope Conspiracy
If hope was a bottled tonic
It would be made illegal
“Got any hope, mate?”
Someone would be making a tidy sum
Selling it on street corners
To consumers ready to buy
In need of that fix to get high
And soon people would be stealing
Off each other, smashing piggy banks
For every last cent
Just to get some hope
Killing each other in the queue
Lining up for another fix of hope
Hope – sinister
Hope – deadly
Hope – death
1994ever 